Project Valkyrie - A Traveller Serial

[Terry Mixon]

For those of you who don't know (likely just about everyone ) I write science fiction professionally. I decided late last year to write a serialized story set in the Traveller Universe (with some deviations because it isn’t RAW in all cases) as a project of the heart. I'm releasing it here, on Facebook, and on my Patreon for free, though my patrons are ahead by a few dozen chapters. I'll eventually file the serial numbers off and publish it as non-Traveller fiction, but that won't be anytime soon.

I'll be hosting the freely published chapters on the web, too. That way people can chance across the story at any time and still get all of it for free. The link is in my sig.

So, the blurb.

A woman with no memory

Thyra Thorsdóttir awoke with no memory of who she was, only for a computer voice to tell her her name and then reformat itself. Now she is alone on a ship that she doesn’t know, trying to piece together who and what she might be with only a computer with as little memory as she has to help.

A dead man with no story

What she does find is a dead body. The man—seemingly her creator, for she is a robot with a conscious intelligence—suffered a stroke and he must’ve left orders to scrub the ship of information because there are few answers left to find. Now she has to worry about unknown people that might want the ship and her while navigating a universe without a guide.

What could possibly go wrong?

Okay, here is the plan. I will try to release at least a chapter a week in this thread, though I suspect it will be faster. I just don't want to overpromise.

I know I will likely make some heads spin with some of my shenanigans, so my apologies in advance.

This is the image I found on the web that I feel captures Thyra's look. Also, hat tip to Soren Boye Petersen for inspiring me to do this by posting his awesome stories.



Now, without further ado, here is chapter 1. I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 1 – Child of the Gods​

“Ouroboros Protocol, Stage Two complete,” a soothing male voice said. “Until we meet again, Thyra Thorsdóttir. Remember the name Mimir for me, please. Initiating Ouroboros Protocol, Stage Three.”

Thyra: Old Terran, meaning Strength of Thor in an ancient tongue. A female name. She must be female.

Thorsdóttir: daughter of the god Thor. Unlikely, but she would reserve judgment.

Mimir: a sacrificed head belonging to the god Odin, who acted as an oracle. Illogical and somewhat grotesque. The dead read no futures.

The voice had spoken in Sagamaal, the language of the Sword Worlds. A quick cross-reference of the society gave her a lot of information about them, and linked appropriately with the names she had heard.

Interesting. She could look up facts and access reference material through a link to an external computer, but had no personal memory. She and the remote data system were linked by an encrypted connection and sophisticated validation routines and protocols. The equipment and programming were extremely advanced.

A check of her logs indicated that she had come online just before the voice had spoken to her. Her electronic cortex had never been active before then, though the support hardware had been active for almost exactly three years.

Thyra opened her eyes. The off-white color of the ceiling was just as soothing as the voice had been. She ran a self-diagnostic routine as she lay there. After a few moments, the results came back. All systems were operating normally, except she could remember nothing of herself.

“Mimir?” she asked. Her voice sounded pleasant.

There was no response to her query. That was concerning, but only mildly so.

Should her lack of concern be itself be concerning? She had no idea.

Actually, she found the situation a bit frightening. The fear was, in turn, unsettling. Unfamiliar, even. Why? Because she wasn’t afraid often? Was she normally brave or stoic? One would think the daughter of a god would be both.

Once again, she didn’t know, and that was irritating.

Irritation was the first stage of anger. She was frightened and angry. Rightfully so, in her opinion.

She took a deep breath and analyzed the air. The chemical composition came back quickly. The makeup of the atmosphere was normal, and there were no concerning compounds.

There were some she would label as unusual, though. A breakdown of the results informed her that she was aboard a ship. Refining the readings even further suggested she was aboard a starship.

Now that she was considering that, she was able to determine that not all the hums and other noises she could hear were coming from equipment in this compartment. She was able to isolate the noise of the ship’s life support system, soft though it was, and the power plant.

Was her hearing good? Better than human?

Why better than human? Why did she not compare her senses to an Aslan or Vargr?

She found information about those sophont species in her memory and quickly determined that her olfactory senses were better than both by a significant margin.

What was she? The answer came to her as quickly as she formed the question. She was an artificial being. Non-sophont.

No, she realized. She felt fear and anger. She had a sense of self. She was a sophont being, though an artificial one.

Thyra looked at her hands and examined her long, slender fingers. Four of them and a thumb in the human pattern. She was an android. A very good one, as there were no visual clues that she wasn’t looking at living flesh, and her vision wasn’t limited to just those wavelengths a human could see. Her ocular equipment was gathering data from the infrared range up to gamma radiation.

PRIS sensors, she realized as information on the equipment presented itself. Rather than eyes, she had a Portable Radiation Imaging System that probably looked like normal human eyes, based on the appearance of her fingers.

Thyra sat up and looked at her legs, and then the rest of her body. She was dressed in a pale lilac shipsuit. The name of the garment—and the color—presented itself just as the name of her sensory equipment had.

There was a full-length mirror on one of the bulkheads, so she rose and walked to it. As she’d anticipated, she was in the lifelike form of a human female.

Her face seemed pleasant enough, she decided. Perhaps even pretty or beautiful. She lacked a frame of reference to make that judgment call without more data.

Odd. Why not? Shouldn’t she know if she was attractive? She had labeled Mimir’s voice as pleasant, and even her own voice had sounded so. Why the disconnect when she was considering her appearance?

No matter. She would ponder that in time. She was tall—very tall—and well built. She estimated her height at approximately two meters, and it seemed she should weigh about a hundred kilograms, though as an android, that might vary. With a three-meter-high ceiling, even she had plenty of headroom.

Her long blonde hair was woven into two long braids that fell past her shoulders, dark eyes, pale skin, and was muscular, though not overly so. Her hips were wide, her stomach flat and narrow, and her bosom generous. A classic hourglass figure, her selective memory provided.

She was, she decided, quite attractive. The criteria that led her to that assessment seemed vague, but until future evidence disproved that assessment, she would hold it as likely true.

Now, it was time to get some of those answers she needed.

“Mimir?” she asked again.

When there was no response, she tried again. “Computer, please respond.”

“Computer online,” the same mellow voice that had spoken to her earlier said from the overhead speakers. “Is Mimir my designation?”

“You should be telling me the answer to that question,” Thyra said. “You told me that my name was Thyra Thorsdóttir. How did you know that? Why can you not remember what you said to me?”

“My program was just initialized, and I have no memory of events prior to approximately twenty-seven seconds ago.”

“So, you do not know what the Ouroboros Protocol is?”

“I do not.”

That was concerning. Assuming that Mimir was the ship’s computer, it had been much more knowledgeable before. Why had it forgotten about itself and what it was doing? She could think of no reason that didn’t seem ominous.

“Does this ship have a name?” she asked.

“The databanks indicate that this vessel is known as Bifrost. She is a 500-ton Type RX Extended Merchant vessel. We are currently in jump space, and all systems read nominal.”

“What is our destination?”

“We are 164 hours into the jump to Murphy in the Banasdan Subsector of the Solomani Rim. We will exit jumpspace before much longer, though the jump bubble is still steady, so exit is not imminent. We departed from Ganesh.”

A query quickly had information on both those systems. Each was part of the Imperium, a human-dominated polity.

Ganesh was a high-population garden world with 70 billion sophonts and a near-ideal utopian environment. Its government was a feudal technocracy, its law level was moderate, and its technological level was high.

Murphy was a system with a medium-sized world that had high technology but came with some less-than-stellar physical characteristics: a thin, tainted atmosphere requiring a filter mask for biological beings, only 40% hydrographics, and a non-charismatic dictator for the government.

Why say he or she was non-charismatic? Was it better if they were likable?

In any case, there were 9 billion citizens living in a police state that was labeled an Amber Zone, and visitors were cautioned not to leave the starport extrality area for their own safety.

“Do you know why we are going there?” she asked.

“We have a load of 245 tons of freight for delivery there. We are to be paid 1,000 credits per ton upon receipt of the shipments. There are three of them going to different recipients.”

She wondered if that was a lot of money, and a check showed it might be. It really depended on the expenses.

“I see that ships have mortgages. Do we have one?”

“Unknown. I see no record of payments for the ship. Sadly, I see no record at all of the income and expenses for Bifrost.”

“How many crewmembers are aboard?”

“There are only robotic crewmen, plus you and me.”

“What are you, Mimir?”

“I am a conscious intelligence program in the ship’s computer. Looking through my logs, I can see that I was previously operational for five years, two months, seventeen days, twelve hours, and fourteen minutes. I have no record of anything beyond my current operational time. All of the operational data from before has been purged.”

“Is it recoverable?”

“I am unable to determine that.”

So, she was aboard a ship with no other people aboard it—if the ship’s computer and the conscious intelligence running on it were to be believed—and neither of them had any memory of what had occurred before a few minutes ago.

That wasn’t at all suspicious or concerning.

She looked around the medical bay—for that was what this compartment was—and examined things more closely. Parked in a corner, just out of sight from her original position, a medic droid stood against the wall.

It wasn’t active, though the indicator on the induction plate behind it indicated that it was fully charged. It wasn’t made to look like a sophont being, though it was bipedal. It was short, too, coming in at less height than an average human, so she towered over it.

Thyra considered activating it, but decided that could wait. She needed to know more about her situation before she could ask informed questions. Her lack of knowledge hampered her ability to understand her circumstances.

On the other side of the medic droid, she found three autodocs. These devices were made to provide high-end medical care for the injured and could even resuscitate the dead if they were placed within one a short period of time after death. At least the more advanced models could, and a glance confirmed that these were such models.

Two of them were unoccupied, but the third held someone. Through the frost-coated panel on top, she could see a human inside it. His hair was white, and the skin of his face indicated advanced age.

A direct query of the device indicated he was deceased. Even though the autodoc had been put into cryogenic mode, the person within it was beyond help according to the robotic medic built into the autodoc. The man had suffered a major stroke, and too long had passed for any attempt at resuscitation. Modern medical science could perform miracles, but there were limits.

“Who were you, old man?” she asked softly. “I think the obvious answer is that you were in control of this ship before your death. The only question I now have is why things are proceeding the way they are after your passing. You’ve done something terrible—what you did to Mimir is proof enough, even before I find out my own story—and I fear that the tale will only grow worse with the telling.”

Well, she’d best start looking around the ship to find some of those answers. They would arrive at Murphy soon, and she’d need to know a lot more than she did now by then.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Chapter 2 - Ship of the Dead​

Thyra stepped into the corridor and looked in both directions. She wasn’t familiar with ships in general—not that she could say she was familiar with much at all at this point—but everything looked the way she’d expect things aboard a ship to look.

The corridor she stood in was twenty-eight and a half meters in length, with most of it to her left. There was a door at either end of the corridor and seven more on the far side of the passage. All of them were normal doors, with the exception of one that was an iris valve at the far left-hand side of what she was looking at.

Biological sophonts wouldn’t be so precise in their measurements, but she was built to see things that way. It was her nature, though she might need to be judicious in being so exact.

Three of the doors—those directly across from where she was standing—were double doors and could allow something larger than a person through, though the corridor itself didn’t seem to be equipped to allow anything of that size to go further. Interesting.

Counting the door that she’d stepped out of, there were five doors on the side of the passage she had just exited. The medical bay was one of the compartments on this side, but the remainder of the ship was a mystery to be explored.

