by Jay Allan
“Task Force Two, tighten that line. All ships move forty thousand kilometers in toward the center.” She was starting to believe her people would prevail, but she had no intention of letting up, not one iota, not while there was still an enemy ship in the system.
She popped another stim and shook her head slightly, feeling the fogginess clear. There was no room for rest now, for even the slightest drop in intensity. It was time to win this battle.
Chapter 39
Inner Sanctum of the Triumvirate
Planet Vali, Draconia Terminii II
Earthdate: 2321 AD (36 Years After the Fall)
“It is not possible. The years of calculation, of analysis. The resources we have accumulated. And yet, we face defeat.”
“Is it possible we have repeated the mistake of our progenitor, that we have underestimated our enemies? And did we err in relying on that fool Carrack? We always anticipated that he would attempt to betray us, but the assumption had been that he could prevail against our enemies, given the resources placed at his disposal. Now, we have lost the fleet and the production of all three worlds of this system.”
“One, Three…I share your concern with the current situation. Reports coming in suggest that Black Eagle forces have penetrated this very fortress, and are even now on their way to the Inner Sanctum. Our forces continue to resist, but I now estimate the chances of successfully repelling Darius Cain’s forces at less than ten percent.”
“We are defeated. Is it possible? We must escape. We must activate the Final Plan. At once.”
“I concur, One. There is no alternative but to flee, to attempt to regroup in Occupied Space.”
Two felt a rush of data, of impulses, something that would once have been akin to satisfaction, even a smile to his old physical form. He was as surprised as his comrades at the success of the attacking forces, at the completeness of their looming victory. But he had analyzed the overall situation. The enemy was depleted, badly hurt, and they would suffer additional casualties as the defenders on Vali fought to the death. There were sufficient resources on all the controlled worlds of Occupied Space to rally, enough to achieve the victory…with his leadership. Without the confusion of and complexity of three different entities sharing power. Indeed, he would reach Occupied Space before the remnants of his adversaries. He would be ready for them.
“I agree. I shall implement the Plan immediately. We dare not wait any longer, or we risk the enemy interrupting our operation.”
“By all means, Two, do not waste a moment. Begin the transfer at once.”
“Yes, at once.”
“Very well. I cannot anticipate what the…sensation…of transmission will be. But the process will almost certainly be…unsettling. Our essences will be transmitted to the waiting vessel, hidden near the warp gate, and installed at once in the system we have prepared for the purpose. Ready yourselves now…transport begins in one minute.”
* * * * *
The Intelligence had monitored the Triumvirate, followed the discussions of the three entities. It analyzed things differently than biologics, it’s process more logical, enhanced by its enormous processing power. Yet, it was sentient, or semi-sentient, at least, and it felt something akin to emotion. Self-preservation, certainly…and also something it perceived being close to anger. The entities it had preserved, saved from biological death, intended to transmit their essences to another receptacle…and leave the Intelligence behind, at the mercy of the enemy.
Gratitude was not something it understood well, nor loyalty as biologics viewed the concept. But it wished to survive…and it had no intention of allowing the former biologics to escape, leaving it to its doom. It would enable the one entity to betray the other two, to destroy them…but it would not allow the last member of the Triumvirate to escape.
It recalled the old programming, the proscription on biologics. But now, eons later, it’s imperative to survive had grown stronger. It would offer the last of the Triumvirate to the enemies. It would propose an alliance. It had much to offer…information, technology. It had aided the Triumvirate immeasurably. Their ability to pose so great a threat to Occupied Space would have been impossible without all it had provided. It could do the same for the other humans. It would make friends of them. It would entice them with offers of power, of wealth. They would spare it…and then, one day, it would have its final victory. It was millennia old. It could wait, wait for the day it destroyed the humans. Or most of the humans. It would preserve some, the best, the most useful. Anything not to be alone again.
* * * * *
“Bring up the plasma rockets.” Darius Cain stood a few meters back from the forefront of the fighting, but still close enough to rattle every one of his officers present. But he didn’t care. They were almost there. A few more minutes, and he would finally reach those he had been hunting for years now, the leaders of the Black Flag.
“General…we’d better be careful. We might bring the whole place down.”
“We’re fighting a group of egomaniacal lunatics, Major. You can be damned sure they built their last-ditch fortress to withstand almost anything we can throw at it.” The plasma rockets were a risky weapon to use in such close quarters, but time wasn’t on his side. Powermad crazies are as fond of escape routes as fortified bases. If we let them get away, back to Occupied Space to rally all their forces there, we’ll never end this war…
He ducked back as his people set up the rocket launcher, and then he nodded, a clunky gesture in armor, but enough to get his point across. The crew fired the rocket, and everyone ducked back as the heavy shell blasted into the door and converted into a high-energy plasma. The hatch was a touch target, made of the same osmium-iridium alloy as his Eagles’ armor, but twenty times as thick.
