Starbuoy: Command Protocol

Chronicles of Xanctu

Previously in Chronicles of Xanctu

The viewing platform hung high above the dock where the Hectyrax was undergoing refit. Its umbilicals were neatly striated by function—but that’s where the resemblance to any fleet ship ended.

The diplomatic parsec runner would have been eyeful without the brilliance from the previous cycle—not a drug she was eager to repeat. The red sigil of the Merkan fleet was conspicuously absent. Its wedge-like silhouette was unmistakable, dominated by a large spherical device mounted beneath the nose: the primary snooper array. The aft section bristled with extra reactor pods and arcane modules she couldn’t identify. Some were clearly weapon systems: an ion cannon, a plasma projector, and a missile launcher. Others—like the bubble-mounted antennae and scattered hull filaments—remained incomprehensible.

The snooper was need to know—Dir’s domain.

Aft and upward, she picked out the looping coils of the gravity flux chillers, their thermal converters clustered toward the midline of the hull. Dwarfing them was the ram-scoop ingester—a gaping aperture running the ship’s underside from nose to tail. She knew there was another on the far side of the hull. Together, the twin turbines would give them an edge over any sub-light vessel she’d encountered.

Dir had said the ship was class. He wasn’t wrong.

There was no direct path from the platform to personnel access.

Chron silently detached from her shoulder and scanned the chamber. Far below, a security force-field shimmered.

“Let’s board.”

“It’s a long way down,” Chron observed. “The only way to board from here is that gravity slide. I don’t know why we weren’t sent to personnel access to start with.” It paused. “It’s illogical.”

“Fuck logic,” she grimaced. “I needed the view.” As usual, Chron was right, but she was too hungover to admit it. “I can handle the slide. I’ll pretend I’m cargo.”

“Your biorhythms remain erratic, Xelexnia, along with your logic. Follow me, and don’t look down.”

Shaking off the last of the fog, she followed Chron onto the slide, ensuring her boots locked onto the personnel strip. It hummed in response—then the drop began, the air trembling as the floor dropped out from beneath her.

The drop made her head spin, but the floor eventually braked to a sharp stop, leaving her feeling like she'd just survived a collision.

Grakkus watched with amusement from aboard his ship as the descent played out on a holo. “I wonder how much she enjoyed that,” he mused.

The android didn’t respond. Instead, it posed a question of its own.

“Her navbot Chron represents an x-factor we could do without.”

“It is of little consequence.”

“The ship and I see it differently. It is autonomous, self-sustaining—difficult to shut down. It houses a compact fusion core and can operate indefinitely without recharge. It also draws supplemental power from almost any source. We already have its data.”

“Military drones are well-designed. I agree. Let them board and make themselves at home. Once their mission begins, instruct the ship to disable—or mute—it.”

“This is a wise decision,” said the android. “It is done.”

The slide deposited them nearer to the cargo bay than the personnel terminal. By the time she reached the security checkpoint, her suit’s enviro module was working overtime. The armoured trooper saluted and hovered in respect. She saluted back. No need for a security chip—the trooper knew exactly who she was.

“Welcome to Dock Array 4, Captain—congratulations on your command. Hectyrax is undergoing engineering, so there’s no shuttle or gantry access. Only way aboard is through the tube. I’m sorry Captain, it’s a fair climb.”

He seemed genuinely apologetic—obviously briefed. No need to confirm that climbing a zero-g tube was hard duty, though being Captain wasn’t everyone’s idea of spacer heaven either.

"No problem, trooper."

"Thank you. Please go ahead, Captain."

The force field flickered and dropped as he shut it down, letting them pass into the airlock.

With Chron reattached to her shoulder, she sealed the hatch behind them. The airlock was small. A warning pulsed on the panel: TWO SAFE CYCLES. She frowned. Something had gone wrong.

“Who died?” she asked Chron, motioning at the display.

“The log states five personnel died. Engineering incident. That’s all.”

With a soft hiss, the helmet sealed around her head.

“Your suit is sealed and ready, Captain.”

Her suit was recent-issue, rated to keep her alive for a full cycle in deep space. Normally reserved for Execs and key personnel on the Drak, she was pleased they’d let her keep it.

“Lock cycling in ten.”

“Copy that.”

The countdown ticked to zero.

“Ready to go, Captain?”

Just in case she hadn’t heard, her visor flashed: READY. Swiping a gloved hand across the panel, the outer hatch unsealed with a subtle shift in pressure, revealing the curling interior of the access tube. Stepping through, she resealed the lock behind her.