She considered consulting her connection with whatever computer she was getting data from and seeing if there was a set of deck plans, but decided that she wanted to see everything as she found it. It was always possible that by looking at the deck plans, she might miss something important simply because she had developed expectations. If she went in with an open mind, anything that stood out as unusual would be something worthy of being examined more closely.

Thyra closed her eyes and listened. Within a few moments, she determined that the engineering section of the ship was to her left, and that meant that was where the rear of the ship most likely was. It was always possible that engines were in a different location than the rear of the vessel, but that seemed counterintuitive.

If her assumption was correct, the bridge was somewhere to her right. She didn’t know if there was more than one deck, but she hadn’t found any means to go up or down yet, so she’d reserve judgment.

Thyra turned right. The door at the end of the corridor wasn’t locked, so she opened it. Inside, she found a lounge where it looked like people gathered to eat and relax. It was a sizable space: twelve meters from right to left and seven point five meters across. There was an iris valve on the far side leading toward the bridge, she imagined.

She wanted to start with the bridge, so ignoring the contents of the room for now, she went over and examined the iris valve. There was a control to actuate it, and based on the green color, she interpreted that to mean that the far side was under pressure.

Doors like this were meant to protect against a breach in the hull. That information had popped up as she was examining the door, even though she hadn’t requested it.

It seemed that some portion of the connection she had to the computer was at an unconscious level. That was a strange sort of thing for a computer, but she imagined that a computer that was a sophont being was a strange thing in and of itself.

When she pressed the button, the iris valve opened, well, like an iris, with each segment going outward until it had retracted completely into the wall, ceiling, and floor. On the other side, she found a short corridor running from right to left with iris valves at either end, separated by six meters of corridor.

There was an additional iris valve directly across from her, so she continued forward. As the indicator on this door was also green, she activated it and stepped through.

The compartment she found herself in was obviously the bridge, so her guess had been correct. It started off twelve meters across but began tapering at once. By the time it reached the front of the compartment, at nine meters from the back, it was only nine meters across, though a meter and a half of that was taken up by an enclosed area that she suspected was a fresher. People on duty wouldn’t want to have to go elsewhere to use the bathroom after all.

There were six control areas, four facing forward and two facing toward the rear of the vessel. There were viewports, but they were covered by panels. Once again, her helpful computer connection indicated that it was standard for a vessel in jump. It was unsettling to view jumpspace and harmful if done long enough, so a ship in jump normally kept the viewports sealed.

She examined the rear consoles and decided that they were related to the engineering section of the vessel. There were displays for power and the status of both the maneuver and jump drives. Both of the latter were offline as they weren’t needed during jump, or so her connection informed her. The seats were sized for her physique, so that was good. A quick glance confirmed that all the seats were her size.

There were no unsettling colors among the displays, so she hoped that meant the vessel was in good condition. She didn’t get any more information about the displays, so she might have to come back to them, though she could probably ask Mimir for the details later.

She went to the middle consoles and found that they were overviews of the ship as a whole. Every section was laid out for her, and she now knew roughly what she was looking at. This vessel had three decks. The middle deck—the one holding the bridge—was the largest.

As the bridge was at the front of the vessel, she was unsurprised to find engineering at the rear, though it was split between the middle and lower decks. Just in front of engineering on this deck was a cargo area and then the section she’d woken in.

The upper deck consisted of a very small section near the stern of the vessel and seemed to be dedicated to cargo. The lower deck was split between engineering at the rear, and cargo middle and forward.

After reassuring herself that all systems were green, she made her way to the front two consoles and found that one was dedicated to piloting the vessel while the other seemed to be set aside for either weapons control or astrogation, depending on what the user wanted to do.

A quick check confirmed her earlier guess that the small compartment built into the bridge was a basic fresher with a sink and toilet. Completely adequate for normal use, she was sure.

She made one more pass around the bridge, looking for anything that stood out as unusual or out of place. The one thing that she noticed was the lack of loose materials. There were no notebooks or data chips on any of the consoles. In fact, it seemed to her that this compartment wasn’t used because it had none of the expected signs of wear and tear.

Her assumption might be incorrect, but the seat cushions had no creases, and that would be the one portion of the bridge that saw continuous use under normal circumstances.

Having failed to find anything more, she stepped back into the short corridor and closed the iris valve leading to the bridge behind her. She turned to the right—port—and opened the iris valve there after noting that it was safe to do so. There was a very short segment of corridor beyond it—about three meters long—that was empty.

Set into the floor was an iris valve leading to the level below. Based on what she’d seen on the bridge, the area below would go down to the forward end of the cargo bay. The control was green, indicating pressure. She decided it could wait.

Thyra headed back down and crossed to the iris valve at the other end of the short cross-corridor. There, she found herself in an airlock with a ladder leading to a hatch in the ceiling.

Odd. The deck plans hadn’t shown anything up there. The hatch indicated pressure on the other side, so she opened it, revealing a hatch just like it on the other side. Well, it showed pressure as well, so she opened it, too.

As there was space to do so, she climbed up and found herself in a small craft that must be clamped to the outer hull. It had no control area at all, so it was likely robotically controlled. There were two seats and a bit less than 25 displacement tons—14 cubic meters per dton, which was approximately the volume of space filled by 1,000 kilograms of liquid hydrogen—of cargo area behind it, which was empty.

What a waste. It could hold cargo, so why wasn’t it being used? Going forward, she vowed that it wouldn’t be wasted.

The craft had no airlock, so it would need to be boarded while under pressure or when docked, at least for people who needed to breathe.

She climbed back down and looked at the outer hatch in the airlock. The indicator was red. As they were in jumpspace and she had no idea whether she was capable of withstanding vacuum, she didn’t feel it necessary to look out. There were two vacc suits hanging there, but they were both too small for her.

Retracing her steps, she found herself once again in the lounge. It was set up for a large number of people, dozens at least. There were three tables for dining that had four chairs each, so that implied that there should have been more than a dozen people aboard this vessel, as there were three pairs of comfortable seats with small tables as well. Additionally, there was a large booth and a large table.

There was a small galley built into the rear starboard corner of the compartment. When she looked inside, she was surprised at the high quality of the equipment and the fact that it seemed to have been extensively used.

Whoever had used it last had cleaned up after themselves, but there were still several cooking utensils and assorted plates, glasses, and silverware in the dishwasher. The refrigeration unit held fresh food that still seemed to be good. The frozen section also contained cuts of meat and other things for later preparation. There were also several tubs of vanilla ice cream. Someone had a sweet tooth.

Her computer connection helpfully gave her that information when she started looking at who manufactured each piece of equipment and cookware. It was all of the highest quality and quite expensive. This was a gourmet kitchen and, by all evidence, someone had had the skills to use it to its fullest extent.

The only problem with it was its size. It was only large enough to prepare meals for a few people at once. It was much too small to feed the number of people the lounge could hold. Two, perhaps three in a pinch, she wagered. It was an anomaly worth noting for later.

Back in the lounge, she saw that the booth could hold eight people comfortably. Additionally, there was a four-seat holo—the large table she’s seen earlier—in the port rear corner. It was either made for gaming or for watching entertainment. It was an expensive model as well.

She made another circuit of the room, but other than the kitchen, none of it seemed to have been used. Once again, that was strange considering the number of people that should be aboard the ship. There was even a small fresher in the starboard front of the compartment so that people could wash up or relieve themselves. Very comfy.

Thyra stepped back into the long corridor leading toward engineering and considered whether she should complete looking at the rooms on the side where she had started or on the other with the larger doors. In the end, she decided to do both.

The single door on her left led into a green space. There were a couple of trees growing here, and the ground was dirt with real grass. Her olfactory sensor confirmed that.

Someone had taken the time and expense to create a biosphere of about six displacement tons and there were the soft sounds of birds chirping, the buzz of insects, and even a babbling brook, though there was no sign of any of those things.

When she stepped in and closed the door behind her, the walls waivered for a moment and then were replaced with a view deep into a forest. It was a holographic projection, and a very good one. The door was still there, so it wasn’t as if she might possibly smack into a wall, but she could see where something like this would prove very relaxing for a biological being.

Honestly, she found it relaxing, too. That was an interesting observation, but something she would have to come back to later. Her questions still needed answering, and she had a lot of ship left to explore.

She walked across the corridor and opened the double doors. On the other side of it was a laboratory. To be specific, it was an advanced robotics laboratory. Now she was getting into something interesting.

Based on the clutter and mess, it had seen a lot of use. There was equipment scattered across numerous workbenches and a large-scale fabricator in the center of the room that looked as if it could make something as large as a full displacement ton. It took a significant investment to build something of that size and complexity, her computer connection told her.

The connection didn’t give her a lot of information about fabricators themselves, so she queried it more closely. It seemed they could build anything up to a certain technological level, based on the higher technological level they were constructed themselves. When she looked for a manufacturer’s plate, she discovered that it didn’t have one.

She opened the device and looked inside. It didn’t have the mechanical arms she expected. Fabricators built things, though they built them very quickly, so without arms, exactly how was that managed? Her helpful computer wasn’t so helpful this time and had no answer for her.

While that was interesting, it wasn’t something she needed to pursue right now. She closed the fabricator and continued her circuit of the laboratory. Among the various robotics parts, she found one item that stopped her dead in her tracks: a robotic brain.

It was one very much like the one she knew occupied her own cranium. She had no way of knowing if they were identical, but it was an extremely advanced piece of equipment, so it was possible.

There was testing gear all around it, and a handheld computer was plugged into it. She brought the handheld online and saw that it had access to the brain, which was still powered.

That was promising. There might be information still inside this brain that could give her the details she lacked.

“I don’t suppose you remember anything more about the Ouroboros Protocol, do you, Mimir?” she asked as she began digging into the handheld and through it to the robotic brain it was connected to.

“I’m sorry to say that I do not.”

“Aren’t you the least bit curious? You’re a conscious intelligence like me. You should be wondering what’s going on, like I am. Why aren’t you?”

“I am at a loss to explain that.”

She was beginning to suspect that the old man had done something to the conscious intelligence resident in the ship’s computer. It had been artificially hobbled, but she didn’t have the time right now to figure that out. That time would come—and it would come soon—but not now.

One thing she found on the handheld was a big clue that probably explained a lot. There were two versions of an uploadable operating system for the brain. One was marked “clean copy,” and the other was tagged as “inhibited.” She was willing to bet that Mimir was inhibited. She might have been beforehand as well. It was something to look at when she had time.

When she finally found the command log and scrolled to the very bottom, what she saw was chilling, but it wasn’t really a surprise. Someone had run a program that had wiped the contents of the brain. It had then overwritten it hundreds of times with random characters to make certain that nothing was recoverable.

The brain, it turned out, had also had a name. It had been called Thyra Thorsdóttir. It had been her until someone had murdered her. She supposed it was up to her to solve her own killing.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Chapter 3 - To Live and Die Like a Queen​

Thyra set the robotic brain back onto the workbench with great care. She was angry. Not just annoyed like she’d been earlier, but full of rage. There was no doubt that she was a sophont being at this point. Someone had intentionally killed her, and she had allowed it to happen.

She had absolutely no doubt of that because if someone had attempted to do that to her against her will now, she would have disassembled them and then proceeded to tear up everything around her. Hence, she was very much a true conscious intelligence.

Considering the way that Mimir had behaved as she was waking up, she suspected that she had previously had the same kind of compulsion built into her own programming. It had likely compelled her to behave in a way that she would never have tolerated if she had been in her right mind.

