Barth Vapour sat in his wheelchair on the bridge of the USSS Ender's Prize, gazing at the stars which streaked past on the front view screen. The technology worked differently here; from what he could discern, what Captain Pilchard referred to as 'flex speed' was entirely different from the standard hyperspace travel they used in his own reality. Its effects looked remarkably similar, though. Stars stretched from dots into lines, and intersystem travel took hours rather than the years, or even decades, that physics required. Light speed was an absolute limit, of course, and Vapour wondered how many other ways had been found to bypass that limit.
He called it the Narrative Principle.
Even before he had chosen to follow the path of the Stiff, Mannequin Splitwhisker had led an active life. Sitting and thinking was for other people. Now, however, having spent the last few days confined to this chair, he had had very little else to do but meditate upon a wide range of subjects. It had been while considering the nature of Fanny Marisu Brusher's powers that the Narrative Principle had occurred to him. Essentially, it was this: since both this universe and his own were merely virtual realities based upon a form of fiction, it followed that anything which was inherently uninteresting should prove to be fleeting at best. By far the most boring thing of all was to travel through the deep void between the stars at sub-light speeds. Ergo, super-light speed must be possible, in some form or another.
He hoped to consider the Narrative Principle in greater depth at another time. He suspected there might be something implied by it that he could use to his advantage.
"Ah, Mister Splitwhisker," said Captain Pilchard as he strode onto the bridge. "You're up early. I trust you are sleeping well?"
"Quite well, thank you, Captain," said Vapour. "Oh, and thank you for this, too." He raised his right hand in a little wave. He had requested that he be given his mechanical arm back; Doctor Brusher had gone one better by suggesting that, with the assistance of Gordo von Seilon, she may be able to reattach it. They had carried out the three-hour procedure the previous evening.
The Captain waved off his thanks as he settled into his chair in the centre of the bridge. "It would have been very rude of us to deny you the use of your own limbs," he said.
And that is their problem, mused Vapour. Too damned polite for their own good! He had been amazed when the Captain had granted him unlimited access to the bridge of the ship. Amazed, but not particularly surprised.
Vapour crossed his hands in his lap—wrapping them protectively around Boadicea, his one link to his home—and turned to look once more at the view screen. Idly, he stroked his thumb over the hidden panel in the back of his mechanical wrist. He tried not to think of the communicator hidden inside; Dee Dee would be on duty soon. He did not know whether she was actually capable of reading his mind, but he did not want to take the chance.
Suddenly the ship lurched and shuddered, and the streaks shrank to dots as the flex drive failed. Several different alarms began sounding simultaneously.
Looking unruffled, with just the hint of a frown on his face, Captain Pilchard said, "Shields up, Mister Info, as a precaution. Report."
"Sir," said Info, turning in his seat to face the Captain, "it appears we have been pulled out of flex by a high gravity well, but nothing with sufficient mass appears on the charts in this sector. According to the graviton fluctuations I'm reading, it appears to be artificially generated."
"Sir," said the young Ensign on comms duty, "we are being paged, audio only."
"On speakers, Ensign Quim," said the Captain.
"Aye sir."
The bridge of the Ender's Prize was silent for a moment, save for the usual background of pings and beeps. Then a flat, unmodulated voice droned loudly from the speakers: "We are Droid. You will be integrated. Resistance is fertile."
"Oh shit," said the Captain.
Everybody on the bridge turned to look at him. He had gone quite pale, and was sitting forward on the edge of his chair, clutching the armrests tightly.
"Scanning," said Info after a second, turning back to his console. "Captain, apart from the gravity source—into which we are slowly falling—I am detecting six, no, seven Droid dodecahedra."
"Seven?" echoed the Captain incredulously. He must have noticed the tremor in his own voice, for he visibly pulled himself together. "That is impossible," he said strongly. "Droid 'hedra travel alone. We have never seen more than one at a time. Are you sure the scanners are not being confused by our proximity to the gravity well?"
"It is possible, sir," confirmed Info. "The gravity well appears to be an artificial singularity enclosed within a high-flux tachyon plasma field. Re-calibrating to compensate."
