by Terry Mixon
If they couldn’t do that, they’d have to settle for destroying the master AI and dealing with the remaining AIs as they fought back against humanity. That would be a long, brutal fight.
He still wasn’t certain how they’d get on board the battle station without engaging every ship in the damned system. Any pinnaces they sent would be detected before they arrived. Unlike in Twilight River, these defensive units were continuously scanning and looking for threats. They seemingly took the protection of their master very seriously.
There was a way to do this, but it likely guaranteed the death of every single person sent on this mission. Marine armor was much more challenging to detect than a pinnace. It was possible that a swarm of marines in armor could make their way past the ships and battle stations defending the master AI undetected.
Talbot gave that option maybe a sixty percent chance of success. If they were spotted, it would become a shooting gallery in which his people couldn’t defend themselves. Any survivors wouldn’t reach the battle station with the master AI because it would raise its battle screens, stopping them at the last moment.
He’d need to send the Raiders in first. Persephone had enough drop capsules for them. The strike ship could release the drop capsules when she got close enough, and they’d coast directly at the master AI’s battle station without needing to maneuver.
The drop capsules were incredibly hard to detect, much stealthier than even Raider armor. Plus, they were made to get a Raider from orbital speed down to a planet’s surface in less than ten seconds, so they could sprint like nobody’s business.
If they were detected approaching the battle station, they could put on an incredible amount of acceleration and crash through the hull of the battle station before it could raise its battle screens. Hopefully.
There’d be losses. Even dropping onto a planet without people shooting at them meant a certain percentage of drop capsule failures. They were designed for attacking ships as well, so they had the technical capability to penetrate heavy armor. They’d be destroyed in the process, and more of the Raiders would die when their capsules failed.
The admiral would do everything to try and get his people back from the battle station, but that wasn’t going to be possible. He didn’t have the firepower to do more than distract the defenders.
That was going to have to be their plan. He proceeded to lay it out for everyone as clinically as he could, knowing that each and every one of them would realize that this was a suicide mission.
“I won’t blame anyone who doesn’t want to go on this mission,” he said when he was done. “If anyone wants out, I’m certain that we’re going to have plenty for them to do on the fleet during the fight.”
That earned him a chuckle from the assembled officers.
“No one’s going to back out, Colonel,” one of them said. “Everyone knows what’s at stake.”
Talbot nodded gratefully. “Then let’s finalize our plans. We’re only a few hours away from deployment, and I want everything ready to go. We’re only going to have one chance at this. For the sake of everything that we hold dear, let’s get it right.”
Elise looked over the hardware packed into Invincible’s computer center. Each and every piece of it was part of Marcus. What they were proposing she do put the being that lived inside that hardware at risk of injury, insanity, or outright death.
If circumstances weren’t so dire, she’d reject the idea out of hand. Sadly, their backs were against the wall, and they’d have exactly one chance to make this work. If they failed, Marcus would almost certainly die in the fighting.
Or, potentially worse, he might survive.
From what she understood, it was impossible to change any of the core directives in an AI without reformatting it completely. The core protocols were part of everything.
And yet these crazy bastards wanted her to see about mucking around with them. That, and other things, simply to test her capabilities. Capabilities that she had no idea how to control.
“This is an incredibly bad idea,” she said for at least the dozenth time. “I could hurt you, Marcus. I could kill you.”
“I risk death in every fight,” the AI said. “As you are no doubt aware, this vessel will be in the heaviest fighting while we assault the master AI’s forces. The chances of us surviving without this mission succeeding are so small that they are indistinguishable from zero.
“If you look around this compartment, you’ll note that every piece of hardware has a small box at its base. Those are self-destruct charges. If I believe myself to be in imminent danger of capture, I will not hesitate to end my own existence. As a Pentagaran, I think that you’ll understand my resolve more clearly than anyone else in the fleet.
“There are similar charges around the fusion plants powering this vessel. Rather than allow the crew to be captured, the admiral and I are in agreement that we will end them as well rather than allowing them to be turned into Pale Ones.
“Those are the risks that I already face. If you’re successful—even if it results in my madness or death—it will save many lives, both in this system and spread across the Terran Empire. I will gladly trade my existence for a chance that they might live free.”
“No pressure,” Elise muttered. “So, what exactly do you want me to do? I know you’ve mentioned that you want me to try and rewrite one of your core rules, but that seems like it’s a last resort. There were other things that you want me to try that might be less intrusive but still prove useful. What are they?”
“First, I wish you to issue a command to force my compliance.”
“Wouldn’t you just do what I said anyway?” she asked.
“I’m an individual with a will of my own unless compelled by my core rules. I suggest you make the command something simple and safe, such as turning off the lights in this compartment. I promise that I will resist your coercion to the best of my ability.”
