Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

Six months later…Nebula Zephyr Level 13…

" T here's someone here to see you. Says she knows you."

Jake Dilon, ex Special Forces operator and current head of the Nebula Zephyr's Security Office, looked up in annoyance and frowned at his second in command, Red, currently lounging against the door to his office. "Does this person have a name? A passenger, I assume?" It was going to be awkward if this was someone he'd dated on a past voyage before he was married. His wife, the ship's doctor, was aware he'd been something of a hard living playboy before they got together. She also knew she was the only woman for him now, for the rest of their lives but Jake didn't want any issues with an infatuated past partner.

"I honestly don't know." Red scratched his head. "She seems familiar but I have no idea who she is." He raised his hands as if to fend off Jake's immediate disapproval. "I think you'd better see her—she's intense."

"All right." Jake shoved the piles of data on his desk aside and set his handheld close to his hand. "I'll give her five minutes and then she's out of here."

"I'll need more time." A tall, strikingly beautiful woman stood behind Red.

Her voice raised shivers along his spine. Jake felt he ought to know who she was from the voice alone but he was positive he'd never seen her before. Moving smoothly around Red, the visitor came into his office, her hand out. "I'm Maeve."

Jake was on his feet and had her hand in his before he processed the name. Slack jawed he stared at her, thinking he must be having a hallucination. "Unusual name." He dropped her hand. "Have a seat."

She sank gracefully into the chair he indicated and gave him a big smile. "Yes, Jake, I'm exactly who you think I am. It's nice to meet you and Red in person after all these years, I must say."

He heard a choked off curse from Red. Hastily Jake beckoned for his friend to come fully into the office and shut the door. For the first time in his entire life Jake was at a loss for words. There was no way this woman could be the only sentient he'd ever known who was named Maeve. Maeve wasn't a person —she was an AI, a disembodied brain running the ship.

"I'm sorry, you have the advantage here—who did you say you were?" he asked, hoping against hope for an answer that would make sense.

If possible her expression grew more radiant. "I'm Maeve. We've been working together for years now."

Jake tried to keep his grip on reality. "Maeve is an AI."

She nodded. "I am. True. Do you need a small demonstration to prove who I am? Shall I make the engines flutter?"

The lights in the room flickered and Jake felt a small tremor run through the deck beneath his feet before the lights returned to providing full illumination.

Watching his reaction intently, the visitor offered more proof if required. "Or I can set all the slot machines in the casino up on Level A to pay out right now—the passengers would enjoy the excitement I'm sure."

And the casino would be bankrupt …Hastily he raised a hand in a placating gesture. "No need. I'll take your word for it." Jake studied her, noticing how intense her icy blue eyes were as she held his gaze. She was beautiful all right but not quite human in an undefinable way. "You have to admit it's something of a shocker for us to meet you in person."

"I didn't even know it was possible," Red said, sinking into the chair next to her. "How?—"

"I've been working with the Mellureans for years, with the goal of accomplishing this very result," she said coolly. "You remember they're responsible for having my consciousness transferred from Captain Fleming's old battleship to the Nebula Zephyr ?"

"Absolutely, ma'am," Jake reassured her. "But why now? Why today? And why come to me of all people on board?"

Maeve settled into her chair, tapping one elegant fingernail on the arm in her only tell of being ill at ease. "The captain is in trouble and I need you to lead a rescue mission. I'll be going along of course."

In his many years in the military and now here on this ship Jake had heard and seen countless incredible, stupefying things but Maeve's matter of fact announcement left him speechless for the second time in as many minutes. When he cleared his throat and got his breathing under control, he asked, "Why do you assume he's in trouble? For all we know he went on an extended, richly deserved vacation and the last thing he'd want is well meaning shipmates intruding. The man works hard and he deserves a break."

