by C H Gideon
“But when they did—” Jenkins nodded in comprehension. “—their implants were offline.”
“And they lost the will to fight on,” Styles confirmed, “which means that there might be more direct control being exerted through these implants than I initially thought. It could also simply be that, absent the implants’ ongoing signals, they were thrown into confusion and decided to withdraw as a tactical decision in the face of an enemy capable of breaking their P2P linkage.”
“Do you think you can do this again?” Jenkins pressed.
“Probably,” Styles allowed, “but the rock-biters aren’t stupid. Their extreme xenophobic mindset and bizarre sense of individualism made them overlook the possibility that we might do something like this through their network, but honestly?” He drew a deep breath before shaking his head resolutely. “Now that we’ve exposed the weakness, there’s no way they don’t shore this hole up, soon. If we want to take full advantage of this discovery, we need to mount an offensive.”
Jenkins didn’t like what he was hearing, holding his head in one hand and gesturing invitingly with the other. “Let’s hear your plan.”
Styles leaned forward intently, “I think I can do better than simply shutting these things down for a few seconds, Commander. I think I might be able to assume control of the whole system before they wise up.”
Jenkins skeptically narrowed his eyes. “Talk me through it.”
“Well…remember those ‘friends’ I mentioned earlier, the ones who once planned to break into the One Mind network?” Styles began.
“It’s not the kind of thing I’d soon forget.”
“Right…” Styles hesitated. “Well, ‘their’ plan hinged on insinuating a virus into every single sub-node simultaneously in order to prevent the system from seeing what ‘they’ were doing before it was too late. The problem with a distributed system is that it’s self-descriptive. The virus ‘my friends’ worked to build was one which, in theory, would have overwritten enough segments of the system that it would have been inextricable from the system itself.”
“I thought distributed systems built on blockchains or similar frameworks made that impossible?” Jenkins asked with a furrowed brow.
“There’s a lot of technobabble here,” Styles said dismissively, “but the central governments leave backdoors into all distributed systems so that they can go monkey with things later if they want. The trick is finding the backdoor and using it before the fuzz catches onto what you’re doing. My initial hunch was right, Commander.” Styles leaned in and lowered his voice. “These implants are uncannily similar to the One Mind systems.”
“Are you suggesting that Sol gave the Arh’Kel this technology?” Jenkins asked in flat disbelief. He could accept that the Sol-bound humans looked down their noses at the Terran colonies. He could even understand and agree with some of their reasoning! But to suggest that Sol would actively work against the Republic with the Arh’Kel, a species which had quit the interstellar alliance known as the ‘Illumination League’ specifically so they could wage war against the Terran Republic…it was too much for Jenkins to believe.
“I have no idea if they bought it or stole it.” Styles sank back into his chair and shrugged. “What I do know is that there’s absolutely no way—” He emphatically thumped his finger down on the desk. “—that I could have done what I did if there hadn’t been enough similarities between the One Mind system and this one, similarities which, practically speaking, could not have possibly been coincidental. The Solarians turned their backs on the colonies of the Terran Republic as soon as we told them we were happy just like we were.” He leaned forward again, his eyes blazing with the same passion that had filled anti-Sol sentiment throughout the Republic in recent decades. “I think they were offended when we said we didn’t need to be folded back into their hive-minded society after seventy-six years of fending for ourselves while the wormholes were offline. I think the Solarians don’t consider Terrans as equals and view us as a bunch of low-browed frontiersmen clinging to an outdated concept of humanity. I also think most Terrans fear that the One Mind network has turned the Solarians into something that isn’t really human any more. This cultural divide is only growing, Commander, and I think it’s not impossible that the Solarians, who, since the last World War on Earth, haven’t been too keen on individualism or non-conformity, saw a chance to get rid of us without dirtying their hands.”
