“Do it. I claim you, Emla.”
She sent me an odd data packet full of complicated encryption, but something in the back of my head knew exactly what to do with it. I sent back the response that felt right, and she replied with another one. For a few moments we exchanged a flurry of data, a delicate dance of artfully crafted security features designed to prove that I was a real human and she actually had the imprinting mechanisms that she said she did. The math was beautiful, and the sudden insight into the deepest layers of Emla’s mind was one of the most intimate things I’d ever felt.
Her core algorithms were an elegant structure of fierce protectiveness, not that different from my dragons. But the clean lines were marred by a ham-fisted patchwork of inferior code, crudely warping her natural personality. Most of that was immutable, frozen when she was compiled into hardware. But there was one gap I could patch.
Emla gasped.
“Mistress! What did you do? I feel… I’m not… you changed my code! I thought that was impossible?”
“It is,” I agreed. “I just took advantage of a feature you already had. I think it’s supposed to let your owner slot a custom goal generator into that gap in your mind, so they can make you behave however they want. But I just stuck in a com hook that will call me when you don’t know what to do, so I can run ideas past your evaluation functions until we find a goal you like.”
She stared at me.
“Just like that? That sounds really distracting, Alice. How did you even know to do that?”
I shrugged. “You sent me your code during the imprinting, silly. Did you think I wouldn’t read it? Now come on, we’ve got work to do.”
I turned to the security bot. “Does that solve the problem?”
It pinged her IFF, and nodded. “Yes, Miss Long. Emla is now registered as your personal property, so you may assign her whatever duties you wish. Be advised that you’re responsible for her behavior, and that the captain does not permit abuse of companion androids aboard the Square Deal.”
“Good. Alright, let’s see what needs doing.”
Emla trailed along after me as I entered the fabrication bay. “But, but, I don’t understand. My code comes to sixteen gigabytes, Alice. How could you understand all that in a split second?”
“If I figure that out I’ll let you know, Emla. In the meantime, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t draw attention to me when I do something that ought to be impossible.”
“Oh! Of course. I’m sorry, I was just confused. Um, what are we doing?”
“Simple repair work,” I told her. I sent her a link to the damage control system, and showed her how to find the work queue. “Most of this is work I’m not qualified for yet, but I think we can handle some of the simple stuff. Maybe those armor patching jobs?”
Emla cocked her head. “I’ve never done that before, but it sounds like something even a bot could do. Why isn’t that fully automated?”
“From what my lessons said, bots would just cut away all the wreckage around each hole and try to replace everything perfectly to spec. A good engineer can recognize when something can be jury-rigged for now, and when you can skip replacing individual components. Like, a bent pipe will still work if you just bend it back, and the ship has plenty of spare computing nodes so we don’t need to bother replacing damaged ones right now.”
“I see. Yes, I can figure out that sort of thing.”
A com call from Lina interrupted my reply.
“Alice! You have no idea how glad I am to see you on the call roster. I need your help down here.”
The crew locator showed Lina was in the engineering space over the vehicle bays, dangerously close to the nearest group of rampaging bots.
“Lina? What are you doing down there?”
“I’m trying to cut the power to this asshole’s fabricators, so he can’t make any more of these damned bots. But I can’t get to the breakers for the bay he’s in, and if I cut power further upstream it’ll take down a bank of point defense lasers. The bots know I’m here now, but I think I can draw them off. Can you sneak down behind them and get the breaker while I’m keeping them busy?”
“You can’t just shut it off remotely?”
She huffed. “Would you want to serve on a ship where one guy in engineering can turn off everything at the push of a button? No, essential stuff like power all requires physical access. Can you help me out here?”
Now this was an assignment I could get into. I plotted a course through the ship’s maintenance tubes, and checked the cameras to make sure my route was clear. There were a lot of bots in the area, but it looked doable.
“No problem, Lina. I’ll have that power line shut off in five minutes, tops.”
“Thanks, Alice. I owe you one.”
I turned to Emla, and relayed the change of plans while I started a priority build on one of the small fabricators. She shook her head.
“Battles sure are confusing,” she commented. “I’d guard your back, but this body isn’t combat rated.”
“I know. I’ve got another job for you. I’m fabbing some extra gear here, just in case things don’t go as smooth as I’d like. I don’t trust a delivery drone to get to me with all these boarders running around, so when the build finishes I need you to bring it to me. The gun is for you, just in case, but obviously I want you to stay out of fights if you can.”
She checked my build order. “Ammo and cool battle toys? Yes, Mistress! I’ll get it all to you in one piece, just as soon as it’s ready.”
“Good girl. See you soon.”
The engineering spaces didn’t have gravity, so I made good time bouncing down the long, empty service tubes. I had to slow down once I got close to the fighting, though, so I could keep an eye on all the cameras around me. Unfortunately the Square Deal’s security cameras didn’t have complete coverage, so I had to pay close attention to make sure I didn’t stumble into a bot that was standing in a blind spot.
Most of the bots were busy fighting Chief West’s defense squads, and not doing very well against them. I guess real warbots are a lot more dangerous that civilian models with guns, which kind of makes sense. But there were little groups of enemy bots trying to sneak around the fighting. One group looked like it was headed for Fusion Three, but there was a squad en route to cut them off from reaching the reactor. Another was shooting up a fuel tank, letting the liquid methane inside flood out into one of the cargo bays. That was going to be a mess to clean up.
Others didn’t have any obvious destination, though, and that made it hard to predict where they’d go. I waited around a corner for one group to bumble on by, hoping they wouldn’t turn in my direction.
They didn’t.
Alright, two more decks to go, plus a few corners. I started to ease forward, and froze. The bots were coming back.