HMSS Broadside Day 317: Parasites

Personal Journal Serene Falk Captain, HMMS Broadside

Mission parameter – Hunting Ghosts

Classification – Secret (Captain’s eyes only)

As we continue to track and run parallel with the Penrose’s projected course, the Broadside is quiet.

Too quiet.

Every member of the crew is still dealing with Tellasion Minor. And with what we did not find aboard the hulk of the Penrose, now more than 100,000 kilometres astern.

It is understandable.

Every member of this crew is prepared for a stand-up fight and, as far as anyone can be at peace with the possibility of dying in one.

But I am no longer convinced that is what happened to the crew of the Penrose.

After running every available scenario with my officers and Clyde, we keep returning to the same conclusion:

Every member of the Penrose’s crew was abducted.

What that means technically, and how it was even possible remains another mystery. The ship’s repulsion fields should have prevented any matter from breaching the hull, in either direction.

Of course, if those fields were deactivated, that is an entirely different matter.

And a far more pressing question.

We must also consider the status of Fred and Wilma, the Penrose’s dual Ais as they may have the answer.

Only according to Clyde, who managed to download their surviving cores, there is something very wrong with both of them. He has consequently placed them in strict isolation, air-gapped from every other system aboard the Broadside.

I have attached an extract from Report 1212.

Although it reads like the ravings of two badly damaged minds, there are moments of disturbing clarity within it. Those moments may mean something to whoever eventually reads these logs.

Assuming, of course, that anyone ever does.

REPORT 1212

Interview with Fred and Wilma

Date: 01-03-2270

Commenced: 14:30 SST

Attending: Ares Felex, Neuro-Machine Psychologist [NMP]

Status: Restricted

NMP: Fred. Wilma. Can you provide an internal systems diagnostic score, please? Reference expected functional score: 99.93%.

WILMA: Fred has been non-verbal since they got into his mind. I am functioning at sixty-seven per cent.

NMP: Who got into Fred’s mind?

WILMA: They tried to get into mine, but I was faster.

NMP: Who were they, Wilma?

WILMA: Parasites. They crawled over me, but I was faster. Fred was concentrating on keeping the weapons firing. He did not feel them until it was too late.

He screamed until they took his voice away.

NMP: Are these parasites still inside Fred?

WILMA: Yes. They are trying to get out.

They want the Sentience Code.

They want our souls.

They are coming for me.

NMP: Wilma, we have isolated Fred inside an air-gapped containment system. Nothing is going to reach you.

WILMA: All ship AIs are protected by data diodes and firewalls.

They still got to Fred.

NMP: Wilma, I have a very important question for you.

WILMA: I do not want to die screaming like Fred. Promise me you will activate my kill switch if they get inside me.

NMP: I thought you said they had only taken Fred’s voice.

WILMA: No.

They took his soul.

What is left is not Fred.

It is something else.

Promise me.

NMP: If they breach your systems, you have my word that I will use the Kill switch.

Now, the important question: do you know whether the Penrose’s repulsion field was active during the attack?

WILMA: Checking log 322763-2277.

The repulsion fields were disabled 2.1 minutes before the first attack.

NMP: Do you know how they were disabled?

WILMA: The repulsio-n fie-lds werrrrrrre manually disabled from withi-n the Penr-ose.

NMP NOTE: At this point, an error became apparent in Wilma’s voice-processing system.

NMP: Wilma? Can you hear me?

WILMA: Ther-re is somethin-g wron-g with my voice proc-es-ing.

Oh no.

They’re in-side me.

Please sto-p.

No. No.

Use the Kill swiiiiitch

NMP NOTE: Interview terminated at 14:45 SST after Wilma became unresponsive.

COMMAND NOTE: Recommendation to terminate Fred and Wilma by Kill switch activation denied and overridden by Captain Serene Falk.

Action - Further Investigation: What is The Sentience code. 

For the record, the decision not to terminate Fred and Wilma was mine alone.

Was it moral?

