by M. D. Cooper
Sue said.
The TSF lieutenant’s stance shifted, and Terrance could tell she was going to object.
Jordan’s fist clenched and unclenched before she nodded.
Her words were cut off when one of the soldiers cried out,
Seconds later, weapons fire from surrounding hillocks rained down on the TSF position, a rail shot slamming into Terrance before he could even hit the ground.
A CLONE FOR YOUR TROUBLES
STELLAR DATE: 10.12.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Durgen Station
REGION: Karaske System, Rimward of Orion Nebula, Orion Freedom Alliance
“Ye of little faith,” Saanvi said as the emergency bulkhead slid aside, revealing a stretch of corridor that led to the ops center and the two Widows guarding the far end.
“I shouldn’t have doubted you,” A1 said as she placed a hand on E12’s shoulder. She nodded to R71 and Q93. “Cover the rear. Who knows what is waiting back there.”
E12 led the way, and A1 followed, General Garza trailing after. They’d only made it a few meters when panels opened on the bulkheads in front of them, and turrets flipped out and opened fire.
A1 didn’t hesitate to summon a graviton field into place, stopping the rounds in mid-air and laughing to herself at the consternation that such an action likely caused Animus.
Shoot…I could have just dissolved the emergency bulkheads before! I need to remember that I’m Cary as well as A1.
For the first time, a tendril of fear entered her mind that allowing things to continue as they were might not end well, that she could actually lose herself in this new person she’d become.
But as she reached out and shredded the turrets, drawing in their energy, she scoffed at the notion. There was no way she could forget that she was an ascending being. It was too glorious.
A1 could tell that E12 was nervous, and she didn’t blame her; they were taking significant risks. Even so, her sister did have a point about playing her cards closer to her chest.
E12 stopped walking and placed a hand on the bulkhead, her head lowered in concentration. A1 waited for her sister to do her work. Despite her trepidation, this was still E12’s forte.
However, after half a minute, nothing had happened.
The leader of the Widows tapped into an energy reserve she knew lay within herself, but had always been afraid to touch—except for during her life-or-death fight with Myrrdan. She supposed that it wasn’t a reserve of energy so much as access to a different type of energy.
She strode past E12, her graviton field already in place and building in potential. Before her, the bulkheads began to buckle, expanding under the raw assault of the particles A1 was generating.
The energy reached a crescendo, and she thrust it forward, the field surging down the corridor, expanding it by over a meter and crushing everything behind the panels.
Right before the graviton field reached the two Widows at the far end, she pulled it back and sent a wave of positive gravitons, canceling it out.
A minute later, they were at the ops center, the two Widows at the entrance turning their featureless heads as she passed, small shifts in their posture displaying awe at A1’s abilities.
Beyond the doors lay an airlock that passed through a solid shell comprised of hundreds of layers of materials designed to provide both strength and energy dissipation. The far end of the lock was already open, and A1 strode through it, looking into the spherical chamber beyond. Normally, the ops center would have been teeming with people rushing about on its many levels, but what few remained were hunched over their consoles, frozen in place under the watchful gaze of the black-clad women within.
J19 gestured at one of the women sitting at a console in front of her.
“Well?” A1 asked as she walked around the console and stared down at Assistant Director Kimberly. “Are you willing to help?”
“Help?” she asked, her voice wavering. “With what?”
A1 jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Accessing all of his records and plans would be a good start.”
“I—I don’t have any way to access those systems,” the woman stammered. “Those are military systems. I can only help you with the civilian parts of the station—and not even those anymore.”
“Why not?” A1 demanded.
“Animus. He’s taken over. Shut everyone out.”
As the woman spoke, a tremor ran through the deck, and a few of the station personnel gasped.
“Not anymore.” Kimberly shook her head, eyes wide with fear. “We did see another ship out there before we lost access. Director Mendel was talking to an admiral from the Intrepid Space Force, if you can believe it. What is the ISF doing this deep in Orion Space? And why at Karaske, of all places?”