The doors to the turbolift hiss-squeaked open and Commander Billy-Bob Piker strode onto the bridge, with Dee Dee McTroy at his side. "What's happening, Captain?" he asked. "We've dropped out of flex."
"Lower your shields and prepare to be boarded," intoned the flat voice. "Resistance is fertile!"
"Oh," said Billy-Bob, his confident step faltering.
"Cut that feed," said Captain Pilchard, making a throat-cutting gesture across his neck with his left hand. "What have you got for me, Info?"
"Aye sir," said the comms Ensign. He looked terrified.
"All sensors confirm seven 'hedra, Captain," said Info. "We are completely surrounded."
"On screen," said the Captain. "Let's see the damn things!"
The front view screen flickered to star-speckled black. In the centre of the image, the Droid dodecahedron sat motionless. It got its name from its shape; it was a twelve-faced geometric solid. Each pentagonal face seemed to be made up of an interwoven mesh of piping and circuitry, and in shifting patches, from somewhere within the alien vessel, an intense green glow limned the convoluted detail. With nothing but the star field to measure against, there was nothing by which to judge the size of the 'hedron.
"Sir, they are hailing us again," said the Ensign.
"Very well, Ensign Quim, let's hear it."
"Aye sir," said the Ensign.
"This is Captain Jon-Lurk Pilchard of the USSS Ender's Prize," said the Captain into the silence. "We have no quarrel with..."
This time there was a video signal as well as the audio. The image of a Droid drone appeared on the view screen. Dressed in tight black leather, pale skin studded with bio-mechanical devices, she—it—had once been an attractive human. Now it spoke for the mind of the Droid. "We know you, Pilchard," intoned the Droid voice. Its voice was slightly muffled as it spoke around the gleaming steel fangs which protruded from beneath its upper lip. The fangs were hollow. The Droid infected their victims by injecting them with biomechanical nanobots which instantly began the integration process; once bitten, you had but a few seconds before your body began to change into a Droid from the inside out.
It was not a pleasant process.
Of course, once you had been integrated into the Droid collective, they had full possession of your memories and abilities. Anything that was different about you, anything they did not already know, went towards improving the efficiency of all.
"We remember you," said the Droid. "But we do not want you. Your biological distinctiveness is already a part of us. Give us the Mary Sue and we shall allow you to leave. You have ten minutes. Resistance is..."
Pilchard made a 'cut them off' gesture to young Ensign Quim, and the voice was gone.
"Yeah, fertile, we know," said Billy-Bob Piker dryly.
"Those things give me the creeps," said Dee Dee quietly. "They're like zombies, dead inside, no soul, no empathy, just that horrible emptiness." She shivered, and wrapped her arms around herself.
"Mmm," said the Captain.
"What does that mean, exactly," asked Barth Vapour into the temporary quiet. "'Fertile'? Surely 'futile' would make more sense?"
"We believe it to be a joke," said Info quietly.
"A joke?"
"Yeah," explained Billy-Bob. "Droid humour is not particularly well developed. We believe they are saying 'resistance is fertile' in an effort to lighten the mood, to have a bit of a laugh with their intended victims."
"Oh," said Vapour. "But what does it mean?"
"Rough translation: if you fight, you're fucked!" said Billy-Bob.
"Oh," said Vapour.
"If we're all finished," interjected Captain Pilchard patiently, "perhaps we can attempt to answer the next question. What exactly do they want?"
"'The Mary Sue', sir," quoted Info.
"Indeed. But what is 'the Mary Sue'? I'm fairly sure I'd give them one if we had one, if I thought it would convince them to let us go, but it doesn't ring any bells."
The hiss-squeak of the turbolift doors punctuated the silence, and Fanny Marisu Brusher stepped out onto the bridge. "Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked.
"Just in time, Ms Brusher," said Captain Pilchard. "Do you have any idea what a Mary Sue might be?"
Marisu shook her head. "It sounds vaguely familiar," she said, "but no, I don't recognise the name."