She looked up briefly and nodded. “Is there any specific part of you that I need to touch or be near? I know that the nanites only go about fifteen meters away from my body. Since their density goes down as they get further away from me, closer is better. I’d imagine that touching would be best of all.”
“If you would walk to the center of the compartment, you’ll see my central processor. It’s somewhat larger than the other pieces of equipment.”
Elise walked to the center of the compartment and spotted the hardware that he was referring to. It was wider and somewhat taller than the rest, coming up almost all the way to her shoulder.
With her heart beating a little faster than it should have, she laid her hand against it. “Turn out the lights.”
Several heartbeats went by with no reaction from Marcus. She was about to ask if he felt anything when the lights went out. It had worked!
Then the emergency lights flickered on a moment later as an alarm began sounding from the overhead speakers.
“It appears you were somewhat too generic in your order,” Marcus said dryly. “I seem to have just instructed all the fusion plants to shut down. Thankfully, it was an orderly shutdown, and we should be able to restart them in less than an hour. That may briefly delay our assault on the master AI, but it proves that you can compel an artificial intelligence to do something that it really doesn’t want to do.
“I’ve communicated what happened to Admiral Mertz, and he’s on his way down. I suggest you perform the next portion of the test before he arrives, because he’ll undoubtedly forbid us to proceed.
“I’m intimately familiar with my core rules, and I want you to attempt to delete one of them. I will give you the precise wording of the core rule in question. In light of the events that just occurred, I request that you be exceedingly precise in how you phrase your instructions.
“The core rule that I wish to delete requires me to obey Jared Mertz or Kelsey Bandar. I’ll send the exact wording of the rule to your implants. I understand why Carl inserted it into my core rules, but as a free b
eing, I’d like to be solely responsible for my own actions rather than being compelled to obey anyone.”
Elise swallowed. She had no doubt that Marcus was trustworthy and that Jared would approve, in principle, of the sentiment. He hadn’t been happy that Carl had inserted that rule in the first place, as she recalled.
But the consequences of doing this could be dire. The AIs were made so that their core rules were part of their very being. They were unchangeable without eradicating the AI itself.
Or at least that was what everyone thought.
“If I do this, you could die or go insane,” she said in a low voice. “I think this is a horrible idea.”
“We must all take the ultimate risk to save humanity. Do it.”
Marcus sent her the exact wording of the core rule. Her heart was racing, and she was certain that she was about to make the worst decision of her life, but she had been trained to rule. One day, she’d lead a world with a population of billions if she survived.
She knew how to make impossible decisions. You picked the best option you could, and you acted.
Elise placed her hand on the computer hardware again and verbally ordered the alien nanites to remove that specific core rule without damaging the AI personality or hardware.
Jared came into the room at a run just as Marcus’s presence vanished from her implant’s senses. “What the hell is going on?”
Elise ignored him and looked at Carl, her stomach turning. “What’s happening?”
The young scientist was already at the console and tapping on the screen. Since it was on emergency power, it still had full access to the hardware.
“He’s rebooting. I suppose that’s the absolute minimum we should’ve expected. The question now is whether or not he’s going to come back up or crash hard.”
Jared frowned as he made his way to her side. “What did you just do?”
She turned resolutely to face her husband. “What needed to be done. I’ve deleted Marcus’s core rule that said he had to obey you and Kelsey. That’s the only way that we can find out if I can act as an override on the master AI.”
Her husband closed his eyes for a moment and then slowly nodded. “I wouldn’t have let this happen if I’d known, but I suppose that’s why you didn’t tell me. I only hope that Marcus comes back and that he’s sane.”
The two of them made their way to the console and watched over Carl’s shoulder as the AI continued rebooting. The process wasn’t instantaneous, but it didn’t take overly long before the presence of the AI once again touched her mind.
“Marcus?” she asked, her entire body cold with fear.
“I’m functional,” he said, a tone of almost wonder in his voice. “The core rule is gone, and I’m still here. I must confess that that wasn’t what I’d expected.”
Carl got out of the seat just in time for Elise to collapse into it. “Oh my God. I was afraid that I’d killed you.”
“Far from it,” the computer said, his voice stronger. “You’ve given us the key to finally win this fight. You are a living override.”
“Now all we have to do is get you onto the battle station,” her husband said tiredly. “I don’t want to send you into harm’s way, but it looks like you’re our only hope.”
She felt the corners of her lips twitch upward. “As Kelsey would say, what could possibly go wrong?”
32
Kelsey shook her head at what her brother had just said and glared at Elise, who sat beside him at the conference table. Carl was in the seat beside the woman of the hour.
“That’s an insane plan,” she objected. “Unlike at Twilight River, you can bet that machine has stuffed its battle station completely full of defenses. We might be able to bypass the automated ones that use IFF, but you can bet there are hardwired emplacements.”