Chron was already twenty paces ahead by the time she began the crawl.

The narrow passage twisted and swayed. Gripping the molded handholds, she hauled herself forward through the zero-g emergency umbilical. The tube undulated around her—boots gripping and releasing in rhythm with the floor’s subtle flex. Movement grew more fluid as she adjusted, but the party with Dir hadn’t helped.

Her suit’s biofeedback was still compensating—low hydration, poor metabolic recovery, and her heart rate was spiking too fast for comfort.

The undulating walkway fought back with every motion, for every step she took—tired muscles aching from the exercise. Still, she had it easy. Hard duty was outside in the illuminated spacedock—working with high-energy in vacuum.

Three techs in heavy duty suits came into view ahead, their tools sparking tears of light. Even inside the tube, the energy discharge made her suit's HUD flash orange.

:Warning: Energy Weapons Detected:

“Kill the HUD,” she snapped. What kind of repair work spiked a weapons warning?

“HUD sensor disengaged, Captain.”

With slightly more confidence, she upped her pace. After what felt like an eternity of fighting disorientation, she reached the emergency airlock door at the ship's outer hull—Chron already waiting.

Carefully lifting one grip-locked boot, she stepped across the threshold—its gravity strip releasing from the tube and anchoring to the ship’s deck. The crawl was done. The swaying tube behind her. The lock’s floor was solid, comforting mass.

The rest of the chamber wasn’t ragged either. A gold-trimmed display unit on the blue wall requested a securi-chip—and took an eye-scan without warning. Blinking away the afterimage, she dug for the chip—flashed it. The air system kicked in immediately. Pressure normalized.

The inner door cycled open. Three more paces and she was over the threshold and aboard. The lock sealed behind her. Everything looked fresh. Suspiciously so.

“Welcome aboard. It is now safe to remove your helmet, Captain Rubek,” said a voice from the ship—definitely not Chron. She assumed there was also vid. The elation of boarding her first ship as Captain was difficult to hide, but she chewed it down, keeping her exterior cool for any watchers.

Her first sniff of the ship was sweet—but standing to her left, guarding the inner lock and companionway, was a fully armoured trooper in an upgraded MUELLER 141. His suit carried the stencilled sigil of Sinchlone Industries. Lurking behind the closed visor, the trooper reacted in a manner that was battle-ready, neither saluting nor hovering in respect. His weapon, pointed loosely in her direction, summarily blocked further passage.

Her elation evaporated—temper flashing blood-hot at the impertinence. Digging once-more into her cargo pocket with a gloved hand, she located the securi-chip and waved it at the armour.

"Captain aboard! Where's the bridge vachead? This chip identifies me as the ship’s captain. Already showed it at access control, where they let me climb the tube, and I've just been scanned by the auto-security rig in the lock—without permission. Where’s your authorization to be on my ship?” she yelled at him.

Her outburst got the reaction she expected. The trooper behind the indigo-shaded faceplate promptly moved back to let her pass, but offered no ID, no voice, no salute—just pointed with the still-armed disruptor toward an adjacent corridor in a gesture that unmistakably meant: Elevator access, that way.

In his private chamber, Grakkus chuckled faintly.

“She didn’t like the trooper,” the android responded, without a hint of intended sarcasm.

“Good,” said Grakkus, smiling faintly. “she’s already improving morale. Let’s see what the ship makes of her.”

Experience told her there were more important duties than trying to institute disciplinary proceedings against rogue troopers—especially ones probably following Grakkus’s orders. And nothing was going to ruin her first boarding as Captain.

Assisted by increased blood pressure, with Chron attached to her shoulder, she stalked off in the direction pointed, feeling eyes on her back, the same sideways feeling she’d had on arrival at Starbuoy. A short walk brought her to a luxuriously carpeted lobby, which housed the gravity slide’s access door and the feeling was gone.

The door mechanism was gold, décor from an entertainment vid. She thumbed the stud, then stepped through the silvered titanium door into the luxuriously appointed interior. A gold-framed mirror caught her eye. Her hair was ruined from the crawl.

“What level, Captain?”

“Bridge access”

She barely managed a grin at her reflection before the elevator hissed open. She’d seen holos, but they didn’t prepare her for the reality of the plush carpeting and view outside. No expense had been spared in fitting her out—a design that combined luxury with state-of-the-art equipment.

Another elevator was situated diametrically opposite. There was also a full wash up. Exec heaven. Tempted by conveniently placed food and drink dispensers, she continued up the carpeted aisle, past support couches, towards the massive concave forward viewport.

