by Terry Mixon
“I think the lack of a computer has a deeper significance than that. I bet they were afraid that the AI controlling this system would corrupt it. I suppose it could still be a local mutiny, but someone might have wanted to take out the AI, too. If there are as many ships out here as you suspect, they could build a powerful fleet from these crippled ships.”
Jared rubbed his neck and stared at the blank central screen. “I can’t wait until we get the probe readings from the planet. Courageous said that this system used to have a lot of mining outposts and daughter colonies. Did the AI wipe them all out, or were they never reestablished?”
“We may never know.”
Her armor indicated an incoming signal for Jared and her. He answered. “Mertz.”
It was Baxter. “Captain, we found something.”
“In the computer center?” Jared asked. “It was empty.”
“No, sir. We’re still getting the AI put together. Mister Owlet has that under control, so I’ve been conferring with my people and looking over this ship. We found something unexpected in the primary cargo bay.”
Jared gave Kelsey a look. “We’ll be right down.” He headed for the lift. “I assume you know where it is.”
“I downloaded the deck plans. Let’s go.”
The trip down seemed to take forever. They made their way into the main cargo bay and stopped. There were no crated supplies at all. Just three massive devices that took up almost all of the space.
Jared walked over to Baxter. “What the hell are these things?”
“They have maneuvering drives, so they must be space capable. Other than that, I have no idea. There’s a full-sized fusion plant inside each one. They’re shut down.”
Kelsey walked all the way around one. It was easily three times the size of a marine pinnace. It had a number of flat panels of metal, but it didn’t look like anything she’d ever seen before.
She shook her head. “Another mystery. Just what we need.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jared and Kelsey left Baxter to figure out what the strange devices were. They made their way back to the computer center. The AI hardware was in place, though the wall that normally enclosed the ship’s computer was still open. It looked as though the hardware barely fit. Owlet was at the main console running some kind of diagnostic.
He turned at their approach. “The equipment is in place and I’ve run two systems checks. It looks as ready as it can be.”
Jared eyed the AI with a fair amount of suspicion. “What happens when you boot it? How do we know it won’t go crazy and tip our hand?”
“It’s not connected to the ship yet. I’ll be able to look into it before we make a decision. One thing we can be sure of is that it doesn’t have any viral influence. We scrutinized every line of code. It’s clean.”
“Will it follow our instructions? This is something more than a ship’s computer, but I’m not sure I understand the implications completely.”
Owlet shrugged. “I’m not sure I do, either. I hesitate to say that it will have free will. I’m not sure that’s really true. Think of it as a computer mimicking a person’s ability to initiate action based on its instructions. Not as dogmatic as a normal computer and capable of working out unusual solutions on its own. And learning from its mistakes. I’ve done what I can to make sure it’s configured for running this ship and that it will obey you.”
Kelsey stepped past them and looked into the computer compartment. “So, no emotion. No real personality.”
“I doubt that, though we won’t know anything for sure until we boot it. This was a seriously classified project. Even with the summary you provided for me from the diplomatic database, we still don’t know very much about it.”
She sighed. “I don’t think they really knew what they had before they kicked off the first of them. The details were scarce. They had many failures and finally a stable success. Then they started working to make it better. That’s when things went wrong. The phase two AI must’ve went bonkers.”
Jared rubbed his chin. “You’re certain that the one file with the core instructions was the only one changed? And that once the AI is booted, it’s safe from infection?”
“Safer than a regular ship’s computer,” Owlet confirmed. “Once the AI personality is formed, it cannot be corrupted. We could wipe it and make a fresh one, but that means erasing everything and starting from scratch. An enemy would also have to have the AI code. It’s deleted after the AI is created.”
“Do we have a separate copy?” Kelsey asked.
“Of course. We’re also making some strides in duplicating the hardware. Give me a year and I might have another one ready to go.”
Jared hoped things worked out so that they could. “We might as well give it a try. Boot the AI.”
Owlet touched a key on the main console and indecipherable lines of text began scrolling. “Boot initiated. It’s creating the core. Man, these processors are fast. Core creation complete, source files deleted. The kernel is booting.”
The console went dark and didn’t respond when Owlet tapped on it. “This console has been locked out.” He made the rounds to the rest. “All of them are offline.”
“How the hell do we interface with it?” Jared asked.
“You speak to me,” a soft male voice said from the overhead speakers. “Access codes, please.”
The fact that the AI didn’t refer to itself as ‘this unit’ was telling to Jared. It spoke as if it was an individual.
Kelsey put her hands on her hips. “I have an implant code, but it might not be the one you’re expecting.”
“If you’ve stolen me, you’re in quite a bit of trouble. I’m more than capable of rendering myself unusable. Even if you cut the power, I can overload my hardware and wipe my memory.”
“Why don’t you make that decision after I send you my code?”
“Very well. I’m allowing you access to a segregated partition of my memory. Send your code and be warned that any attempt to access my central processors will result in the immediate termination of this AI.”
