Spaceship of Fools
by Jeff Pepper
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
The crowd milled about, uncertain of how to react to the swiftly evolving situation. Seeing this, Starkey whispered something in Gao’s ear. He shot his fist in the air and shouted, “Long live Captain Starkey! Long live Captain Starkey!” The rest of the crew joined in, not sure what was happening but not wanting to appear unenthusiastic about their new leader.
When the shouting died down, Sandra Chu spoke up. “What will happen when we get to New Britain?” she asked.
Starkey was not pleased to hear this question, since she had not thought that far ahead. She considered for a moment, then said, “I certainly hope the captain recovers from his infirmary. If he does, he will of course resume his duties. But if his condition continues to worsen, or if, fates forbid, he should die, then I will continue my role as acting captain and bring us safely to port in New Britain.” She glared at Chu.
Chu nodded, suddenly aware of how dangerous things had become. “Of course,” she said, “that makes perfect sense.”
“All right,” continued Starkey. “Show’s over. Everyone back to the mess hall, or wherever else you were. It’s business as usual.”
* * *
Since the deposed captain hadn’t been doing anything useful up to that point, there were no immediate changes on board the ship, except for the opening up of his cabin, which was a popular destination for a few days until everyone tired of sitting behind the old desk and posing for selfies. The crew pretended to do their jobs, the officers pretended to supervise them, and the ship continued to run itself.
That was, however, until the pilot, Barger, took it upon himself to improve on the ship’s navigation strategy. From what I’ve heard, this came about when he looked at one of the monitors on the ship’s bridge and saw the course the ship was on.
For some reason, he thought that the line tracing the planned route from our current position to New Britain was curved when it should have been straight. He ordered the ship to change course in order to straighten out our perceived path. Since the curvature was an illusion, the new course was actually far longer and would have added nearly a month to our voyage.
The ship’s computer respectfully pointed this out to Barger, who angrily replied, “Do as I say, dammit!”
“Sir,” said the ship, “your orders are in violation of my instructions from the owners of this vessel. I cannot comply unless the order comes from the captain himself.”
This made Barger furious. “I’m the goddamn pilot of this ship, and you will do as I say!” He then rummaged around on the control console until he found a scrap of paper with the captain’s authorization code scribbled on it, which Starkey had helpfully left there for him. He read off the authorization code to the ship’s computer.
“Authorization accepted,” said the ship. “But, sir, are you really sure you want to do this?”
At this, the pilot exploded. He ordered the ship to disable the automatic navigation systems. Then, still furious, he told the ship to delete and expunge those systems, thus rendering it incapable of arguing with him. The ship, having no choice, changed course as ordered and wiped the entire nav system from its memory.
That night, over dinner in the ship’s officer’s mess, Barger related to Starkey and the others the tale of how the stupid ship had tried to disobey a direct order from a human, and the decisive steps he’d taken to put the damned machine in its place. However, instead of the cheers of approval he expected, there was an uncomfortable silence around the table.
Slowly, Starkey said, “Are you telling me that the ship’s computer no longer has the ability to plot a course to New Britain?”
“Damned right,” replied Barger. “I’ll do it. I know how.”
“Barger, have you ever piloted a starship by manual control before?” she asked.
“Sure. Did it around the spaceport at Tau Ceti a dozen times, back in the day.”
“Ever do it in deep space?”
Barger did not answer. He suddenly discovered how interesting the mashed potatoes were on his plate.
“Barger,” said Starkey, “you have truly screwed us all. We are traveling at ten times lightspeed, with no goddamned idea where we are or how to get to where we’re going. What do you plan to do? Look out the port hole at the stars and navigate by dead reckoning?”
Again, no response from Barger. The mood in the room had become extremely tense.
Starkey turned to Gao. “Space him,” she said.
Gao looked at her, eyes wide. “What?”
“Toss him out the airlock. Now.”
“If I do that, who will pilot the ship?”
“We’ll find someone. But whoever we find, they can’t be any worse than this clown. And let this be a lesson to the rest of you.” She paused, then glared at Gao. “Do it, Gao.”
Gao obediently took two long steps to reach Barger and pick him up. Barger screamed and flailed, but Gao had a hundred pounds on him, all muscle, and the pilot’s efforts were futile. Gao carried him to the nearest airlock, the rest of the officers following. He tossed Barger into the airlock, closed the inner door, and fiddled with the safety mechanisms until the outer door was ready to open. He paused, then looked at Starkey. She reached past him and pulled the lever. There was no sound. But through the tempered glass, they watched as Barger was sucked out of the airlock and pinwheeled into deep space.
We were now lost in space. With the erasure of our navigation system, we had no idea where we were, what our heading was, or how to reach our planned destination. Starkey ordered the officers to keep this a secret, but given the lack of discipline, it took less than an hour for word to spread throughout the ship.
