Illuminae

According to the Briefing Note, the Populace Information Release provided by Captain Chau of the Hypatia is propaganda because it suggests the Lincoln destroyed the Copernicus, but the civilian shuttles were successfully transferred to the Alexander by the Cyclone pilots, and those civilians are being quarantined due to health concerns. The Hypatia is working to compile a list of lives lost.

The Confirmed Copernicus Casualty List is a list of the names in small print and alphabetical order, totaling around 1,260 names. The list has a watermark over each page that reads, “not for civilian review” (51-59). Helena Grant, Kady’s mother, is listed among the deceased.

Following the Casualty List is a series of square black-and-white photos tiling the entire next few pages, presumably of the deceased.

In a more sophisticatedly secured Hypatia chat, Kady and Zhang discuss the Population Information Release (PIR), which Kady calls “bull—” (64). Zhang isn’t surprised and thinks he should’ve suspected something was up when the Copernicus’s civilian communications network came down for maintenance. Kady finds a court martial list summoning the pilots involved in the Copernicus incident. Zhang can’t confirm whether the Lincoln was close enough to shoot at them, so with all this information, Kady and Zhang are sure something is being covered up. Zhang suggests Kady find the survivor list, but Kady, who seems to be in denial over her mother’s death, is more focused on who shot down the Copernicus. Zhang is running into obstacles with AIDAN that he initially thought were security measures but instead suggest the AI is absent in some way.

The third page of the Court Martial Listing summons the Cyclone pilots involved in the Copernicus incident.

Kady writes to Ezra for the first time since they left Kerenza to apologize for not responding sooner, to let him know how much his comment on the universe not wanting them to be together hurt her, and to see if he’s okay. She says she’s in intel training and hasn’t changed her mind on how she’ll treat him if she sees him again.

Ezra and his friend James (Jimmy) McNulty swap messages in the Alexander chat about the letter Ezra got from Kady. Jimmy believes Kady still loves Ezra, so he thinks Ezra should apologize for whatever he did wrong. Jimmy says if Ezra and Kady get back together, they’ll have to name their first child after him, and just as Ezra starts to feel hopeful, Jimmy says it’s a shame that Ezra might be shot at the court martial hearing the following day.

Ezra replies to Kady’s email after struggling to find the right words. He fills her in on what he’s been up to with flying the cyclones and tells her to stay safe if she’s in neurogramming because the short-staffed UTA might snatch her and put her in dangerous missions alongside him. Someone comes to his room for his court martial hearing, so he signs off and says it’s good to talk again and denies the drunken letter he wrote in postscript text.

Kady tries to write to Ezra three times and discards her drafts. Her first draft thanks him for replying and imagines Ezra receiving medals for his honorable service in the cyclone facing down the Lincoln. She asks what it was like and how it happened. Then she asks for a survivor list for a friend and smashes the keyboard with an all-caps note that she’s not being subtle. Her second draft focuses more on gathering intel through questioning, framed around her duties and the possibility of her moving to the Alexander. She wants to know if the Alexander has an intelligence wing and how the attack with the Lincoln really transpired. She then transitions to talking about her feelings and states she’s lonely, ending with the idea that one year together meant something. The last attempt is just three dots and a censored word.

Kady attends mandated group counseling to deal with the trauma of being a survivor. She doesn’t want to be there and has done group counseling before, but she does find journaling helpful, even if it doesn’t solve her problems. She demonstrates awareness that she seems cold to others, but she does feel deeply and doesn’t think everyone who talks to her has a right to know her feelings. She also doesn’t like that ill-prepared scientists are posing as therapists now. She writes about Ezra and how she misses him, even though she doesn’t believe he truly cares about her. She threatens anyone who might read her encrypted journal that she will destroy them with her programming skills, specifically by banning their ID card from accessing the bathrooms. She thinks about the people she has lost, such as her cousin Asha, and even more distantly, those she barely knew and wonders if they survived. She has survivor’s guilt.