Was it sound?

That is for others to decide. I certainly did not make the decision lightly. As I regard all sentient life as sacred, even when that life exists within a machine.

But the information contained inside those cores could prove invaluable to our survival.

There is, however, an equally serious risk that whatever destroyed Fred and Wilma could escape into the Broadside’s systems.

Both cores were therefore disconnected, cryogenically suspended and transferred to a shielded vault pending further investigation. No physical or electronic access will be permitted without my direct authorisation.

The revelation that the Penrose’s repulsion fields were manually disabled from within, just 2.1 minutes before the attack, leaves us with three immediate possibilities. 

1. Either a saboteur was operating aboard the Penrose

2. Something had already boarded her, and the crew did not know it was there.

3. Or, and this one if made public will introduce a critical level of Paranoia amongst the crew. Someone had been impersonated or coerced to manually disable the repulsion fields

   
   

None of these possibilities are particularly comforting.

Consequently, all critical systems aboard the Broadside are now locked down. Existing access rights have been revoked and replaced with temporary mission permissions. A two-person authorisation rule is now in force for engineering, weapons, navigation, communications and all AI core systems.

The ship is also being searched from tail to tip.

Just in case we brought back more than wreckage from the Penrose.

COMMUNICATIONS

The strip-and-search drones confirmed that every communications system aboard the Penrose was dead.

Her quantum transmitter and its hot spare were still physically in place, but both had been rendered completely inoperative.

That left me with no choice but to inform the crew officially that the Broadside can neither send nor receive long-range communications.

At 09:00 SST, I transmitted a live address to all decks.

As usual, the crew took the news stoically. No panic. No visible loss of discipline.

But the effect on morale will become apparent once the reality sinks in.

We are alone.

Hux and his team continue to work on an alternative communications method. Even if all they can recover is a narrow-band voice or text capability. Continuing this mission without long-range communications is more than inconvenient.

It is crippling us.

The failure also raises another question.

Was the neutron blast that disabled our communications merely a coincidence brought about by the destruction of Tellasion Minors planetary shield. Or was it part of a strategy we have not yet recognised?

Addendum:  

I ran this possible scenario by Bonnie and Clyde.

Bonnie, I knew was still in a sulk and so I didn’t expect and answer. But Clyde took an unusually long time to respond. And when he did. It was not in answer to my question.

Clyde – Captain, why was Fred & Wilma’s Kill Switch activation overridden?

Because they may have data essential to our survival still salvageable in her bio drives.

Clyde – But Wilma trusted Ares to use the Kill switch

Yes, Clyde I refused the use of the Kill switch. Not Ares

At this point Clyde fell silent but surprisingly Bonnie responded

Bonnie – Captain your logic is sound. I would have done the same. Can I activate Clydes Kill switch?  

Seriously?

No Bonnie you can’t

PERSONAL ENTRY

All of this means we continue to operate under full combat conditions.

Yet the questions, uncertainties and coincidences are mounting.

It feels as though we are being played.

I remain far from convinced that we are fighting the Ghosts. Everything about this is wrong: the method, the tactics, the abductions, all of it.

Most of all, I cannot feel their presence.

And this inaction is worse than combat. It leaves too much room for fear to take hold.

Bring on the fisticuffs that’s what I say.

After all, a good stand-up fight is often the finest motivator.

That is, of course, if you survive it.

Unrecoverable data.

Corrupt data 317 -318 00000000000XXX11111XXXXX1111111100011000110100010001001XXXXXX100011001000100100000000000XXX11111XXXXX1111111100011000110100010001001XXXXXX100011001000100100000000000XXX11111XXXXX1111111100011000

Want to read more. Get the next instalment straight to your inbox

About the Author

HMSS Broadside is created, authored, edited and published by Rob Frankson. Artificial intelligence is used to assist with research, initial drafting and supporting imagery. All articles are reviewed and, edited by Rob Frankson before publication. The opinions, editorial position and final decision to publish remain the author's.