* * *
It is at this point that I, your humble narrator, began to play a role, however minor, in the story. Although I was trained as a software engineer, my job onboard the Erebus was cook’s assistant, which mainly meant doing whatever the cook told me to do. As such, I spent a lot of time working alongside Sandra Chu, who had the same job title as I did and was similarly overqualified. Whenever we were sure no one could overhear us, we talked about the sorry state of affairs on the ship and tried to figure out how we might save our own skins, which seemed more and more in peril.
After much discussion, Chu approached the first mate and offered to take Barger’s place as pilot. This was several days after Barger’s chilly spacewalk, and during that time any number of officers and crew had tried to convince Starkey that they could pilot the ship. They all claimed that skill in navigation was something innate that could not be taught. Thus, they all felt fully qualified to take on the job. Starkey had enough sense to reject these offers, but she had no idea how to solve the underlying problem, which was that the ship was traveling aimlessly in deep space.
“Ma’am,” said Chu, “I served as a ship’s navigator for over ten years, on several different merchant freighters. While it’s true that I have relied on ship’s computers, I have also carefully studied the ways of stars and planets. I know all the stars and other landmarks in this region of the galaxy, and I believe that I can, through careful analysis, determine our position and heading, and guide the ship to New Britain. We will not get there on our original timeframe, but we will get there before our food runs out.”
Starkey, having run out of other options, reluctantly agreed to let Chu pilot the ship, and she informed the others. What I thought was interesting, though, was their reaction to this. Instead of being grateful for Chu’s expertise and offer of help, they did everything they could to demean her. They called her a prater, a term I was not familiar with but which refers to someone who prattles on about things without any underlying knowledge or expertise. They called her a stargazer, not as a term of respect but as an insult. They called her a poseur, a fraud, and other adjectives I prefer not to repeat here.
Despite the fact that she actually did figure out where we were and where we were headed, they insisted that they could have done a much better job than she. Several of them even agitated for her to meet the same fate as poor Barger.
Conditions on the ship continued to deteriorate, as it became clear that our voyage would take much longer than originally planned, and as the constant consumption of alcohol and recreational drugs took its toll. Starkey’s management style was spasmodic, and she was given to meting out drastic punishments with seemingly no regard for the severity of the offense. Three crewmembers were ejected through the airlock, and several others were fortunate enough only to receive beatings from Gao.
With over a quarter of the crew dead or incapacitated, Chu and I began desperately seeking a way out. We briefly considered just killing Starkey, but the odds of us surviving that seemed unacceptably low, even if we could manage to do it somehow. Organizing a second mutiny seemed equally far-fetched, considering the unruly nature of the crew and our low status among them.
Then I had an idea. “Chu,” I said, “how many soldiers do you think it would require to take control of this ship and restore order?”
“Forty,” she replied quickly. “One to guard each surviving member of the ship’s company, and five more to keep the ship running. But where are we going to find forty soldiers here in deep space?”
I looked at her, grinning.
“Oh,” she said, “you’ve got to be kidding.”
I was not. “The softbots are general-purpose, because it’s easier for the manufacturer to have just one model. They have various settings. I believe this lot has been set to ‘pliable companion,’ but there are quite a few other settings. Personally, I’m thinking ‘security guard’ or ‘infantry’ would be a fine setting for most of them. We could also set a few to ‘squad leader’. ”
Chu loved the idea.
We dared not enter the softbot storeroom that evening, because we were pretty sure the softbots were being used in various sordid ways by some of the crew. But the next morning the room was quiet and empty of humans. Entering the room and locking the door behind me, I quickly accessed the control menus of forty of the softbots, using the same captain’s authorization code that Barger had used to wipe our navigation systems.
I modified the settings on the softbots, woke them up, and identified myself as their commander. In short order, I was no longer a meek software engineer but the leader of an avenging army of softbots.
Resistance was disorganized and inept, and the softbot army took over the ship in less than thirty minutes. It seemed that the crew’s techniques for wiping the softbots’ memories were not fully effective, and in my speedy reprogramming I had neglected to toggle off the ‘revenge’ option. As a result, several members of the ship’s company met gruesome but well-deserved fates, the nature of which I will leave to your imagination.
* * *
We finally reached New Britain a month behind schedule. There was a great deal of explaining to be done, as you can imagine. But our story was borne out by hundreds of hours of surveillance video that the mutineers had been ignorant of and, after a thorough investigation, the syndicate agreed to drop all charges against Chu and me. Most of the surviving mutineers were not so fortunate.
Chu was hired by the syndicate as a navigator on another ship. I left their employ and got a job as a software engineer at a small firm in the New Britain spaceport. The captain survived, and after receiving medical treatment was quietly settled in a retirement home for elderly spacefarers.
As for the softbots, the syndicate felt that they would not be suitable for their intended role as ‘pliable companions,’ given their experiences on board the Erebus. Military and guard duty was ruled out for similar reasons. After much discussion and some lobbying on their behalf by Chu and myself, the bots were repurposed as general purpose agricultural workers and put to work on a small vegetable farm on the outskirts of the spaceport.
I visit them whenever I can. They enjoy my visits, and it appears that they are doing as well as can be expected.
Copyright © 2025 by Jeff Pepper