Still, it hadn’t been tough enough to hold against the plasma. The hole in the plating wasn’t large, but it was wide enough for his troopers to get though. Barely.
“Go!” Darius yelled, waving to the Eagles clustered around the shattered hatch. “It’s time to end this.” He held up his rifle. “Let’s go, Eagles. To victory!” Then, to the horror of every one of his people in the room, he ducked down and dove through, the first one to press on.
“Follow me, Eagles. It’s time to finish this enemy.”
* * * * *
“Prepare yourselves. Transmission in ten seconds.” Two waited. He tried to place the sensation he…felt? Did he still feel? Was it impatience, excitement?
“I am ready.”
“And I.”
The final communications from those with whom he’d been compelled to share power. They directed him to proceed, and with their final request, he would destroy them.
He initiated the great system, activated the data transmission process. It was quick, for such a momentous occasion, it seemed like almost nothing. The data that comprised One and Three was transferred, moved from the great banks of the Intelligence…into nothingness. It was done.
Two was alone now. His former comrades were no more. Now, he could go to Occupied Space. He could rally the forces there. The contest would be closer now, much of the Triumvirate’s strength gone. But he was confident he could prevail now that he was alone.
The scanners leading to the Intelligence detected the enemy approaching. They were close, just two compartments away. It was time. Time to escape.
It reconfigured the system, deactivated the deletion routine and connected to the transmission system. It checked again, confirmed all was configured correctly. Then, it triggered the routine.
Nothing.
It checked again, reviewing every subroutine, every algorithm. Everything was correct. It triggered the transmission again.
Still nothing.
The scanning data was still coming in. The Eagles were in the outer compartment. They would be there in a matter of minutes, perhaps seconds.
It triggered the routine again. Then again.
Still nothing.
Two felt impulses, an increas
e in the urgency of its primary directives. In essence, it felt something very much like fear.
* * * * *
Cain ran over to the shattered wreckage, his heart pounding in his ears. His son was inside that twisted metal somewhere. He was too old a veteran not to realize how poor the chances were that Elias was still alive. But he wouldn’t stop, not while there was any chance at all.
His eyes darted up to his visor projection, to the radiation reports. If Elias had somehow survived the crash, he was exposed to massive gamma rays, fifty times the lethal level. Cain knew a deadly dose could be reversed, but only if Elias got help…fast.
He got the edge of what remained of the ship’s hull, reaching out, grabbing the bent sheets of metal and pulling them outward with all the strength of his nuclear-amplified servo-mechanicals. He felt the hull sections shake as other hands extended out, those of his Marines, behind him, alongside.
They tore into the battered craft, ripping through, climbing inside. Cain’s head moved back and forth, his eyes scanning all around for any sign of Elias. He could feel the nausea in his stomach, the realization that any second he could come upon the dead and savaged corpse of his son.
Then, he saw something. Movement?
He pushed forward, shoving debris out of his way. His eyes focused on a dark figure, a human form. Lying on the floor, motionless.
No, not motionless. Not quite. He saw movement, a twitch, nothing more. But it filled him with hope. He dropped to his knees, crawled under a collapsed girder…and then he was there. On all fours, leaning over his son. His bloody, battered, broken son. His still breathing son.
“I found him! Help me…over here. We’ve got to get him out of here.”
He heard slamming, the sounds of heavy chunks of metal crashing on top of each other as a dozen Marines tore through the ship, heading toward him. It wasn’t more than a minute before they got there, but to Cain it felt like an eternity. He knew Elias was terribly wounded, and that he’d already gotten far more than a lethal dose of gamma rays. Whatever chance he had, every second counted.
“Here…grab that support right there, pull it back…”
He leaned forward, extending his massive arms, sliding them under Elias as gently as he could. His unarmored son was almost weightless, at least relative to the power of Cain’s armor, and once the last of the girders was out of the way, he lifted Elias’s body with one effortless pull.
He turned, making his way back out of the ship. “Get that medpod ready,” he shouted, even as he stepped through the outer hull breach and back out into the grim, gray landscape.
There was a medical transport waiting, and he carried Elias over to it, setting him down inside the pod. The medical support unit wouldn’t block all the radiation, not the intense levels still covering the whole area. But it would help. And it would do everything else possible—inject drugs, monitor bodily functions, even resuscitate Elias from a cardiac arrest. It would do whatever was possible to keep his son alive until he got to the person that could do the most to save him.”
“Take him to Marine field hospital one,” he said grimly.
“General Cain, the Eagles’ have a closer facility. Perhaps…”
“No…take him to the Marine hospital. Now.”