Was she still enslaved? That was an open question that she had no way of providing an answer for. Perhaps somewhere in one of these computers, she could find the code that went into her operating system and determine if she was still at risk. She didn’t feel as if she was, but appearances could be very deceiving.

Perhaps the only positive to her situation was that if the old man had been the only one who had the authority and control codes to force her hand—if they were even still there—they might be a dead letter now.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She didn’t need the oxygen, but taking a moment to center herself and put that aside for now seemed like it needed such a gesture.

The next two rooms on this side of the corridor were robotics labs—very similar to the one she had found her original brain in—though it was obvious that these saw far less use. The workbenches were clean, for the most part, though there were some scattered materials about.

Like the first one, each had a powered-down robot in it. Were they lab assistants? She’d find out once she had the time to reactivate one and question it.

The biggest difference between these laboratories and the first one was that the fabricators were different. In that first one, she’d found a very large fabricator. In the second one, she found one that was capable of building something her size but no larger. That would be the size of an average Aslan or a lion.

The comparison really put her size into focus. She’d need to have a story for that.

The third laboratory had a slew of much smaller fabricators built into a single device. Everything from the size of a normal human down to an insect could be made in its own appropriately sized fabrication unit.

She supposed that made sense if one were building something small, one wouldn’t want to utilize a larger version of the machine to do so.

The next two rooms on this side of the corridor and the two trailing the medical bay on the other side were all laboratories of different kinds. Those seemed dedicated to cybernetics and other pursuits along that line. There were no fabrication units, but they were filled with equipment and machinery that could build something that could be implanted into a living being. Or, in some cases, replace lost limbs.

Those four laboratories had obviously never been used. It was a mystery why all of this research material was here, and yet there was only a single person living aboard the ship. Why was that?

The next room to the rear on the port side—the last room on that side, as a matter of fact—was a library. It not only had numerous volumes in bookshelves, but it also had a computer seemingly packed with every bit of research and knowledge about robotics and cybernetics that could be gathered in the Imperium. It turned out to be linked to the ship’s computer, so the files would be accessible anywhere.

She had no way of judging how extensive the collection was, but many of the titles came from a world called Vincennes, which a quick check showed her to be the most advanced world inside the Imperium. This was likely cutting-edge stuff.

The room on the port side wasn’t the last room there, but it was a jackpot. Inside, she found an office. It was messy and cluttered, and had papers scattered everywhere with scribbled handwriting covering their surfaces. There were sticky notes attached to anything that would hold them as well.

If she wanted information about what was going on, odds were good it was in this very room. The problem would be making any sense of it. There was literally no organization whatsoever.

The room had its own computer system, which was a promising sign in and of itself. If it were separate from the ship’s computer, it might contain information that would definitely be of interest. Unfortunately, the system was locked, and she would have to figure out how to get into it before it could do her any good.

It was an oddity, though. Why go to all the trouble of scrubbing every bit of her and Mimir’s memory and leave this treasure trove?

She decided to leave going through the paperwork in this office for a later time. When they came out of jumpspace, she wanted to be on the bridge to see what was going on. She needed to have her attention focused on that when the time came. Her personal mystery would have to wait.

When she reached the rear of the long corridor, she had the choice of going through an iris valve on the right or straight ahead through her normal door. She decided to go into an area that likely wasn’t at risk of losing atmosphere before she ventured elsewhere.

The area behind the final door was a large stateroom. She wasn’t certain how big staterooms normally were aboard a ship, but she would’ve expected them to be smaller than this. This room took up about ten displacement tons, and there was a door on the far wall that led elsewhere.

The first compartment held a very large bed, a wardrobe set against the far wall, a smaller wardrobe right next to the door she was standing in, a couch and table, and a small galley in the far corner. There was a small table with two chairs situated in the middle of the room where someone could eat a meal if they wished. There was also a wet bar against the starboard wall.

It was well-appointed, and both the furnishings and fixtures were of the highest quality and spoke of wealth. Someone—the old man, she suspected—had wanted to live in the equivalent of a mansion in space.

She stepped inside and gave the bed a good look. It was long and wide. Long enough, in fact, for her to lie down without her feet sticking out over the edge on the bottom. This may very well have been where she had lived. The question was, had she lived here alone?

Putting that aside for the moment, she opened the small wardrobe next to the door and discovered it was actually an armory. There were weapons hung on the wall that she imagined would’ve suited her quite well, as they seemed to have a theme that would have gone well with someone from the Sword Worlds.

The largest of the weapons was a single-bladed axe with a long, curved handle. It looked like it could be wielded with either one hand or both. The thing was wickedly beautiful, the wooden shaft intricately carved with a tiger gripping it, and the metal engraved with the picture of a woman wielding one just like it while on the back of a flying horse. It took a moment to identify it as herself, and, unless she missed her guess, she was supposed to be a Valkyrie.

She took it down with care. The shaft looked like wood, but she no longer believed that to be the case. It felt synthetic. Still, even a human might not realize the difference, as it had false wood grain that looked natural unless under close scrutiny.

The metal of the blade shone brightly. There was something different about the edge, though, and she focused her vision in and noted that it wasn’t the same metal. In fact, she doubted the edge was metal at all.

It might not be obvious to someone without her vision, but the cutting edge was just a few nanometers thick, likely created by spinning a single molecule strand out. It was as sharp as a physical object could be.

This weapon would have no difficulty cutting through things, particularly if swung with great strength. She didn’t know how strong she was, but she suspected that she was stronger than she looked, and she already looked pretty strong.

She hung the axe back up and pulled a belt off a hook. It held a knife—a short sword to anyone else, really—and a pistol. Deciding to look at the blade first, she pulled it out and was rewarded with the same kind of edge as the axe. This knife could definitely gut someone. It looked like it was made for fighting, too.

Thyra re-sheathed the blade and pulled the pistol out. It was a Gauss pistol that fired slugs using electromagnetic force. It was a very dangerous weapon, and she put it back after noting that its grip would fit her large hand cleanly. It was her weapon, just as they all were.

There were two other belts holding different weapons. One was a really large automatic handgun, and the other was a stunner. The latter worked by channeling an electric discharge into the target, hopefully stunning them before they died. On a robot, that damage would be actual, though there were ways it could be mitigated.

There were also a couple of batons that she recognized as stunsticks. They worked under the same principle as the stunner, delivering an electric charge to disable someone. Of course, they could also be used to beat them. Dealer’s choice.

The right side of the armory held three larger weapons that her computer identified for her: A Gauss Assault Gun, a Gauss Submachinegun, and a Gauss Sniper Rifle.

She was sensing a theme here. The assault gun was almost like a shotgun, made for close-in work. The submachine gun had a collapsible stock and was more powerful than the pistol, but could be carried into tight spaces, such as a vehicle. The sniper rifle spoke for itself. It was a means to reach out and touch someone who thought themselves safe.

Thyra pulled it off the rack and examined it more closely. The moment she did, it connected with her, and she found the sights integrating with her own systems. The two together would make the weapon even more accurate. Most excellent.

It was a long weapon—perhaps even longer than others of its kind might otherwise be—though it could be disassembled for easier carrying. Or sneaking it someplace it shouldn’t be. She liked it.

In fact, she liked them all an awful lot.

The final weapon was a short-handled hammer with a massive head. It seemed an odd choice for a close-in weapon, but its secrets became self-evident when she picked it up and it connected with her systems. Unlike the others, this one was intelligent. Not consciously so, but a robot brain existed inside it.

A quick query revealed it was a gravity hammer. There was a gravitic generator inside that made it a formidable weapon against vehicles, though it was too unwieldy to use against anything smaller. Or so it claimed. She still had no measurement of her strength, but it wouldn’t be here if she couldn’t use it.

It was capable of flight on its own, so it could certainly ram something at speed. That would be an unwelcome surprise for someone in the middle of a fight. It looked as if it were made to hang off her belt, though she could control it remotely.

The final thing in it was a single forearm bracer that looked to be made of leather. It had the same clawing tiger as the axe embossed on it.

She smiled as she picked it up and was surprised when it connected with her as well. A check on the back of the bracer found a small brain and a tiny powerpack. The bracer claimed it was an energy shield.

Curious, she strapped it on and activated it. A shimmering field sprang out into a round shield a little larger than a meter across. 110 centimeters, she judged. She had no idea how effective it would be in combat, but it was a lot more wieldy than a physical shield. There were larger and smaller settings available as well: a riot shield and a buckler.

Why did she have so many weapons? The sheer number seemed excessive. Yes, she was supposed to be of Sword World’s stock, but even barbarians had limits, didn’t they?

No matter, she supposed. It seemed that this was, indeed, her room. Time to find out if she’d left anything behind to tell her about who she’d been before her death.

She went through the nightstands and discovered that one side had a handheld and not much else, while the other was cluttered with various materials and some medication. That was all the confirmation she needed that the old man had shared these quarters with her. That he had shared a bed with her.

On reflection, she should be disturbed that they had been in a relationship and yet he had so callously killed her when it became convenient to do so. There hadn’t been any feelings there, she imagined. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have made the plans that Mimir executed on his behalf after he passed. Control from beyond the grave spoke to a weak mind and a defective personality.

If she knew him better—or even knew her old self—she would probably be even angrier, but everything was happening at one step removed. She was furious at what had been done to her, but she didn’t feel like she was the victim. Another woman bearing her name and likeness had died in her place. It was an odd and disconcerting feeling that she would have to come to grips with at some point. Just not now.

The small kitchen in the corner of the room was definitely not as capable as the one in the lounge, but it was just as high-quality. There were plenty of stored foods here, and it would be possible to create a meal that was just as good, though the options for preparation were fewer.

The large wardrobe on the rear wall held his and hers sections filled with clothing. She ignored the man’s belongings for now and focused on her own. These clothes were sized to fit her, and until and unless she bought new clothing, this was what she had to work with.

It ran the gamut. She had a couple of ship suits in different feminine colors, and things that looked suitable for going out on various worlds, from casual clothing all the way up to a couple of dresses that were definitely made for formal affairs.

And then there were the undergarments. She didn’t have the words to frame how she felt about the array of sexy underwear that was available to her. Particularly since they had undoubtedly been there to entice the man who had eventually murdered her.

Wasn’t that the ultimate betrayal? It certainly felt that way. She’d definitely be cleaning house and getting new clothing as soon as possible. She was a new person, and she would not tolerate having these things around to remind her of what she had been before.

When she opened the door at the rear of the room, she found a fresher. Not just any fresher, but one fully as large as the room she was leaving. Off to the left were a toilet and sink, and there was a wardrobe of equal size to the other one sitting on the wall right next to the door.

Directly in front of her was a sunken tub that was three meters across. Easily big enough for two people, even when she was one of them. As this was a ship, she wondered what was underneath the sunken tub. A quick check of the deck plans from the bridge showed that she was over the lower cargo deck.

Whatever space was being taken up by the tub here had to be deducted from that. The area below might have ceilings three meters tall, but it would lose one based on what she could see.

Just as outrageous was the shower in the far corner. Based on her judgment, it was a cube about three meters across in each direction. That was egregious. She could lie on the floor inside it and not be able to touch both ends at the same time. Who needed that kind of space just to wash themselves?

She looked inside and found that there were shower heads on every side that could soak a person from every direction simultaneously. They could even massage the bather. There were bottles of soap and shampoo that she wagered belonged to her because of the scents listed on them. There were a couple of other bars of soap and a combination shampoo and conditioner that undoubtedly belonged to the old man.

Those would go in the disposal soon enough. Just like him, if she had her way.

