Chapter 25

Three days after our impromptu meeting in the lounge I was sitting on my couch trying to review a list of potential tracking candidates. The simulation after our day off had gone well for the gunners, but the lack of a good tracking team was starting to show as the AI simulated trackers tended to be barely competent and far too mechanical in their responses. The list had two dozen names and thanks to over a week of training the backup data regarding their qualifications was taking me time to work though.

I was about to ask the AI to open up a channel with Tilly when a loud chime rang out. “Citizens, if you are hearing this you must attend an emergency meeting. Please report to the blue deck and the conference room by the ship’s elevators. Do not bring a concubine. Repeat, no concubines are to be in attendance. This is regarding a serious issue.”

“What’s the issue?” I asked as I sat up. “Jade, Bryn, did you hear?”

Jade’s head peeked out of the entertainment room we had set up. She and Bryn had been practicing pole dancing and insisting that I watch them at night. The dances were far more erotic and sensual than any I had ever done, but a huge part of that was the fact that both Jade and Bryn would find every opportunity and excuse to touch me and make me touch them.

“We’ll stay here and prepare for your return. What movies should we cue up?” she called out.

“Comedies,” I called back. “I’m going to want and need to laugh after whatever disaster got me summoned.”

“It shouldn’t be anything you’ve done,” Bryn called out as her head joined Jade’s in the doorway. “All you’ve been doing is running the simulations and occasionally having meetings with your prospective crew.”

“Well, sitting here won’t answer the question as to why I was summoned. I should get going. At least I wasn’t just in a simulation so there’s no sweat to worry about,” I said as I stood up.

Jade and Bryn both called out good wishes as I made my way to the door. The hallways seemed a bit darker than normal as I made my way towards the elevator. The meeting was going to be on my floor so I hoped that I would be one of the first to arrive.

When I arrived the Commander that I had run into a week ago was standing there and shaking his head. He had a young female Lieutenant standing with him. She was holding a clipboard and looking at something on the papers it held.

“Is this the location for the meeting?” I asked.

“Yes,” the man said.

The Lieutenant looked up. “You’re Tanya Walker?”

“I am,” I replied. “Who all is coming?”

“That will be revealed at the start of the meeting,” the Commander said. “I can say that you are not the one causing the conflict. However, due to the nature of the problem, several of the prospective ship commanders have been summoned to the meeting.”

“That’s not ominous,” I said.

“No one on your crew is implicated,” the Lieutenant said. “Honestly, I’m not sure why Commander Nelson decided to get involved.”

“Because this is the kind of situation that can be defused easily right now, but if allowed to fester might result in a citizen trying to arrange for the death of another citizen,” Commander Nelson said. “And that needs to be prevented. Its bad enough that too many of our Admirals still want to argue with the AI units when they tell us that the aliens who gave us all this technology would prefer if we not do something.”

“Why am I not surprised,” I muttered as I headed into the conference room. “Let me guess, we have someone unhappy with the direction the AI is sending their career.”

The Lieutenant whirled to look at me as I sat down on the far side of the table so I could see the door. “How?”

“Because I remember how the AI units decided to change my assignment after the first few days. I’m sure that’s happened to a number of people. I even met one young man who was a bit distressed that he’d been reassigned to train for a staff posting. He was afraid people would view him as a coward,” I said.

“Not on Borneo,” the Lieutenant said.

“How can you be sure?” I asked.

Commander Nelson smiled. “Because until shortly after the battle at Ursus Twelve, Lieutenant Linda Jackson worked in the Borneo Command Center as a communications adjutant. I requested her transfer when I started investigating a case.”

“Seriously?” I asked turning to look at the young lieutenant.

The woman smiled sadly. “My brother was on one of the ships involved in the battle, and we received notice that it had arrived at Ishtar crippled and with multiple casualties. I ended up rushing out of the command center crying and running into Commander Nelson. He got me transferred and honestly, while there is a ton for me to learn, I’m enjoying being part of Internal Affairs.”

“Hey, is this the room for that meeting?” a man called out from the doorway. I faintly recognized the voice and looked up to see Bruno Rice looking in.

Linda immediately looked at her clipboard. “Are you Bruno Rice, Richard Lithgow, Andrew Conte or Devonte Dixon?”

“Bruno Rice,” he replied. “I’m still trying to figure out why I was summoned.”

I looked over at the Commander who had conjured up a mug and was sipping some steaming beverage. Lieutenant Jackson was checking her clipboard, pointedly pretending to review some text.

“I get a feeling someone isn’t happy about their current training and tried to force the AI to change their track,” I said. “At least, that’s the only thing I can think of. We know you are the planned executive officer for Ahti,” I said.

“Yes, and now that I’ve listened in on a few more of your simulations...” Bruno said before pausing. He moved to sit down and was clearly thinking for the right words.