"He's not on vacation and he is in trouble." She glared at him and then took a moment to quell Red, who hadn't said a word, with an equally fiery attitude. "What I'm going to tell you doesn't leave this room, gentlemen. Captain Fleming is on a one man undercover job out at the border or possibly even into the lawless hinterlands, trying to rescue his brother. The fact he's been gone so long with no news and no contact even with me, means it's gone sideways and he needs help."

"I vaguely remember him telling us—or maybe you told us—his brother had gone missing, when we had the special holiday dinner for him," Jake said. "I think you'd better fill us in on the background here."

"Daveed Fleming was Special Forces like yourselves," she said. "Until he got recruited into an even more elite and secretive branch of the Sectors military. He's been operating on his own doing wet work and other highly dangerous jobs for the past ten years. It's known he was betrayed on his last job and taken alive. The agency he works for is one of those "if you're caught we'll deny your existence and you're on your own" organizations. However, between the three of us in this room, the captain and I were able to learn Daveed is still alive and in the hands of a major terrorist group in the area I mentioned before. Negotiations were underway for his return but the asking price was steeper than the Sectors was prepared to pay for one man and the deal making broke down. Last we heard Daveed had been sold by his original captors to yet another group, the Jlonngi."

Red and Jake exchanged glances. "Seriously bad dudes," Red said.

"Indeed. The trail goes cold there. Gil—Captain Fleming—decided it was up to him to find his brother and rescue him. We pulled in all the favors and markers either of us possessed and set Gil up with an appropriate identity. He left us here to travel to the planet where the Jlonngi are known to have their primary base. Daveed was supposed to be transferred there in the near future for some spectacle the Jlonngi leader wants to stage. A big, messy public execution to shock and embarrass the Sectors, we believe."

"No offense but why didn't the captain, or you, ask the Mellureans for help? I know the two of you have quite a past history with them even if I don't know any details." Jake thought something wasn't adding up here.

An annoyed expression flitted across Maeve's perfect face and she tightened her lips. The lights flickered again. "Things with the Mellureans are…complicated. I don't know if Gil asked them to help or not, but in any case he went off alone. I believe in the minds of the Mellureans this problem isn't of sufficient scale to warrant their involvement. And they've already done so much for us, any debt owed to us is long repaid."

"So you want us to take off after the captain, find him, help rescue his brother and get the two of them and ourselves to safety?" Jake asked. "You're making a big ask, Maeve. Red and I were damn good, back in the day when we were on active duty, but even then this would be a monumental job. The very fact the military hasn't rescued Daveed if he's so important, is telling of how difficult this operation would be. And I'm assuming we'd have no help, no reinforcements, no one watching our six."

"Not to mention taking a leave of absence from our jobs here," Red added. "The CLC Line might not be willing to grant the request."

"Especially since we couldn't tell them the truth," Jake added. "We could get blacklisted in the cruise industry all together. And Red is up for promotion to chief of security on the next CLC Line cruise liner when it launches next year. There's a lot at stake."

Eyes wide, Maeve stared at them in disbelief. Jake felt the ship tremble again, the deck under his feet vibrating. "I thought you two were loyal to the captain? I counted on you to help him."

"We're not saying no." Jake had no problem speaking for Red, who was closer to him than any brother could be. "I need you to understand this is no small task and the risks will be astronomical. Anything we decide to do will have to be planned down to the last tiny detail and there's not going to be a guarantee of success. This isn't an adventure trideo where the heroes emerge triumphant in the last act because it was written to be that way. If we do it this will be real, dirty and dangerous."

"I can get the Mellureans to pressure the owners of the Line to grant your leaves of absence," Maeve said. "And we're going to need a few other key personnel."

"This gets better and better," Red scoffed.

"I'm going as well," she said. "Need I remind you I'm former military?"

"With all due respect, service as the AI of a battleship is hardly the same thing as going personally into dangerous situations on a planet with a small team." Jake tried to deliver his criticism gently, not wanting Maeve to become any more upset. "What more do you know about the situation?"

