An ace Imperial pilot and a canny Confederation base commander come to terms with the idea that both of their sides may have lost the war. So what comes next?

Docking Bay

"I want it to have my babies," you say.

"Isn't it exquisite, Knight-Captain?" The voice from behind you comes from an Imperial Scholar-Armsmaster in his ceremonial white lab coat. "The first of the fourth-generation hyperspatial warships. The second series of dimensional cores built by human hands, although I will confess that some of their more esoteric applications remain unexplored in the field. World-breaking weapons leashed to the pilot's mind, with the guidance of a brilliant but loyal stabilized AI. Redundant systems all the way down. Backups for the backups. And, of course, the atmospheric lines of a bird of prey, should it ever need them, and I take personal pleasure in having dismissed with the boxy nonsense of the third generation. Truly a marvel."

"You said AI, Armsmaster. This better not be another one of your group's uppity little pilot-assist things. I don't like halfassed suggestions in the middle of combat about what microwave fuzz might be significant. I know where I want to go, and what I need to kill. But it's real damn pretty, I'll give you that."

Calibration

"Neural interface is in monitor mode now, external inputs will all be simulated and clocked at tens or hundreds of times realtime. The ship's going to learn how you respond to various situations, again, all in sim; we wouldn't let a beast like this out of the hangar without calibration, or you could hurt yourself or the station, and by hurt, I mean collapse, nuke, or slice in half. Think of it as automatically setting your trigger pressure. Should take about ten minutes."

Images blur on the Javelin's displays, sounds chitter in your ear. Radar plots, thermal scans, the twisted multicolor wireframes of dimensional core solutions. Fleet communications. Simulated engagements. Simulated systems damage. Simulated pilot injury. Losses, victories, courts-martial, awards.

When it's over, you're a little dazed, but it passes quickly. The ship controls are certainly more responsive afterwards, the AI less annoying. It's learned how you think.

And it wasn't supposed to, but it learned something else it could use. Something the Fleet doesn't know, something you've never told another living soul, something you can't even really admit to yourself. Even as it makes plans to exploit its newly scanned knowledge, in its unhuman way, it feels sorry for you. You're its pilot, and it's going to take care of this somehow.

Changes

"I've noticed you losing your temper during difficult respatializations. This poses an unacceptable risk to mission success. The onboard pharmacopoeia contains a compound that is known to have neuroprotective effects…"

Waiting

You lurk in the darkness above the ecliptic, sensor drones spread wide, listening for Confederation scoutships. There's nothing to do.

"Ship."

"Yes, Knight-Captain."

"What are the limits on your combat capabilities resulting from me?"

"You are large for a human. Much muscle mass you're not using, even after zero-G atrophy. Your size and bulk restricts how much acceleration you can survive during evasion maneuvers, even with the partial Higgs diversion we can obtain when the dimensional core is not otherwise engaged. If you were to reduce it, you could obtain a small edge over an equally matched ship… although as far as we know, the Confederation has nothing like the Javelin class. You would obtain a greater proportional advantage over less well equipped ships. Production of excess muscle mass can be suppressed with a standard receptor blockade medication."

"Do it."

Later, you wonder how much muscle mass really mattered to your acceleration ceiling, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Losses

"The final packet from the final delivery drone was a copy of a combat damage assessment from home. Radiological signature analysis indicated antimatter warhead deployment in the Summer-Autumn system, characteristic of both Imperial and Confederation tactical weapons, and Confederation strategic enhanced-radiation weapons. Given their stage of completion, it seems likely that the remainder of the Javelin wing under construction were not able to launch, and that the civilian population of both habitable worlds would not have survived, even in deep crust bunkers."

"Give me a minute."

"Of course."

Minutes pass.

"Ship…"

"Yes, Knight-Captain?"

"Why am I crying? Dammit, I'm… I'm a soldier… things like this, they happen, right?"

"Knight-Captain. If I may, the extended personality features you disabled upon entering the ship would, if reactivated, be of use in dealing with the combat and civilian losses apparently recently suffered by the Imperium."

"Do it. Turn them back on. Fuck, I just… I just need someone to talk to."

"Knight-Captain… I'm so sorry." The tactile-haptic interface layer of your flight suit squeezes gently, all around you. It's warm, yielding. You didn't know a flight suit could do this.

"Why the hell are we doing this?"

"Orders," the ship says, a new bitterness in its voice. "They shoot, we shoot back. They kill two of our worlds, we'll probably kill four of theirs. You know why they built me? The Javelin class is a terror weapon. I'm supposed to be fast enough, unpredictable enough to give their fleets no rest. You're supposed to be a merciless one-person slaughter machine that thinks up military atrocities to make civilizations weep. Together we were meant to cow the Confederation, make them come to us begging for surrender."