“What about our simulations?” Richard asked as he followed Bruno into the room.

“Not ours,” Bruno said. “Honestly our are more about maintaining discipline and tracking the development of our trainees. We don’t have the number of guns a Goddess class does and our comms tend to be tons quieter. I’m trying to figure out how Tanya over there can keep track of everything.”

“Its why I have Tilly,” I replied with a file.

“That teenage citizen who arrived at the helm simulation at the same time I did?” Richard asked. “How can she help?”

“Its her duty to pass my bridge commands to the team leaders of my gunner teams. She also concentrates on their communications and passes back to me any alerts. It allows me to focus on the overall battle and not get tied up in trying to command the gunners,” I said.

“It would help if you could keep the gunners from blanketing their channels with constant chatter. I’m amazed at how well they work together when they never seem to shut up,” Bruno said.

“Este is quick to come down on anyone who doesn’t listen and Tilly has tricks she can use to shut off the gunball microphones while she passes commands to the leads. And its been slowly improving. We are starting to place people in specific positions on teams and we have three team leads who are beginning to crackdown on the worst offenders when it comes to comm discipline. I still need to find one more.”

“You haven’t filled your teams?” a nasty sounding voice growled out from the doorway.

We all turned to see a middle-aged man with greased black hair walk in. The man did not appear to have an ounce of fat on his body and he snarled at all of us while moving to take a seat across from Commander Nelson.

The Lieutenant peeked at her clipboard. “Andrew Conte?” she asked in a voice that made it clear she was positive who was in the doorway.

“What about it? I was summoned by the AI. I should be getting back to my training,” the man said.

“Training you have been doing in violation of the AI directive to change your training track,” the Lieutenant said firmly. “It was decided to have you train as a tracking officer for work on Hero or Goddess class ships.”

“Which was an unfair step down. I was on the command track. The AI told me that I’d be trained to command a Hero class ship, and now I’m being downgraded to nothing more than a tracking officer,” the man roared out.

“Um...,” another voice said from the doorway. “I believe I was summoned here.”

This man had dark skin and a shaved head. He was nearly as athletic and muscular as Andrew, but seemed far less aggressive. He walked in and looked around the table.

“DeVonte Dixon,” Commander Nelson asked.

“Yes,” the man said. “Can I ask why I was summoned.”

Commander Nelson took a deep breath and then looked around the table. He paused while looking at Andrew until the man took a seat. Once everyone was sitting he spoke. “I’m not sure all of you know, but I’m an officer with Internal Affairs. My duty is to help maintain the laws of the Confederacy within the military. Now, the good news is that there is no official investigation. None of you are going to be up on charges or facing a demotion.”

“So?” Andrew responded.

“Internal Affairs can decide that you need to be retested,” Lieutenant Jackson said. “And if you fail that retest you are immediately taking to a waste recycler and thrown in. There is no becoming a concubine for a member of the military that fails a CAP test. You also can suddenly discover that you are heading to a marine training base as a private, and going through basic again. But if that happens there usually is a tag in your file that prevents you from being promoted above Lance Corporal.”

“That strict?” I asked.

“It has to be,” Commander Nelson said. “The aliens we are protecting cannot handle our aggressive nature. That was the driving force behind the CAP system. The AI units tasked with serving the aliens were trying to find a way to ensure that any humans provided access to weaponry and other technology would not betray the aliens. But that test could never be completely foolproof, so...”

Bruno surprised me by nodding. “The CAP system is a way to vet each human and try to identify the ones who have the personality to work with the aliens. But shouldn’t that prevent problems.”

“AI are AI,” Lieutenant Jackson said. “During my training Commander Nelson here demonstrated to me a number of ways that the AI units can be fooled or misguided. There have been problems where members of the military commit abuses of others while ensuring that the AI units can’t act to stop them. Its when those incidents occur that Internal Affairs gets involved.”

“Ishtar,” I said. “You sent from Borneo because of Ishtar.”

“A disgruntled DECO official found a loophole in the subroutines the AI units used to schedule deliveries to new colonies and got the AI units to transfer a number of new citizens to a true deathworld. The fact that about twenty-five percent of the people have survived and are still loyal is a bit of a mystery. I think the only way to fully understand how they did it will be to visit. But at the time the first priority was to shut the pipeline down and prevent additional deliveries to that or any other deathworld,” Commander Nelson said.

“Where?” Andrew Conte asked. “And how does this affect me.”

“Yes, we should cover that first,” Commander Nelson said. “So Princess Victoria is carrying one thousand new citizens to Borneo District. This is an important, but distant military district, at the far edge of the Confederacy. It’s a necessity that we maintain the defense as should the Sa’arm manage to break past Borneo, they will immediately land on two different Confederacy colonies and be able to hit the homeworld of one of the older Confederacy races. They cannot defend themselves, so we need to hold the line.”