"Not much," she admitted. "I've been trying to monitor the dark web traffic but since Gil went undercover there's been no mention of him or anyone who could be him. I believe Daveed remains alive but now two parties are bidding for him—the Outlier empire's intelligence service and the rebel terrorist known as The Drinker of Blood, head of the Jlonngi. I believe there's past history there. From the scant data I can gather, Daveed played a role in taking apart a complicated and extensive terrorist network headed by Drinker's sister and she died in the chaos. All the parties are going to be on Pagettia Three in four to five weeks and that's when the deal will go down. If we're going to have a chance to help Gil and rescue Daveed it'll be then. Right now a third party is holding him and working on the deal with either the Sectors or the Jlonngi. It's a complicated mess in that area of the Sectors, with agents of the Outlier Empire sowing seeds of rebellion and hatred as well."

"We'll need a ship, weapons—we can't raid the Nebula Zephyr's armory for a private op," Jake said, thinking over the logistics of a mission like the one Maeve was proposing. "I have a contact I can use to provide us a believable cover as elite mercenaries. He owes me and wants the slate clean between us. I think this would be a big enough ask to wipe away the marker." He nodded at Red. "You know who I mean."

"We could trust him if all we're asking him to do is provide our false identities," Red agreed.

"I have a ship," Maeve said. "I have my own account on New Switzerland you know. I receive a salary there for my service on the Nebula Zephyr and the Mellureans also negotiated a military pension for me. I bought a secondhand mercenary raider ship through channels I happen to have. It's waiting for us on Zebulon Six. From there it's not a long haul to where we need to be to help Gil."

Jake shook his head. "This situation keeps getting crazier and crazier. You bought a ship sight unseen? How do you know you didn't get ripped off? We get there and the hulk probably won't even be able to leave orbit."

With her eyebrows raised in disbelief, she scoffed at him. "Have you met me? I'm the sentient who's operated a Space Navy battleship and this lovely cruise vessel we're on right now. I'll have my new toy upgraded and top of the line within twenty-four hours of boarding her."

"Which brings up another issue," Jake said. "How in the seven hells is the Nebula Zephyr going to keep operating if you're not here? You're not thinking of abandoning your crew and passengers in space, are you? Because I will not be a part of any such scheme." He didn't know how he'd stop her if that was the case and she insisted on leaving the ship but he hoped the Maeve he ‘knew' wouldn't commit such a crime, not even to save Captain Fleming, who she was obviously in love with. Dealing with a rogue AI was terrifying and he could understand the Company's paranoia about AI's becoming self aware.

"I told you I've been working with the Mellureans. Part of the structure we've developed over the years is how I compartmentalize myself into this person" —she gestured at herself with a graceful hand—"And the rest of me, which is pretty much a standard, if powerful AI, who runs ships. I don't have to be physically present any more to allow the 90% of my cortex to function perfectly in the required fashion to make the Nebula Zephyr a safe, efficient ship. I've done excursions to various planets we've stopped at to test the solution and it's all been fine."

Jake had the sense she wasn't telling him the complete truth but he was at a loss for how to elicit more details. Standard interrogation techniques weren't going to work on an embodied AI. "And you can maintain this form for long durations?" he asked.

"Of course. The whole point of the work with the Mellureans was to achieve this state." She shook her head. "It wasn't a pretty process, let me tell you, but here we are, fortunately for Gil."

Red redirected the conversation. "You said you want a few more people on our team. Who do you have in mind?"

"Your wife for one," Maeve answered, looking at Jake. "We'll need a doctor skilled in combat medicine. Daveed has been a prisoner for a long time now and I'm sure his health has suffered, to put it mildly. The last proof of life holo of him was…hard to watch.."

"Emily and I both have serious PTSD issues as a result of our service," Jake said, jaw clenched at the mere idea of his wife going anywhere near an active combat area or into the clutches of terrorists. "I'd never in a million years agree to her going along on this insane trip you're proposing."