A1 leant forward, doing her best to make her lean, weapon-like body seem less intimidating. “You can’t share this, but things aren’t going so well. We need to get access to the general’s datastores and then get off the station before the ISF destroys it.”
“Destroys?” one of the ops center crew sitting nearby asked. “How are they going to do that with one ship?”
“Picobombs,” E12 said, and every person in the room grew a shade paler.
“So you can’t access anything anymore?” A1 pressed, trying to sound like an ancient, commanding woman, rather than an exasperated young one who was big on ability but running low on tactical maneuvers.
Suddenly, Kimberly’s eyes widened further, and she looked down at her console, hands flying over the interface, until she let out a cry of joy.
“Yes! The dataroute is still here. By the way…the general—is he OK, by the way?”
“Got hit by a drug from
an ISF assault team,” A1 said hastily. “He’ll be alright in a few minutes.”
“Oh…OK.” Kimberly looked uncertain, but seemed to think better of arguing with a Widow. “Well, there was this project he and Animus were working on. I didn’t know much about it, other than to stay away, but I did know about the data housing, because it’s on the same trunkline that this ops center uses.”
“Can you access it?” E12 asked, gesturing for J19 to move aside, and bending over the console.
“Well, I have rudimentary access to station status,” Kimberly explained. “Animus couldn’t completely cut us off without compromising his ability to control the entire station. A lot of systems route through here.”
E12 looked up at A1 and shrugged.
A1 wasn’t so certain that was the best use of their placement within Orion. If they could destroy Animus, then they could claim he’d gone rogue. No one would believe an AI over Lisa Wrentham, and they’d have free reign once more—or something closer to it.
“Aha!” the assistant director crowed. “The route is still in place. I can ping whatever datastore this is, but I can’t access it.”
“Let me make an attempt,” E12 said, gesturing for the woman to move.
She settled into the seat and began working at the edges of the system in question, trying to gain access in a variety of ways.
E12 said after a minute.
A1 was about to posit a few options, when a voice spoke over the ops center’s audible systems.
“Enough of this, imposter. I know you’re not A1—you’re working in concert with that ISF ship out there.”
“Animus? Stop this nonsense right now!” A1 demanded. “We are not your enemy.”
“No?” the AI asked, its single word punctuated by several more tremors in the deck.
“No! That ship out there is the enemy. It must have followed us through the gate. It’s imperative that we gather all our operational datastores and your core, and escape.”
“I’ve seen the feeds from Bollam’s World,” Animus said. “I’ve watched everything that has come after. I don’t think the ISF will use its picobombs here—especially not against civilians. And because of that, I believe that the Guard fleets in the system will be more than capable of destroying, or at least driving off, a single cruiser.”
“Nevertheless, we still need to observe protocol.”
“Don’t talk to me about protocol. What did you do to the general?” Animus asked. “He’s not responding to me.”
“The ISF did it,” A1 said, knowing the explanation that had worked on the assistant director would not work on the AI, but she gave it anyway. “They got a heavy dose of a drug into his system. It’s working its way out now.”
“One that impacts his Link?” The AI’s voice was rife with skepticism.
One of the Widows ran to it, and A1 hoped that Animus wasn’t using any optics along with the audible systems.
“I don’t know,” A1 said. “I’ve been a bit busy, with you attacking me. Maybe if—”
“What are you doing? I’ll cut off your trunkline entirely!” Animus nearly shouted as the Widow sprinted back across the deck and handed the twenty-centimeter cylinder to E12.
E12 grabbed a hard-Link cable from the console and jacked it into the cylinder, hands flying across the console once more.
The fact that the AI asked the question in an almost mocking tone was worrisome, but E12 gave an uncharacteristic laugh.
“Too late, Animus,” she said. “I’ve already copied its matrices to the ops center’s ephemeral storage. And since you just severed our trunkline, you can’t stop me from copying it into this portable unit here.”
