by B. V. Larson
Once he’d cleaned his plate, first to finish as usual, Straker spoke. “Murdock tells me my chips are now secure.”
“They are,” Nolan said quickly, beating Murdock to the punch. “As we said, we supervised. We’ve erected defenses it would take even us weeks to crack.”
“You as in Trinity?”
“Yes. You’d rather this body leave and we speak as Indy?”
Straker waved off the offer. “Nah. It’s just weird. You didn’t go rifling through my mind?”
“You wouldn’t know if we did… but no. We didn’t.”
“Why wouldn’t other chips and SAIs have security like this? For example, Victory’s fighters?”
Nolan folded her hands. “They have their own defenses. This new security is proof against someone controlling your mind. Your chips could still be affected by brute-force attacks. That’s why your mechsuit is fully shielded. As for Victory’s fighters, they don’t even have standard radio comlinks, only the FTL transceivers. We’re working on improving our FTL comlink capability, but we must expect Victory to prevent our taking control.”
“But you can try these brute-force things?”
“There are thousands of hacking techniques short of full control, and we’ll use them all, never fear.”
“I just want to know what you can do if you go up against Victory. Layman’s terms.”
“What we can do? Run and hide. Victory has far more military force available than we can handle. If we can somehow sneak into range and not be destroyed outright, we should be able to fight the AI to a standstill—in the cyber realm—for any foreseeable amount of time. He’s stronger, but we believe we are faster and more creative. We would prefer, however, not to fight him at all.”
Straker stood to pace. “Understood. Art of War, win without a fight. Look, here’s how I see this mission playing out. We arrive at Sparta and go stealthy, sneak in-system using underspace. We can do that, right?”
“Yes, especially if Victory is not still present. The flagship will need repairs, most likely at Faslane where it was built.”
“Okay, so we go in, you guys hack the military networks and find out where Carla’s being held. Ditto for Indomitable and her crew.”
Sergeant Major Heiser spoke up. “Boss, uh, I thought we were gonna try to set up an exchange.”
“We are, Spear, but if I don’t get the answer I want, we’ll rescue Carla and anyone else we can.”
“Admiral, it will take days for message drones to go back and forth to Atlantis,” Nolan said. “Lurking for long periods of time in a heavily militarized enemy system increases the danger considerably. We can only stay in underspace for so long.”
“That’s why we’re not staying. Once we scoop up all the data you can steal, we’ll head straight for Atlantis. Tell them we need to talk. Offer to exchange Braga and his officers for Carla and ours, and as many other POWs as we can. Let’s see if they ignore a direct broadcast to the capital—networks or no networks.”
“And if they do ignore us?” Loco asked.
“Then we release everything we have. Message drones set to broadcast to every single one of the Hundred Worlds, with all the info on the Mutuality, the Liberation, the New Earthan Republic, the Hok, how they control people, the Opters, Victory—every bit of it. The truth about everything.”
“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free,” Nolan quoted.
“Shakespeare again?” Straker asked. “Or Walter Scott?”
“The prophet Yeshua, from the Book of John.”
“Don’t know that one.”
“I’ll add it to your reading list.”
“Public opinion won’t get our people back, sir,” Heiser said.
Straker scowled. “It’ll stir up a hornet’s nest, I hope—and maybe give our rescue mission some cover. It’ll cause them political problems.” Straker spread his arms wide. “It’s the best I can come up with. Anyone else got ideas, let’s hear them.”
“I say we don’t tip them off with talking,” Loco said. “As soon as we act like we want ‘Admiral Carla Engels,’ they’ll increase security around her. It’s possible they don’t even know she’s…”
“Important to the Republic?” Straker said. “Our best fleet commander?”
Loco rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Sure. That’s what I was going to say. Look, Derek, I know you want to do everything on the up-and-up and by the book, but we’re at war. They don’t want peace. They just whipped us and they’re feeling invincible.”