"There are two matches of note in the data library," said Info, looking up from his terminal. "The first is a rather derogatory literary term, the name of a particular character archetype. The second is Mary-Sue Rubenstein, President of the Northern States Alliance from 2217AD to 2224AD." He shrugged apologetically. "Neither of those seems to be particularly relevant."
"Well, that settles that," said Pilchard. "We can't give them what we don't have. So, hypothetically, Ms Brusher, how would you recommend we go about escaping from seven Droid 'hedra?"
"Seven?" she asked. Vapour observed with interest that even her face—shining with her inner beauty as it was—paled a little upon hearing the number of enemy ships that faced them. "Um. As it happens, I had been working on developing a method for crippling a Droid dodecahedron in my spare time. It is almost complete, and according to my best calculations, it should work on two 'hedra—but I'm really not sure if it is scalable beyond that."
"What does your best guess tell you?" asked the Captain.
She shook her head. "Perhaps I will be able to extend the effect to more targets, but I'm afraid it really was a last-ditch desperation method that is non-repeatable. We will only have one shot at this, and I'll need, uh, two hours to get it working. Assuming it will work, of course."
"We have, uh..." Pilchard looked over at Info.
"Three minutes, Captain, Ms Brusher," said Info.
"That does make things a little more tricky," said Fanny thoughtfully.
"I'll see if I can buy you some time," said the Captain. "Ensign, page the Droid, if you please."
"Aye sir," said the Ensign. After a second he added, "Channel open, sir."
Another Droid appeared on the view screen. This one had once been a Mowglian male.
Once, when they had first encountered the Droid, Pilchard and his crew had been confused by the ever-changing spokesperson used by the Droid. Now, though, they understood that the hive mind of the collective intelligence—what the Droid referred to, for reasons known only to themselves, as the Plerd—considered individual drones as interchangeable. It would commandeer whatever drone happened to be closest to a camera in order to communicate with the outside. All the drones of the Plerd knew everything that any of the drones knew, or said, or heard. There were no secrets in the Plerd.
"You have two minutes left to comply," this one said. Its voice, like that of all Droid drones, was flat and without inflection.
"We are unable to comply," said Pilchard firmly. "We do not have this 'Mary Sue' of which you speak. We cannot..."
"She is there," said the Droid drone, interrupting. It raised one hand and pointed into the camera. "The Mary Sue is there. Give us Fanny Brusher. You have ninety seconds to comply. Resistance is fertile."
The stunned silence which washed over the bridge was total; even the usual background of bleeps went silent. Everybody present turned to stare at Fanny Marisu Brusher. Fanny herself stared at the view screen, which had gone back to displaying the logo of the USSS Ender's Prize. Her mouth dropped open in surprise.
"Oh, I get it," muttered a voice from the back of the group. "Mary Sue, as in Marisu. That makes..."
Shhh!
"Sorry!"
"They know my name," said Fanny.
"They know your name," said Captain Pilchard in agreement. "How do they know your name?"
"How do they know my name?" echoed Fanny in bewilderment.
"You're not even listed on the crew register," said Pilchard. "There are probably three confidential records back on Foundation which list your name, and only one of those connects you with this ship."
"More disturbingly," said Dee Dee, almost apologetically, "how did they know where we would be? That..." she waved her arms vaguely towards the front view screen, momentarily lost for words. "That setup," she finally settled on, "out there is meant specifically for this ship, and it ain't exactly portable."
"She's right," added Gordo von Seilon excitedly. "An artificial gravity well massive enough to drag a ship out of flex travel is not the sort of thing you just happen to have with you at a moment's notice. They must have needed at least, oh, six hours to get this set up."
"Set up right in our flight path," noted Pilchard. "They knew exactly where we were, and where we were headed. How is that possible? Any thoughts, Number One?"
"How do they know her name?" asked Billy-Bob Piker.
"Thank you, Number One. Any thoughts, Bork, while Mister Piker catches up?"
"Hurda gurda bork!" said Bork fiercely. "Gurda murda wurda bork bork!"
"True," said Captain Pilchard. "True. But does it really get us anywhere?"