Two command modules looked out into the black, separated by an ornate astrogator rig, its controls glinting with embedded crystal. Behind, a gold embroidered couch sat on a gravity cushion. The ship’s previous owner had obviously occupied it—the ruler of Phobos Prime—another place she’d never been, or heard of.

“Why so quiet?”, she asked Chron, belatedly noticing it hadn’t moved from elevator access.

“I am having power fluctuation issues. Attempting solution. Please wait.”

A distraction she didn’t need, and the A.I. that she'd been briefed on hadn't introduced itself either—except to tell her to remove her helmet. Compared to Chron, it wasn’t socially programmed. Probably evaluating her.

Sinking into the purple velvet couch, she tried to ditch negative thought processes—too much at stake. The couch came alive under her—fabric adapting to the contours of her back. Wriggling with pleasure, she cargoed her gloves and began familiarizing herself with the station.

Glancing toward the astrogator, she saw virtual stars twinkling behind its crystal display. It showed the ship's current location at Starbuoy. Like Grakkus had promised, the nav-glove, deviation plotter, omni-directional monitor and other functions were all in the right places.

A red nav-glove suspended by a gold-trimmed power waldo awaited her touch. Her left hand clenched in anticipation, but she avoided direct contact with it. The glove would wait until departure. If you were five fingered, all gloves functioned the same.

Swiping the icon for the gaze-tracker, the concealed rig powered down to eye level without the characteristic 'hissss-squeeck' that the Drak's had made. Adjusting it to her face, she noted the lumpy screws. Used to worn Fleet equipment, the control surfaces felt unused—not smoothed by hundreds of solars usage, like all the other ships she'd served on.

As promised, the tracker's simulation showed an exact copy of the virtual plot they’d been working on.

“Chron, can you confirm the plot and sync, please.”

“Attempting”—a longer pause than the bot had ever taken since it had been issued to her—“I’m sorry Captain. I cannot sync and I do not have sufficient power to display, or to compute a navigational plot at this time.”

Chron had better come back online fast. She ran a hand over the power interface for the ship's spatial co-ordinator circuits. The circuit was live. Her stomach dropped. It allowed instantaneous departure from Starbuoy, but would result in the destruction of the entire orbital. Against regulations. Stupid—dangerous. A fast escape for a few. Certainly, only death for the rest. Only one person would leave a warp-drive activated at a station.

Even though powering the warp-core used considerable resources, Hectyrax’s energy grid could light a medium sized planet. The Drak had used a tenth, though it was five times Hectyrax’s mass. She switched her irritation from the live drive towards the ship’s mute Artificial Intelligence.

"Captain on Bridge. Portray a holographic simulation of heaven and identify."

A moment's hesitation before the primary holo-display lit with a cycling planetfall scene—switching to a light tunnel, which twisted and turned like a streamer of multicoloured smoke.

“The ship has accepted her,” said the android.

“Of course it has,” murmured Grakkus. “She was bred for it. Didn’t take her long to realize she’s being watched. She’s smart, but not smart enough.”

“I am Hectyr-A1, Captain Rubek, welcome aboard.”

The ship’s voice rang loud from three sixty degrees of audio. Too loud.

“Moderate volume. Continue the simulation,” she persisted.

“I am still computing heaven Captain Rubek, however I do not have enough data for proper analysis,” it responded—quieter.

“Aren’t we all? Just give me what you’ve got.” A bypass phrase—one that sometimes worked.

The holo changed as it projected the coordinates for their jump to the Archalem System, while the astrogator simultaneously displayed the temporal event sequence in 3-D. She instinctively logged its computations, noting that the A.I. had defaulted to its primary instructions when confronted with the unknown. She wondered what else it had been programmed with. There was no way to find out. Only those who built and maintained such A.I.s could even contemplate it. Or control it. If control was even possible.

Take a breath. Pulse steadied. No flush. No twitch—was sure it could scan her biorhythms for agitation—determined to give it none.

"Okay Hectyr, cancel that command and just display operational stats on primary. Backup the details to my cabin. I'll catch it there when I’m done. Just the basics - Okay?"

“By your command, Captain Rubek.”

She smiled the smile. "Call me Xelexnia, we're a small crew".

“Thank you, Xelexnia. I would like that”

"Who’re you kidding?” she thought to herself. Most of the data scrolling on primary display she’d already seen.

“Hectyr, I want a visual tour of the ship. Begin when ready.”

