Episode 78, Anomaly
07 Jul 2024Ryuko Ntsikana
Episode 78, Anomaly
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The day started off unexpectedly as I woke feeling better than I had in years. A total surprise considering I had downed a bottle of the bar’s finest liquor. On any other relative day, I would have expected to either be in the ship’s infirmary, hooked up to an IV bag and oxygen mask, or down in the ship’s engineering department, looking to stick my head in a plasma conduit. Instead, I was sitting in the ship’s mess, feeling almost brand new, and trying not to scowl as Tara sat across from me with a bemused look on her face.
“I can’t believe you put that thing on me,” I growled in a low voice while chewing on a piece of bacon and buttered toast.
Tara nudged me under the table with her boot. “Are all pirates so whiny the day after fighting zombies?”
“Where the hell did you get those things?”
She motioned over her shoulder with her thumb at the table behind us. Lianna and the ship’s mechanic and engineer, Diego Thompson, were sitting behind us with two other people I had never seen before.
“That’s a broad brush. There are four people at that table.”
Tara’s smile grew larger. “There are one thousand six hundred and seventy people serving on this vessel, and most of them you have never met. The other two sitting with them are the boatswain, Amari Nguyen, and the quartermaster, Zahra Sharif. It was Amari who sourced the Kachirigin Filter Leeches for the ship’s medical bay."
I added a few scrambled eggs to the next portion of toast and bacon, crunching down on it. “Sounds to me like we have too many people and too many titles,”
“Taking a ride on a capital ship is not the same as owning one. You need every one of those people and titles to make it work.”
My head tilted on its own, just like what that old android, Aby, used to do when there was something he didn’t understand. Damn him for getting me into that habit.
“Look,” Tara said, motioning over her shoulder with a nod of her head. “You have a Contessa as a madam of a high-end mobile brothel. You have a professional fence and bartender, a black marketeer, and a commodities specialist who works closely with the marketeer, bartender, and madam.”
Tara leaned in closer, across the table. “You have a chief mechanic and engineer who has access to factory-fresh and engineered parts and a medical bay with filter leeches and other rare medical items that you wouldn’t find on Zaria’s ship. You think all of that just happened?”
“What’s the point?”
“The point is, eat your breakfast and quit complaining. You survived and thrived, and if you're nice I may give you something later for your victory celebration.”
I looked up at her as a fiery little light appeared behind her eyes, and the large smile turned into something more sly and menacing. Shoving the half-eaten plate to one side, I stood up, taking her hand. Those leeches had me feeling like new, and it was time to find out how new.
***
As part of her duties, Lianna compiled the reports from the carrier’s automated systems, maintenance androids, robots, and human workers. This task was already performed and reported on by the carrier’s artificial intelligence, but it was no less important for a human to be in the loop.
Part of the engineering department's duties was the weekly maintenance of the carrier’s hull. In ancient times, ships would be beached to careen their hulls and remove barnacles and other sea life. Thousands of years later, there was no life lingering on the hull, but solar winds, high-energy particles, radiation, and general use created micro-irregularities that required similar attention to ensure the ship’s performance and safety.
Confirming that no abnormalities had been reported, Lianna yawned and moved on to read through the next reports, which included the inner secondary hull, followed by the carrier’s hangar bays, and then each of the ships contained within. Each individual ship would report its status along with that of the carrier’s internal maintenance systems. The lengthy, dull process was nearing its completion as she rubbed her eyes, trying to stay focused when an irregularity caught her attention.
Since their return from the lunar mission, none of the ships involved had left the carrier. Lianna perked up, having noticed something minute that bothered her, but she could not put her finger on what it was. She went through each of the berthed ships’ information again. Scrolling through the individual reports, she noted that all stress fractures, ablated paint chips, internal regulatory and power systems, weapons, and protective shielding had been attended to.
All internal systems reported normal, with communications and data logs downloaded, all except for one. There you are, Lianna thought, noticing that the number of communications logs was missing one report. She isolated the anomaly to Ryuko’s Python. A data connection had been made between it and the settlement, but there was no information or recording of any data having been transferred.
Lianna ran a confirmation check, thinking it might have been between Ryuko in his Scorpion combat vehicle and the ship, but the computer confirmed that it had connected with the station. Having been there once herself, she knew that all links along with the settlement’s communications array had been disabled. Had it been enabled, a brief summary of the basic conditions of the facility would have been transmitted along with the confirmation of a connection being established, but there was no information listed as being transferred. So how was it possible for a connection to be established?
Highlighting the anomaly she sent it forward for Chief Diego to inspect.