The paperback novel was an antique, at least in concept, and seldom seen but ever since Jason's psyche advisor told him to start reading plain text to retrain his mind to focus on one task at a time he always had one with him. The act of reading one or two pages at a time, being forced to flip pages, they were all pacing and concentration devices. Old science fiction and fantasy novels were his favourite, with murder mysteries holding a close third place. The more noir and cheesy the more he enjoyed them.
Lacy Campbell was standing in the rain, her bright red silk gown was soaked through. She looked down the sight of her. 35, blinking water out of her eyes and grinned Cheshire like. “Thought you could get away with the brass ring, didn't ya hon?”
The dinner jacket weighed on Carl Smith like a lead blanket. There was no hiding it, so he just stared back, his shoulders drooping like over cooked pasta. It wasn't what he'd pictured when he headed out to the big cityyears before. In Jersey he was small time, the takes were slim and he wanted more. The dock boys didn't cut you in large if your name didn't sound Sicilian. The rackets block to block were worse, so when he headed for the Big Apple, where the big timers played, he thought he might find his way into some big fish's pocket, or some well to do dames' bedroom. The last thing he pictured was this; being held up at the wrong end of his own gun by a tall blond stunner. Boy oh boy, this dame sure isn't from Jersey either. He thought to himself as he eyed her from head to tow. “I'll give it to ya. Just let me walk on outta here.”
“I've seen a lotta men walk out Carl, maybe I'll let ya go out of habit, or maybe I'll just plug ya and find the rock myself.”
He had one chance, and he intended to make good on it. Carl let the big diamond slide down from where he had tucked it into his sleeve and drop into his hand. “Here it is Lacy,” he said as he flicked it towards her.
She pulled the trigger-
The Silkstream IV shook violently and alarms sounded. Jason dropped the paperback and looked at the main status display. It looked perfectly normal. Jason checked the secondary display and caught sight of his command unit. Alarms were sounding there as well, the back of his hand was flashing red, trying to prevent a forced download from the Silkstream.
He folded an artificial flap of skin away from the back of his hand and didn't recognize the names of the files being added. “What is this? Worst fear day?” he muttered to himself as he pulled a tool from the maintenance belt hanging off the other seat. With no hesitation he pressed the end of the energizer against his command console and turned it up to full. “Oz! Get up here!” he called out as he activated the tool. Energy burst into his command and control unit and burned the flesh it was built into. The nerves there were less sensitive, but he kicked his feet and bit his lip at the deep burning sensation as the tattooed circuits fried. “Last time I get that installed,” he said as he shoved the small emitter rod back into the tool belt.
Oz rushed to the cockpit and looked around. “What are you doing?”
“I think there's some kind of software attacking the ship.”
“You had to burn yourself to figure that out?”
“Strange download happening on my command unit, it was already past my security systems, you should take yours off just in case,” he flexed his fingers and was relieved that he hadn't done any nerve damage. The pain was already down to a persistent throb. A high pitched whining filled the cockpit. “Can you check that?” He shouted.
Oz turned and ran into the main cabin as he dropped his own command and control unit on the floor. “It's the hyperspace emitters! They're overheating!”
“What? They're operating at half tolerance!” Jason replied over his shoulder as he tried to access the main computer.
“I have to disconnect the main power lines. Manual cutoff isn't working.” Both the travellers could feel the small ship rumble as Oz activated the emergency deceleration thrusters at full burn.
“Do it! There's something blocking me from accessing main systems.”
Oz waited for the shuttle's speed to reduce below the speed of light, then for a while longer as he listened to the engines roar, wondering if anyone had put such pressure on those systems before. When they had slowed down enough he yanked the main power lines leading to the particle emitters. Energy arced between the couplings and he was once again thankful for the insulation built into his black vacsuit.
Outside the cockpit window the distortion from hyperspace travel and simultaneous wormhole travel dissipated and Jason saw nothing but stars.
“Okay, looks like we're in the clear. The power plant shows normal. It was outputting between four and five times what the emitters could handle,” he said as he walked up to the cockpit. “Good thing particle dispersion was equal or we would have been torn to shreds. Any luck with the computer?”
“I managed to restrict the AI from main systems, good thing too. It was after life support.”
“What? Is that some kind of security backup?”
“No, our AI is infected. Do you have any kind of AI on your command and control unit?”
“Just a predictive filter, I don't play well with artificials.”
“A good thing too. This is some kind of virus that nests in the emotional center of artificial intelligences. Good thing the AI was an afterthought on the Silkstream. Our hyperspace emitters are blown though.”
“That'll slow us down some.”
“About an eighth the speed, maybe less. We'll never make it in time to rendezvous with the Triton. ”
“Where did we pick up the virus?”
Jason looked for it in the transmission logs and found it. “It's from the Enreega system.”
“It chose a good time to rear its ugly head.”
“Well, that's just the thing. This virus is different, it sort of convinces an AI that it's an improvement to its software and starts making modifications, but if there's no AI the virus doesn't have anything to do and it just waits for the opportunity to transmit itself to another system.”