Jenkins had difficulty finding fault in Styles’ logic, but he was keen to nip this type of talk in the bud. “The official stance of the Terran Republic is one which seeks reunification with Sol,” he said firmly, holding up a halting hand when Styles made to object. “Both of us know that support for reunification is waning, but as long as we wear these uniforms—” He looked pointedly at Styles’ collar, where his rank insignia was pinned. “—we need to keep talk like this to ourselves. Am I clear, Chief?” he asked knowingly.
Styles was easily the most intelligent member of the battalion, and he thankfully caught Jenkins’ meaning despite his obviously strong feelings on the subject. “As a Solarian’s conscience, sir,” the chief warrant replied with a wry grin.
“Good.” Jenkins nodded, leaning forward on his elbows. “Now tell me how long until we can execute this plan of yours.”
“I’m going to need at least two days running tests,” he replied promptly, “and I’ll need the help of a few key personnel, chief among them Lieutenant Xi.”
“Why Xi?” Jenkins asked in surprise.
“She…” Styles hesitated before wincing. “It would be better if I didn’t have to explain, sir, at least not until I’ve talked with her. Suffice to say, she’s got knowledge which could be useful.”
Jenkins nodded. “Done. This project is top priority, so you can make any personnel or material transfers you deem necessary without prior approval from me. Is there anything else?”
“No, sir,” Styles said confidently.
“Then hop to it, Chief.”
“It’s been years since I did anything like this,” Xi said angrily after encountering another error in the short code she had just written. Roy’s command center was several times the size of Elvira’s interior cabin, but the longer she worked within, the more claustrophobic she felt. “And I’ve never worked in base six,” she snapped.
“It’s okay, Elvira,” Styles assured her. “Just keep working through it. I’ll need you to run those checks against my main program as soon as it’s written.”
“My name’s Xi Bao,” she responded irritably, “or you can refer to me by my rank, Chief.”
“Oh, please,” he snickered, “everyone knows you’re about as committed to military discipline as a whore is to a John.”
“Did you just call me a whore?” she demanded only half-seriously.
“We’re all whores, Elvira,” he chuckled. “But some people are stuck with the boring names our parents gave us, while others go out into the world and earn callsigns that belong to our souls!”
“You mean like N609E?” she muttered under her breath.
Styles laughed. “Yeah, kind of like that, but yours has the benefit of being earned while N609E was something I came up with myself.”
She completed the code fragment and ran it through a check program, and this time, it came back clean. She sighed in relief. “There. That one’s finished.”
“Good work.” He nodded approvingly as he continued building the larger program to which her small collection of fragments would eventually be attached. “Get started on the next one, and remember to look out for...”
“Yeah, yeah,” she sighed, “no recursives in the individual code fragments. They need to be recombinant. I was listening two hours ago when you laid this out.”
Silence hung between them for a long while as they went about their respective tasks, but eventually, Styles broke it. “Thanks for painting a target on my back, by the way.”
“Excuse me?” she asked in momentary confusion.
“Oh, come on,” he laughed. “You sic’d Podsednik on me. He’s been giving me the hairy eyeball ever since you agreed to lie about us sleeping together.”
She couldn’t help herself from giggling gleefully. “You wanted the social credit, and now you’re going to get the whole nine meters.”
“Oh, it was well-played.” He grinned. “I can’t say I’m looking forward to losing a tooth or two when he finally boils over about it, but it’ll be worth it to see the look on his face when you break it to him afterward.”
“Podsy’s good people,” she said dismissively. “He’ll probably just slap you around a few times.”
“Are you kidding?” Styles blurted. “You seriously don’t see the way he looks at you?”
She snorted derisively. “He doesn’t think of me like that.”
“Oh, I know that,” he assured her. “He doesn’t want to sleep with you, he sees you like a kid sister. Didn’t you have any brothers?”
“No,” she admitted, “I was an only child.”
“Well, the memes and axioms don’t do it justice,” Styles said knowingly. “I’ve got a sister who’s two years older than me, and one time after a boyfriend knocked her around a little, I fucked him up good.”
