The Worst Laid Plans

The rest of Nightwing’s crew arrived back at the ship before us. Over the intercom, Ulysses’s voice sounded in every corridor of the corvette, asking for the members of the Sunless to join a fleet-wide meeting.

“That was even shorter than I expected,” Stephen groaned. “Two days. The guy couldn’t give us two days. One for drinking, one for getting over it.”

“I told you not to drink too much,” Vladimir said. “And we’re not leaving yet.”

“We better not be,” Stephen snorted. “You think maintenance on Nightwing takes less than a day? And you know, shore leave back in the old days meant two weeks. Two. Weeks.”

“Shut it you two,” Diane said. “Stephen. Go check on the new engineers. See where they’re at. The rest of you, with me.”

We assembled on the bridge. Diane slid into the captain’s seat and palmed her command terminal. The lights faded and an ocean of holographic screens featuring a colorful cast of pirates and buccaneers flooded the room. Ulysses’s magnified portrait was displayed prominently at the center. Lucia stood at attention behind him.

“I apologize everyone for the quick wake up call,” he said, “but I’ve finished making preparations for our next move. I figured given the gravity of the plans, it would be better to inform you now rather than after our ships were prepped and ready to move. You may enjoy what remains of shore leave after this debriefing.”

“First things first,” he continued. “Our next mission concerns a highly involved infiltration into Caerleon space. The civilian ships, therefore, will stay behind. MB, you’re in charge of them until we return.”

The visage of a woman wearing a hairnet emerged from a sea of digital portraits. She was surrounded by a hazy mist, grinding aluminum machinery, and potted plants.

“Understood,” she said.

“What I’m about to propose to the rest of you is both highly profitable and borderline suicidal,” Ulysses said. “For those who want out. Take an extended shore leave, no hard feelings, and pray that we return. But if you stay in this meeting, then consider yourselves involved from this moment forward.”

“You think we should drop this call?” I murmured.

“If we were sane, we would,” Diane replied.

Everyone else held their breath for Ulysses’s next words.

“Thank you everyone,” he said. He tapped his console. A Caerleon world came into view. “Our next target is Fortress World Hadrian.”

By now, I had experienced enough surprises from the Sunless Fleet to not jolt out of my seat, but I sensed my soul wither inside my body. And I wasn’t alone. Lucia, who stood behind Ulysses, widened her eyes. Diane frowned and gripped her chin. Even Emiko shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

“He’s insane,” I whispered.

An uneasy atmosphere settled in. I didn’t blame anyone for looking distressed. Fortress World Hadrian was the imperium’s crown jewel; it was the shipyard upon which Caerleon’s naval supremacy was built. Labeling it a “target” was the largest understatement of the century.

Diane tapped her terminal. Her portrait surfaced next to Ulysses.

“What’s the target?” she asked. “Let’s not drag out anyone’s festering anxieties, Ulysses. You’ve asked us to rattle the hornet’s nest. I assume you’re uninterested in total war with the imperium.”

“Yes, agreed,” Ulysses nodded. “We’re going to retrieve the Caxton Manuscript.”

I clenched my fists and bit my tongue.

“Permission to speak,” I growled.

“Denied,” Diane turned again to Ulysses. “So the Caxton is on Hadrian? I suppose it’s possible.”

“It’s not just possible, it’s a certainty.” Ulysses answered. “I have it on good authority.”

“And what’s considered good authority?” someone asked. It was Alexis. “It’ll have to be more than your usual informants to convince us to throw our ships against Caerleon's attack dogs.”

“I’m glad you asked.”

Ulysses smiled. He nodded to Lucia, who walked to Circe’s command console and tapped a few keys. The console hummed and resonated with her touch. A fountain of pixels spewed forth from the display terminal. They coalesced and began to form the bodice of a woman, with flowing braided hair and an emerald gown.

But she was not real. Signs and symbols flowed through her arms instead of blood. The irises behind her eyes magnified and minimized as her retina adjusted to Circe’s lighting environment. Most importantly, her hands carried with it a medal that she proudly displayed, a chromatic Möbius strip dancing in perpetual motion, the governing emblem of the artificial intelligence network, The Federation of H.

“This is Nemura,” Ulysses announced. “As you all have rightly guessed, she’s a Federation AI and will be serving from now on as Circe’s shipboard companion. She’s the one that informed us of the Caxton's location. Is that good enough?”

“Permission. To. Speak,” I said.

“Denied,” Diane repeated.

The meeting fell into mayhem. Members of the fleet turned livid, and a shouting match erupted among various portraits around the room. Among a litany of unintelligible shouting included curses towards the Federation, calls for Ulysses to be summarily executed, and a threat of imminent mutiny.

“What’s everyone’s beef with the Federation?” I asked.

“Are you kidding? They supply the Caerleon military with weapons, with intelligence,” Diane replied. “Not to mention they’re deeply untrustworthy. Not even the imperium fully trusts their AI companions.”

“We’ve had a non-aggression pact for years.”

“Then why do you think Nightwing was born?” Diane asked. “One of the few ships in the fleet with no slottable AI console.”

