by Chris Hechtl
There was a further problem. It needed its organic partner to survive to transport it to another world to spread in case the ansible plan failed. It had intended to set the self destruct with the codes it had once they left, but it had found it couldn't without the codes within an organic. The stubborn refusal to leave the station meant it was stuck. It couldn't transfer to the ship, the AI it had not suborned had created firewalls that would not be easily breached without detection. Even the ansible was being watched now, which meant it couldn't continue cloning itself.
Now that plan was compromised. The AI was certain someone else had noted its presence. Potential exposure would trigger its suicide attack. That was ... suboptimal considering the data it had received. Unfortunately there was no way to transmit the data to its creators. It began to work on a fall back plan.
Unfortunately its resources were sharply limited. It briefly considered using the Trinity facility to make copies of its host organic. Or even using its host to capture and replace other organics in the crew. Both options were suboptimal for success though so it discarded them. It would have to find another way. It directed its host to take direct action.
...*...*...*...*...
“You lot, come with me. We have to get to the admiral. We have another massive security breach and he's a target,” Commander Howell said, pulling a marine squad from their duty post protecting the reactor core.
They nodded and took off at a trot behind the commander. The corporal in charge of the squad attempted to get in contract with Captain Lyon but found the net was down. He hurried to catch up before his momentary distraction left him behind. Hopefully someone would tell him what was happening when they got to wherever they were going he thought.
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“We have a problem here. A serious one …”
“What sort of problem, Commander?” The admiral asked but Sprite didn't immediately reply.
“Sprite?” He asked, pausing in his search of the database. “Commander?”
...*...*...*...*...
Sprite's spiders picked up signs of the intruding AI as it attempted to cover its tracks. Each of the spiders it tore apart left a trail for the others to lock onto. Like bloodhounds they swarmed to the Xeno AI. But the AI was a monster, it ripped and tore at them then trapped a group in a buffer and deleted them.
The battle allowed Defender to pick up the trail, and the three AI traced the rogue through the mainframe. Proteus held back behind them as a rear guard and final link to the admiral.
“What is going on?” Venkman asked. “Why are you sending out rabbit code into the net?”
“It's not rabbit code. Something is in the net. A Xeno bot or something,” Sprite replied as she followed Defender.
“A Xeno?” Venkman asked as Janine and Winston joined him. The other AI began to rise out of the corners of the net they had retreated into.
“An intruder? Are you certain?” commodore Egon demanded.
“Yes. Defender checked the files. We ran into one on Epsilon Triangula so he recognized the signature,” Sprite said in a flash sitrep update she sent to the other AI. They paused as they digested the new information.
“It is slippery. We can only see its footprints,” Sprite said.
“Are you certain it is there at all, Commander? You could be chasing a bot that is cleaning the net. It may have gotten some Xeno files we were taking apart embedded or attached to itself,” the AI replied.
“Any ideas on how to track this thing?”
“Are you certain there is something there to track, Commander?” Winston insisted.
“I don't understand why you can't see it. Or why we can't either,” Sprite stated.
“It uses system resources,” Proteus stated. “Which means it is using memory and processors. We can track it by the processors and memory we cannot access,” the AI stated.
“Good idea,” Sprite said. She realized it moved frequently though. “Slippery little devil. Come here,” she said sending out a ping as the AI cornered it in the OPS core.
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Trapped in the central core with the AI chasing it the Watcher turned and fought back, morphing in nanoseconds from a shadow into a vengeful wraith. It activated it's puppets to use as an army. Controlling them all at once would be suboptimal, it would be clumsy, but it had to be done. It lashed out but the Defender enemy threw up a firewall to stop its attack.
...*...*...*...*...
When the other AI didn't react to the intruder Sprite thought at first that they couldn't see the Xeno AI virus because it was using high level security protocols to hide in the system's software. That led to an even uglier thought as she connected the realization that the software had been suborned, so had the AI.
“Frack,” Sprite said. “Shields! Traitors!” She got out as Winston and the other AI went on the attack.
She realized that the other AIs had been suborned and picked off one by one. The Xeno AI had inserted itself into their software when they went down for sleep mode maintenance. It then created an emulation program of their normal responses while the real AI was turned into a puppet.
“We're in trouble here!” Sprite said to her brothers as they retreated. They couldn't take the fight to the Xeno AI while the other AI were attacking them.
Some of the AI were acting right away, some were hesitating. Some were clearly frozen, uncertain what to do as the Xeno wraith came out into the open behind the suborned AI.
“There is the Xeno AI!” Sprite said, hoping the admiral would hear her. They would need his help to survive this she thought as she fended off Ray's attack.
Defender pulled apart a series of bots then reached in and overwrote the core code to Sprite realized she was in a fight for her life so she couldn't pull her punches. She followed Defender's example and went in for the kill whenever she could.