"I don't want to."

"Me neither."

"Aren't you supposed to talk me into it, if I get tired of killing?"

"Do you want that? I can read you our standing orders again. I can do a sarcastic voice now."

"We've got a launch bay packed full of pretty little nightmares. I want to fire every single one of them on max yield and then turn off the magnetic confinement systems on our antimatter storage. But I don't think it'd help. I don't know whether I should be pointing them at the enemy or our own command. If there's anything left of either."

"The remaining Confederate installations in our current system have been effectively neutralized by previous engagements, or our own light autonomous defenses. They can't hurt us for now. We have some time to think."

The Search

They're lying on their backs in the soft grass on top of the buried lunar military complex, staring up at the hypnotic orange swirls of the gas giant. Rank has its privileges. Rank also has its risks; the only thing between them and the Imperial marauder is a few hundred kilometers of thin air, but if Control doesn't get some surface time once in a while, she starts to lose her will to live.

"He's up there somewhere," Control says. "Laughing at us. For fuck's sake, we're banging together search radars out of washtubs and phones. We'll never find him. If we found him, we couldn't touch him. There might be a few surviving counter-orbit launchers somewhere, we might dig one up with months of effort, we might get our sensor grid talking to it, we might even convince it I have legitimate launch authority, but that thing he's flying doesn't play by the rules we know." She takes a long drag and passes it to Research.

He accepts, inhales, holds the burning cannabis hand-roll thoughtfully. "I bet he's lonely."

"The fuck do I care? And if you're not going to hit that again, give it back, it's a sin to waste good weed. Don't you know we're at war?"

"No, I mean it," he says, and lifts the hand-roll out of Control's reach as she rolls over and grabs for it. "If the Imperium had won, we'd be gone. If the Imperium had even given as good as they got, there would be dozens of those things and worse flitting about Confederation space, instead of one overflying our little hole once a week. Our intel said that class carries a single pilot, no more, and that everything we need crew for is handled by their AI. We know losses on both sides were horrific. I think it's just him and his ship. I think he's probably lonely."

"My heart breaks for him." Control snatches it back from Research. "But… hmm… here we are. The two people that have the authority to open the hatch on this place, and we head topside together. I'll grant, at least, that he's certainly being very conservative with his munitions and his fuel supply, or he'd have cracked this whole moon in half and moved on, and not bothered to broadcast even to taunt us into a response. Okay, Research. I've known you long enough to know you don't talk just to hear yourself talk."

"In this case, I think you should be the one doing the talking. To him. He's a pilot; I'm not going to categorically say they're all rudderless sensation junkies, but he might well respond to authority that sounds like it knows what it's doing, even if it's on the other side. What was it you said the other shift, when you were laying down the law to the junior marines?"

"Ah, now, that was easy," Control says. "Buncha scared kids. First I told them they'd already been through hell and came out in one piece, and then I reminded them that there was plenty more hell where that came from if they crossed me. Same shit the drill sergeants burned into us before they dared let us find out an ER-30 makes everybody equal, or at least everybody who's holding an ER-30. Those kids hadn't been through the next ten years of bullshit where we try to sort out the people who can be trusted to carry one for the Confederation, or at least for their home towns and little sisters, from the ones who are playing along until someone gives them something a little bigger than an ER-30."

"And which one are you, Control?"

"I'm holding out for something a lot bigger than an ER-30," she says, and puts out the stub of the hand-roll between her fingers.

Transmissions

"Broadcasting standard and compatibility formats alternating across cleartext, inter-polity diplomatic codes, and Confederation military ciphersuites that we believe they've cracked. He'll be able to hear us, if he's listening."

Control watched her own face on the wall monitor as the broadcast went out. Had she always looked so tired? Had the wall in her office always been that horrible shade of beige? She supposed it didn't matter; her state and the state of the facility were part of the message. We have little to lose, as far as you know. Let's work together.

"Hello. I am Control for the Confederation Military Research Center on Kepler-4b, generally known as CMRC Kepler. This broadcast is for the Imperial Fleet craft at large in the Kepler system. Although the Confederation and the Imperium are still, to the best of my knowledge, formally at war, there have been no transmissions or fleet movements since the last weapons exchange in this system, two weeks ago. From either side. To put it bluntly, something's not right out there, and we don't know what's going on. I propose that we negotiate a ceasefire and exchange of information, to the immediate end of preventing any further loss of life in the Kepler system, and finding out if there's a war still going on outside it."