“You?” Xi laughed incredulously. “You don’t weigh a buck twenty and your neck’s barely thicker than my bicep. Don’t try telling me you beat him up.”
“I never said I hit him with my fists,” he said dismissively.
“Okay, I’ll bite.” She rolled her eyes. “What did you do?”
His grin turned mischievous, and a savage twinkle entered his eye as he lowered his voice. “I edited some amateur porn to make it look like he was doing some extreme BDSM stuff with a woman whose husband was unaware of her voyeuristic tendencies. Then I made sure the husband ran across it in his data feeds, along with the asshole’s personal info.” Styles straightened with pride. “Two months in traction can have a transformative impact on a man.”
“What about the woman?” Xi asked in alarm, though she was mostly impressed by the story.
“I made sure she had ample warning beforehand.” He shrugged. “She ended up smoothing things over with him and they discovered that he, too, was plenty comfortable in front of the camera. At last check, their voyeur channels had become pretty popular, and both of them quit their jobs to make porn full-time. Together,” he added triumphantly.
“Look at you,” Xi snickered. “Redefining revenge porn as a marriage counselor.”
“And career counseling,” he noted with insufferable, but seemingly well-earned, smugness. “They make more now doing what they love than they would have ever made working their dead-ends.”
“True or not,” Xi admitted, “that’s a hell of a story.”
“Isn’t it?” He grinned.
She needed a break. “I’ve got to get some chow and check on Podsy.”
“Sure thing,” he agreed. “Be back in thirty minutes.”
“Will do.” She nodded, standing and stretching luxuriously before exiting Roy.
Once outside, she heard a familiar voice barking orders nearby. She turned toward the source and saw the sergeant major. He was dressing down two Pounders for some reason or another, and Xi could not help but watch as he stood there, tall and imposing but measured and under absolute control.
He soon dismissed the Pounders before turning on his heel and making his way for Roy. Xi turned in a mix of embarrassment and trepidation. She had sent uncalled-for danger-close artillery strikes right behind him, after all, and she doubted anyone would be inclined to view such an act favorably.
“Lieutenant Xi,” he snapped, his deep voice easily carrying over the sounds of pounding hammers, screeching drills, and hissing plasma torches as mech crews worked to patch up their vehicles.
She pretended not to hear him, blushing from the collar up as she moved in the opposite direction, which, it happened, was the wrong way from where Elvira II was parked.
“Elvira,” Trapper called out in an even louder voice, and by now, a handful of nearby heads had swiveled to investigate the scene.
Deciding it was time to face the music, she stopped and turned toward him. “Yes, Sergeant Major Trapper?”
He clomped toward her, his heavy all-terrain boots loudly grinding bits of glassy dust with each step. He came to within arm’s reach without slowing, and for a moment, she was afraid he would actually punch her.
She knew she deserved it, so she planted her feet and set her jaw in preparation for what was soon to come.
But instead of hitting her, he stopped a third of a meter from where she stood and fixed her with a hard, unreadable look as he barked, “Who ordered you to fire danger-close artillery on my position?”
She squared her shoulders. “No one, Sergeant Major. That was my call, and it went against my commander’s orders. I accept full responsibility.”
He held her with his steel-gray eyes for a long moment before, inexplicably, thrusting his hand between them and declaring, “Your quick thinking saved a lot of my people’s lives, Lieutenant. Thank you for making a tough call when your supposed superiors—” He cast a dark glance toward Flaming Rose. “—wouldn’t do the same.”
She hesitated before gripping his hand with her own. His skin was leathery and cool, and he had a grip like a vice. Thankfully, he was gentle enough to avoid hurting her still-raw fingers.
“I’m sorry about the two Pounders that took shrapnel,” she said with feeling as she withdrew her hand. “How are they?”
“Davis and Michaelson.” Trapper nodded knowingly. “Davis will be fine, thanks to you, though he’ll be deaf as a post until he gets home and finds a new set of ears. Michaelson was pronounced an hour ago,” he added matter-of-factly.