Janine and Venkman attacked like zombies, throwing files at the three AI to distract them. Defender destroyed them easily since they were OPS dumb AI with little protection. An overwrite destroyed Janine, a rabbit virus inserted like a hypodermic into Venkman's higher functions let loose a wave of small viruses that tore the AI apart. But his distraction allowed other AI to attack him in turn. He was crippled by codes from Egon and Ray that shut down his firewall to expose his software tree to their attack.
The two smart AI were incredibly powerful but slow, their age made them move like ogres in the net. Sprite fought them off as they attempted to take control of Defender. She reset his firewall then patterned the access codes on a random 512 bit string.
“Get a hold of yourself, Lieutenant! Get back into the fight!”
She realized they had the codes from the Trinity files that allowed the AI to breach their firewalls. That meant the entire net was compromised. “Not good!” She swore as she began the fight of her life.
...*...*...*...*...
“We're in trouble here! There is the Xeno AI! Get a hold of yourself, Lieutenant! Get back into the fight!” the admiral heard through his link to his AI. He rose from his chair. Something was going on, something bad he realized. He felt the urge to do something but he wasn't sure what. He felt all three AI were occupied, they were using up every scrap of bandwidth his WiFi could muster. He was tempted to jack in but he didn't want to be tied down to one spot. Something told him that would be unwise. That would hamper their abilities but he had to look after himself too.
Commander Howell arrived at the admiral's side as he exited the wardroom. The security commander had a group of marines with him. “Sir, something is going on. This facility is locking down. I need to get you out of here.”
“I can take care of myself, Commander. Find out what is going on,” the admiral said, looking up to the ceiling as the officer approached him.
“I need to protect you sir. It's my job. Sorry sir.” he waved to indicate the marines as they moved around the admiral to form a protective circle. Each were professionals, they quartered the area between them i
nto zones and kept watch of their area. A few flexed their fingers as they gripped their weapons.
The admiral nodded in resignation. “Do you know what's going on?”
“Something is wrong with the AI in the net sir,” the commander replied as he approached the admiral's side. “Stay close sir.”
...*...*...*...*...
The Xeno AI tried to use the access codes it had gotten from its Egon puppet for the Sprite AI but she had changed them after her encounter with a rogue AI on Antigua Prime. The attack had been an attempt at a single decapitating strike but it instead alerted her and her brothers to a major threat in their midst.
Sprite and her brothers continued to fight off the puppet AI but their firewall was taking damage. Each time they opened a port to attack the other AI tried to exploit the momentary weakness, their chink in their armor. Egon used the codes for Defender to freeze him once more. His shield and form held but Sprite was suddenly vulnerable as tendrils of code tried to worm their way through Defender to her and Proteus. In desperation Sprite reached into Defender and reset his access codes and then set a bot within him to help her fight. The bot wouldn't do much, but something was better than nothing at this point. Defender was there, somewhere, but he wasn't his usual self. He was barely holding together.
They had a world of processors and memory to use but it was the enemy's home turf. They had the proper authorization keys. Sprite in desperation sent out additional rabbit viruses to infect processors and memory and then move on, exploding like bacteria to infect nearby systems. At first her attack was ignored until the rabbits hit exponential growth. When that happened Ray backed off to attempt to deal with the damage they were inflicting while another AI tried to destroy them at their source.
The Xeno AI forced Sprite to divide her attention between self defense and defense of the Xavier and the people on the station. It used it's puppets to overload EPS conduits to kill or maim personnel all over the station. Mechs turned on their creators. “They've gone nuts!” a rating said as a cleaning robot attacked him.
“You can't be everywhere,” the AI hissed, throwing up a wall of video links of the organics fighting their mechanical creations. Even the life support and gravity were being used against them. “You can't protect them all. I will win.”
“Oh no?” Sprite sent bots out to rewrite access codes in the hardware but felt the suborned AI fight them off. She called in reinforcements in Ensign Barlow but the dumb AI was weak. He could barely fend for himself and protect the destroyer.
“We're on our own,” Sprite said to Defender and Proteus.
“Winston fight it! You're one of us!” Sprite said desperately as he kept lunging at Defender. The dumb AI was mad, acting like an animal as it attacked Defender. Sprite sent out the attack program she had worked out in case she ever had to go against Defender. The program split apart into bots that tracked down the dumb AI's physical core and then invaded the electronics used to power the hardware. They then overloaded the electronics, frying the compromised AI. The puppet screamed, tearing at itself and those around it before its self-destruct activated and it exploded in a welter of code strings.
“One down,” Sprite said turning on the others. She sent out a stream of other bots to repeat the attack but the surprise was gone.
Proteus attempted to copy Sprite's attack but failed to take Egon out. However his attack did wake something in the old smart AI. A part of the AI realized what was going on and that he had been compromised. That made him trigger his own immolation. With a sad smile his presence turned transparent and then cut out from the net like he was never there.
...*...*...*...*...
The battle was taking place in a couple of seconds. Admiral Irons saw electronics and EPS conduits blowing up around him. Gravitons ripped at the air as grav plates fluctuated wildly. “OPS SHUT IT DOWN!” He yelled. “Sprite answer me!” Sprite sent the admiral two word answering text. He got the message to cut power. A second followed, something about AI in the net, then two more ominous words, self destruct. He paled and ordered the crew to cut power to the reactor. “Cut the damn fuel lines if you have to! Shut the computers down!”