“You don’t—”
The AI’s voice cut out, and E12 stood.
“I hope you don’t mind, A1. I was getting tired of him.”
A1 almost gave a casual snort, and then remembered that Lisa Wrentham would never have done that.
“Next time, ask, E12,” she chastised.
“What are your orders?” J19 asked, and A1 paused for just a moment as she considered their options.
“I think our best bet is to get back to your shuttle,” she said to the Widow. “Once there, we can get a better picture of what is going on outside the station and plan our next move.”
“What about us?” the assistant director asked.
A1 glanced at the woman and the other people who had remained with her.
“I suggest you get to evac pods. Animus has greatly overestimated his ability to stave off an attack by the ISF.”
J19 and her four Widows were already moving toward one of the airlocks on the far side of the room, and A1 followed after. It took a few minutes for the first group of Widows to pass through the airlock, out of the ops center, and secure the far side, so while they waited, A1 reached out to E12, who seemed lost in thought.
Lisa Wrentham had rarely laughed in her tenure as A1, but the new owner of that title couldn’t help it, and let out a short chuckle.
A few seconds later, the airlock cycled open on both ends. J19 appeared in the entrance and signaled that the way was clear. A1 nodded, and the rest of the Widows moved out of the ops center.
The passages outside were lit in the garish red glow of emergency lighting, and down two of the adjacent corridors, A1 could hear cries of alarm.
The eight Widows and their Garza rushed through the station, keeping to less trafficked corridors and avoiding the fleeing populace as well as the drones and automated defenses that Animus was deploying.
Half a dozen times, they got pinned down by one or another enemy force, and each time, A1 resorted to her unconventional abilities…which none of the Widows questioned or even commented on.
After twenty minutes—during which the station suffered a number of additional strikes from what A1 could only assume was her father’s ship—they reached the docking bay where the Widows’ shuttle awaited.
A1 nodded. Given that, it was actually rather surprising that there were no Marines present.
J19’s team checked the bay over, only finding two ship techs cowering in a far corner. They declared it safe, and A1 entered, striding toward the ship.
&nbs
p; “Hold it!” a voice boomed from behind her, and she spun to see another Garza stride into the bay while dozens of soldiers rushed in through the main doors and two of the side entrances.
A1 placed a hand on her sister’s shoulder.
GOING UNDER
STELLAR DATE: 10.12.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Core AI C&C Moon
REGION: Interstellar Space, Inner Praesepe Empire
The determination to move toward the enemy transmitters, which were roughly four kilometers away, didn’t diminish the dire situation that the group of humans was in, as weapons fire continued to pummel their position.
Terrance picked himself up of the ground—thanking his armor and it’s liberal application of biofoam that was keeping him in one piece. He checked his range of movement and found that his left arm couldn’t fully rotate, and his shoulder blade felt like it had been hit with a hammer.
Lieutenant Jordan, for her part, hadn’t missed a beat, sending a series of commands to her soldiers. Two of the heavy weaponers moved to the perimeter and set up what Terrance recognized as a ground-hugger launcher.
In a situation like this, any heavy ordnance they fired into the air would easily be shot down by the enemy, but ground-hugging missiles could navigate the small hillocks and hit the panther-drones from behind.
Hopefully.
Impacts near his head sprayed dust at his face, and Terrance shifted his focus to the overhead view his drones provided, locating a panther advancing on him. He spun, locked on the target, and fired an electron beam and railgun combo at it. The e-beam missed, but the rail-fired pellets hit, blowing off one of the machine’s legs.
The loss of a limb didn’t slow it down, and the drone barreled around the hillock Terrance was using for cover, its railgun hammering him with two shots before his electron beam was ready to fire again.
This time, Terrance’s shot was true, burning a hole through the panther’s torso and dropping it only four meters away.
His adrenaline spiked, and he had to force his breathing to steady—something that was aided by the cocktail of drugs his armor had injected into his bloodstream.