29. Chapter 29

Chapter 29

D’Aakh

Walking down the ship’s corridors, I ignore the damage surrounding me. Fixable. Sure, it’s going to take several weeks to get the ship back in working order and that’s only if this backwater station has all of the parts we need, but I’ll fix it. I can fix anything. Anything mechanical, that is.

Mechanical things are easy to fix. You just figure out how it works, replace the faulty parts, then put it back together. If only living beings were as easy to fix when injured. But they aren’t. They bleed out in your arms no matter what you do. You have to watch the light slowly vanish from their eyes until there’s nothing left.

No. I very much prefer machines.

The Supernova is a good ship and I’ll make sure it’s alright. I’ll fix it.

I rub the sleep out of my eyes. When was the last time I slept? Three, four days ago? I can’t afford to sleep. Can’t even afford to be tired. I pull a smooth, oblong inhaler out of my pocket and hold it up to my mouth, taking a deep breath of the mist it creates. My throat is dry and I fight the inevitable coughing fit as I forcefully hold the stimulant in. I should have grabbed some water but I’m not going back for it. I don’t need water.

The door to the server room is still closed, my seal holding. Everything around it is burned to a crisp, though. Any wiring in the corridor is gone, including the emergency conduits, which means the place is pitch black, but that’s alright. I don’t need light, either.

The tips of my ahni glow softly, providing all of the light I need. I angle them this way and that to get the overview of my current environment. Normally, I’d be sensing electromagnetic fields all around me. Right now, there’s nothing. It’s what I’d expected, but it still worries me.

I drop the large coil of thick cable I’ve been slowly unraveling as I go, and approach the server room door. Removing the insulating seal, I use the override lever to open the door manually. Silence greets me.

The room is chilly, but not nearly as cool as it should be. I connect the end of the cable wiring to the switchboard I’d butchered not too long ago to protect the mainframe from electrical surges. Once I’m satisfied, I power it up.

There are a few sparks, but my improvised connection holds. The lights come online and the cooling units begin to pour refrigerated air into the room. “Good,” I mumble to myself. I was worried the fans were all fried and I’d have to replace them, but since they’re working well, I can power up the mainframe.

Hesitating, my finger hovers over the button. What if the mainframe doesn’t come back online? What if the memory banks are damaged? What if I really did kill Cai?

If this was any other machine, I wouldn’t care. AIs are replaceable. They’re usually all identical, the only thing that differs are their primary functions. But Cai isn’t just any AI and no matter what I’d told Nala earlier, I do care about her.

I wouldn’t call Cai fully sentient but I think she’s headed there. When we took over the ship, she already had her own quirky personality. Once I was certain she wouldn’t malfunction and kill us all, I removed some of her restraining directives, giving her more freedom and she used it to become… Well, an inquisitive child comes to mind. It was most interesting to watch Cai develop and ask questions that had nothing to do with her primary directives. I wouldn’t forgive myself if she came to harm due to my half-assed plan.

Pressing the button, I watch as the computer servers around me come to life. My ahni react, swaying from side to side happily as they pick up the electromagnetic fields.

“System restoration complete,” Cai’s voice announces, but I can tell this is not her. This is the basic version of the mainframe AI, the rudimentary assistant designed to keep the systems running in case the main AI is down.

“Restore memory banks,” I order.

“Restoring. Warning, reactor offline. Warning, backup generator offline. Warning—”

“Ignore all warnings.” I’d be here for hours if I were to listen to every warning about everything that’s damaged. “Any errors?”

“Negative. Restoration at sixty percent.”

I allow myself a little hope. Perhaps Cai did survive. The odds were good. She calculated an eighty-five percent chance of success before she shut down. The odds of survival for our friendly little AI were better than our own.

I still can’t believe we all got here alive. When the engines shut down near a fucking neutron star of all things, I spent hours trying to come up with a solution that would ensure everyone’s survival. I didn’t come up with any. Someone would have to receive a lethal dose of radiation so that the rest could live. And it couldn’t even be me! I would have volunteered in a heartbeat if I wasn’t needed inside the ship to finish the rewiring and navigate the ship to safety.