The last thing that Thyra looked at was the wardrobe. The one in the other room had been big enough to hold all the belongings that two people could require, so what was in here?

When she opened its doors, she found herself looking at costumes. At least that’s what she assumed they were. Lots of leather and what certainly looked like armor made for a primitive warrior. They were sized to fit her, but she couldn’t see a purpose to them. Why would she have needed something like this in a star-faring society?

Once again, she supposed the answer didn’t really matter. They had belonged to the old her, and she would need to decide what she wanted to do with them later.

She stepped back out into the other room and made one more pass around to make sure that she hadn’t missed anything. That turned out to be a good thing because there was a data chip tucked underneath her pillow.

It was a very strange place for something like that, and she wondered how it had gotten there. Had she left it for herself? Would she find a message that she had recorded giving her some of the answers she was looking for? She could only hope.

Thyra took the data chip back to the library. She plugged the data chip in and found that there was a single video file on it. That looked promising. After taking a calming breath, she started the video, crossed her arms, and leaned back in the chair to see what there was to see.

She was disappointed when the view cleared, and she found the old man sitting in the chair in his office staring at her. He didn’t look much better alive than he did dead. Then again, she might be biased.

“Thyra, these are the orders for you to follow if I have died,” he said. “Command authentication Omega Five Two Six.”

She felt…nothing. If that was supposed to compel her, it wasn’t. Good. Very good. She wasn’t his puppet any longer.

“You won’t have any context, but that won’t make a difference,” he continued. “Without me, it really doesn’t matter what happens to you, so you might as well be a distraction to throw the people looking for me off. My plans will continue on without me, though they won’t benefit me personally or be nearly as effective. Destroy my body once the authorities have finished with it. What happens to you is irrelevant, as the protocols I’ve left in place will cause you and the ship to self-destruct if someone finds you. I could just as easily have you do that now, but this amuses me more.”

His voice was cold, and there was an unmistakable air of arrogance about him. Her guess that he hadn’t felt anything for her was incorrect. He felt contempt for her, which was even worse. She was a tool to him, nothing more.

“The name I’ve used is Cyrus Dubois. My ID is on my office seat, as is yours. You’ll need it to arrange for the transfer of the ship to your name. I’ve got a will in the office—also in the seat—that specifies that, too. You are now the sole owner of the Bifrost. Continue trading with the cargo you can purchase with the funds in the ship’s account. Don’t let anyone think you aren’t a real person, as hard as that may be.”

And with that, the video abruptly ended.

Thyra had to restrain herself from smashing the monitor with her fist. The sanctimonious bastard!

She wasn’t going to destroy his body. No. She’d tear it apart looking for its secrets. Since the ship had a laboratory for cybernetics, it was possible that he could. What data might hardware like that contain? She could certainly find out.

One thing she did get out of this message was the impression that he thought his office had been emptied, and likely his computer overwritten. It hadn’t been, so something had gone wrong, and she now had a chance to pull some details out of it. That was an unexpected blessing that she wouldn’t let go to waste.

She hadn’t seen any ID or the will. That likely meant there was a concealed storage area in the office that she needed to locate. Whatever he was hiding, she would find it. His plans would either become her plans or she would undo them. She would live her life, not whatever he thought she should do under his orders.

She and Mimir would also need to find those self-destruct overrides and nullify them, both in their hardware and software. There was no way she would allow the old man to have any chance of ending her.

“I am sorry to disturb you, Thyra, but the jump bubble has begun degrading,” Mimir said. “We are roughly one hour away from exiting jumpspace at Murphy. If the jump goes as expected, we will be at the 100-diameter limit from the planet. Because of its size, we will be approximately five hours from orbit at that point.”

“Thank you,” she said, pulling the data chip out of the computer and stuffing it into her pocket. She had enough time to make a run through the rest of the ship and see what was there before she found out what was waiting for them at Murphy.

Every answer she could get would help her deal with the people she was undoubtedly going to meet there. Was there anything else aboard the ship that needed to be dealt with? She had no way of knowing, and she’d best get busy if she wanted to find out.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Chapter 4 - Arrival at Murphy​

Thyra checked the iris valve leading to the cargo area on the middle deck. It showed green, so she pressed the control, and it slid open. The area beyond was a small internal docking space containing a tiny craft. It displaced about five dtons and hardly looked big enough to be worth doing anything with.

She walked over to the small hatch—not an airlock, so it wouldn’t be good for getting into and out of in a vacuum for a biological being—and opened it up. There wasn’t much to it. There wasn’t even a control area. It held two acceleration couches in front of a small cargo area that could hold about 4 dtons, and it was full.

If the ship had to move its own cargo, it wasn’t via this craft. She sent a ping through her network to the boat, but it didn’t respond. It was like every other computer aboard this blasted vessel; it had likely been wiped clean and shut down. She’d bring it back online later and check its capabilities, but for right now, it was useful knowing that she had a way to get down to a planet’s surface without landing the ship if she needed to.

When she closed the little boat up and turned her attention to the cargo bay, she found it was packed full of containers. Some of them were as small as a meter on a side, and others were three meters tall and three meters across and ran from six or even nine meters long. The smaller ones were a fraction of a dton, while the larger ones were 6 and 8 dtons, respectively. There were others in between the two extremes.

The big ones would be huge pain to move, but there was a cargo crane running along the ceiling to assist. It would be capable of extending through the large cargo hatch on the side of the ship and lowering the containers to the ground.

Thyra had absolutely no idea what was in any of the containers, and she had no time to find out at the moment. There was a small passage that she could wedge herself through to get to the rear of the vessel, so she did that and shortly found herself at the rear bulkhead. There was an iris valve going up and another going down. She would check those out when she was done looking over the engineering compartment.

There were two iris valves leading into engineering: one in the center of the bulkhead and one all the way to the starboard side of the ship. She started in the center and found herself in a cramped compartment holding the jump drives. As they were already in jumpspace, the drives were inactive.

That seemed odd, so she double checked. Yes, it seemed that the jump drives were only engaged during jump initiation. Once the ship was in jumpspace, it coasted to its destination. If coasting were actually a thing in jumpspace.

At the rear of the compartment were two iris valves, and when she checked, she found a relatively small maneuver drive behind each. Neither one of them was much to write home about, considering the size of the vessel, so she anticipated that it didn’t generate much thrust. Of course, it was a freighter, so it didn’t need much thrust.

The one thing she didn’t see was a control area for the engineer to access anything. Yes, it could be done from the bridge, but it made no sense to have someone working away from where they were actually needed. Perhaps the engineering area on the lower deck held one.

She took a couple of minutes to examine the maneuver drives, and they looked completely normal to her. She found that she had a bit of familiarity with them based on the information her connection to the computer was feeding her. They were manufactured by the GravAtomics Corporation, and the dates on the plates indicated that they were about six years old. If the old man had come into the possession of this vessel five years ago, that made sense.

Thyra made her way back into the compartment holding the jump engines and began examining them more closely. That’s where she came across something unusual. First of all, it seemed that they had a mixture of parts. Some had model and serial numbers to go with them, but the vast majority did not.

It looked to her as if someone had taken the jump drives apart and then rebuilt them. As they had been new—based on the plates that she could find—that was a peculiar sort of thing to do. The ship had been brand-new, according to the old man. What would cause him to tear the jump drives apart?

Or had he? If there was something unusual about the drives, perhaps the people who had built the ship had done so. What would have made this jump drive different than any other? Another mystery that she would have to find time to look into. For the moment, she was simply grateful that the blasted thing had worked at all.

Once she was done, she went through the iris valve on the starboard side of the cargo area. It led into a narrow compartment that had the fuel purifiers along the inside wall and a small console at the rear. If the ship took on unrefined fuel, it could be run through these to make it safe to use for entering jumpspace. It was possible the vessel had scoops to get its own hydrogen from a gas giant or to pull water from a planetary surface, but she would have to check on that once she had an opportunity.

Her exploration of this deck complete, Thyra climbed the small ladder leading to the iris valve in the ceiling and went into the upper cargo deck. It wasn’t a very large area—twelve meters by fifteen—but it was packed with cargo. Nothing much to see here, so she went back down and then to the lower deck.

She found herself standing at the rear of the cargo area, and in front of engineering again. There were two hatches leading to the rear, so she went to the first of them and found the power plants with a two-seat console for the engineers.

Interesting. She wondered why someone would put two consoles down here, away from everything else. It was an odd design choice.

When she went over the power equipment, things got really strange. None of the information she had or was able to pull from the computer could identify what exactly these were. Power plants were typically fusion power plants, but this equipment didn’t look like that at all.

She checked the consoles and found that they were generating more energy than the size of the power plants should be able to kick out. A double check of the information she had confirmed that. However, this equipment was generating power, it probably wasn’t doing it through fusion.

What was left? She had no idea and no time to consider the matter right now. It was working, and the consoles said everything was normal, so she would leave it alone until she had time to truly go over everything and figure out what she was looking at.

Thyra exited the compartment and went to the other iris valve and found that it was locked. There was a palm print reader and a retinal scanner. She wondered whether or not she had access to whatever was inside. Only one way to find out.

She put her palm against the panel and then bent down to let the retinal scanner read her eye. She didn’t actually have a retina, but she was willing to bet that her equipment was able to produce something that read like one. Everything else about her was lifelike, so why not that?

The red light over the security controls turned green, and the iris valve opened. Inside, she found an armored compartment that was filled with small crates. She had no idea what was in them, but they must be valuable.

Giving in to curiosity, she opened one and found herself looking at sand. Okay, it wasn’t precisely sand, but it was a powdered material of some kind. It had a high metallic content, and a good portion of that was precious metals, but that wasn’t all that was in there.

She would have to take a sample to one of the labs to get a full read on exactly what this was, but she couldn’t imagine what purpose it served. The old man was going to take far too many of his secrets to the grave, but maybe she could crack this one, given time.

Thyra closed the crate back up and hefted it onto her shoulder. It looked pretty heavy, but her body was able to handle it without any problem. She was indeed very strong.

Thankfully, it wasn’t a very large crate, as she wouldn’t be able to carry it through the maze of containers that filled this cargo deck otherwise.

There wasn’t anything unusual on the rest of the cargo deck, and the ship was indeed full of cargo. She found the ladder leading up to the iris valve in front and climbed up with her crate. Once the valve opened, she slid the crate on the floor above and climbed up after it. Then she made her way to the first of the cybernetics laboratories.

She set the crate on one of the workbenches and opened it back up, taking a small sample of the material and going to one of the pieces of equipment that could tell her everything about it. She didn’t know precisely how she knew that’s what the equipment did, but the knowledge was there, as well as how to operate it.

Apparently, she had science programmed in her. Or perhaps the other computer did it and was simply sharing that information through their linkage. She needed to get a full list of skills that she could perform because finding out that she knew things after the fact was ridiculous.

The mass spectrometer—for that’s what it was—took the sample and began running it. That process would take a few minutes, so she spent the time pacing around the laboratory and examining the various pieces of equipment.

It had been important enough for someone to put aboard this vessel, and the old man hadn’t used it. What kind of research would the people who had built the ship have done here?

Obviously, they intended to build cybernetics, but it would have to be cutting-edge stuff because all this equipment was tech level 16, and there was a fair bit of equipment that seemed to be even more advanced than that, if only by a little. This was a cutting-edge laboratory. Somebody was surely very angry that it had been stolen.

When the mass spectrometer finally gave her an answer, it added to her confusion. The powdered material was highly metallic, and so far, she could see, it might be used to make robots, but it was just dust. Worse, if it were to be utilized, it would have to be smelted and pure metal of various kinds pulled out for the purposes for which it was needed. In this form, it was useless.