Kady and Zhang figure out what’s going on before Hypatia’s commander in their message chat. Kady demands that Zhang pause his search for the survivor list and try to ping the Alexander. He does, but communications are down. Kady was trying to gather intel on the court martial hearings when everything on the Alexander went dark for them because they cut the ship link like they did with the Copernicus. Zhang shares news that there are Copernicus survivors on the Alexander because landing bay four is full of Copernicus shuttles in lockdown instead of cyclones. Kady is worried they have a target on their back, but Zhang encourages her to deescalate her rhetoric because this is a dangerous game they’re playing.

Hypatia repeatedly tries to reach the Alexander through narrow, auxiliary, mayday, and commander’s secure frequencies. At first, there is no response until they use the mayday frequency, where they receive an autoreply telling them their message has been quarantined. They ask for further information, putting both Captain Chau and Colonel Myles on the line. They want to talk to General Torrence. Hypatia’s commanders threaten to summon the Lincoln and all its allies if the Alexander turns on them or even has the appearance of doing so. On the commander’s secure frequency, they reach Lia, who scolds Hypatia’s commander Ann for allowing rumors to fly and tries to placate them that they’re just trying to fix AIDAN. Hypatia calls out Lia because they can see other activity being done involving their engines and says they have obeyed orders and lied about the Copernicus incident but need to know what’s really going on. Hypatia asks where General Torrence is again, but the Alexander says General Torrence is taking care of “official business” and they are working to keep Hypatia safe (84).

On her way into an intel neurogramming class, Kady places a device on the environmental sensor. As they do their classwork, the environmental sensor alerts them to evacuate. Kady hangs behind, literally hanging from wires she has scaled like a “spider monkey” to hide in the shadows (87). While the environmental sensor beeps, she drops down and inserts a mem-chit into the port of a classmate’s computer. She dumps a bunch of information into an anonymous holding drive and exploits a security vulnerability to leech information from the interface. When the environmental alarm stops beeping, she freezes, hits her head, and grabs the mem-chit. She makes an excuse, is let out of the class with ease, and even blows a kiss to the server room, all in 11 minutes.

Kady writes about how they’re supposed to examine their public face versus their real face in therapy. Kady has always been fascinated by the idea of unmasking and recalls a memory of when she was eight and ruined a romantic puppet show for everyone by telling everyone it was fake. She still believes romance is fake too.

Kady accesses the Court Martial Transcript between Ezra and General Torrence. General Torrence asks Ezra about the Copernicus incident and essentially leads Ezra to implicate Major Hawking (Prophet) and First Lieutenant Alvaranga (Dreadnought) for disobeying direct orders. When commanded to destroy the osprey, Ezra reached out to his superior for confirmation. General Torrence presses Ezra to name who told him to disobey AIDAN, but Ezra is evasive. He doesn’t care about General Torrence’s threats because he doesn’t want to get his colleagues in trouble for what he also believes was the right decision: to save innocent civilians. He repeatedly states he can’t remember who made the final call.

Ezra and Jimmy chat about the court martial hearings. Ezra reveals both Prophet and Dreadnought were shot and killed, among others involved in the operation. Ezra and Carlin weren’t killed because they were obeying direct orders from their superiors. They revoked Ezra’s flight status, and Ezra learns about the propaganda that has been spread to other ships. The Copernicus shuttle survivors are still locked in Bay 4 due to the suspected pathogen. Even though there was a known virus circulating on board the Copernicus called “Phobos,” no one believed it was that serious until now. They talk about why General Torrence relied on AIDAN to issue the command. Jimmy says that’s why the engines are off—because they pulled the plug on AIDAN. Jimmy invites Ezra out to drink, but Ezra wants to grieve his commanders without alcohol.

Kady writes about that day’s therapy session in which a typically stoic attendant, Martha, has a breakdown about losing her daughters and husband. Martha has such a profound reaction that she’s taken away by the medics. Kady marvels at how Martha snapped emotionally. Kady wonders what will push her to that point. The conditions they live in are abysmal: There’s limited water, the bunks are crowded, and it smells horrible. She tries not to let herself think too much about the people she has lost even when she can’t sleep.

