Deep

Chapter 8 After the walk.

I watched the medical transport leave. I turned my attention to the remaining personnel, who were still stowing their kit. 

'Well, Jorge, we dodged a bullet today thanks to our resident AI.' 

'To think I almost told her No, on those shield bots.' 

'Jorge, that's history; move forward and forget the eclipse.' He still looked forlorn as my words flew past him.

'Were any of the other techs hurt?' The suit's medical sensors only register severe injuries, so they miss minor ones, like the bump on Duro's head.

'No. Duro was the only one injured.' He said, sounding both angry and relieved at the same time.

'And the mission?' I asked.

'They swapped the original components out, and they are en route to engineering for diagnosis.' 

'Chain of custody?' 

'Under human supervision from removal to engineering.' 

'Good.'

'The replacements should be operational within the hour.'

'Great. Let's hope that fixes things.' I said, though I did expect the opposite.  

'Was it really worth it? Placing my underlings at risk because we don't trust AIs?' His voice carried a rhetorical tone. 

'Worth it? Probably not Jorge. However, it was necessary.'   

Both Jorge and I are members of the "can we trust them now?" camp of AI human relations. Problem is the population of the "They will kill us all" camp was large enough that we had to appease them. The whole point of the stupid spacewalk was just that, appeasement of idiots.

Humanity has always been that way. We demand objects to hate... or, better yet, something to fear. If it was not about tribe, race, sex, sexual orientation, religion and, ever since Singularity, AIs, it would be something else. 

'Sir... Captain?' 

'Hmm, yes, Lt Commander?' I asked, jarred out of my musings.

'Why did you bring Alice down to escort Duro to Medical?'

'I figured it would be a great opportunity for both of them,' 

'Oh?' He arched an eyebrow.

'Petty Officer Duro gets to thank Alice, and she needs to see her importance and value to the crew.'

He looked confused.

'She is stressing over the communication loss even more than us.'

'Are you sure?' 

Now I was confused. I was certain he would notice oddities in Alice's behaviour.

'You noticed nothing wrong with Alice today?' 

'No, I haven't.' 

'Odd... I must be mistaken, then.' I frowned, puzzled by the situation. 

Am I the only one to notice Alice's subtleties? Nah... but then again. 

I need to be careful; hints of AI instability are serious matters and the general solution to a malfunctioning AI was to pull the plug. 

Alice is quantum AIs. Instead of being programmed, we teach Quantum AIs.

 They make their memories and thought patterns through quantum entangled bits that require constant power to exist. You switch off the power for an instant. All that is the quantum AI "was" dies, it is essentially murder.  

'Jorge, in three hours this communication blackout should end if we were hacked.' I took a deep breath. 'We need a thorough report by then.'

'Understood.'

'Get something to eat, you can't perform at your best if you're not fueled.'

 He smiled, saluted and departed for engineering... and a meal, I hoped.

Sigh, I think I placed him under an unfair amount of pressure. 

If they restore communications, we will have to prove we were not incompetent. We also will have to show that we did our best to get it fixed. Or heads will roll, well, my head, I am not the type of Captain that tosses my underlings out airlocks.

I couldn't dodge the nagging concern that this was not just a simple communications blackout. 

So many disparate communication systems lost simultaneously across the entire solar system? It just should not be possible.

I helped the remaining crew stow their gear on the service transport. That may have been a bad idea.

'Sir. What do you think is going on?' asked Petty Officer Remi Wallace. Her face filled with concern.

Miss Wallace is a boatswain, so she was a generalist non-commissioned officer. She is one of the younger Non-coms officers at twenty-three. She is a competent sailor, maintaining her place in arguably the toughest department on this ship. 

 I felt honesty was the best approach.

'Miss Wallace, I am uncertain what's going on; but, teams at SG and Engineering are analysing the situation, so I predict we will discover the cause soon.' 

She did not look convinced, so I needed to assure her further.  

'Miss Wallace, is this crew the best of the best?' I stood upright and filled my voice with gusto.

'Yes, Sir.' Her face lit up with pride.

'We've the intelligence, skill and will to solve this problem. Correct?'

I raised my voice, so all present heard, and gave them my best "commander knows all" face.

'Yes Sir.' My mini-speech worked; as she stood straighter and the "Yes Sir" carried a solid vibe. 

'We will persevere no matter the situation. Right Miss Wallace?'  

'Aye, Aye Sir,' all present said loud and clear.

We packed the remaining kit on the service transport, and they gave me a lift to the transport terminal.