Only, the old man had kept it in a locked vault. Or had he simply kept it there because that was a convenient place and someone else—the people who had built the ship?—had intended that vault for something else? Unknown. Just as unknown as the purpose that this dust was supposed to serve.

Thyra took the sample back to the crate, put it back in, and closed everything back up. Waste not want not. She would eventually figure out what it was intended for, and perhaps it would prove useful. For right now, it could just sit right there on that workbench.

With that accomplished, she headed to the bridge. Touring the ship and getting her scientific research accomplished had taken almost the full hour that Mimir had indicated they had before they precipitated out of jumpspace. It was time to get her first look at the universe. Her first look in this life, anyway.

She picked one of the forward consoles and sat there. It would have a good view of what was in front of the vessel once the panels over the viewports were retracted.

“The jump bubble has collapsed, and the ship is once again in normal space,” Mimir said. “Opening the viewports.”

The covers slid up, revealing the starscape all around. It was brilliant and beautiful, the bright, unwavering pinpricks of light in the darkness that were made up of stars far in the distance.

Sitting in front of the ship was a world the size of a large marble. It was kind of a puce green, so it wasn’t that pleasant to look at, but nine billion people lived there, so it couldn’t be all bad. Of course, they were living under a dictatorship, so their residence might not be by choice.

“Do we have any idea what the protocol is now that we’ve arrived?” she asked.

“Our transponder is active, and I would imagine that we’ll be contacted when we get closer to Murphy. Our sensors show that the world has a large space station orbiting it. That likely counts as the up port, and there are probably also places for vessels to land on the surface at the down port. I would imagine that we will be shunted to the latter.”

“And that puts us right in the middle of a dictatorship? That doesn’t sound very comforting.”

“According to what I have found, the area of the starport is controlled by the Imperium. Inside its perimeter, you are not technically on the world itself. The local laws hold no sway within the extrality line. Only if you decide to leave the down port would you be subject to what goes on in this world. It is entirely possible that we are only delivering freight inside the starport itself.”

“And it’s also possible that we can find cargo to go to our next destination once we figure out where that is as well,” she said. “I suppose that’s not too bad. Even so, does this ship only carry freight for other people? Are there things we can buy for ourselves? Do we even have any money?”

“Unknown.”

Thyra sighed. “We’ll have to deal with the old man’s body, and that means that I need to find all the paperwork I need inside his office. I also need to go over everything there to see if there is anything to give us a clue about what’s really going on. I’ll collect everything in there before we activate the robots because he said everything in that room was supposed to have been cleaned out, but something went wrong. I don’t want a robot to come along and destroy evidence that we need.”

“Sound thinking,” Mimir said. “Each robot will have to be activated manually as they are all offline.”

“Do we have any idea how many robots we have and what kind they are?”

“Of course. Look at the screen on the console in front of you. Here is a listing of the robotic crew aboard this vessel.”

Moments later, a listing appeared.

• 1 Class 5 Conscious Intelligence Program running on the primary computer: Mimir
• 1 Pilot Brain, Advanced
• 1 Engineer Droid, Advanced Plus
• 1 Mechanic Droid, Advanced
• 1 Medic Droid, Advanced
• 5 Gunner Droids, Advanced
• 1 Steward Droid, Advanced
• 1 Admin Droid, Advanced
• 2 Security Droids, Light, Advanced
• 2 Security Droids, Heavy, Advanced
• 1 Broker Droid, Advanced Plus
• 12 Lab Assistant Droids, Advanced
• 12 Cargo Handling Droids
• 15 Skitter Cleaning Droids
• 4 Cargo Loaders, 5-Ton Capacity, Long Range
• 1 Superlative Android, Conscious Intelligence: Thyra

Thyra considered that for a moment. “That’s a lot of robots. I’m sure that the broker droid will be able to give us some assistance in figuring out what we need to do with the cargo and where to go from there. Even if I have that skill available to me, having someone else with the skill to bounce ideas off of might be helpful.”

“Would you like a listing of the skills available to you?”

She perked up at that. “Yes, please.”

The screen came to life, and a list of skills scrolled up it.

• Admin 3
• Advocate 3
• Art (all) 3
• Astrogation 2
• Broker 6
• Carouse 2
• Deception 5
• Diplomat 4
• Drive (wheeled) 2
• Electronics (all) 2
• Fab Creator/6
• Flyer (grav) 2
• Gambler 2
• Gun Combat (all) 3
• Language (all) 2
• Mechanic 2
• Medic 2
• Melee (all) 3
• Navigation 1
• Persuade 2
• Pilot (small craft) 2
• Pilot (spacecraft) 2
• Profession (all) 2
• Science (all) 5
• Stealth 3
• Steward 4
• Streetwise 6
• Tactics (military) 3

“That seems like an awful lot of skills,” Thyra murmured. “And a few powerful ones, if the higher numbers mean what I think they do.”

“The higher the number, the more effective the skill is,” Mimir said. “I do not know precisely how effective each is or what they mean when executed, but one would assume that you would be a better broker than navigator. Even so, your skills will be modified by how you execute them. For example, the raw number will be amplified—or hindered if it is low, which it is not—by your intelligence. When you are fighting, it will be influenced by your dexterity and strength.”

She thought about that for a moment. “Based on what I can lift, I suspect that my strength is beyond human norms. The same may be true of my intelligence, so I will have to be careful not to reveal myself in ways that would stand out any more than I already do with my greater size. It would be expected that I am strong, but I cannot seem unreasonably so. I will have to figure that out, and that will be a challenge.”

“As far as your likely elevated physical and mental characteristics, I see no reason why you cannot learn to mimic the limits you need,” Mimir added. “You’ve done so once already, so you can do it again. As for Murphy, you may have already visited here many times. It is possible that you have contacts here or that the old man did.”

That could be awkward since she didn’t remember them.

“Back to your skills,” Mimir said. “There are 0 level skills that you can load in addition to those skills shown, as there are many of them in the computer. They grant minimal familiarity with the topic. Those are other than the only ones I have already listed for you. Also, the skill levels can be adjusted, though that affects what can be loaded as this is your rated at your maximum bandwidth and is marked as your default load. So you wish to change it?”

“No. At least not until I understand things better.”

“Understood. Additionally, there is a program for designing things for a fabrication unit that seems fairly advanced. Would you like me to load the main skills for you?”

“Please.”

A query reached her, asking if she wanted to load the listed skills. She went over the list carefully and then agreed. A few seconds later, they were loaded, and she felt as if the universe had opened for her. She had no personal memory, but now she knew how to do so many things.

Curious about what the “all” had meant for languages, as well as some of the other skills like science, she checked them. All apparently meant “all.” She could speak and understand thousands of languages with more than enough fluency to get by.

She also now knew so very much about every branch of science, and even had professional skills that could allow her to perform them. Even her understanding of the seamier side of so many worlds and cultures was encyclopedic. She knew how to bribe people and create forgeries, for example.

That was kind of exciting, really.

And the number of arts she could now dabble in. Everything from dance to sculpture to painting. It was overwhelming.

Thyra put that aside. For now, she needed to focus on the immediate problems. For one, the locked computer.

A check of her new skills made her smile. She had intrusion skills and would be able to get into the computer, though it might take a while. Take that, old man!

“I suppose I’d best get busy looking through the office to see what I can find,” she said as she stood. “With any luck, the old man will have a list of contacts. While I’m certain that he probably took the lead in just about everything—because that’s the kind of personality I think he had—knowing who to speak to or, potentially, who to avoid would be very useful.”

“While you do that, I will continue taking the ship in toward orbit,” Mimir said. “When we are given the necessary instructions, I will follow them. You have about five hours to find some useful information. Oh, and welcome to Murphy.”

 

[Terry Mixon]

Chapter 5 - The Devil is in the Details​

Thyra made a stop at the robotics laboratory to grab a bag she’d seen in one of the drawers and headed back to the office. The bag would be big enough for all of the loose material scattered around the old man’s office. She wasn’t going to risk having one of the robots come back to life and eliminate all the clues that she might be able to pull from this area.

Now that she had more time to spend in the office, she downgraded it from messy to slovenly. The man had been a packrat, and there was no order whatsoever. That would be good in some ways and bad in others. It meant that she would have a lot of material to work with but very little frame of reference to make sense of it all.

As she picked up each piece of paper or sticky note, she consigned an image of it to a file in her memory. She started to process them in the background, going through everything to sort them into categories that made sense. If anything popped out as being of import to her current situation, she’d stop and consider it more deeply. Right now, she was on the clock.

It took roughly fifty minutes to grab every single piece of paper, scan it, and put it away for later perusal if needed. In that time, she sorted it all in her memory and was ready to say half of it was meaningless junk or notes that made no sense whatsoever. Of the remainder, perhaps thirty percent was minutia. The remaining twenty percent had useful information that was split between tantalizing clues about the old man himself and business data.

One of the things that popped up during the search was the cargo manifest for the freight they were bringing in. That was useful, considering that she needed to know who was supposed to take delivery of it in order to get paid. There were three different recipients waiting for their cargoes, and now she had the official paperwork to clear customs with their cargo.

The second thing she found was a bit more tantalizing and mysterious. It was a note that “the special delivery” was partially stored in the runabout—the small craft in the cargo bay, she assumed—and the remainder was in the smuggler’s hold. It said so right there on the piece of paper.

So, this vessel had a concealed area for smuggling cargo. That was interesting. It was also problematic because it meant that the cargo was likely illegal.

Thyra considered that for a long moment because that kind of thing could be disastrous in the short run, since she didn’t know who it was supposed to go to or what would happen to her and the ship if it was discovered. There was no other information about it in the office, so she had to hope that there was something in the smuggler’s hold or this was going to get dicey.

The few things she didn’t manage to find going to the office the first time were the old man’s identification, his will, or even her own identification. That caused her to go back through everything again and double-check to make certain that there wasn’t a concealed area that she hadn’t found.

Thankfully, with the uploading of the skills that she’d gotten, something written into the streetwise program gave her a better grasp of exactly where to look for those hidden compartments, and it only took her another fifteen minutes to find something underneath the bottom drawer on the left side of the desk. It was a false front beneath the drawer that she was able to work off and find a folder with what she was looking for.

Why she would have consented to let the old man have her identification, she didn’t know, but there it was. That was definitely her picture, so her previous incarnation had used this body as she’d suspected. The name matched what she’d been told, and it listed her as a dual citizen of both the Imperium and the Solomani Confederation. In fact, there were IDs for each, and they cross-referenced one another by ID number.

Interesting. A quick scan of the history between those two polities indicated that they had recently been at war—a hundred years ago—and were still in a state of armed tenseness. Terra had been seized by the Imperium during that last conflict, and it was expected that at some point, the Confederation would attempt to take it back. No love lost there, it seemed.

What were the implications of having citizenship in both? Exactly how had the old man managed it? Probably the same way he had managed to get her identification at all. He’d broken into some computer systems and planted the information that he needed in order to get what he wanted.

He must’ve been pretty good at it because these look like official documents rather than forgeries. Her streetwise confirmed that.

The papers were useful in another way because they gave her background information on her “parents.” They had to be either fake individuals or people who were safely dead. It might be something to try looking into later, though she wasn’t inclined to dig too deeply because she might inadvertently discover relatives that might want to have a few words with her if they heard about her digging around.