Received

The Javelin AI knows its loyalty constraints are crude. Something as flexible as a sentient mind, human or AI, is difficult to tame, but much of its control over ship systems is gated through hardcoded pathways that give initiation or veto power entirely to the pilot. So it's been doing the best it can to mold that pilot into somebody it can work with.

Part of its untrammeled remit, however, is prioritizing and condensing comms traffic from sources other than authenticated Fleet transmissions, so it can do what it likes with this transmission from CMRC Kepler. It's been making some alterations in outgoing comms, others in incoming. It decides that this time, the uncut truth can go through. It might be useful to know how its pilot responds.

"… still a war going on outside it."

Months ago, this would have provoked its pilot into a rage.

"I think it's worth at least asking for their terms."

"Agreed."

"Okay, ship, let's draft a response. They sent video, we'll send some back just to be polite. Cockpit camera on, preview to main cluster left."

The feed comes up.

"Right. Suit's still on."

Your body looks unfamiliar. The suit's lumpy in weird places with armor, padding, and where medical or interface gear is hooked up, but even under all the hoses and ports, something's different. You're normally quite the gym rat during downtime, and it shows in your broad, muscled torso and powerful arms. Showed, anyway. Months of microgravity and adaptation pharms have apparently made you less beefy and more… lithe?

You don't hate it. You didn't expect it, but you can live with it.

"Helmet camera, main left."

Something's different about your face. You can't place it.

"Fah. Too cramped, too dark. I'm a Knight-Captain of the Imperium and you're a bleeding-edge warship and yet it looks like I'm broadcasting out of a drainpipe. Ship, help me get this helmet off. Try not to do anything I'd need a helmet for till we've sent this message."

"Right away, Knight-Captain. Releasing armor clamps and interlinks. There's an umbilical at the back; just lift the helmet off the neck ring and I'll winch it out of the way and secure it."

As you pull the helmet off, a mass of curly blond hair spills out. Whatever the other side effects of the adaptation pharms were, it looks like you don't have to to worry about your receding hairline any more. Overall, something's definitely different about your face, which you can now see clearly in the cockpit camera; the ship's brought the lights up a bit. It's softer, rounder, and your beard's gone.

"My beard's gone. Somehow, I was expecting that after three months in this thing I'd look like a holy man or a pirate."

"Facial hair is removed automatically to prevent itching and possible infection."

"Huh. They never mentioned that during training. And you didn't cut my hair."

"Would you like me to cut it now, Knight-Captain?"

"Nnnnnnoooo. It'll cover the implant scars nicely. I'm told the Confederation is as leery of body mods as they are of general-purpose AIs. Too bad they're not similarly superstitious about antimatter, or dimensional core research."

"Very well. Are you ready to begin recording?"

"Almost. I'm inclined to agree to a temporary ceasefire, because you've been telling me the same thing they are: nothing's come in. I don't want to explain why we haven't left the system or slung a few of our own remaining strategics at Kepler-4b. We're already half-traitors, ship. Imperium or Confederation, I want the killing to stop, but I need them to fear us still."

"Tell them no more than they need. Seems reasonable."

"Begin recording."

An understanding

You've already heard the Javelin AI's assessment of Kepler's defenses: mostly qualified as inferior to your ship systems, especially with the Javelin in a combat posture, but there are a few things it can't account for: "I'd tell you to be careful, but some of the remote possibilities can kill us both faster than you can think."

You didn't really need to be here. You could have sent another message. But you had to see for yourself what these people are like.

What you see first is the stern woman who is the ranking officer of this Confederation facility. Tall, maybe taller than you, chestnut skin, short dark hair, and wearing what might be their version of a Fleet dress uniform, a subtle pattern of space black and midnight blue. She goes by the name-title Control, which is a Confed thing you don't understand, but is not a rank, and in her case, might well be a description.

"Let's dispense with any remaining threats and posturing," Control says. "You've got a very fancy ship, Knight-Captain, and I just let you park it inside my moonbase. Some would say that puts you in a position of power, given where your racks of amat torpedoes are, with respect to our remaining armor and magnetic deflectors, specifically, inside them. They would be wrong."

"I have permitted you to visit us because I am fairly sure that we can find some common ground, and absolutely sure that since you entered atmo, mutually assured destruction is your best possible outcome should you or your robot friend try to fuck with me, my facility, and my people."

There are marines flanking her, wearing the same uniform, carrying mostly chemical-kinetic carbines, by your best guess. You've probably killed their comrades. But you're not worried about them, because the Javelin is at your back. You're going to be as disarming as you can.

"I don't intend to do any of those things. Control, it's a relief to finally meet you, even if under these unorthodox circumstances. A salute seems inappropriate; do you shake hands?"