"Bork gurda turda bork!" insisted the Tactical Officer.
"Worth a try," agreed Pilchard. "Your suggestion is duly noted."
"Bork bork bork!" growled Bork.
At that moment the ship shuddered violently as several photogenic torpedoes impacted against her shields.
The view screen flickered back to life. Another Droid—once a Hephaestan—faced them. "You will hand over Fanny Brusher now," it demanded. "Resistance is ..."
"You can take your resistance," shouted the Captain, "and you can shove it up your arse!"
The Droid cocked its head, as though considering this request. It blinked. "Your statement is illogical," it concluded.
"Don't give me any of your Hephaestan logic, you pointy-eared fucker," shouted the Captain. He could feel his blood boiling. Then Dee Dee placed a calming hand on his shoulder, and pressed one soft breast against his back as she whispered soothing nothings in his ear.
The Droid frowned. Displays of anger did not affect it; the Droid saw plenty of that in their travels. "Logic is not Hephaestan," it corrected. "Nor is it Droid. Logic just is."
"I believe what Captain Pilchard is attempting to say," said Dee Dee McTroy carefully, "is that we request a further ten minutes to say our goodbyes." She squeezed the Captain's shoulder, and he nodded wordlessly.
The Droid cocked its head again as it consulted with the Plerd mind. "Very well," it said after a moment. "You have ten minutes to comply." It—perhaps wisely—chose not to mention resistance again for a little while.
The view screen went dead.
"Thank you, Dee Dee," said the Captain. "I apologise for my unprofessional conduct. It's just that..."
"We understand, Captain," she reassured him. "If anybody can push your buttons, it is the Droid."
"It's just," said the Captain, "that they take, and take, and take. They have taken too much from me. But no more. There comes a day when a man has to draw the line in the sand and dare them to step over it. I have to draw that line!"
"Perhaps, Captain," interrupted Fanny Brusher. She placed her small hand lightly on his arm. "But not today."
"What?" He frowned down at her. "You can't mean what I think you mean?"
"It's the only way, Captain Pilchard. Please, you must see that."
He shook his head. "No," he said firmly. "We can always..."
"Run?" Fanny shook her head. "They are faster than us. Fight? There are seven of them, and we've all seen the swathe of wreckage just one Droid 'hedron carved through half the Fleet at the battle of Lapdog 37."
Pilchard sighed. He knew she was right. Lapdog 37 was a nebula that had once been a star system. The Fleet had made a stand there, once, against a lone invading Droid dodecahedron. To call it a "battle" was misleading; it had been a massacre. When it was over, more than one hundred Foundation ships drifted lifelessly in space, the planetary system itself had been turned to dust, and the Droid 'hedron continued on its way. The whole conflict had taken seven minutes.
"But I can't lose you," he said. Tears suddenly flooded his eyes, and he let them run down his cheeks for all to see. "I love you," he said, "like my own daughter."
"I know," she said. "And you have always been the father I never had. If there was another way, if we had more time..." He opened his mouth to speak, but she touched her fingers to his lips. "Sometimes," she said softly, "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one. You know I'm right."
"That sounds like a very Hephaestan thing to say," he said.
She shrugged, and a grin flashed briefly across her face. "I'm sure I heard it in an old holo-drama once," she told him.
His return smile was bittersweet, and it lasted only a moment. Suddenly he put his arms around her and hugged her closely to him.
"How did you get to be so wise?" he murmured against the top of her head.
"I learned from the best," she said against his chest.
The turbolift doors hiss-squeaked open, and Doctor Cavity Brusher marched out onto the bridge. "What's going on?" she demanded. "I've been paging for five minutes and..." Her voice trailed off as she took in the frozen tableau in the centre of the bridge. She asked again, "what's going on?" but this time her voice quavered nervously.
"Mother," said Fanny, "you're just in time. We have to talk, in private." Disengaging herself gently from the Captain's embrace, she took her mother's hand and led her into one of the meeting rooms off the bridge.
"Whew, talk about intense!"
Shhh!
"Sorry."