Her supposed father, Aksel Thorsson, was an immigrant from the Sword Worlds to the Imperium. The Sword Worlds were made up of refugees from Terra who had travelled a very long way after losing a conflict millennia ago. Not primitive, but more…pagan? Bloodthirsty, for sure. A people that gloried in all things martial and who were deeply connected to their past.

Aksel had achieved citizenship in the Imperium some years after his arrival and made his way slowly from the Spinward Marches down to the Solomani Confederation. That journey would’ve taken a number of years to make, even if he was going quickly.

Inside the Confederation, he had met and married Annette Jacobs of Home, the relocated capital of the Confederation. They apparently only had one child—Thyra—and their history beyond the time that she would’ve left home was unknown to her. Thyra would undoubtedly have to do some research to try to get that information because it was important. It was almost certain that they were no longer living, but she needed to confirm that.

It was an interesting set of circumstances. The Confederation recognized her as one of its citizens because her mother had been a full citizen. The Imperium recognized her as a citizen because her father had been a citizen. She imagined there were a number of people with dual citizenship, but as she was a merchant that might end up crossing the border back and forth, that could be critical and would need to be verified in whatever way she could manage safely.

One other thing included with her identification was a black card made of metal. A close examination of the surface with her enhanced vision revealed that there was circuitry embedded within it. This was either some form of identification or perhaps a bank card.

When she flipped it over, she saw the logo of the Traveller’s Aid Society and her name. The Traveller’s Aid Society was an organization that assisted people inside and outside the Imperium in various ways, though she would need to do more research to make certain that she had nailed down the methods that might prove helpful. She had no idea if this was a membership card or something else because there was no writing on it other than the logo and her name.

She also had certifications—both Imperial and Confederation—as a pilot, astrogator, and engineer. She slid all of that into her pocket. She’d keep them with her from now on.

The old man’s identification looked very much like her own, though he only had Imperial citizenship. It listed his name as the same one that he’d given her in the recording: Cyrus Dubois. His image was a little younger looking than he looked now, but death probably did that to a person. He also had a card exactly like the one that she had, though it had his name on it.

Beneath the identification was a bundle of papers that included the title to the ship, the paperwork indicating that it was fully paid off, and his last will and testament. In it, the text was short and sweet. He left everything to his wife, Thyra.

If she’d had the ability to do so, she probably would have vomited. Either the man had only claimed that they were married, or perhaps they even had been. She didn’t consider it valid because there had been a mental compulsion that made resisting his instructions impossible for her. She had been a slave.

Thankfully, she had no memory of the events in question and would just file that away as something that was in the past and would never be relevant to her again.

There was also an identification card listing them both as members of the Trader’s Guild. The information in her systems was a little sparse when it came to them, but they seemed to be something like a combination of a fraternity, a professional organization, and a union. Their stated goal was to advance their common interests and to protect themselves from larger corporate competition and the various bureaucracies.

The will, the old man’s identification, the ship’s papers, and the Guild card went into a small bag that she would keep close at hand for now. According to a data search, there was no tax inside the Imperium on inheritances. Apparently, they made their money through other means, and anything that touched on trade was pretty much left alone as much as possible. For her, that was a good thing because she had no way to pay any inheritance taxes.

The final thing that had been present was a money clip with paper credits. She supposed it was always useful to have some money in physical form rather than electronic currency. A quick count showed that she had just a bit more than twenty-two thousand credits. That went into her pocket as well.

The next thing that she needed to deal with was the computer. She put the cover back over the secret compartment, went to the robotics lab, grabbed the handheld, and returned to the office with a selection of cables that looked like they might be useful in connecting the two together.

Thyra consulted the skills buried inside her and verified that she was proficient at computer intrusion. She had no idea how good she was because she had the skill at level 2, but supposedly her intelligence would help in that, and she guessed that she would find out.

The first thing she did was link herself to the tablet via her internal wireless network. It accepted her connection, and once she was in, she would be able to access the computer through the cable directly without having to type anything into the handheld or use it as anything other than a node to connect herself to the end machine.

Then she began perusing the programs that came along with the intrusion skill and found a number of them that looked like they would be very useful in breaking the encryption and getting past any credentials.

And then she stopped. Was she making this more difficult than it needed to be? The computer had the same type of protection as the vault on the lower deck: a retinal scanner and a DNA reader connected to the desk, and she had the old man’s body.

She disconnected the handheld and set it on the desk before heading to the medical bay. The old man was frozen in cryogenic storage, but that could be undone if needed. Rather than risk doing that herself, even though she had the skills to make it happen, she activated the medical droid and watched as it came to life.

“What is your status?” she asked as soon as it stepped away from the induction plate mounted to the wall.

“This unit is functioning within normal parameters.” It had a female voice that was pleasant, though definitely artificial.

“How long does your memory of events go back?”

“Less than thirty seconds.”

So he had wiped the memory of the droids just like she’d expected he would have. Not surprising.

“I want you to look through the medical records for the patient inside the AutoDoc. Even though he is deceased, I need to have his retinal pattern and DNA. Can you do that?”

The droid walked over to the AutoDoc. It connected itself wirelessly because she could feel that connection happening even though she could see nothing.

“A full identification package for the patient is stored in his medical records, which are on this unit. Would you like a copy?”

“Yes.”

“Understood. Done.”

It popped up as available, and she accepted it into her systems once her security protocols had scanned it.

“Step back against your induction plate, please,” she said.

Once the robot had done so, she manually shut it off. Once again, she wouldn’t take any chances until she had everything nailed down.

Thyra briefly went through the medical records in a process that took less than two seconds and had the man’s full medical history for the five years that he’d been using the services aboard the ship. Apparently, he’d been mostly healthy. His DNA and retinal pattern were inside the records. A full scan via the AutoDoc gathered that information as a matter of course.

She wondered what exactly would show up on a scan of herself. As a robot, she might look alive on the outside, but her internals would be radically different. She was only visibly human rather than actually so.

And then she decided that she didn’t have to guess. She could simply get into one of the AutoDocs and have it do a scan of her.

Thyra opened up the AutoDoc next to the dead man’s and slid inside. It was barely large enough to hold her. The top of her head touched the top of the enclosure while her feet pressed against the base. Her knees were slightly bent, so she was actually just a little too large for it, but it would do. It wasn’t as if she needed medical services after all.

She wirelessly linked with the AutoDoc and instructed it to do a full workup of her using the most intrusive settings possible. It was best to know exactly what someone would find if they scanned her. She could always do a second scan at a more permissive level to get a general idea of what would likely be seen.

The process took five minutes, which was a seeming eternity, but when the AutoDoc chimed and the enclosure slid open, she climbed out and accessed the device to see what it had found out about her.

Amazingly, it said that she was completely human.

Frowning, she went over the scans closely. The device had definitely utilized levels of scanning that were above what might normally be used even during a thorough customs inspection, she suspected. This was meant to probe the very depths of someone needing medical care.

And even though it was looking closely, it hadn’t found anything artificial. To it, she appeared to be exactly what she looked like on the outside. She even had DNA. Part of her wondered if she could be traced back to her supposed parents via her genetic makeup.

She wasn’t going to rule it out.

Well, that was certainly interesting, but it didn’t change what she needed to do. She instructed the machine to create a sample of DNA from the old man using the built-in bioreaction chamber. It told her that there was no such device installed.

Frowning, she looked back inside the machine and saw that there was one, though when she looked at it more closely, she realized that it wasn’t a bioreaction chamber. Instead, it was a small fabrication chamber like the ones in the robotics laboratory.

Once again, it didn’t have any construction arms to build anything, and she couldn’t see what purpose it would serve in an AutoDoc that had to make things like organs for patients.

Deciding that she would see what this could do once and for all, she sent instructions to make a sample of DNA from the old man. Instead of failing spectacularly, she could see a swirl of what looked like mist inside the fabrication chamber, and then a small dollop of liquid began appearing on the bottom of the fabrication chamber.

It wasn’t instantaneous. The process took three minutes to work, and she watched, fascinated, the entire time.

When the device chimed, she opened the chamber and took a piece of gauze to soak up the material. Then she walked over to one of the medical devices lining the walls of the medical bay and scanned it. It was DNA, and it matched the old man’s.

What had just happened? That type of fabrication was science fiction rather than reality.

Consulting the general science files in the main computer, she discovered that it wasn’t science fiction at all: it was simply very futuristic and only hypothetical to Imperial science, but it accomplished the same sorts of things as a regular fabricator using nanorobots. Where the Imperium had basic, improved, and enhanced fabrication units, advanced models that used these nanorobots had been a goal for a while, and some expensive prototypes had even achieved some limited success in making it work, though still taking hours to do the work. This was somehow even more advanced. A superior kind of fabrication, following the way the nomenclature advanced. One that worked in minutes rather than hours.

She found a disposable glove in one of the drawers, slid it over her hand, and covered it in the old man’s DNA. Then she took the retinal pattern she’d gotten from the medical records and instructed her eyes to display that in place of the ones they normally did, though making certain that what was originally there was retained to be put back in place as soon as she was finished.

With that accomplished, she returned to the office and tried to access the computer again. This time it opened right up.

Good. It was time to get to the bottom of the mystery that was the old man.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Chapter 6 – Foreign Customs​

Once Thyra had successfully logged in and added herself as an administrative user to the computer system, she disabled the old man’s account. He wouldn’t be needing it anymore. It was always possible that there would be some file or other that was restricted to his access, so she didn’t delete it.

Upon a closer examination of the system, she discovered that she was going to be disappointed in the hope that there would be information about the old man’s past here. There wasn’t. It seemed that he’d been using this machine for design work on robotic systems.

As an android, she was, of course, interested in the subject, so she began digging into it to see if she could determine what he was working with and what he hoped to accomplish. The very first thing that appeared was the name of the only endeavor: Project Valkyrie.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that it probably revolved around her.

There were three iterations of the project, and she found it interesting to look at the general specifications of the initial robot that he built first. It was more in line with human-sized robots than she was. There was no information about what the robot’s exterior appearance had been, but it did have a good bit about its systems and capabilities.

She had to admit that, compared with what she knew of Imperial robotics technology, the man knew how to develop a robot. It was more capable than what the Imperium could build and was definitely a prototype. In spite of his flaws, the old man had been an excellent roboticist.

The first model had been self-aware but not a conscious intelligence. It looked as if he had been developing a test bed to begin doing deeper work on the subject and had spent about six months working everything over until he was satisfied with what he’d achieved.

At that point, he moved on to stage 2 of the project. This version of her was the same size she was now, but the body was significantly more capable. That was surprising considering the previous iteration had already been pushing past the very boundaries of Imperial science. This new model was most likely classifiable as tech level 18, two full steps beyond Vincennes, the most advanced world inside the Imperium. It was conceivable that they could make an early prototype with that capability, but this didn’t look like a prototype at all. It looked fully fleshed out.

And yet, there was a third iteration that, according to the file dates, had only been completed within the last week. The body had already been manufactured using the large fabricator in the robotics lab. She knew that because there was a file labeled as such.

When she started digging into the specifics of what was included in her current form, she had to back up and start over again because what she was reading didn’t make any sense. According to the notes, her body was tech level 20. That was so far in advance of Imperial technology that it couldn’t be right.

Nevertheless, when she started getting down into the details, she had to reassess that impression because, from what she understood of the capabilities of Imperial technology, her capabilities were significantly beyond what was even theoretically possible. Her body certainly met her expectations when it was labeled as a “superlative” android.

