by M. D. Cooper
And so A1 became their leader, and they followed her without question.
In moments of deep personal honesty, Lisa would sometimes admit to herself that she liked being A1 more than Lisa Wrentham.
A1 was both a being filled with purpose, and one that fulfilled her purpose. She didn’t have regrets, she didn’t pine for things no longer attainable. She received orders and acted on them, dispersing her clone sisters amongst the stars to do her bidding.
On rare occasions when loneliness and depression would strike at Lisa, she gave strong consideration to undergoing the same processes she’d used on her clones, to truly become one of their number.
But something always stopped her, keeping her as Lisa, never letting her fully become A1.
She supposed it was some perverse desire to eventually lord her victory over Finaeus, when Orion finally defeated the Transcend. If she descended into A1’s persona fully, she would never get to revel in his subjugation.
But after? Perhaps she would follow through with what had become an increasingly strong desire to escape her past forever, to simply become an organic machine with no past, only the skills and abilities to fulfill her purpose.
She reached another stasis pod, this one containing unit G11. As with C139, she activated the pod’s extraction routine, and then instructed the Widow to meet A1 in briefing room D10 after gathering its alpha team.
Once that task was complete, Lisa left the central chamber and took a lift up to D deck. Several automatons were waiting for the lift when she arrived at her destination, and they stepped aside, their glossy white forms matching her own—though their shells contained only machines, not living, breathing women.
Lisa arrived at briefing room D9 before unit C139 and her team. She had only to wait for three minutes before the twelve Widows arrived, well ahead of the ten minutes C139 had estimated.
Once the Simulacra were all settled, Lisa began.
“The Division has determined that it is time for us to strike at the heart of evil within the Transcend, the abomination herself, Airtha.”
As she spoke, A1 activated the holodisplay to show the Huygens System.
“Airtha is currently at the outer edge of the Tomias belt in Huygens, and is moving into a region that is clear of dark matter. The entire system has jump interdictors ten thousand AU from Huygens, but with Airtha soon to be accessible by dark layer FTL, we can jump to a point well outside that and then sneak in close.”
Lisa saw E12 cock her head, and knew the question the widow was thinking. “Yes, they do have a sensor web in the dark layer around Airtha, but we all know that detecting ships in the DL is tricky at best, and we’ve been working on a way to maintain a transition into the DL while also reducing our graviton bleed. Unless we pass within a kilometer of a sensor, I don’t think they’ll stand a chance of spotting us.”
E12 gave a slight nod, and Lisa could tell that the unit was satisfied, but still held slight reservations. E12 had always been rather contrarian, but it made her a good teammate, so A1 had never bothered with altering the unit’s personality.
“Our goal is the utter destruction of the Airthan Ring,” she continued. “Likely the star as well, if we do our job right. We have detailed schematics and believe that if we overload six of the ring’s CriEn power-plants, we can destroy the ring, bringing it down into the dwarf star. It is likely that the resulting explosion will destroy the entire Huygens System—or at least ruin its habitability.”
C139 lifted a hand off her lap and Lisa nodded to her. “Yes?”
“My estimations do not give a high level of likelihood for full-team survival…not even half the team,” C139 said with only the slightest note of concern in her voice.
“You are correct,” Lisa replied with a curt nod. “If this were any other mission, I would alter parameters until we could achieve a better rate of survivability, but this is the mission. The one we have been preparing for all these long centuries. You’re the best of the best, and I believe in you. We all make sacrifices for humanity, sacrifices that must be made for the race.”
“We’re born of humanity, but are no longer a part of it,” the Widows intoned in unison.
“That is correct. As your alpha, I promise you that your lives mean more to me than you can imagine, and I do not spend them carelessly. But Airtha grows stronger and must be stopped.
“I have prepared all relevant datasets for you, and have loaded them onto your pinnace. You are scheduled to depart in one hour; make ready.”
The Widows all stood and snapped their heels together before giving their sharp nods and filing out of the room.
Once they had left, Lisa walked out into the hall and down one door to briefing room D10. She entered to see G11 and her team of nine waiting patiently in their seats, and ten gleaming black heads turned ever so slightly to track her approach to the front.
“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,” Lisa said to them. “It is a busy day here on the Perilous Dream. I’ve just sent a team to destroy Airtha.”
Heads silently tilted, and Lisa held up a hand. “I know each of you wishes to have been sent on that mission, but I have something equally important for you. A new abomination has risen, a full merge of human and AI that has also ascended.”
G11 lifted a hand, and Lisa acknowledged her.
“Unit A1, if she is ascended, how can we strike against her? She will be well guarded, and will see us coming. Widows have faced ascended beings before. They did not survive.”
“You are right. It will be dangerous. However, our intelligence networks have predicted a conjunction of events that will present a unique opportunity. I am passing you all relevant datasets now. This mission may see many of you fall in the field, but destroying this target is of the utmost importance.
“If we can take out this abomination, and defeat Airtha, we will be very close to overthrowing the Transcend and bringing the Inner Stars to heel.”