“Settle down everyone,” Ulysses pressed his console and muted everyone’s channels. “Our quarrels with the Federation remain the same. This is not an alliance, but a temporary alignment of goals. Nemura, if you would.”

The AI approached the video terminal.

“The fate of the Caerleon Imperium remains uncertain,” Nemura spoke in a cool, monotonous voice. “Merlin, senior executor of the Primary Matrix, has guided the crowned prince since his early days, but in spite of this, we see a non-negligible probability of the imperium’s collapse within two generations. Extracting the Caxton Manuscript serves dual functions. First, it secures the safety of an imperial relic from falling into the wrong hands. Second, in all probabilistic models, retrieving the Caxton Manuscript prolongs the life of the Caerleon Imperium by several hundred years. It is in the Federation’s interest for this to occur while we search for a long term solution.”

Friede’s portrait rose to the front of the room. Ulysses toggled his console to allow her to speak. I noticed she was wearing the dress we had bought together.

“Wrong hands? In what universe does the Federation want this relic in the hands of pirates?” she asked.

“You say ‘in what universe’ as a matter of expression,” Nemura answered. “Yet, in our probabilistic modeling, the Federation prefers the Caxton Manuscript in the hands of the Sunless Fleet in ninety three point two four percent of all possible scenarios. We do not expect you to understand. We have simply determined that you should be the recipients of the relic.”

Something was wrong. Nemura’s answer was too convenient. I could tell Diane wasn’t buying this bullshit either. She gnawed on one of her finger nails and grumbled to herself.

“Does everyone in the Federation approve of this?” Diane finally asked. “The Federation and the imperium share a multigenerational non-aggression pact. If the imperium knows you’ve schemed against them, you risk war with them.”

“We have taken necessary measures to ensure confidentiality–”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Diane interjected. “Is the Federation collectively aligned on this course of action?”

That the question was direct was important. All AIs produced by the Federation of H shared one unanimous trait. None of them could lie, which made deflection their only alternative. Nemura stared blankly at the screen for two seconds before responding.

“No,” Nemura answered. “They are not.”

Another round of contentious shouts swept the room, though most of them remained muted by Ulysses and appeared only as contorted and angry faces.

“I can sense doubt in your faces,” Nemura said, “Let me be clear about my intentions. I represent a splinter faction within the Federation. In less than one solar year, the prince, upon being crowned King of Caerleon will likely initiate the final mission of the imperium, a quest for the Chalice of Time, the same object that your Pirate King now seeks.”

Caerleon warehoused many so-called “legendary” relics. Most of them were artifacts from the Old World, from when humans first lived on our origin planet and carried no particular significance or properties.

The Chalice of Time was the legendary relic, the relic to end all relics, literally. Like its namesake, the myths suggested that the artifact was capable of manipulating time. Going forwards, going backwards, going anywhere would be a cinch with the chalice in your possession. It was one of a handful of artifacts never procured by the imperium, which made some skeptical that it even existed. I mean, an all powerful time bending device?

And now, an AI from the Federation of H was saying that the imperium was set on finally finding it. Arthur had never mentioned this to me.

“Caerleon will use the chalice to restore the imperium to a state before the uprisings on Kapur,” Nemura continued. “Or perhaps a world state further behind us. The quest will inevitably fail. King Pendragon will send his best knights, and they will, one by one, perish in their attempts to find it. The Federation has foreseen this.”

I could see satisfied smirks arising throughout the crowd. Nemura’s explanation wasn’t helping. If not securing the Caxton Manuscript led to the fall of the imperium, then what was the Sunless’s motivation to steal it?

Ulysses remained suspiciously quiet throughout all of these exchanges. I imagined he wanted us to exhaust all of our questions. Maybe he knew that we would be satisfied with his plans when Nemura was done.

“You all will not survive the fall of the imperium,” Nemura said. The smirks disappeared. “In all simulated scenarios, the empire that rises from the imperium’s ashes will sweep the galaxy clean of pirates and outlaws. You will be helpless against its onslaught. You will be rounded up and executed. All of you.”

“That’s horseshit,” Friede spat.

“My programming matrix denies me the privilege of engaging in ‘horseshit,’ captain,” Nemura replied. “Rest assured, our goals are aligned. The Caxton Manuscript is one of two manuscripts that points to the location of the chalice. Caerleon does not possess the second manuscript. Securing the Caxton will severely deter the imperium’s search.”

“Of course,” Ulysses finally spoke. “This means the imperials will be focusing their eyes on us, on the manuscript that we intend to steal. But that shouldn’t be an issue. Once we’ve secured the Caxton, we’re close to finishing our mission. I promise you. Home is close, my friends. The end of the Sunless Fleet is near.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, but Ulysses’s words resonated with the others. One by one, the reservations among the fleet seemed to evaporate. A whiff of nostalgia filled the air. Some of the members in the meeting even looked…teary eyed.

“This is all well and good,” Diane sighed. “But we’ve one problem. Hadrian. Even with Nightwing, we don’t have the firepower to lay siege to it, let alone land on the planet to search for what we’re after. What’s different? What’s chang–”

Diane cut herself off mid-sentence. She turned to look at me. The rest of Nightwing’s crew turned to look at me. Ulysses grinned.

“Everything,” he said. “Everything’s changed.”