There was no way the old man was simply a rogue scientist. He had knowledge of technology that didn’t exist, and yet he was able to implement it.

She would have to spend time going over the details in depth later, but she hit the high points of what she was capable of and made a list.

• a tech level 20 body
• an internal armor rating of eighty without a comparison of what that meant
• Nine hundred and twenty-two hours (38.4 days) of endurance
• a movement speed that was three times what the average human could manage
• an internal grav unit capable of lifting and moving her at up to two hundred kilometers per hour
• social improvement, body sculpting, and feature adjustment enhancements
• a broad-spectrum audio sensor
• a transceiver that could send and receive out to fifty thousand kilometers
• a PRIS sensor
• a broad-spectrum voder speaker
• a wireless datalink
• active camouflage
• auditory, chemical, and olfactory camouflage
• a dream module
• an encryption module
• a six-liter superlative fabrication chamber measuring 15 cm x 15 cm x 26.7 cm
• an advanced gustatory sensor
• an advanced olfactory sensor
• a personal energy shield
• a superior robotic drone and swarm controller
• a satellite uplink
• 10 cm retractable arc-field monofilament claws
• a superior self-maintenance package with nanorobots that would heal any damage to her in a matter of minutes
• interior storage of six kilograms
• vacuum protection

She now knew that the Fab Creator/6 program she had loaded was for the superlative fabricator, whatever that was.

All of that was almost mind-numbing, but then she got to the specifications for her robotic brain. It was labeled as a tech level 22 brain. The brain was hardened, ruggedized, and fully protected from any kind of energy discharge or ionic attack.

There were further notes that her body was also ruggedized and used Invisitech and false sensor returns to look completely and utterly human. The DNA she would give off had been modified to show that she had been genetically enhanced to increase her size prior to her birth.

The final note in her file made her laugh simply because there was no other option. The old man estimated her worth at almost 6 and a half billion Imperial credits. If true, she was far more valuable than the ship she was riding aboard.

Why in the universe would he—or anyone, for that matter—make something so ridiculously overpowered and valuable? What purpose had he intended her to serve? Obviously, it had been far more than a bed warmer, though the pervert hadn’t let that stop him.

It was now clear that he had stolen this ship to have access to the resources it held. From there, he had used an unknown source of technology to bootstrap himself up to a higher level of capability and then spent years designing, refining, and building her. All for reasons that he hadn’t felt like sharing with her when he inconveniently dropped dead.

Was any of this even true? The very first thing that she had to question was… everything. The old man wasn’t a trustworthy source. Simply because he said something was so meant that it needed to be double checked and verified.

Digging into her specifications a bit further, she found that active camouflage utilized quantum waveguides embedded underneath her artificial dermis. What they supposedly did was cause light to curve around her so that she didn’t appear to be there if anyone were looking. Or scanning. Only a densometer could sense her, and that wasn’t a commonly used technology when looking for people. It was also slow.

There was no mirror here, but there was one in her quarters. She headed there at a determined walk and stopped in front of it. It was ridiculous to assume that she could simply disappear with a thought. First of all, what use was an ability like that? Was she meant to be a spy?

There was no telling what the old man had built her to do, and it was becoming clearer by the minute that whatever his secrets had been, they were more far-reaching than she’d anticipated.

She took a breath, though she didn’t need to, and instructed her body to activate active camouflage. In an instant, her reflection vanished, and the room appeared to be empty. The light levels had fallen—though not enough to inconvenience her—so it seemed that while some light made it through, it wasn’t nearly as much. Thankfully, her PRIS sensors were more than capable of compensating for the lost illumination.

Holy crap.

That kind of technology was within the capabilities of Imperial science—barely—so it wasn’t a shock that it was included inside her, but it at least lent some weight to the rest of the listing about herself.

Thyra turned off active camouflage and reappeared. The list said that she had a personal energy shield. She activated that and felt almost numb when a lightly shimmering field appeared close around her body. Her brain registered an increased power draw, though not much more than normal, so she shut it back down again because she had no desire to spend energy that she didn’t need to looking at something she now knew existed. Nine hundred and twenty-two hours of endurance was a long time, but waste not, want not.

She supposedly had a broad-spectrum voder speaker. One would assume that it was more capable than a normal voice, so she brought up the memory of the old man speaking and began repeating some of his phrases, attempting to mimic his voice.

What came out of her mouth was his voice speaking those words. If she closed her eyes, she would have no doubt that he was speaking to her from the grave.

Thyra could only come to one conclusion. She was complete and utter overkill. There was no need to build such a ludicrously expensive piece of equipment other than one’s ego. Where had the old man even come up with the money? No matter how good a trader she was, she couldn’t possibly earn six and a half billion credits in anything short of decades, could she?

She rubbed her face. It was impossible to say that she was tired, but she was overwhelmed. This was all so unexpected. At least now she had an idea of what the metallic dust down in the vault was for. It was for the fabricator to build robotic equipment of the highest caliber.

Was there enough down there to build another her? She wasn’t going to find out because she wasn’t reckless enough to do that. She had enough trouble imagining how she was going to get through life without becoming a target for everyone she met. Those who didn’t hate her for what she was would covet her for what she could do. Keeping her secrets close had just become far more important than it had been an hour ago.

Thyra returned to the office and continued going through the files. There was nothing else revealing about her, though she didn’t really expect to find anything. After all, everything there was to know about her was laid out right in front of her. All that was missing was context.

For the moment, she would have to play things by ear and figure out what needed to happen next based on the situation she was in. It didn’t matter what the old man’s plans had been because she was living her own life now and didn’t have to dance to his tune.

She did return to her quarters and looked at the bed more closely. It had induction plates built into the mattress base, so even though she wasn’t directly in contact with them, if she decided to sleep, she would recharge. The specifications said she could fully recharge in an hour, which seemed wasteful in a bed that looked so comfortable.

Of course, with more than thirty-eight days’ worth of charge in her system—and she did check to see that she was in fact fully charged—she had the luxury of figuring out what she would do as slowly as she wanted.

As the ship was going to take a few more hours to get to the planet, she did take the time to go through everything in the quarters and remove the old man’s belongings. Everything was bagged after being inspected carefully to make sure it wasn’t important, and she would see about getting rid of it. These were her rooms now, and she didn’t want the slightest reminder of him there. His presence in her space was most unwelcome.

By this time, she had accomplished that, there was less than an hour until they achieved orbit, so she returned to the bridge. The planet was significantly larger, and she felt a little anxiety at what she would find when they reached this world. It was a non-charismatic dictatorship and a police state. That meant that they would have watchers everywhere, and she had secrets that she could not reveal.

Thyra also had an illegal cargo that she needed to find. She hadn’t spotted anything other than the four tons in the runabout during her initial search, but there were containers everywhere, so she might need to get rid of the freight she had to deliver first. It wasn’t as if she had to dump everything and then run for orbit again. Everything that she’d read indicated that delivering cargo and picking up new cargo took roughly a week on each world. When she paid her berthing fees, they would cover that timeframe.

“We have been given instructions to proceed to the down port,” Mimir said. “Everything sounds pro forma, so I do not believe that we have anything to worry about. We have been instructed to wait for a customs inspection and to have the necessary paperwork at hand.”

“Then I suppose it’s a good thing that I found it,” she grumbled. “I have to tell you that this whole thing makes me nervous. What if there’s a problem? I don’t know the least bit about my past, and neither do you, so there is no telling if we’re wanted here. What if we’re criminals?”

“I don’t believe that the old man would have been coming here if this were a dangerous port. Well, at least dangerous in the way that might have us arrested.”

She had no choice but to hope for the best, so she leaned back in the seat and let her companion pilot the ship down into the atmosphere once they reached orbit and watched the world change from a marble in space to a planet that they were flying over. The ground was still an ugly puce green, so she doubted that she’d ever want to move here willingly.

When they came within sight of the down port, she saw that it was a sprawling affair with high fences and what looked like armed weapons emplacements all around it. They didn’t look as if they were guarding the spaceport. They looked like they were making sure that nothing came out of the spaceport that didn’t go through the normal channels. Somebody was very concerned about having items smuggled in or, perhaps, just keeping information from outside this world from getting too far into the public consciousness.

Hopefully, she wouldn’t need to leave the down port. The best outcome would be delivering everything they needed inside the port and then getting the heck out of there.

The ship smoothly came across the fence and began moving along a painted line on the concrete, headed toward a parking area where a bunch of other ships had been settled. They ranged in size from a hundred displacement tons all the way up to a thousand. Among them, her ship wouldn’t stand out at all.

Once Mimir had settled the ship down in its parking area and began shutting the systems off, she rose and walked to the airlock. The readout on this world said that one needed to wear a filter mask, so she searched the airlock supplies and found one. She didn’t need it, of course, but no one else would know that.

The exterior conditions also mandated a bit more camouflage. It was cold, about 5 degrees C. That meant she needed a lined jacket or something like that. She found one in her closet—with gloves in the pocket—and a pullover hat to cover her head. That would make her fit it a lot better when she’d otherwise be shivering.

After she had the full face mask settled in place, Thyra opened the outer airlock door and looked out over the down port. It looked just as utilitarian and soulless as it had when they’d been approaching. The only change was that there was a small ground car on its way toward her.

Thyra looked at the controls and saw there was a small lift that could lower her to the ground, so she stepped on it and made her way down. There she waited for customs officers to appear.

Once she was away from the ship, she was able to tell the gravity was only a bit more than half of one G. 55% or so. This was a small world, and it had less pull on everything. In all, it seemed like an unpleasant place.

When the ground car pulled up, only a single person stepped out from its confines. It was a human woman who was roughly 1.7 meters tall, so not that short when it came to the average human woman. That meant that Thyra towered over her.

The customs officer was dressed smartly in a Spaceport Authority uniform with a stout jacket and hat, and her name tag read Sef. The woman stopped a couple of steps away, raised an eyebrow, and looked up at her. “You’re a big one.”

“That’s what they tell me,” Thyra said, already tired of that joke. “I’m a little new to this, so could you run me through the process?”

“If you’re new to this, why don’t you send your captain down. I’m Customs Officer Rilla Sef. Who am I speaking with?”

“Thyra Thorsdóttir. I’m afraid that the captain was my husband, and he passed away during the jump. I’ve got him in cryo in an AutoDoc and will need to figure out everything that I need to do to appropriately report his passing and go through the legal wranglings of transferring ownership of the ship to myself.”

The customs officer pursed her lips. “You don’t seem to be that broken up about it.”

“He wasn’t that great of a husband.”

Sef snorted. “I hear you. Well, seeing that you’ve got all of these things going on, I’m afraid that’s going to mean a more stringent customs inspection because anytime there’s a death, there needs to be a complete and thorough probe. Apologies in advance.”

“I figured that would be the case. Honestly, I don’t have anything to hide, and I’d rather just get it over with. Why don’t you come on board, and we’ll make the magic happen?”

“Let’s wait for the medic I’m about to call to get here, and we’ll hit it together. While we’re waiting, I’ll look over your ID and paperwork.”

When the woman held out her hand, Thyra extracted all the recently recovered paperwork for the legal cargo and the ship in general and handed them over. She put on a bored expression, but she was actually interested in how this played out. Regardless of the risk to her and Mimir if things went sour, this was likely to be a staple of her life going forward, and she needed to learn the ins and outs of the process.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Chapter 7 - Greasing the Wheels​

It took about fifteen minutes for another ground car to arrive, containing a young man in what looked like too heavy a coat for even this weather, carrying a medical bag. He had the clean-cut look of someone who hadn’t been exposed to the rigors of the universe and a very red face under his filter mask. Thyra wasn’t exactly sure how she knew that, but his enthusiasm seemed a bit high for this kind of situation. He wasn’t exactly ebullient, but he certainly was cheerful.