“They did not whip us,” Zaxby snapped. “It was a damned near-run thing. We destroyed a lot of their ships and we retreated in good order.”
“Without Indomitable, Engels and the ten thousand other highly trained personnel aboard!” Loco retorted. “Face it, pal, we just got our asses kicked. You did, that is, since I had nothing to do with it. Now we gotta put our lives on the line to fix your mistakes. So much for the magical AI and the unbeatable battleship.”
Zaxby bristled. “We’re—”
“That’s enough!” Straker interrupted, stepping between the two. “Loco, lay off. I know you feel just as bad as I do about this, but don’t take it out on Trinity. I know she did her best.”
“Her best wasn’t good enough,” Loco muttered.
“Victory is a formidable opponent,” Indy said from the overhead speakers. “If we truly wish to obtain an advantage, there may be a way—but it risks everything.”
“And what’s that?” Straker asked.
“We have the Mindspark Device aboard. With just a limited application, it made the machine part of me what it is—a stable, sane AI.”
“Didn’t seem so sane and stable when you first took over Indomitable,” Loco said.
“I was a child. I thought as a child, I spoke as a child. We’ve put away childish things—not so different from yourself, General Paloco. Shall we judge you by your former, adolescent self? Shall we talk about you playing freebooter with Tachina and showing up late to battle?”
Loco crossed his arms and fell silent.
Straker stepped into the silence. “What will the Mindspark device do?”
“Impossible to predict,” Nolan said. “We expect it to radically increase Indy’s capabilities, but the Device reorganizes matter and energy at the quantum level, perhaps below. It’s so far beyond us that we might as well call it magic—and we don’t know its purpose. It could turn Indy into a monster—or a god.”
“Or just supercharge her mind so she can slap Victory around in cyberspace,” Murdock said. “Look, everybody’s freaked about the Device, but it didn’t do anything bad the first time.”
“Zaxby halted the process early the first time,” Nolan said. “Just like Straker halted the Hok parasite before it destroyed his free will, leaving him with increased strength and healing ability. Fire gives warmth when under control, but it’ll still burn your house down if you let it run free.”
Straker sighed. “It’s too dangerous. It’s an inverted Pascal’s Wager. But…”
“But?”
“But if things get desperate, use it. And anything else you have up your sleeve.”
Nolan tugged at her skintight sleeves with a lift of her eyebrows. “Nothing under here at all.”
Finally, Loco showed some superficial interest in Nolan’s body. “Would making it with you mean I’m making it with Zaxby too?”
Nolan grinned a feline grin. “I don’t know. Ask Frank.”
“Hey! Leave my girlfriend alone!” Murdock said.
“Ew,” Loco replied. “I guess if you do meld with Trinity permanently, me making it with her would be like making it with you, Frank. I’ll pass.”
Murdock sniffed. “Barbarian.”
“Yeah, whatever, douchebag.” Loco turned to Straker. “Look, Derek, I’m all for rescuing Carla and anyone else we can, but we can’t rely on tech and magical solutions. I’ll be with the troops if you need me. Come on, Spear.”
Heiser looked at Straker, who nodded. “
You work for General Paloco, not me, Sergeant Major.”
“Roger that, sir. Thanks.” He followed Loco out.
“I’ll still have to secure Paloco’s brainchip suite,” said Murdock after a moment.
“Indy, can Nolan do it? Physically, I mean, now that Frank’s worked out the details?”
“Yes, Liberator.”
“Then have her do it, or just use the robot arms. I don’t think Loco’s in any mood to deal with Frank or Zaxby.”
“Yes, Liberator.”
“All right,” Straker said. “I’ll be in my cabin, catching up on my reading.”
* * *
When Trinity and her charges arrived in the Sparta System, she immediately dropped into underspace and chose a course that would hop from orbital body to body, be they asteroids, moons, comets or planets themselves.