Kady pings Ezra via the Alexander chat while Comms are down because they can talk unnoticed in seven-minute bursts. Ezra doesn’t believe it’s Kady at first, but she proves it to him. She asks him for information about the AI system and what happened with the Copernicus. He’s worried about them getting in trouble. Kady says she saw the court martial documents and the list that showed his dad passed away. Ezra is worried about her involvement in this, and when he asks about her mother in return, Kady completely ignores him. They are somewhat affectionate with each other in this exchange and plan to chat again soon.

Katy and Zhang chat about her conversation with Ezra. She tells Zhang that Ezra will only say the AI is down but is reluctant to provide more information. Zhang encourages her to make him, but Katy is uncertain whether she wants him to be involved because it’s not safe. Zhang counters that no one is safe.

In a classified report to General David Torrence, Colonel Eva Sanchez presents the Senior TechEng specialists’ findings on the AIDAN. While the AIDAN is damaged significantly and in an essentially comatose state, their team has concluded that the decision to destroy the Copernicus was the result of its focus on preserving human life above all else. They do believe AIDAN’s refusal to allow communications between the Cyclones and senior officials was the product of its damage. Their evidence suggests AIDAN had been routinely and increasingly monitoring the health reports of those on the Copernicus, but AIDAN hid those files from their access. Because of their stop on Kerenza’s moon to get water, the Lincoln has gained ground on them. To have a chance, the team recommends rebooting AIDAN to be conscious but to place limitations on it. However, reviving the AIDAN does come with some risk, given its unpredictable behavior. They’re weighing the possibility of this danger with a series of testing over the next day or two and will report back with their final recommendation when available.

Colonel Eva Sanchez asks Major Nico Lassinger in a chat to review the memo that suggests they revive AIDAN. Their studies found it has a 9 out of 10 chance of not killing them, but the danger the Lincoln poses is far worse. They send the memo.

Kady and Ezra chat again, and Kady asks for updates. Ezra doesn’t know much other than comms are down and AIDAN is offline. They try to joke about the situation, but it falls flat. They admit they miss each other, and then Kady has to sign off because their seven minutes are up. She tells Ezra he can still leave messages after the seven minutes, and she’ll be able to view them later.

Ezra uses the illegal, risky blackhat mailbox to leave Katy the shape of a rose made by the repeating words, I’m sorry.

Kady writes a brief entry in her personal journal wondering how her mom knew her dad was the person for her. She wishes she’d asked her. This is the closest Katy has come to acknowledging her mother’s death.

Kady and Ezra chat again for seven minutes. They flirt with one another and speculate about AIDAN needing to be turned on to accelerate and avoid the Lincoln. Ezra tells Kady to say hi to her mom for him, but she doesn’t answer.

Kady and Zhang chat about how Kady is trying to brute force her way into the systems she wants to access, but Zhang discounts her methods and says they need someone inside the Alexander to help. He indirectly suggests Ezra, but Kady doesn’t want to involve him and is worried about his safety. She uses the excuse that Ezra wouldn’t know how to help. Zhang thinks it’s imperative Kady teach him, or her love for him will be wasted when the Alexander kills them too.

In Kady’s personal journal, she notes how she acts disinterested when their group talks about a future because she knows they aren’t guaranteed one. She connects it to a memory of a teacher who always tried to help her be organized and live up to her potential.

When internal comms come back on, Jimmy messages Ezra in chat. They tease each other as usual, and Jimmy asks Ezra for a picture of Kady. Though he is reluctant at first, Ezra sends him a picture of Kady from school where she has pink hair. Jimmy promised not to do anything bad with the picture, but he ends up masturbating to it, or at least teasing that he is. Ezra tells him he’ll stop saying stuff about Jimmy’s sister if he stops. Then, a code blue alarm goes off, summoning Jimmy, and Ezra goes to bed.

Ezra messages Jimmy to see if he’s back and threatens to cut off his private parts if he’s still looking at the picture of Kady. Ezra goes to VR training and doesn’t hear back from Jimmy.

Corporal Charles Dorian, a mid-level Alexander commtech, messages Ezra. It’s their first communication via chat, but they’re friends and both know Jimmy. They tease each other, and Ezra asks if Dorian has seen Jimmy recently. Dorian checks. Jimmy’s squadron is in Hangar Bay 4, still in Code Blue, but Jimmy is not with them.