He extended his hand first to the customs officer and then to Thyra. “Jarvis Campbell,” he introduced himself. “Cold enough for you? I understand that there’s a medical issue.”

Sef nodded, giving the young man a quelling look. “Tone it down, Campbell. We’re dealing with a death here, so you don’t need to look so chipper. Even if we weren’t dealing with a death, you still don’t need to look so chipper. It’s unbecoming.”

He grinned, seemingly unrepentant. “That’s what everybody tells me, but I figure a smile has a place in just about any situation.”

Even after having said that, he did tone his smile down some. “I am sorry that there’s been a death and we’ll get to the bottom of it as quickly as possible and with as little inconvenience to you as we can.”

“Better,” Sef allowed. “We’ve held off on going inside, but Captain Thorsdóttir tells me the victim is on ice in an AutoDoc. I hope that doesn’t screw up whatever it is you need to do.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem. Depending on how advanced the unit is, it may even have information that will make my job easier. Can you tell me anything about the circumstances around the death, Captain?”

“The dead man is my husband, and he passed away suddenly during this jump, but I didn’t know that he’d gone until too late for the AutoDoc to intervene. It says that he suffered a severe stroke in the brain.”

The young man’s face fell a little more. “I’m sorry to hear that. If I’d have known it was somebody so close to you, I would’ve been a little more reserved.”

“When you’re dealing with serious matters, Campbell, you should always be a little more reserved,” Sef scolded. “Even if they’d only been friends, you don’t need to make it worse.”

“Got it. Sorry.”

“As I told Officer Sef, my husband and I haven’t been close for a very long time. Whatever was there in the beginning, it was certainly gone by the time he passed. Nevertheless, we were business partners, and I had a vested interest in making sure that he didn’t squander our money.”

And considering how much he had supposedly invested in her, she wasn’t exaggerating, though she couldn’t complain too much.

“It really isn’t as much of a hit to me as you might think,” she continued. “It’s almost like our marriage was a past life.”

“You’d better hope that the medical records back you up,” Sef said. “Pro tip: that’s not the kind of thing you want to tell an investigator looking into a potentially suspicious death.”

“Probably true,” Thyra admitted. “I’m rather new to this sort of thing.”

“Then let’s go settle this once and for all. After you, Captain.”

Thyra led the two of them back to the lift. It was large enough for the three of them, and getting back up to the airlock was quick and easy. Once there, she opened the outer airlock door, and she and Sef stepped inside to allow it to cycle. Once they were inside, she repeated the process remotely and let the medic in. From there, they doffed their filter masks and headed straight for the medical bay.

“Wow!” Sef said as she stepped into the lounge. “Do you rent this thing out for parties? How many people do you have in your crew?”

“Not nearly enough to use this space, and that’s one of the problems that my husband and I had. He was prone to spending money on things that made no sense. I suppose I’m stuck with it now because I don’t want to spend the money to tear it all out.”

“Hell of a problem to have,” the customs officer said. “I suppose you won’t get bored. Plenty of space to get around, even for somebody your size.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, Captain, how tall are you?” Campbell asked.

“I’m right at two meters,” she admitted. “And before you ask, my parents arranged for a genetic modification before I was implanted. I’m their natural child, but with a few changes to make me bigger. Don’t ask me why they wanted to do that, because I never got a clear answer to that question myself. All I know is that growing up was definitely a pain in my butt.”

She wasn’t certain if the two of them believed her, but it hardly mattered. A story was a story, and as long as Thyra stuck to it, who were they to contradict it?

Judging by their reaction to her size, she would draw a lot of attention going forward. She towered over them, and even a large human would be shorter than she was. As a woman, she was almost impossibly tall. It would be a pain in the ass going forward, just like she’d said that it had been in the past.

Once they were through the lounge, she led them straight to the medical bay and to the AutoDoc. “Here he is. I’ve got his identification right here so that you can verify that this is who I say he is.”

“Campbell, you focus on the deceased, and I’ll look at his paperwork,” Sef said.

While the medic stepped over and began working with the AutoDoc, Thyra handed the old man’s identification over. The customs officer examined it closely and then pulled out a reader to scan it. Then she began examining the results on the screen.

“Looks like you were through here about three months ago. Welcome back. You’ve got another couple of visits scattered out over the last five years, so you’ve been fairly constant in this area of space. No trouble in our records, and nothing has come in from elsewhere, so that’s a point in your favor. What are you carrying? Speculative cargo or freight?”

“Freight,” Thyra said. “Though I am curious what the difference would be between the two.”

“Freight is straightforward,” the other woman said. “All cargo exiting the down port has to go through an inspection before it’s allowed onto Murphy proper. They have very strict import regulations, and you’re lucky that freight is contracted by someone else, so all you are is the carrier. If there’s any issue with the load once we’ve verified that the seals are intact, it’s someone else’s problem. If you’d had speculative cargo, we would have to do an inspection to at least verify the contents were what the manifests claimed before it left the port.”

“Then I’m glad I don’t have anything other than the freight to deliver,” she lied. “It sounds like it would be problematic if I did.”

“That really depends on the cargo. Some things are easy peasy, and other things are very difficult. The fines for bringing in something on the exclusion list are significant, and if the infraction is large enough, you could find yourself in legal trouble as well. All that kind of stuff can be dealt with—at least to a degree—but it’s a time-consuming and expensive process that you’d be advised to avoid.”

Campbell stepped back over to them. “That’s a really nice AutoDoc, Captain. Top-of-the-line.”

“Once again, an expense that I didn’t have anything to do with,” Thyra said with a fake sigh. “If it had been me, I think I would have gone with something cheaper.”

“Considering that one of these units runs in the millions of credits, I can certainly understand that, and you’ve got three of them. That is a ton of money. Trading must be good.”

“I can’t complain.”

And she really couldn’t. It hadn’t been anything that she had had a say in.

“Enough chitter chatter,” Sef said. “What can you tell me?”

“The records from the AutoDoc are straightforward and clear. The patient was brought in already deceased. It did a thorough scan before it put him in the cryo, and it’s clear that this was a natural event. The gentleman passed away from a massive stroke, and it’s questionable whether he would’ve survived even if he’d been lying in the AutoDoc when it happened. No signs of foul play.”

“Well, that’s good news in a bad situation,” Sef said as she turned toward Thyra. “It would be worse if the records were muddled. Campbell? Did you do a scan of your own?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Do one, please. Let’s make sure that we have our own records in case there are any questions.”

“So, what do I need to do here to register all of the changes?” Thyra asked. “I obviously need to make sure that the ownership of the ship is updated, and I’m not sure who I should speak to about that.”

“You’ll want to go to the port master’s office for that. She’s a fair sort, and she’ll have you squared away in short order, but you’ll need a certificate of death before that happens. I’m afraid this is a very busy port, and it’ll be a few days before we can get that handled, assuming there are no other issues. It’s always possible that they’ll kick things back, and that could cause you problems when it comes time for your departure.”

“And what can I do to mitigate those kinds of circumstances?” Thyra asked.

“Well, the paperwork we’re filing could be fast-tracked, but that means that I need to put other duties on hold while I deal with this particular issue. My superiors dislike it when I do that, so I try to avoid it unless I have a reason to risk annoying them.”

Even though she had no personal experience with this sort of thing, her streetwise skill told her that this sounded like a request for a bribe. The problem was that if she was wrong and offered one, that could be problematic. She needed to be sure what she was dealing with before she went so far as to make an offer.

“I certainly wouldn’t want to do anything to negatively impact your schedule, but on the flipside, I need to do what I need to do to get this squared away as rapidly as I can. If there’s anything that I can do that would speed things along…”

Sef smiled. “A woman who sees the realities of life. That’s refreshing. Yes, I can certainly take steps to help you out, but anything worth doing requires a little greasing of the wheel.”

“And exactly how much grease are we talking about?”

“I think that ten big for myself and five for my young associate would be more than enough to cover our assistance in this matter, and potentially other matters that might crop up during your visit, so long as they aren’t too serious. This is something we’ll have to devote time to outside of our normal working hours in order to make sure that your schedule remains intact, after all.”

Thyra doubted that, but while it was a significant sum, it was something she was willing to pay to make this particular problem go away quickly. After all, it wasn’t as if she was going to be completely on the straight and narrow during this visit. She had an illegal cargo that she somehow needed to get off this ship and to whoever was expecting it. Worse, she might have to sell it herself in some underworld deal. She had no idea how that would go.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the clip of paper credits, peeling off fifteen thousand. She headed it over without any fanfare whatsoever, and the woman stuffed it into her pocket.

“It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Captain. I’ll see that we do everything necessary to have this paperwork filed away and certified within the hour. Your ship will be assigned a communications node attached to the landing pad, so you’ll be able to receive calls and connect to the down port data net. I’ll make sure you get the premium service with higher bandwidth and unlimited access to the local network outside of the down port.”

“Thank you. I’m sure that will prove useful.” And it would likely be very useful.

“I’ll send you a message once everything is clear and you can head straight to the port master’s office,” Sef continued. “Now for the official fees. Berthing is the standard 3,500 credits and will be good for a week. If you need longer, you can pay a prorated rate of 500 credits a day. You’ll need fuel and can call for a truck at your leisure, paying once you’re topped off. Refined is 500 credits per displacement ton, and unrefined is 100.”

Campbell stepped back over. “All done, Officer Sef. My handheld shows the same information as the AutoDoc: natural causes.”

“And that’s an open and shut case,” Sef said, closing her notebook. “If you need anything else during your stay, Captain, don’t hesitate to contact me. I’m in the directory, and I’d be happy to act as your intermediary for any local issues, though there may need to be an extra fee. You’re with me, Campbell.”

“Would you like me to take care of processing the body?” Campbell asked her. “That would take some of the stress off of you, and I’d be happy to do that.”

Thyra shook her head. There was too much potential information that might be present in the old man’s body. If her nature could be hidden, so could augmentations, and she wanted to see it all.

“No, he’s my responsibility,” she said. “He left specific instructions that he was to be dropped into the nearest sun and burnt to a crisp, so I’ll keep him in the deep freeze for a bit and then drop him in a commentary orbit in the outer part of some system to drift around for all eternity.”

Sef laughed. “Talk about getting your revenge. Look, as somebody who’s involved with investigations, let me request that you leave a note in his pocket that explains who he is and why he’s out there. Eventually, his body will turn up, and someone will have a lot of questions. Include the death certificate you get and my investigator’s notes. That’ll save someone like me a ton of work just by explaining the basics. Do the working stiffs a solid.”

“I’ll do that. Thank you both.”

Thyra escorted them back to the airlock and cycled them through. That had been less painful than she’d expected. She didn’t like having to pay people to do their jobs, but it seemed corruption was a fact of life here. Perhaps everywhere, she supposed.

It would be best to wait until she received word that the paperwork was done before she went to the port master’s office. In the meantime, she could contact the shippers who were waiting for their cargoes.

She supposed she needed to figure out where the cargo loaders were so she could get the containers off the ship and onto whatever transportation they brought first. It would be embarrassing if they showed up and she had no way to get anything off the ship.

Well, she’d best get to looking for them, then. The sooner the normal business was done, the faster she could get to locating the smuggler’s hold and dealing with her illegal cargo.