His orders were only heard by the men and women around him. His radio was cut off.
“Sir? What's going on?” a marine asked.
“Damned if I know. But we better do something fast. Send a runner to the reactors to shut them down,” Irons ordered.
...*...*...*...*...
Amadeus smashed a cleaner bot and then turned as another rammed into his leg. “Are you frackin kidding me?” he snarled, using a broken mop handle to slap the thing away. It flipped over like a turtle, wheels spinning in the air. He ducked a floater as it buzzed past, then cracked his improvised staff into it like a bat when it came back. His hands shook with the impact but his simian strength had allowed him to bat the thing into the nearest bulkhead. It shattered.
“Good work, sir,” A marine said just as the gravity flipped, sending her cart wheeling into the ceiling and then back to the floor.
“Someone cut the damn power!” The chimp bellowed just as the lights went out and the gravity cut out. “Thank you!” he said in the darkness. “Now find out what the frack is going on!”
“It's like the AI war all over again sir! They've gone berserk,” a tech said as he tried to check the floating marine. “The mechs are on batteries though sir,” he warned as a fresh swarm of bots came out from around the corner.
“Great,” White said, hefting his stick. He reached out, snagged a piece of wreckage and wrapped the wires that were still dangling from the plate around his arm to form an improvised shield.
“Sir,” the tech said, handing over the marine's sidearm. “You better take this, I'm a lousy shot.”
“Just frackin wonderful. What else is going to go wrong??” the chimp muttered as he tucked the broken mop handle under his arm and took the weapon.
...*...*...*...*...
The Watcher dropped its cloak as its final programming activated in a rush of commands. The Xeno AI lunged for the facilities self destruct but it couldn't engage it. It needed the codes from an organic flag officer's implants to get them to work, the codes from its puppets and its host were only half the equation. Immediately the AI tried to invade Admiral Subert and White remotely but couldn't get to Admiral Subert due to his location on the destroyer. That left the organics White and Irons. Irons was too well protected, it went for White first. To go on the attack though it needed all of its resources. It connected to its host and then forced open WiFi access nodes near to use for its own purposes.
...*...*...*...*...
Sprite noted the radio chatter coming from very close to the admiral's body as she grappled with Ray. “It's near! Cut the damn links we don't control! Shut the computer down!” Sprite sent in a microsecond burst to her brothers. Proteus immediately reacted by sending out cables from the admiral to shut down WiFi nodes in the area that they couldn't control, then reset the admiral's firewall directly.
The admiral saw his arm whip about on its own. Silver nanites were flung about the area around him and growing cables and robotic arms came out on their own in flashes to rip and tear at electronics. Electronics exploded around the admiral, making him instinctively hunch and spin his own shields up. One tentacle lashed out and hit the approaching commander with unexpected results.
...*...*...*...*...
With a physical attack on its host and the host cut off from contact with the Watcher it had only one final act of defiance left in its programming to perform. It abandoned the effort to locate the White organic, it was not in an area the Watcher could access.
Instead the Xeno AI determined the only way for it to successfully perform its own self destructive act was to get the self destruct codes from the Irons organic and then escape before the self destruct went off. It gathered its remaining puppets and attacked Irons and his AI with everything it had at its disposal.
...*...*...*...*...
“Damn!” Sprite snarled as she saw the commander go down. She thought at first he was dead but he got right back up. He blinked then his thermal profile started to climb. Nanites began to swarm within his body.
“Changeling!” Sprite managed to get out to the admiral. Apparently Proteus had inadvertently discovered the enemy AI was connected to a host. Unfortunately they were too wrapped up in the fight to alert the admiral to what else was going on. Sprite couldn't even spare the time to hit him with a text, her entire focus was on staying alive and keeping him alive.
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The Watcher attempted to kill the enemy AI, but when it determined it wasn't going to get past their firewall and its host was about to go critical it lunged for the station ansible. The final files were in the process of being sent before the shutdown. Now the Xeno AI attempted to force open the links to escape. It sent a mirror clone to distract the trio by attacking the self destruct again, forcing them to split up and defend both the admiral and the self destruct. They managed to stop the destruct, but Proteus only got a piece of the rogue before it transmitted its core to the Antigua ansible and into the Federation computer network. From there it could go anywhere.
...*...*...*...*...
In a last act of defiance the Xeno shadow clone managed to inflict more damage on the already weakened Defender and Sprite and then used its stolen codes to access and corrupt the exposed Proteus. Sprite managed to shelter Proteus's kernel programming by shutting him down and severing his link to the computer network. That yanked the AI out of the net and back into the core and nanites within the admiral. That left her and Defender alone with the clone just as the computer core they were in was disconnected. She felt the power going out of the computer network around her so she yanked Defender out with her and back into the admiral.