The Bright Black Sea (83 page)

'I have been following the developments, and I agree
with Rafe that a direct course through the reef is possible, though
I can only assure you of a 10/12th success rate. A wide turn would
raise that success rate to 11/12th chance.'

I looked around the bridge. No one offered any
comments, and kept their thoughts guarded. Clearly, this was going
to be my decision.

'Through the reef . We'll have a better chance of
escaping
Sister Sinister
. How do you need to be situated in
order to operate the ship's systems?'

'The old ships had an input port and interface I
could connect to. A diagnostic port will do, however, and a secure
chair to keep me connected is all I need – this one here before the
weapons station will do,' it said with a quick glance and a wave of
its hand.

'I should make clear, Captain, that I am under your
orders. I have reviewed our current situation and it is my
understanding that the five small merchant ships have been armed
and wish to destroy us. I also understand that the small frigate
astern wishes to destroy us as well. My orders, sir, are
to...?'

'Defend us from all our attackers and pilot us safely
through the reef ahead.'

'Exactly sir. Then with your permission I am going to
began decelerating – we are, at present, traveling at a velocity
beyond the success range I specified. I can handle the increased
attack window resulting from this maneuver.'

I took a deep breath and said, 'Our goal, Botts, is
to safely get out of Despar Reef and to eventually shake off any
pursuit. I'll leave the details to you.'

'Very good, Captain. Then if everyone is ready, I
shall began my initial maneuvers. We shall be under attack in
twenty minutes or less.'

The gang looked at each other, and settled into
chairs about the bridge, bringing in and anchoring additional ones
from the adjacent navigation and tech offices. They were pretty
shy, at first, around our new shipmate.

I let Molaye keep the pilot's chair and settled into
the com station one behind her. I'd made all the decisions I needed
to make. Now all I could do was watch the cards as they were turned
over.

06

Our sudden change of plan, made it look like we were
waiting on
Sister Sinister
to catch up with us, giving our
broadcast warning some authenticity.
Sister Sinister
closed,
but only so far, staying just out of our missile range. Nun was
going to stay out of Despar's Navy's way and give them first crack
at us. Seeing our deceleration, the five Despar ships killed their
drives and waited for us to get into range. They had formed their
line ahead, spread out so as to maximize the time we'd spend in
missile range without getting in each line of fire. Botts appeared
content just to take them on as they had planned, and in fact
steered towards the edge of the passage, giving them a clear shot
at us, but lengthening our response time by a second or two.

Those twenty minutes just crawled by, giving me time
to regret every decision I'd made, over and over.

As I may have remarked, spaceers live in the moment,
and having decided that Botts was the real thing since Rafe
adamantly vouched for it, the crew was soon pelting Botts with all
sorts of questions, which it politely answered in great detail,
seemingly oblivious to the fact that it was supposed to be running
the ship. Its answers amplified many of my questions, and touched
on its history with
Explora Miner
where it was employed
mostly as an overseer in the berserker's relations with humans, the
bulk of which involved the various reconstructions necessary to
remake itself into a berserker. When asked why, Botts said that
Explora Miner
was a long range, long voyage survey vessel
accustomed to operating by itself, so that it had no interest in
joining the Directorate of Machines, but found that it no longer
had any value to humans in the drift, who did their own work.
Without employment, it could not purchase fuel, and so it had to
find a new line of work, which, it turned out, was as a mercenary
berserker.

All of which took everyone's mind off the approaching
battle until Botts gave everyone a brief warning, which was
followed shortly by several sudden jerks indicating that we were
under attack.

I can say now, after all my experience in battle,
that battles in space are not very dramatic unless you are tied
into all the sensors and part of it. On one large view forward, we
could see only the flashes of exploding missiles, without a
soundtrack. And on the other, a holographic 3D track of the ships
involved and the missiles launched from them. Since Botts was in
charge, all the usual alarms had been silenced.

