Mercy (The Lost Warship Book 2) by Daniel Gibbs

Author:Daniel Gibbs [Gibbs, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-03-21T16:00:00+00:00

Benjamin Hayworth prided himself on being a man devoted solely to science. Every day spent in the lab was one day closer to unlocking another technological achievement. Since they’d arrived in Sextans B, he’d felt like a young man again as they saw the wonder of the universe and, more importantly, dug out secrets that time had kept for eons.

Those secrets didn’t include a massive interspecies legal code that, by Hayworth’s estimation, had been around for five thousand years in some form or another. Instead of exploring the precursor artifact, here I sit, writing… code.

“Doctor?” Merriweather called as she pushed the hatch open. “I’ve been looking all over for you. Why is your commlink off?”

Hayworth glanced up. “Because I didn’t want to be bothered.”

She stepped into the lab and stared at the bank of wall-mounted flat monitors. Data streamed by in multiple alien languages. “What are you doing?”

“Societies built around legalism, much like some of our religions, have rules for everything. They even have rules on how to enact more rules.” He chuckled. “I decided to investigate a bit further.”

“How?”

“Simple, really. I wrote an algorithm to parse all four planets’ worth of laws, dating back about five thousand years.”

Merriweather’s jaw dropped. “Why?”

“Because for whatever reason, they treat the entirety of these millions of laws as binding. Moreover, each planet’s legal code is equally accepted on all four worlds.”

“So if you can find a loophole in one, no matter how old, General Cohen can use it?”

Hayworth nodded. “That is the idea, my dear. It’s a shame there are petaquads of this crap. I suspect the League has nothing on these people’s bureaucratic state.” He stopped the stream for a moment and gestured to several monitors. “If my translation matrix reads this right, there are several thousand regulations on how to properly issue citations to improperly parked vehicles.”

“Absurd.” Merriweather stared at it for a few seconds before the stream moved on. “It’s nice you’re trying to help.”

“Are you suggesting that I’m a grouchy old curmudgeon who doesn’t help his friends?”

“Oh, I didn’t realize you had those,” Merriweather replied with a big grin.

“Bah.” He sat on a nearby chair and closed his eyes for a moment. “I feel somewhat responsible for this situation.”

“Why?”

“Because I endorsed the plan to mine the helium-3.”

“General Cohen made the call.” Merriweather dropped into a seat across the lab table from him. “No one suspected they had limited FTL capability.”

Hayworth shrugged. “Still, I’m always going on about noninterference. I should’ve realized it was an unacceptable risk. So I feel compelled to try to fix it. Also, Captain Goldberg once defended me back on Gilead. Some young punk was about to beat me up when she stepped in.”

“I remember.” Merriweather grinned. “I also recall you getting in that situation for telling those punks to get lost when they harassed Ruth and me.”

“Well, I don’t suffer idiots lightly. Still, it's nice to feel like I’m wanted. I hate admitting that out loud, but these last few months have been different.”

Merriweather regarded him silently.

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