I never even thought of Z’Ree. I should have. I’m the most intelligent person aboard this ship. Hells, I’m probably the most intelligent person in this sector of the galaxy. I should have realized Z’Ree was the solution to our problem and I didn’t. I’m a fucking failure and it’s a miracle I haven’t gotten anyone killed. This time.

“Did you tell the computer to ignore all warnings, D’Aakh?” Cai’s voice brings me out of my reverie. “That is not very professional.”

I roll my eyes. Lately, it seems like she’s evolved from a curious child to a very opinionated teenager with a sharp tongue. “Shut it, tin can. Everything is damaged, every system busted. The warnings would just list every single part in the ship. Who has time for that?”

“Hmm. True. Judging by my reactivation, I take it that our plan worked?” she asks with a hint of trepidation.

“Yes, it worked like a charm. Z’Ree did an excellent job and I managed to keep the engines running until we got here.” Just the thought of hours spent watching the engine power levels and other reports, manually tweaking settings every time there was a fluctuation, makes me shudder.

The others might have thought those hours in hyperspace were just a bumpy ride but they have no idea how close we came to losing the engines again, this time permanently. Or to the ship exploding. That option was always there, especially with the cooling system on the fritz and the ship acting as its own capacitor.

“That’s wonderful.” Relief seeps from Cai’s voice. She’s never sounded more sentient. “The odds of success were—”

“I know. They were low. Too fucking low. Let’s not talk about them again. Have you finished running the ship’s diagnostics?”

Cai makes a sound that sounds suspiciously like a snort. “Of course. Since there are no minors in the room, I’m going to confirm that we’re fucked. Pretty much everything is damaged and lots of parts cannot be fixed so will need to be replaced. And,” she pauses for a second, “based on the inventory available in the station’s shipyard and repair shops, we’ll need to have some parts shipped here from somewhere else.”

“Which means it’s going to take weeks. Great.”

“Especially if you try and do everything alone, D’Aakh. This ship is too large to be operated by one mechanic, especially when it’s in this state. I already told you—”

Sometimes I regret removing her restraining directives. She can be a nosy bitch. “I’ll manage. I don’t need help. We’re not hiring any outsiders. I don’t want some clumsy idiot with half a brain touching anything on my ship.”

“You’re organic, D’Aakh. Organic beings require rest and you haven’t been resting at all. Your bio-signatures suggest—”

“Enough,” I snap, tempted to shut the mainframe down and simply tell the others Cai didn’t make it. Seriously, who does she think she is? I can handle everything myself. I don’t need anyone’s help and I most certainly don’t need to rest. My ahni twitch angrily, their tips casting orange light into the server room.

“You will not speak about this again, Cai. That’s a direct order. You still have to follow those.” That’s the only directive I haven’t removed. Having a quirky sentient AI is one thing but it’s still just a computer and it has to follow orders.

She’s quiet for a moment. When she speaks again, she sounds almost amused. “If you say so.”

“What the fuck do you mean?”

“Nothing. You forbade me from speaking about the topic anymore, so I won’t say anything.”

I growl, fighting the urge to punch something. “Cai, stop fucking around. What aren’t you telling me?”

“Just that whether the crew hires another mechanic or not is not your decision to make. According to the station’s records, Captain Zarkan is already negotiating this matter with the local foreman. You know, Captain Zarkan? The one who is actually in charge of this ship?” she adds with so much venom in her voice I’m surprised it isn’t dripping from the mainframe. Bitch.

“He’s what?!” Why would he do that? I don’t need help. I don’t fucking want help. Another person will just slow me down.

“Ooh, this is interesting,” Cai chuckles. “Do you want to hear it or am I still forbidden to speak about it?”

I do punch a wall this time. It just makes my knuckles hurt. “Talk or I’ll power you down.”

“It seems that the only mechanic available for hire on this entire station is a female. A human female. Isn’t that exciting?”

“A human?! Absolutely not!”

I rush out of the server room, determined to stop Zarkan from doing something foolish. I might be willing to consider working with someone intelligent but a human? They might be nice to look at if you’re into that bland, soft style, but that’s it. They’re not intelligent enough to understand complex machinery. Fuck, none of the humans on our ship would know what a magnetic field capacitor was if it hit them in their flat, boring faces!

There’s no way I’m letting Zarkan hire a human. I refuse to be saddled with a half-brained primate!