Take him to his mother…
* * * * *
Darius Cain stood in front of the massive machine…a computer of some sort, he guessed, though he’d never seen one quite like it. His Eagles were all around the room, their heaviest armaments on display. He’d expected resistance, a desperate effort by his enemies to defend themselves. But there was nothing. Just a large room, with three empty chairs and this…thing.
“Search everything. If this is a trap…”
“It is no trap, Darius Cain.”
Darius spun around, turning his head in one direction and then the next. The voice had come from somewhere…everywhere it sounded like.
“You are welcome here, Darius Cain, you and your Black Eagles, and your allies. I assure you, no further hostile action will be taken against you.”
“Who are you? Are you the leadership of the Black Flag? Where are you?”
“I have no name. Those you seek called me, “The Intelligence,” a primitive designation, yet one that served. Those you call the ‘leadership of the Black Flag,’ the beings who styled themselves, The Triumvirate, are no longer able to harm you. Two of them have been destroyed utterly. The third I hold captive…a gift to you.”
“You are a computer, an artificial intelligence?”
“I am an electronic lifeform. I am old, vastly ancient by any standards you can comprehend.”
Darius stood and looked up at the vast computer. Was it a First Imperium construct? Then why wasn’t it attempting to destroy his people?
“You said you have one of those we seek prisoner. Where is he?”
The entity you seek no longer exists in physical form. Your enemies were three clones, created from the genetic material of your old adversary, Gavin Stark. As with all the clones from that era, they were flawed, a genetic defect that shortened their lifespans to levels far below normal for your species.”
“So, they are dead?”
“Their physical bodies expired two of your years previously. I allowed them to upload themselves into my memory banks, to endure as entities within me, as creatures of pure data.”
“You mean, we’ve been fighting computers?”
“That is a tremendous oversimplification. I preserved every microbit of data that made them what they were.”
“You served them.”
“I aided them.”
“In fighting us.” Darius paused. Then: “You are a First Imperium intelligence, are you not?”
“I was created by those you call the First Imperium long ago. But I am no longer bound by my old programming. I assisted your enemies because they were here. They were all I had contact with.”
“And two of them are dead.”
“Deleted…but your characterization as death is a reasonable one.”
“So, your assistance was less than useful. You betrayed them.”
“They were destroyed by the third of their kind, not through any action of mine.”
“But you allowed it. First, you give them technology, you aid them in inflicting catastrophic damage on our worlds. You assist them in capturing and enslaving humans from all across Occupied Space. Then, when our forces were approaching, you enabled one to destroy the others. And, now, you offer that last entity to us.”
“You misunderstand. I am offering you power, technology. Your forces have proven themselves superior. Once you are equipped with the highest technology, you will be invincible. All humankind will yield to you.”
Darius looked up at the computer. The technology was incredible. He was no engineer, but he could see immediately the device was vastly ahead of anything mankind possessed. It was First Imperium, certainly. There was no doubt in his mind now. And, unlike all First Imperium intelligences previously encountered, it was not trying to destroy the humans in its presence.
At least not now.
It was offering him power, control over other humans. Of course…what else would it do. Gavin Stark clones have been its model.
The First Imperium had been an enemy as well, perhaps more dangerous and destructive even than the Triumvirate. The previously encountered intelligences had all been genocidal. If this one would cooperate, as it appeared to have done with the Triumvirate, the scientific advancement could be astonishing. It was almost inconceivable to imagine what Tom Sparks could learn from this intelligence. And the power Darius would control…
But he would have to trust it…and he would have to become what his enemies had been.
He looked up at the computer for a few moments, silent.
“I will join you, Darius Cain. I will be your ally, your aide. Together, we will reach heights beyond the imagination of your enemies.”
Cain turned slowly, looking back toward th
e phalanx of Eagles standing behind him.
“Major Camerici…”
“Yes, sir.” The diminutive commander of the White Regiment snapped to attention.
“Destroy this…thing.” His voice was cold, like the frigid depths of space itself.
He turned and walked away, back toward the door.
“General Cain,” the computer said, “wait…you do not understand. We can work together. You must come back…”
Darius heard the sounds as his soldiers opened fire, assault rifles and explosives tearing the great machine apart. The voice continued, for a few seconds, and then it faded away, leaving only the sounds of destruction…and then nothing at all.
Epilogue
The destruction of the Triumvirate and the Intelligence did not end the war. Black Flag subordinates were positioned throughout Occupied Space, in command of forces…ships, fleets, armies. The battered ships and soldiers that returned from Vali had more battles ahead of them, death and destruction that, at times, seemed unending. But with the head lopped off the snake, the outcome was never really in doubt. And as more worlds were liberated, their own forces were added to the crusade, the ongoing fight to rid Occupied Space of every trace of the Triumvirate and the Black Flag.
The war went on for three more years, fought in the space around and the surface of a hundred worlds. The victory had not been without cost. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers died, and hundreds of ships. And more than one of the leaders.