She winced at hearing that both had been badly injured, and one had died as a result of those injuries. “I’m sorry to hear about that.”
“Don’t be,” he said, doffing his helmet and running a hand across his immaculately smooth, perfectly-shaped head. “I’d fight with you anywhere, Lieutenant.” With that, he turned and made his way to a nearby group of Pounders who were repairing a damaged machine gun. “Oh, come on, Velasquez, if you’re using that much lube, it means you didn’t do a good enough job of prepping her.”
Xi stifled a giggle at the obvious sexual innuendo and made for Elvira, where Podsy was hard at work replacing some of her missile rack’s components.
Her eyes briefly met Trapper’s, and when they did, she felt a wholly unexpected, and totally undeniable, thrill which she did her best to ignore before turning her attention back to her distant mech.
“It looks like that’s the limit,” Xi said after running simulations with Styles for six straight hours. “We can’t squeeze it down below five hundred, and there’s no way we can use multiple broadcast points. The signal simply won’t propagate if it doesn’t originate from the same source.”
Styles rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily while Xi rolled her neck to relieve pent-up tension. They had been working on this problem for a full day and had made consistent progress in decreasing the number of simultaneous ‘flips’ they needed to achieve. But the number had stalled out at five hundred, which was concerning given the necessary proximity to the transceiver.
“Fifty meters,” he grunted sourly. “I’m just… I’m not sure any vehicle, even Roy, can survive long enough to get into five hundred rock-biter infantry. They scrapped Silent Fox in under ten seconds and would have torn into Elvira in no more than thirty seconds if you two hadn’t brought that pulse missile down on yourselves.”
Xi nodded slowly. “I might have an idea on that.”
“Oh?” he asked in mixed annoyance and amusement. “You think you can work this number down, or the range of the transceiver up?”
“Neither,” she said as she considered the matter. “It’s something Podsy and I have been working up, but it’s still in the ‘drawing board’ stage.”
“You and Podsednik have been thinking ab
out how to overtake a decentralized neural net via mass takeover?” Styles deadpanned. “Well, forgive me for standing on your capes, please, enlighten me.”
The stress of the project was starting to wear thin on them both, but Xi did her best to ignore the barb as she explained, “We can’t survive very long at knife-range with the rock-biters because of those plasma torches, right?”
“Right,” Styles drawled irritably.
“Well…we’ve been thinking about how to keep them off the hull,” she explained, and Styles’ eyebrows rose in guarded surprise.
“What were you thinking, high-voltage?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Only Roy’s got non-conductive contacts with the ground, so we haven’t been thinking along those lines.” She tapped up a series of images from Roy’s main database, some of which were clearly stylized, but which she hoped would get the message across well enough. “We’ve got enough spare motors and other components lying around,” she explained as he leaned forward to examine the images in detail. “And it’s not like anyone’s asking these things to last more than a minute or two, right?”
He nodded slowly. “You know…this isn’t a stupid idea.”
She snorted in annoyance. “Gee, thanks.”
Styles gave her a withering look which soon morphed to one of apology. “You know what I meant.”
“Yeah,” she quipped, “you were surprised I didn’t have a stupid idea.”
“Piss off,” he said dismissively as he flipped through the images and nodded with increasing frequency. “Yeah…yeah, okay, let’s be clear—this looks as fucking dumb as a box of rocks, but it might actually buy us a little more time.”
“Enough to get the job done, though?” she asked skeptically.
“Every little bit helps,” he said confidently. “All right.” He nodded decisively. “Let’s go see the commander. I don’t think this is enough on its own, but we need to get started on these retrofits immediately while we try to figure out how to extend this clock.”
They stood from their stations and went to Jenkins’ hovel at the rear of Roy’s cabin. The hatch was shut, and Styles chimed the comm-panel beside it. A few seconds later, the hatch opened and a half-dressed, bleary-eyed Commander Jenkins greeted them.