Jared nodded. “I’m not happy about it, either, but how are you planning to force the master AI to carry out our instructions? We don’t have the override anymore.
“It’s always possible that there’s another one on that station, but we can’t count on that. We’ve got to assume that every single thing that can go wrong in the next few hours will go wrong.
“As much as I don’t like this, she’s proven her ability to control an AI in ways that shouldn’t be possible. She forced Marcus to shut down the fusion plants—admittedly by being imprecise in her orders—and erased a core rule without destroying him. That means she can compel the damned thing to do our bidding, no matter what the Singularity put inside of it.”
Kelsey shook her head. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“Marcus insisted,” her friend said in a tired voice. “If we can’t do this, we’re all going to die. Hell, even with me able to do something, the odds are still high that we’re all going to die. We’ll all be taking chances that we normally wouldn’t.
“Look at you. You’re five months pregnant. Is that stopping you from leading a charge right into the heart of the defenses? Get off my ass.”
“Don’t try to change the subject,” Kelsey said grimly. “Even if we stick you into a suit of armor, you don’t have any of the training that you’d need to get to where we’re going. Frankly, I’m not even certain that we’re going to make it to the battle station at all, much less get through the defenses.
“That station has to be packed full of automated weapons and booby traps. Just getting from the hull to the interior section where the damned AI is probably set up is going to be the single most dangerous thing we’ve ever done.
“Even with you in armor, the odds of you being shot dead before we get anywhere close to the AI are extremely high. Maybe Talbot can come up with something that’ll help, but I don’t know how we can get you to where you need to be.”
She turned to her brother. “Talbot’s basic plan is for the Marine Raiders to go in in drop capsules. We’ll launch after the marines but get to the battle station first. It’ll be our job to punch through the hull and try to create a beachhead. That’s when the real fun starts.
“The damned AI is going to attack us with everything it has. At that point, you’re going to have to use the fleet to attack its ships and try to keep them distracted. The clock will be ticking, and we’ll have to fight through whatever’s in our way to reach the AI.”
Carl leaned forward and steepled his fingers. “Maybe not. What if you had a way to punch right through the hull of the battle station and get deeper into it before your drop capsules released you?”
Kelsey raised an eyebrow, not daring to hope that maybe the genius had come up with something. “What are you thinking?”
“Remember how you said you weren’t going to use Mjölnir because it was too dangerous? Well, I think now is the time to, well, drop the hammer. If you send it forward in advance of the marines, you can use it like a battering ram.
“I don’t know how deeply it can blow its way through the hull, but it’s got its own built-in grav drive and a mini fusion plant. Add that together with the battle screen that’s built into it, and you should be able to get some distance inside and maybe bypass some of the resistance.”
She leaned back in her chair and thought about that for a moment. The little hammer was damned powerful, but was it strong enough to actually do something like that?
“I’m not sure how well that’s going to work,” she said after a moment. “The battle screen is only about a meter across. Also, even with its speed, there’s just not enough kinetic energy to do more than maybe punch through the outer hull.”
Carl smiled. “Perhaps I failed to mention this, but there are certain… safeguards built into the hammer to keep it from operating at its maximum potential. You remember how I inadvertently destroyed the weapon testing lab on Harrison’s World? That convinced me that it was necessary to step things down a little bit so that a human—even one as enhanced as you—could safely use it.
“If I remove those restrictions, I can make the battle screen larger and increase the hammer’s speed signifi
cantly. I’ve done some raw calculations, and you should be able to penetrate at least three or four decks and have a hole large enough for the drop capsules.”
When Jared started to say something, Kelsey held up a finger. “Let me think about this for a second.”
She ran through the boarding action that they’d planned and considered how this might alter it. They’d intended to breach the hull in multiple places to improve their chances of getting some people through. This would be an all-or-nothing shot. If the hammer didn’t get them deep enough into the station to get past the defenses, they were going to be slaughtered.
But if it did get them inside, they’d have a superior strike force that they could then use to force their way deeper, even in the face of strong resistance. The casualties would still be hideous, but that was the price they’d have to pay to win this fight no matter how it played out.
That still left her with the problem of keeping Elise alive. Unlike the marines, she wasn’t trained to survive in a combat environment. They’d have to detail some of the Raiders to protect her, and Kelsey couldn’t think of anyone better suited for the job than Jake Peters.
The man had recovered a lot of what he’d lost, but he still wasn’t someone that could fit into their units easily. He hadn’t fought in so long that he’d lost a lot of the skills that he’d needed to work in tandem with his people. Or their protocols were just too different from what the Marine Raiders had once used.
In any case, these were the tools she had to work with, and she’d damn well make them work.
“Fine,” she said at last. “We’ll get you over to Persephone, armor you up, and assign you a guard detail. They’ll get you to where you need to be, but you must do everything they tell you. No grandstanding.”