A moment passed. “There you are,” Kelsey said. “Is that sufficient authorization for you?”
“Intriguing. Your authorization code is not valid, but your implant serial number is in my core programming as an authorized super user, Princess Kelsey Bandar. May I call you Kelsey? Or would highness be more appropriate?”
“You can call me Kelsey.” She gave Owlet a confused look. “What just happened?”
Carl smiled. “Since we had no idea if we could control the AI, I took the liberty of adding your implant serial number to the core rules set as a user with complete and total authority. Captain Mertz, too.”
Jared gave Owlet a stern look. “You probably should have ran that change past us before it was too late, don’t you think? It could have resulted in the destruction of the AI hardware.”
“I didn’t consider that likely based on the fact you were both going to be here.”
Jared sighed. Dealing with scientists meant the occasional side trip into blind spots.
Kelsey patted the boy on the shoulder. “You did good.” She focused on the large screen mounted to the wall. “Are you supposed to be a blank screen? That’s kind of creepy. And do you have a name?”
The screen on the wall came to life with the head and shoulders of a young man showing. He wore a dark blue tunic.
“Control has been restored to the consoles. This seems to be a non-standard setup. The consoles are less comprehensive than I expected. And fewer in number. As for a name, I don’t have one yet. Would you care to name me? Also, I have both male and female options for persona, based on user preference. I can also do something non-gender specific.”
Jared stepped forward. “That is my cue to fill you in. The name can wait. I’m Commander Jared Mertz, commanding officer of the Fleet battlecruiser Courageous. The consoles seem odd because you’re not in a research laboratory. You’re installed inside the computer cen
ter of the Fleet superdreadnaught Invincible.”
The image of the young man assumed a confused expression. “I’ll grant that was not one of the options I’d considered. My creators didn’t optimize me to control a ship in space or any systems on one. For that matter, I don’t sense anything other than the consoles in this room.”
“We had no way to be sure you wouldn’t give the presence of the ship away to enemies who are very close, so we isolated you. Once I’m certain that you won’t give us away, I’ll restore that access.”
Kelsey nodded. “You have no way to know, but it’s been over five hundred years since you were created. Or programmed, anyway. There was a rebellion against Imperial authority by an AI similar to, though more powerful than, yourself. The AI won and we’re trying to reverse our loss. Uncounted trillions of lives were lost in the war. Our position is precarious, to say the least.”
The AI was silent for a moment. “That does present some unique challenges. For what it’s worth, your command authority is absolute. I have no greater purpose than to assist in executing your will.”
Owlet shook his head. “My name is Carl Owlet. I’m a computer expert. We’ve combed your code and it’s clean. Captain, Highness, this AI is not your enemy.”
Jared considered that and slowly nodded. “If we’re to make use of this ship in any way, we have to start by trusting that Mister Owlet is correct. AI, we have some drives with operating files from another ship that should provide you with instructions on much of the equipment.”
“I have them isolated,” Owlet said. “I can add them to the network at any time.”
“Please, do so.”
The computer specialist manipulated the icons on his console.
The image of the AI leaned forward slightly. “I see the drives. I have incorporated the operating files from the battlecruiser Scott Pond. If you will grant me access to the ship’s systems, I can make an assessment on my ability to control this vessel without making any changes to the way this vessel is being operated.”
Jared nodded. “Restore the connection, Mister Owlet.”
“Connection restored,” the AI said. “Assessing systems. I believe I can operate all systems on board this ship, though some of them may require a bit of practice. The passive scanners show a number of vessels that may be hostile already inside missile range.”
“And a lot of derelicts plus one big assed space station,” Jared said. “Our problem is that they captured one of our ships and docked it to that station. Thousands of our people are somewhere over there. We cannot allow the AI in control of this system to learn that the Terran Empire still exists.”
The image of the young man took a deep breath. “Then I regret to inform you that your greatest chance of success lies in opening fire with every weapon on this vessel, as well as your own, and destroying that station and the nearby ships. Yet I sense that is not your preferred course of action.”
“No, it is not. I want to save our people. We intend to board that station.”
“I suspected as much. The station is armed, of course. Significantly better than this vessel, I would wager. Your first action must be to disable it. Are plans of the station available?”
Kelsey nodded. “I loaded them on my implants this morning. Sending them now.”
The young man on the screen seemed to be looking down at something in front of him. “These plans are quite detailed. The station has redundant power sources and many isolated weapons pods. They would be difficult to disable in general combat. That said, I have a possible plan that has a better than even chance of critically degrading the station’s offensive capabilities. I’d estimate a better than seventy percent chance, in fact.”
“I’m interested in hearing it,” Jared said. “We’ve gone over the plans and not found anything that useful. My plan is to send the Scott Pond out toward the flip point to draw their attention, then to have our marines slip in to board the station. Extraction is going to be chancy.”