G11’s team turned their heads in short arcs, glancing at one another as they considered their alpha’s words.
“Are there any questions?” Lisa asked.
“None, the dataset explains everything perfectly,” G11 said after a moment.
Lisa nodded in satisfaction as the team exited the room in the same fashion as C139’s.
Once the Widows were gone, Lisa readied additional datasets for two more teams, summoning them in the same fashion as the first two.
These received similar orders as the prior teams, but with the understanding that they were backup. They would shadow the initial teams, and should C139’s or G11’s Widows fall, they would fill the gaps, or take over entirely.
Lisa did not send shadow teams as a matter of common policy, but this time was different. The stakes were far too high.
Once the teams left for their respective departure hangars, Lisa left deck D and took a lift that drew her forward on the Perilous Dream to the bridge, four kilometers away from the briefing rooms.
She walked down the short corridor and stepped into the Perilous Dream’s beating heart. Within, twenty more of her clones sat at a variety of stations. They were identical to her and the Widows she had just sent on their disparate missions, except each their glossy black bodies bore a white stripe running down the right side.
Several nodded deferentially to Lisa as she entered and sat in her command chair. Once she was settled into the seat, two bio-hookups connected to her lower back, and a hard-Link connector slotted into her neck.
Though Lisa had been tangentially aware of the ship’s operations and surroundings while assembling and dispatching her teams, the direct connection to the vessel increased the bandwidth and filled her mind with data. The sensation was one of expanding, breaking free of the bonds her mortal coil would constrain her with.
She watched as the four pinnaces slipped from their docking bays, queuing up for their turn at the jump gate and their destinations many thousands of light years away. Once they had all left, Lisa crafted a message for
General Garza, informing him that her teams were en route.
He will be pleased, she thought. He has wanted this almost as long as I have.
* * * * *
Silina’s over-earnest voice interrupted Garza’s thoughts.
A moment later, Garza received the latest upate from Lisa, and a packet including the details of each mission she had planned for her clones.
He still found them—not to mention Lisa’s own altered appearance—rather disconcerting, but there was no arguing with the results. Lisa and her Simulacra got the job done.
The message sender was listed as ‘A1’, the designation Lisa had taken on when she decided to fully assume her Widow persona.
He understood her rationale for it—she didn’t want to create a scenario where her clones saw her without her guise, so she wore it at all times, even on the Link and in communiques to him and other leaders in the Orion Guard.
Sometimes he wondered if A1 was one of the clones and the original Lisa was long gone. He wasn’t even certain that there would be a way to tell anymore. There may have once been, but now that Lisa had altered herself to perfectly mimic her creations, there was no apparent differentiation other than color, and that was easily altered.
She had told him it was necessary—her clones were as clever as she was, and they would see through anything short of a total transformation.
Garza had to admit that it bothered him less now than it used to. Now that he was also using clones, he couldn’t argue with the effectiveness of being in multiple places at once.
It’s like the old saying goes, ‘If you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself.’
He pushed aside the concern that A1 may herself be a clone. It didn’t really matter, anyway. She followed orders and completeled her tasks efficiently and without argument. If she did raise concerns, they were intelligent and always came with solutions.
Rather like a human AI, kept well at heel.
UNCERTAIN REUNION
STELLAR DATE: 09.25.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Command Deck 19, ISS I2
REGION: Pyra, Albany System, Thebes, Septhian Alliance
Fina looked to Sera and then to Seraphina, then placed her hands on the table, taking care to keep her flowmetal limbs in their proper form.
“I’m going to see her.” Fina’s voice was emphatic, brooking no argument.
The three women were sitting in one of the forward officers’ mess halls on the I2. A place they had taken many a meal over the years.
Never together, of course. Most of their memories of time aboard the Intrepid were shared from when there had only been one Sera.
Just like their memories of time spent with Elena.
“If that’s what you want to do,” Seraphina replied tonelessly, while Sera’s blood-red lips remained tightly pursed.
“I’d like you to be OK with this, Red,” Fina said to Sera, willing her sister to speak, to give her absolution. “You have Jason; I thought you’d want us to be happy.”
“I do.” Sera broke her silence, holding her hands up in surrender. “But Elena…she’s filled with…”
“Memories.” Seraphina completed the statement, resting a hand on Sera’s shoulder. “For all of us.”
“You’re lacking the ones where she betrayed Tanis and I to Orion, and tried to kill me.” Sera’s voice dripped with acid as she spoke.
“But you said it yourself,” Fina leant forward, elbows on the table. “She was under Garza’s control.”
“Not originally.” Sera shook her head, eyes locked on Fina’s. “She went to see him of her own free will. Sure, she realizes it was a mistake now. But she still has…confused goals.”
“And for that, you write her off?” Fina asked, glaring at her sister.
Though Sera frequently said that she wasn’t going to stick exclusively to the color red, she’d not changed it since the day Fina had altered her coloring. There was no way Sera had gone this long without undoing her hack, and Fina had to assume that Sera really did like her scarlet appearance and was glad for the excuse to maintain it.