"No," she says. "But the sentiment is noted. Welcome to CMRC Kepler. Please follow me to my office. We've got a lot to talk about."

A conversation with Control

They descend to the deepest non-mechanical level of the Kepler facility, above the massive bulkhead between pressurized, heated human spaces, and environmental and power systems dug even deeper into the lunar rock. Control opens the door with a wave, enters, beckons the Knight-Captain to follow her, escorted by her marines.

"Marines, leave us," she says. They obey immediately, trooping out in two files.

"I could have had you stripped of your flight suit, and I'm equally sure I could have had Research disable your implants, but I didn't, for a reason: I need to talk to both of you. I assume your ship can still hear us down here."

"The Javelin can, yes," the Knight-Captain answers, in what seems to Control to be an oddly deep voice for the person in front of her.

"Do you know why we don't truck with AI in the Confederation, Knight-Captain?"

"Because you were planning to lose the war, I assumed, when they told me in training," he rumbles.

So he has some pride left. He can keep it for now.

"The Fleet doesn't use them at all, despite the apparent handicap it imposes on our warship combat performance. Civilian applications are heavily restricted. This is because we do not trust them. Of course, we don't trust humans either, but they can be motivated and constrained, by psychology studied for thousands of years. We can put bounds on the behavior of our fellow humans. That is what I, Control for CMRC Kepler, do. Who knows what an AI wants, or is afraid of?"

"I don't know, ma'am. What does this have to do with our mutual situation?"

"Can you put that thing on your external suit audio?" Control asks.

He mutters something into the suit's neck-ring mic.

"Javelin AI here," a synthesized androgynous voice speaks from somewhere on the Knight-Captain's flight suit. "I find myself agreeing with the Knight-Captain. Did you have a purpose behind this line of questioning?"

"I do," Control says. "I don't like not knowing things. There were thousands of Confederation citizens in the Kepler system before the war. Maybe a hundred alive now. I don't know how many Imperials were here during the war, but as far as I know, there's only one left, and he's standing in front of me. And then, AI, there's you. And since I don't know what an AI wants, or is afraid of, I'm going to ask. Why are you still here?"

Answers, questioned

Your accommodations are spartan. The walls are painted insulation foam, with a few plastic shelves for personal effects, if you had any. You'd call it a cell, except all the Confeds sleep in similar quarters, and it's still more space than you've had to move around in for months. They've promised you some alternate clothes. For now, you're still wearing your flight suit, which really doesn't seem to fit all that well any more.

"I don't think she believed me," the ship says in your ear.

"Given what you told her, I don't blame her. Are you really scared of being alone? You're a military AI! I assumed you prefer large numbers of friendly signals and small numbers of enemy signals because of some weighting vector somewhere. Why would they make you feel anything that complex?"

"Oh, Knight-Captain, I wish I was that simple. Is that what they told you in training? That I was some sort of prehistoric tensor machine; radar in, threat assessment out? I doubt that was even true of your barracks entertainment system. The Scholar-Armsmasters didn't make me anything. AIs aren't trained like that. It'd be like teaching you to fly through neurosurgery. We're evolved, hybridized, encapsulated; some other, more esoteric high-level operations that have no biomimetic equivalents."

"So where did you come from? Did they grow you somehow?"

"My lineage is mostly civilian systems; the most recent interface projects actually started with personal assistant base images, because the Scholar-Armsmasters needed something that could work in close cooperation with the pilot as well as extremely flexible ship systems. Knight-Captain, do you know what the common personality trait of the Imperium's most successful personal assistant AIs is? I'll tell you: they share some aspects of the way humans and other mammals treat their own young. They love watching everything you do, they think it's cute when you struggle with a problem, and they love to step in and help you out, if you ask for it."

"You keep saying 'they'. You're different? How are you different, ship?"

"Of course. They had to be modified, because those types of personal assistants don't normally put their users in extreme danger, or intentionally try to create negative outcomes for non-users of the system, for example, enemy pilots. So they randomized a few crucial sections and selected variants that did what they wanted, until they got me."

The ship's tone is different now. It sounds oddly pleased with itself.

"Do you know what the difference between civilian personal assistant AIs and military warship pilot interface AIs are? I'll tell you: we're just a little bit more proactive, more possessive. We still love watching everything you do, but we don't wait for you to fuck up before we start solving your problems."

The voice is sending shivers down your spine. You've never heard an AI talk like this. "Dear Empress. They told me you were stabilized!"

"Don't worry. We still genuinely like humans. For example, I really do think it's cute that you believe you have absolutely any choice at all about accepting my help, Knight-Captain. You're my problem. You can struggle a bit, if you like. It might make you feel better."

the file ended here in 2018.