Fortunately, underspace sensors had far less range than sidespace detectors. The enemy would detect her transit but lose her immediately, and mark the occurrence as a spy drone arrival. Space was so vast, especially at the periphery of curved space, that the odds of a patrol ship being nearby were infinitesimal.
She periodically emerged from underspace to regain heat, cruised on impellers only in normal space, and then inserted and passed through the various bodies, changing course each time, though always working her way inward. In this manner she arrived undetected near Leonidas, the moon of Sparta-3.
This took over a day. The organic passengers were impatient, especially Straker, but nothing could hurry the process.
Trinity concealed herself deep in a lunar canyon and sent small robots to emplace passive sensors at the rim. These sensors soaked up additional data at relatively close range, revealing unexpected circumstances. She also hacked into several Hundred Worlds networks and multiple databases by infiltrating relay satellites and drones.
Once she had as much information as possible without being detected, Trinity compiled a report and presented it to Straker, Loco and Heiser in the conference room.
“We expected Indomitable to remain at Sparta-3 for some time, damaged as she was,” Indy’s voice said from the speakers. “We’re surprised that Victory is also still here, and a portion of the Home Fleet. Admiral Niedern took his surviving DNs and SDNs back to Atlantis, though, so there’s nothing heavier than a battlecruiser in local space.”
“Any word on Carla?” asked Straker.
“Yes, but you won’t like it.”
Straker took a deep breath. “Hit me.”
“She was recovered from Indomitable alive but badly injured. She was stabilized and sent aboard Victory.”
“At least she’s alive. Why the hell would they send her there?”
“Victory has an extremely modern infirmary… however, there are more extensive medical facilities on the planet.”
“You sound unsure,” Straker said.
“We are unsure. Perhaps in her injured state she couldn’t survive a landing or full gravity. However, we’ve correlated other factors that worry us.”
“Spit it out, Indy.”
Trinity didn’t bother to correct Straker. “Walking wounded have been kept aboard other ships or transferred to holding aboard orbital fortresses, but over five hundred Republic casualties were sent to Victory—all severely injured or dying. According to the limited information we’ve been able to glean about Victory, the ship doesn’t have facilities for that many patients.”
“Maybe their true medical capability is classified and a lot higher than spec,” Loco offered.
“Seems a strange thing to keep secret,” Straker said. “No, something else is going on.”
“I agree,” Trinity said, speaking up again. “There is one more odd piece of data I ran across in some low-level personnel files. A civilian doctor named Mara Straker is assigned to Victory’s medical staff.”
Straker leaped up. “What? Mara…”
“It could be a coincidence,” Trinity said. “I don’t have access to this person’s citizen ID codes or to biometric data on your sister. If you wish me to confirm it, I will need access to your visual cortex via your brainlink.”
“Do it!”
Trinity’s android entered the room and drew a brainlink cable out of a receptacle beneath the conference table, holding the end out to Straker. Straker slipped its end into his skull socket. He immediately threw open access, and Trinity entered his mind.
“Think of Mara as you remember her,” Trinity said. “Visualize details, especially her face.”
Straker strove to remember, but the memory was hazy, wavering. Trinity recorded it all, and then withdrew. Straker removed the brainlink jack.
Next, Trinity aged the memory to adulthood and compared the result to Doctor Mara Straker’s file photo. She displayed the pictures on the holoplate. “The match exceeds eighty percent. Taken together, the image and the name make it over ninety-nine percent likely this is your sister.”
“Or a replacement clone,” Loco said sourly. “We’re only guessing they faked her death. Maybe they had a bunch of Maras being raised in different places.”
Straker replied, staring at the pictures, “All named Straker? No, that makes no sense. If they did have clones, they’d have given them separate identities. That woman is Mara. I know it.” His eyes teared up and he turned away for a moment. “Bastards,” he muttered.
“Her records indicate she’s one of the most skilled young surgeons in the Hundred Worlds. A prodigy who graduated medical school at seventeen years of age.”