“I wonder why it took so long for it to get to this AI.”
“That's just the thing,” Jason said quietly. “I just turned the AI on a couple hours ago.”
Oz just stared at Jason for a moment. “Sometimes I think we'd be better off if we were still drawing on cave walls and clubbing each other over the head for women and food.”
Oz sat down in the copilot's seat and looked out into the stars as Jason checked the ship status. The only sound was the creaking of the outer hull as the hyperspace particle emitters cooled.
Jason noticed his friend's silence after a few minutes. “You all right?”
He nodded, still looking out into the cluster of stars in the distance. “Did that virus transmit to the Sunspire?”
Jason didn't have to check, he already knew the answer. “It did.”
“Do you think they could catch it in time?”
“Do you want my honest answer?” Jason asked quietly.
“Always.”
“If it got to the quantum core there's not much chance. The defence AI would be the first to try and fight it off, but this virus would prevent it from warning anyone about the problem. That's probably why my command unit wasn't attacked until now, it was silenced while my AI was resisting infection.”
“I hope they don't lose anyone. If they're smart they'll blow an EMP in the engine room.”
“I don't think Trajenko…”
“You're right. She wouldn't make that kind of sacrifice, she's never seen what a rogue AI can do.”
Jason just left him alone, there wasn't much he could do or say to help just then, and he knew it.
“They're going to think we did it,” his friend stated quietly.
Jason was surprised the thought occurred to Oz first. “I'll have to find out who made this. With the AI on this ship deleted and the virus in quarantine, I might be able to work it out. I'd rather have more processing power though.”
“Here's hoping the Triton is having better luck. But then, if anyone can spot a rogue virus it'll be the commander of that ship.”
“You mean Jake.”
Oz nodded and went back to gazing through the cockpit windows for some time, quietly searching. “ Do you remember why they called it the hyperdrive?” he asked finally.
Jason thought for a minute, smiling at the much larger fellow. “Honestly? No idea. I think I was eight when we started taking early space travel in school.”
“I ran across the historical account when I took command of the Sunspire. Ned Mahajic was trying to invent a zero friction drive for cars.”
“Oh, I remember now. The particles surrounded the test bed and it weighed something like a tenth what it should have.”
Oz nodded, looking specifically for the nebula the Triton was holding station near. “He disappeared. Stole enough money to finish his research and just vanished for sixteen years. When he came back he was driving a floating car that could move faster, manoeuvre better and run longer than anything on the planet and because he was such a big science fiction fan himself, he named it the hyperdrive, called the space within the particle field hyperspace.”
“People still argue about that name,” Jason smiled. “What brought on the history refresher?”
“Just trying to think outside the box. Ah, there it is,” he said, pointing to the nebula. At that distance it looked like nothing more than another distant point of light. He confirmed with the navigation screen. “Burning out the hyperdrive system took a lot of energy, I don't think we could make it if we tried. I'm just glad we're not drifting near the speed of light. The time differential shouldn't be more than a couple hours at worst.”
“Thank God. I don't want to catch up with Laura after she's had sixty years to remarry. Especially if only a month has passed in this overgrown pod.”
“Yeah, with my luck I'd have a hundred grand nieces and nephews to babysit,” Oz shook his head and started making some calculations. “There's no reason why the wormhole generator shouldn't work.” He looked at the status display in front of him. With the artificial intelligence deactivated the readings were showing the correct values. Half the particle emitters were inoperable, their power reserves were down to eighteen percent, but all the other systems were fine. He brought up a holographic navigational chart. “Get a message ready to send to a Freeground receiver and another for the Triton. I'm going to find a nice place for us to wait for a pick up.”
“Why send anything to Freeground?”
“Just in case something else happens and we don't make it.”
“Ah, always thinking with the glass half full.”
Oz looked through a list of worlds, all marked with an estimated arrival time based on worm hole compression and the thrust generated by their engines against the mass of the ship. “Pandem. It's governed by the Carthans so Freeground has no connections there but they have nothing against us either.”
Jason looked over to his holodisplay. “Looks nice enough, lots of tropical islands, calm climate, big cities. Sounds like a nice place to wait. Oh, and they're marked as enemy territory by Regent Galactic, perfect. The capitol is Damshir, it covers one of the largest islands. It's as close as we can get to our rendezvous point with the power we have left.”
“Yup, the Triton won't have any trouble picking us up there.”
“You know, it'll take them a while to get our message, and that's if they're still in the same area.”
“Always poking holes in my bright ideas.”
“It had to be said,” Jason said with a shrug.
“I know, let's just hope someone passes the word if they happen to go in the other direction. Otherwise we'll end up trading for parts and searching for them with nothing but this bucket.”
“You have a point, friends or not, you take up a lot of space in a ship this size. Good thing I'm not claustrophobic,” Jason grinned wryly.
“Good thing,” Oz agreed as he started plotting the course. “Looks like it'll take us at least four days to get to Pandem.”