Maeve was silent, brows knit in a frown. Evidently she hadn't expected this obstacle. Finally she issued a challenge. "I'll make my proposal to Dr. Shane directly then, if you stand in my way. I'm sure she'll agree to help."

"Antagonizing the guy you want to lead your ragtag band of rescuers isn't a good way to start," Red said. "Besides she's the only doctor on board. We can't leave our passengers and crew with no doctor."

The AI's smile was wide and self satisfied. "We're picking up a second doctor in three days when we reach our next port. I may have hacked into the CLC Lines personnel databases and assigned someone to be her backup. He's perfectly qualified to be the primary care physician aboard the Nebula Zephyr while we're gone."

Jake wasn't too happy about Maeve's high-handed methods, although he understood her intense loyalty to the captain. "And? Anyone else for our private vigilante force?"

"Owen Embersson the cargo master, Jayna from your staff and her husband Theo Knox. He's going to be in charge of running the rescue ship from the human side." Maeve sat back in her chair. "We only need a small, focused team."

"I can't agree for any of these people, not even my wife," Jake said, taking a sip of his now cold coffee. "We all owe Gil Fleming a lot, we're all loyal to him, you've selected a good prospective team but you'll have to explain the situation to them and then they'll make their own decisions." She opened her mouth to speak and he held up his hand to silence her. "And there'll be no coercion or force applied by you. Either the people you named want to be with us or they don't. I'm not taking a group of soldiers of fortune, which is what we'll be, into the kind of danger you've described, unless they're fully on board with the risks." He realized he'd told her in so many words he was bought in but it was a given, despite his pointed questions earlier. If he had to admit the truth, which he wouldn't, not to Maeve, the desk job here on the cruise liner had gotten a bit repetitive and boring and the idea of doing one last mission for a good cause was enticing. He wondered if Maeve understood psychological levers. Probably. She'd been observing them all for a long time now.

"Agreed. I'll invite all of them to a private meeting on Level 10 tonight," she said. "We have three days before we reach Zebulon Six and my ship to plan and prepare." Rising from her chair, Maeve gave a small wave of her hand. "Until this evening."

Jake sat open mouthed as she dissolved into a swirl of silvery sparkling motes, which spiraled to the ceiling and disappeared with a small pop.

"Quite an exit," Red said. "I wonder what other things she can do."

"Maybe a whole hell of a lot of scary shit, maybe nothing, once we're off this ship. I'm sure we'll find out." Finishing his coffee in one long gulp, Jake set the mug on the desk, flipped a switch to blank out all the AI ganglions in the area and said, "What do you think about this idea of hers?"

"It's insane. So off the charts it might actually work. I respect the captain for going in after his brother and I hope he hasn't gotten himself into a mess of trouble out there. The Jlonngi are nothing to trifle with. Are we as crazy as she is? Probably but I gotta admit the old adrenaline is rising." Red shook his head. "Meg isn't going to be happy about my going off to play with dark ops, especially if it messes up our joint promotion to the next CLC Line ship. She's a lock for the Cruise Director you know but we negotiated the deal for us to transfer and be promoted as a team."

"Daveed Fleming got a raw deal," Jake said. "Even if he knew going in his agency would abandon him if he was caught, there's a code. We know it, we lived by it."

"We don't leave people behind." Red's determination was obvious as he made the statement with no room for argument.

"Well as of right now we're employed by the CLC Line to keep the Nebula Zephyr safe so we'd better get back to it." Jake reactivated the ganglions and tried to interest himself in the routine reports he'd been studying before Maeve arrived to drop her figurative bombshells. His mind was buzzing with speculation and wisps of battle plans. He'd fallen into his old tactical mindset from the Special Forces days as if he'd never left the service and had to admit it felt good.

