As her bridge crew began to recover, she repositioned herself in the command chair and reached out to the nearest touch screen. The Promatil dose had eased her illness, or the worst of it anyway, and she tapped out a few orders on the screen, resuming full control of the Trident. She left the Nemesis arrays collecting data at full power and delegated acute crisis management to the Intelligence.

“Permission to unsafe weapons, Captain Halabi?” the system’s voice purred in her ear.

“Permission granted, Posh,” she answered, placing her palm on the DNA reader in the chair’s armrest. “Verification code Osprey Three Niner Lima Xray Tango Four.”

“Code verified, Captain Halabi. Weapons hot.”

The CI’s voice was a flawless imitation of Lady Beckham’s, a remnant of the previous ship’s captain, who was—in Halabi’s opinion—an emotionally arrested Yorkshireman with an unhealthy fixation on pre-Millennial pop culture. On taking command she had determined to reset the speech software to RN Standard. However, she had been made aware, subtly but swiftly, that the former pop princess was considered a much-loved member of the crew, and her deletion in favor of the bland, mid-Atlantic voice to which the CI defaulted would be considered akin to a death in the family. So Lady Beckham had stayed on as the voice of the Trident, and after eighteen months Halabi had secretly grown quite fond of her, too.

“Mr. McTeale,” she said, addressing her XO, “are you in any shape to take the conn?”

The ropey Scotsman bit down on the bile that was threatening to rise past his gorge. “Aye, ma’am.”

“Fine, then. I’m on my way to CIC. While in transit, I’ll be online via shipnet. When I’ve resumed control from down there, shut up shop and join me. All hands below. The Fearless is gone. I think our holiday cruise is over. Guns are hot and the CI has Level One Autonomy. Any of the ship’s crew who remain without Promatil inserts will need to be treated as quickly as possible. Please see to it that the surgeon is informed. Posh has the requisite dosages. IV, not dermal patches.

“We need everybody vertical ASAP. Sound to general quarters.”

“Aye aye.”

As the ship’s alarms began to call her company to battle, Halabi limped out of the bridge through the light curtain and headed for the stairwell that led down into the Trident’s central hull. Beneath her feet she could feel the vessel reach a standard cruising speed of thirty-five knots. The seas were running at one and a half meters on a three-meter swell, enough to impart a significant roll, even with the trimaran’s inherent stability and wave-piercing form. It slowed Halabi’s progress, but not drastically.