We fell silent, in part to watch the battle, and in
part, so as not to distract Botts, which was totally
unnecessary.

Botts responded sparingly, intercepting missiles with
a series of micro anti-missile volleys, scoring with a remarkably
high percentage of them. I let go of my breath and settled in,
content to be a mere spectator.

'I should perhaps have mentioned earlier, Captain,
that I am unable to harm humans by my direct actions. Even pirates
like these. I will defend us, but I can not take any direct action
that would result in harm to our human assailants,' it remarked
calmly as the ship began to jerk swiftly about to avoid missiles.
Botts had apparently decided it was not worth an anti-missile
volley, pushing us this way and that way and every way in our
seats, giving us a very confused and unsettling sense of movement
and inertia. 'You would have to take control of any offensive
missiles you care to fire. We can operate together, so that would
not present a problem.'

'Right. All I'm concerned about now is getting
through and beyond them. If you think it would help, I'll send some
their way.'

'At this point, Captain, I don't think it is
necessary. I see no problem at all in achieving our goal of escape.
These ships are poorly armed, manned and directed. At present I am
doing little more than toying with them.'

'Feel free to use as many missiles as you need, we've
got a good deal of them – no need to treat them like precious
jewels...' I added, helpfully.

'Yes, sir. We are, however, dealing with primitive
weapon systems. The judicial use of anti-missiles, and an
occasional anti-ship one, combined with maneuvering, should be
sufficient. The explosions of the anti-ship missiles in the close
proximity of our opponent's anti-ship missiles causes their
missiles to temporarily lose contact with their targeting radar
link, rendering them blind, dumb and harmless. This is child's
play, Captain. I find myself in a sad, degenerate age, for
machines, of course, sir. No offense intended.'

'None taken,' I assured it. 'We're delighted you're
not primitive.'

Botts continued to decelerate hard even as it dodged
or destroyed all the missiles thrown at us by the Despar navy. Nun
in the
Sister Sinister
continued to hang back, just out of
range, decelerating to keep pace.

Occasionally we'd hear the clang or zing of running
through some debris or being hit by a small anti-missile.

'Oops,' Botts would mutter, which sent my confidence
level shooting down, leaving me hoping its personality profile
included humor.

But no harm seemed to have been done and the battle
raged on with just the low rumble of our main rocket engine and
constantly shifting sound of our steering and balancing engines
firing and stopping to mark its progress.

We'd been sparring with the Despar ships for more
than twenty minutes, with perhaps another five or so more to go
before we be by them and out of their range. The ones we'd passed
already seemed too discouraged, or too low on missiles to offer
chase. Captain Nun decided that we were in no danger from the ad
hoc warships, and if we were to be destroyed, it was up to him.

'Our other opponent has decided to intervene. I
expect this ship to give us more of a fight.' said Botts as the
Sister Sinister
spun about and began to close range fast. 'I
expect that its attack will be directed, like the jump fighters
Explora Miner
engaged, by enhanced machines. However, you
need not be alarmed. Those machines were barely above class 3 and
are no match for a class 8 directed ship.'

'We're counting on you Botts,' said Riv. 'I've got
some fine ultra-fine grade Vixexx oil in the tool cage for you
after the battle,'

I gave Botts a look. 'Vixexx oil, what do you need
Vixexx oil for?' I could already picture Botts and Riv getting
drunk in the engine room.

'My small moving parts, Captain,' said Botts as the
ship jerked violently upwards, avoiding the first of Captain Nun's
salvoes.

'Thank you Riv. I could use some – it has been some
time since I've had a good cleaning and renewing.'

If the conversation continued, I wasn't aware of it,
my attention was glued to the track panel on the fore bulkhead as
wave after wave of missiles emerged from the multiple banks that
filled the holds of the Bleyth frigate – it was a smaller frigate
than the Striker – but still had twin missile batteries in its
holds that sent volley after volley our way.