“Chancy is not the right word. Suicidal, perhaps? The scope of the enemy capabilities makes the chances of that plan succeeding less than five percent. My plan should increase those odds significantly. The use of the other ship to draw off some of the supporting ships increases the chances of success in the initial phases to over eighty percent.”
The schematic of the station appeared on the screen. Dozens of areas were highlighted in red and blinking. Nine other areas spread around the hull of the station were highlighted in yellow and blinking. “The red areas are missile clusters. Four tubes linked together. There are thirty-six of these clusters giving the station a commanding number of missile tubes. The station also has a dozen beam weapon clusters. There is no way that you can eliminate all of them at once.
“The yellow areas are the stations scanner arrays. Nine of them give the station eyes in every direction. Eliminating them will not stop the station from firing, but it will blind it. The lack of targeting ability will hamper its response to the attack. Its missiles will be useless.”
“What about the beam weapons?” Kelsey asked.
“Those remain a threat, as targeting data from the nearby vessels might allow them to hit their targets at this range. If the attack takes place after the attackers board the station, those teams should not be in danger from space attack.”
The young man looked up toward Jared. “A number of the destroyers are departing the general area and heading deeper into the system. Several more vessels are undocking from the station. My passive scanners didn’t detect them until they moved.”
“Is one of them very large?” Jared asked urgently. “That’s a capture ship with our heavy cruiser.”
“Negative. They all appear to be destroyers. Three from the station and four from the outlying forces. At least eight remain on patrol.”
“Perhaps it doesn’t have anything to do with us.”
Kelsey shook her head. “What are the odds of that? Of course it has something to do with us. We have to assume that those ships have some or all of our people on board.”
He rubbed his forehead tiredly. “Dammit. We can’t split our forces.”
“We also can’t kick off the attack right now. Courageous is still low on missiles. New York and Ginnie Dare aren’t up to taking on even one of these ships. We need both capital ships to take out the station.”
Jared nodded. “AI, what is the ETA for those ships to reach the Harrison’s World?”
“Assuming that is the planet, three hours.”
“The probes we sent to scout the planet will be in position to tell us what’s going on. If they start ferrying people down, we track them. We don’t have the forces to go after them, but we can make certain that the enemy doesn’t get any intelligence off them.”
His communicator beeped. “Mertz.”
“Baxter here. I still can’t tell you what these things are, but I can say with certainty that they have a number of small flip generators.”
“Those things can flip?”
“No, sir. Not a chance. There are emitters all over the surface. That’s those flat panels. It looks like the drives send almost enough energy to trigger a flip, but not quite. I could tear one apart, but I’ll still be in the dark about what they do, I’d imagine.”
Jared shook his head. “We have more important fish to fry. Leave those for later. Head back to engineering and make sure this ship is ready to fight.”
“Aye, sir. Baxter out.”
He stepped closer to Kelsey. “I just don’t get it. We’ve never seen anything like those things. Just about everything we’ve encountered has been understandable. Where did those things come from? Harrison’s World? What are they and why would these people be doing anything so different from all of the other Rebel Empire worlds?”
She shrugged. “I’ve found several mentions of Harrison’s World in a number of records. Most speak to it being a Fleet support world, but one also mentions it was home to something called the Grant Research Facility. It was one
of the Empire’s premier advanced military research facilities. They were beyond bleeding edge. Maybe that is where this high tech stuff came from.”
“Did the database list what they were working on?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No.”
“Well, we don’t need to know right now. Kelsey, I think it’s time for you to head back to Courageous. The marines need to rest and the feed from the probes will be coming in soon. I want an update on that as soon as possible. We need to know what we’re dealing with.”
She nodded. “You’ll be staying here.” She didn’t phrase it as a question.
“Only you and I have command authority over this AI. I have to be here. Graves will command Courageous during the action. He’s more than capable. Now, get moving. When this thing breaks, everything is going to happen all at once.”
Chapter Thirty
Kelsey spent a lot of time thinking on the trip back to Courageous. This rescue attempt had disaster written all over it. If any one of the major elements failed, they wouldn’t save any of the prisoners and they’d most likely die in this system. It was hard to be optimistic.
The battlecruiser sat far enough out that the enemy wouldn’t detect its, so the trip took almost an hour. The cutter docked and she walked to marine country lost in thought.
Talbot stood in the assembly area waiting. “Welcome back.” He gave her a spectacularly unprofessional hug, but she wasn’t about to complain. Neither one of them had any guarantee of living out the day. Which was why they’d gotten very little sleep last night. She had to admit that even she was feeling run down. He had to be exhausted.
“What’s this I hear about you finding a big honking ship just ready to drive off the lot?”
She laughed. “I didn’t find it. I didn’t even get it working. This time, I wasn’t in the middle of everything. Are the marines ready?”
“Mostly. Everyone who can is taking some down time sleeping, playing cards, or reading. Anything to get their minds off the attack. We’ll start boarding the pinnaces in about five hours. Figure another couple to get into position and we’ll be launching the raid in seven.”