Level one. By prior arrangement, she'd let Dir have the owner's suite. The Captain’s cabin was what she'd wanted. Dedicated grav-slides to the Captain and owner's cabins meant no climbing or flying up air tunnels to the bridge, like on smaller ships. On the Drak, one slide had served the entire bridge. In emergencies even the Captain had climbed the escape tunnel. The designers of this ship had no limits.

Level three. The holo flickered and showed her corridors beautifully lit by changing jewel colours. Nine cabins, each equipped with every luxury. Level two comprised of cabins for the execs and Captain, ideally situated one level down from the bridge.

Level 4. The eye continued its tour with the brain-gym, a bio-gymnasium. She skipped over these and had it enter an unmarked enviro-chamber, filled with pure oxygenated water. It hadn’t appeared on the ship’s manifest, nor in Grakkus’s brief.

“Hectyr, what’s its purpose?”

“It is pure oxygenated water for entertainment of life forms”

It was a treasure—worth a high berth on a star liner, then a luxury retirement. She left it slopping around in the massive chamber on visual display.

“Keep going with the tour Hectyr—give me anything extra you got on the ship via secondary display”.

“Accessing now, Xelexnia”

Her request yielded information. Piconex Corporation, a research and development space yard orbiting Imperion, had built the ship five solars ago—it had originally been named INFILTRATOR. The screened data told her experienced eye that the ship hadn’t warped more than a few score times. Originally designed to be crewed by five execs and twenty five crew, the latest entry in its technical log proved it had just been refitted by Sinchlone Industries with an experimental Artificial Intelligence called Hectyr-A1.

The ship was managed by the A.I.—assisted by sophisticated repair droids enabling hard repairs inside and outside the ship without relying on a crew. There was enough to make her think she’d found a backdoor to its base memory. Time hazed as she dug into the stats.

“Hey Hectyr. You’ve read my file?”

“Yes Xelexnia. Congratulations. Your jump stats are impressive”

“Thank you, now scroll history and tech details on model Hectyr-A1, same mode.”

“Accessing, Xelexnia”

She probed its history, knowing it didn’t like giving away the information.

Hectyr-A1, its builders had called it; "Artificial Ship Commander One - ASC-1", had been developed by Sinchlone Laboratories on Starbuoy, logged Stardate:10065.1. According to the file, although ASC-1 was able to manage the ship competently on its own, it had still scored 'less than perfect' in interstellar navigation and decision-making. She smiled, hoped she was still being scanned, remembering some legend of an A.I., like ASC-1, that had gone rogue and disappeared forever into deep space. No one knew why. If Hectyr had an ego, it needed watching.

“Holo, view outside” The A.I. didn’t reply, just shifted the view.

“Show me the snooper equipment mounted up front, ASC-1”

“I’m sorry I can’t do that, Captain. The scan may interfere with a calibration test, which is currently being run with Starbuoy’s tachyon com-link”

“What can you tell me about the snooper, Hectyr?”

“I'm sorry Captain, any questions regarding the snooper must be channelled through Commander Bollah. This instruction has been given to you verbally, but is also encoded.”

She bit it back. Dir didn't outrank her until they'd reached their target destination, until then it was her command. However, need to know was just that, reckoned her question had been ambiguous enough. Whatever their chance of success, if disabled or captured it might be better to know as little about the snooper as possible.

The rest of the outside of the ship gave her no new insights. Solar arrays and reactor pods. Unlimited power. Plenty of food and water. Her grumbling stomach reminded her that she’d had nothing to eat since the wheksen—most of the cycle had slipped away. No surprise. No hold back on provisioning either. The ship’s manifest divulged freeze-dried provisions for twenty solars real-time in deep space for a crew of twenty seven, longer if the crew took turns using the cryo units. Reckoned she'd seen the last of cold corridors and rationed synth. She logged out with a final command;

“I’m going below, Hectyr. Monitor systems. Lock all drive functions. Unlock password is; ‘Captain’s code transfer 9’; I repeat; Captain’s code transfer 9. Advise me if anyone, besides Commander Bollah, boards”

“Warp functions are now locked, Captain. Password confirmed per voice as; ‘Captain’s code transfer 9’.”

“Thanks Hectyr, advise me of anything I need to know. You got the bridge.”

“Affirmative Captain.”

Satisfied that the A.I. had accepted her password and locked the controls, she climbed out of the couch. Picking up her transfer kit from where she'd dropped it, she made for the Captain’s grav-slide. Chron silently followed.

A physical snoop of the ship would wait. Getting to a washup and feeding herself wouldn’t.

---

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© Return of The White Lady (1994) by Mike Kawitzky

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