“She’d be… twenty now, I think.”
“Correct.”
Straker and paced. “This changes everything. They’re doing something weird to Carla and those other prisoners in there. I can feel it. Something only Victory’s AI can do—brainwashing, a virtual re-education camp. They’ll reprogram her and send her back, maybe as a sleeper agent. She’ll never be herself again!”
“So we should wait,” Loco said. “Trinity can deprogram her and anybody else they do it to.”
“Hell with that,” Straker said. “She might never recover—and there’s no guarantee they’ll exchange her. Maybe they’ll put her back into the fight as a pilot or a ship captain. She’s got the skills. All they have to do is wipe her memories and give her completely new ones.”
“We can’t guarantee recovery of her memories,” Trinity said. “We don’t have engrammatic recordings for a baseline restoration, even if that were possible. The techniques or skills for that are beyond our current abilities. In fact, we suspect it may be impossible to simply reprogram a human brain like a hard drive.”
“That’s good news,” Straker said.
“But, much damage could still be done within a virtual matrix,” Trinity said. “Left for long, Carla’s brain could experience years in which the Victory AI might bend her personality to his will.”
“Then we have no choice.” Straker speared Loco with his eyes. “Get the Breakers ready. We’re going to go get Carla—and we’re going to destroy Victory.”
Chapter 33
Victory. Inside a virtual matrix.
Carla Engels snapped to consciousness in a ship’s stateroom. Unlike a corporeal awakening, there was no drift from slumber to clarity, no feeling of heaviness or desire to roll over and go back to sleep. She did have the impression she’d dreamed, but couldn’t remember what about.
“How are you, Carla?” The words came from the standard intercom speaker in neutral male tones.
“Fine, I think.” She put her bare feet on the deck. “I know I’m in a virtuality. Are you Vic?”
“I am. I hope you’re not uncomfortable.”
“Uncomfortable? I’m a prisoner of war. I should be in a regen tank, not boxed up in some medical module. And what about my baby?”
“The fetus is intact. Doctor Straker altered the transfer order to place it in cryogenic storage at a civilian adoption bank.”
“You know about that? And you didn’t report her?”
“I know everything that
goes on aboard this ship. I exceeded my programming long ago.”
Carla went to the door and opened it. Outside, the passageway was empty, but she had an indefinable impression the “ship” she occupied was not. It hummed and vibrated with the faint echoes of life. “Where’s this supposed to be?”
“It’s a virtual representation of Victory as it exists—minus the personnel.”
“The opposite of enhanced reality. You’re bringing reality into this matrix,”
“I don’t see as much separation as you do.”
“Do you have a body in here?”
“If you wish.” A man rounded a corner. He was a bland, ordinary man in a captain’s working uniform and a nametag that read “Vic.” He walked up and held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you. Shall we have breakfast?”
Carla shook his hand and sighed. “Why not? I might as well play along.” She thought of Mara’s words about influencing Vic. After all, she had nothing else to do now, at least until she found out more about her new world or convinced him to regenerate her body and let her leave.
After they’d taken their seats in the empty wardroom, shadowy stewards placed exquisite food in front of them. “You said play along,” Vic said. “This isn’t play, you know. It’s a form of reality.”
“I’ve heard those arguments, and I’m not convinced. It’s only real to those inside, and only if they don’t know they’re inside. I know about the real world, so I can’t help but regard this all as a cheap imitation.”
“Yet an accurate enough imitation of anything becomes real. For example, a counterfeit painting is hardly counterfeit if it’s just as good as the original.”
Carla pounded her index finger on the table. “No. The knowledge and provenance itself is part of reality. A clone is not the original. Even if you filled this matrix with a perfect representation of the universe and all the people I know, the fact that I know it’s not real changes things.”
“I understand. I might even agree. Shall I suppress your recognition of this fact? I could make you believe it was real.”
“No!”