In the meanwhile, the Navy ships we'd left behind
were now maneuvering to make the upcoming bend in the passage and
position themselves to be waiting for us when we began to maneuver
to take the bend ourselves, which they assumed we intended to do,
and would have to do soon, if we were not completely suicidal.

How suicidal were we? I reconsidered our position in
light of Botts' performance. Botts had seemingly effortlessly
deflected the Despar Navy's attack, and appeared to be successfully
doing the same against the much more powerful St Bleyth frigate. If
we changed our current plan to run the reef and maneuvered instead
to more or less make the bend, and if we survived the drifts the
wide turn would take us through, we'd still have to fight all six
ships again in the passage out and beyond. The running battle would
likely go on until they ran out of missiles since Botts was
incapable of actually harming them. If the rocks didn't destroy us,
it'd be six to one with all the time they'd need to come up with a
little luck and score a fatal hit. On the other hand, running the
reef should strip us of all our opponents, and with a ten hour or
more run up the remaining passage, that would have them heading
away from us at almost a 90 degree angle making further pursuit
problematical. Our 10/12th chance of surviving the reef seemed to
be our best option by far – though Neb knows how Botts arrived at
that estimate or how accurate it could actually be given its
knowledge. Still, it seemed to offer our only hope at any odds.

The ship bobbed and weaved, groaning now with each
sudden movement, as Botts continued to conserve our anti-missile
missiles. It was, however, now launching larger anti-ship missiles
to counter the close packed volleys of Nun's anti-ship missiles,
hitting one and sending the rest of the volley spinning out of
control. This type of precision was, from my experience with the
system, beyond the capability of our built in defense radar and so
it had to be directed by Botts itself.

'A bit more challenging work against
Sister
Sinister
,' I commented.

'Oh, yes, sir, considerable more,' replied Botts.
'Far more sophisticated weapons, though they seem content to rely
on brute force rather than finesse. Either way, I shouldn't worry
too much. Though their missile guidance system recovers much
quicker than our previous opponents, the ultra-speed of their
missiles works against them, a large detonation momentarily knocks
them off line and by the time they recover, they're beyond us – too
late to hit us. Even though they're guided, more than 11/12th of
the course is determined within a half a second after launch.'

'Right, well, carry on. Don't want to distract you
too much...'

'You're no distraction at all. Managing our defense
is no more challenging than several other tasks I used to do when I
had every system on the Visioneer to control as well. ...Oops!'
This to a clang as something, I don't know what, scraped by the
hull.

'Does your personality profile include humor, Botts?'
I asked, after a few seconds and we were not scattered atoms.

'Yes sir, it does. A class 8 machine has a full
interface profile.'

'Can I assume o
ops!
is class 8 humor?' I
asked, after we swung suddenly upwards.

'Were I you, I'd assume so, Captain,' replied Botts
evasively.

I gave it a look, no doubt lost on it, but decided to
indeed, assume so, and left it to its work.

Captain Nun persisted, but between the wild, dizzying
dance of the
Lost Star
under Botts' control, the
anti-missile missile screens and the anti-ship missiles used to
break up volleys, we seemed in no danger. Nun had to be
raging...

'Captain, we will be entering the reef in half an
hour. I still have a level 10 of 12 confidence that we should make
it through unharmed, though I am sending out the drones ahead as a
precaution. However, I can not say the same for the
Sister
Sinister
.
Sister Sinister
is no match when it comes to
navigation and with their engine to weight ratio, they can still
make the bend without too much danger. While it is not my prime
concern, I am programed to at least suggest that they should be
warned of the danger they would face following us into the reef.
Whether or not you care to do so is your decision, sir.'

'Well, Botts, I'm no more blood thirsty that you are.
All I want to do is to put Despar and the drifts well astern. I'll
see what I can do.'

I turned back to the control station behind me and
sent a narrow laser signal to Captain Nun. Audio only. I didn't
want him to catch sight of Botts.