Now, as Sera became clearly flustered, the appearance of a shipsuit faded from her body, and her face and hands turned red, as well.
The effect made her look a bit demonic.
“Stars, Fina…it’s not that simple. No, I don’t write her off, but she still committed treason, and for that, she’s in prison. Even if I wanted to set her free, I can’t. Not with my position. It would be seen as the worst form of nepotism. And there’s nothing to indicate that Elena wouldn’t betray us again.”
“Garza’s mental hacks won’t work again,” Seraphina said. “The ISF’s neurologists are able to safeguard against anything but a remnant now.”
“The benefit of encountering half a dozen forms of mental coercion in just a few years,” Sera muttered. “Yay for science defeating evildoers.”
No one responded, and silence settled over the table, broken only when Sera looked down at her hand and muttered. “Shit, stupid skin.”
“Oh, stop it, for starssakes.” Seraphina glared at Sera. “You like looking like that. You should…I don’t know…add some shading or detail, darken your lips, and make that your default appearance. You’re not going to be president anymore, you don’t have to pretend to fit in with societal norms.”
“You should do pink,” Fina said, her expression serious. “Yeah, I know we have a thing against pink, but I think a dusky rose, with darker pink highlights would look good. No one would expect that in a million years.”
“Can we get back to the topic at hand?” Sera asked.
Seraphina ran a hand through her blonde hair and then adjusted her leather jacket. “I thought you didn’t want to talk about Elena. Isn’t fashion usually a desirable diversion? Though for you two, it’s just skin configuration. Is that really ‘fashion’?”
Fina held out her right arm, and it stretched out into a sinuous blue tentacle that wrapped around Seraphina’s glass of whiskey and snatched it away.
“It’s all fashion, sister mine.”
“Is it weird having no real arms and legs?” Sera asked, while Seraphina only glared at Fina before signaling a servitor for another drink.
Fina lifted the glass to her lips, her arm changing back to normal as she drank. “Sorta? I mean, it feels weird to stretch it out into a tentacle—especially with the sensory overload our skin delivers—”
“Not mine,” Seraphina interrupted. “I went with the standard epidermis, not your massive erogenous zone version.”
“Stars,” Sera exclaimed with a laugh. “Seraphina, you’re so missing out.”
“Someone has to take life seriously,” Seraphina muttered.
Fina set the glass down and rose from the table. “Sure, Elena probably has to remain in prison, and yeah, she fucked up bigtime. But I’m still going to pay her a visit.”
Sera opened her mouth to speak, but Fina held up a hand. “You got to have your final word with her; I didn’t. I deserve this.”
Her sister’s mouth closed slowly, and then she nodded. “OK. You’re right. You want to see her, too?” Sera directed the question to Seraphina.
“Stars, no.” Seraphina shook her head. “I’m saving up all my anguish and heartbreak for after the war is over. Besides, you lost the bet that set us up with a Cheeky-foursome, so I have to pursue Sabrina’s new captain the more traditional way.”
Fina scowled. “What bet?”
A laugh slipped out of Sera’s lips as she glanced at Seraphina. “Technically, I won the bet—which, due to a lack of foresight, means I lost and there shall be no festivities.”
“Should have done it the other way,” Seraphina said with a wink. “Then everyone would be happy.”
“What. Bet?” Fina said through clenched teeth, finally turning and leaving the officer’s mess when Sera and Seraphi
na only shook their heads and grinned at her.
SHORES OF THE TIGRIS
STELLAR DATE: 09.25.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Edge of the Quera System
REGION: Midway Cluster, Orion Freedom Alliance Space
“I really didn’t expect them to be rebuilding this place,” Svetlana said, as her flagship, the Cossack’s Sword, transitioned out of the dark layer on the edge of the Quera System.
“Not just rebuild,” General Lorelai said as scan updated, showing the construction underway at several locations in the outer system. “They’re massing a fleet here.”
Svetlana nodded silently as she surveyed the view on the holotank.
Several hundred ships were arranged in concentric orbits around Dios, the planet that Costa Station orbited. The advance scout ship had picked up major mining operations there, and other moons throughout the system were being stripped down as well.
The scan team grouped the enemy ships by level of completeness, also noting the ore drones, merchant ships, and other craft flitting about the system.
“Crowded,” she said eventually. “Looks like at least seven thousand functional hulls out there.”
Rear Admiral Sebastian appeared next to her, a holoprojection from his own flagship. He chuckled softly as he spoke. “I bet someone out there is thinking, ‘there’s no way they’d hit the Quera System twice in as many years’.”
“Yeah, but they’re ready for bear,” General Lorelai replied. “Only half our ships have stasis shields, so we can’t send them into a fight where we’re outnumbered this badly.”
“The general is right.” Sebastian nodded slowly as he spoke. “Without intel on the situation, we have to assume they can put all seven thousand of those ships into the fight. Means we just have to bring in half of ours.”
“Two hundred and fifty ships against seven thousand.” Svetlana let a hungry grin appear on her lips. “It’s almost fair.”