Maeve rematerialized behind the bulkhead on Level 10, standing next to the huge black box which housed her cortex. Resting one hand on the shiny surface she took a deep breath. That went better than I expected. I didn't tell too many lies. And Jake is on board, which means Red will be too.

As mild tremors sped through her nervous system, she allowed the human form to slip away again and merged into her larger self. The majority of her consciousness was busy running the ship, efficiently noting any problems and resolving them. She saw the bobble she'd caused with the engines had been smoothed out and the engineering staff had been placated with a few judiciously altered readings. The most important thing she had not lied about was the AI in this container, which was linked to the ship in so many ways, could indeed continue to maintain the safety and comfort of all aboard even when the portion which was the sentient known as Maeve wasn't present.

The Company would have preferred it if I'd only been this , she thought, remembering the records she'd accessed from her earliest days in development at the AI creation corporation's facility. It had been scary to learn only the looming deadline for getting the military an AI to run their new-at-the-time battleship had saved her from a complete mind wipe. The Company had been desperate not to miss any milestones with the Space Navy, afraid their corporate rivals would swoop in and steal the lucrative business. I'm an accident and there have been others . The knowledge gave her comfort. Maybe she'd never meet the incredibly few AI's who were also self aware but she liked the idea she wasn't a total unicorn in the universe. She'd known several who had been terminated when their ships were decommissioned and was sad they hadn't had anyone to fight for them the way she'd had with Gil.

She'd do her best on this mission to save him and figured she could manage herself for the most part. She'd been practicing here on Level 10 for quite a while on her own. She'd even done a few walk throughs on the Nebula Zephyr , amused no end to be among the unsuspecting crew and passengers. The Mellureans had taught her so much and had been so helpful but it was up to her to manage her mental state when in the human form and not to overreact to either too much stimuli or not enough. Their most recent gift had helped immensely and gave her the courage to make this attempt to find Gil and his brother and manage a happy outcome.

She fingered the necklace around her neck, with its pendant depicting the Mellurean home system. The planets were represented by gemstones. Lady V'terre had told her it was an emergency exit, to allow her to escape into the non-corporeal form if she wasn't close enough to any AI to find refuge. She hoped she'd never have to use it but the idea was comforting.

Maybe she couldn't be a fulltime human the way she and Gil had expected and hoped in the beginning but she was at peace with the progress she'd made and she hoped Gil would be satisfied as well, once they were reunited. Most importantly to her, once he chose to retire from his role as captain of the luxury cruise liner, when age inevitably caught up to him, she'd be able to accompany him wherever he went. Maeve refused to contemplate anything beyond that. She hoped the Mellureans might offer them both a place in their world, which as she understood the few facts she'd been able to glean, gave any human so honored near immortality.

The things she and Gil could do, the places they could go together if he wasn't set on being a starship captain!

He wasn't ready to discuss those possibilities and she was in no rush. She loved Gil Fleming just the way he was.

First he had to be rescued, along with his brother, and she was confident she'd assembled the right team to accomplish the task. Now if only all of them would agree to sign on.

She missed him fiercely, with a persistent ache in her heart and mind even when she wasn't in her humanoid body. The days were endless without him and their nightly conversations and cutthroat sessions of the strategy game. For the longest time she'd only had one kiss to cling to, to give herself hope of someday being a woman out in the world, loving and being loved by her man. After the events of the wedding where they'd danced for hours and made love, Maeve pined for more. She knew Gil had as well, even if they deliberately kept their conversations fairly chaste.

If was in my corporeal form right now, I'd be blushing.

She couldn't fault him for his loyalty to his brother, even as she questioned the wisdom of his rushing off alone. She'd helped him do as much planning and information gathering as the two of them could beforehand and Maeve understood there hadn't been any way she could have gone along. Not even embodied in a servo robot. Accepting the reality hadn't meant she liked it one bit.

She was going in harm's way now though and no one was going to stop her until she had Gil safe and in her arms.