Alpha Rises

by James David Victor

  El looked confused. It was Cassandra who rescued him.

  “If you put humans on a new world, they’ll have babies and cities and wars and take over, right?” He nodded. “If you run a computer program, it will just keep crunching the numbers until its goal has been reached,” she explained. “So, the question becomes—does Alpha have a goal hardwired into it by Armcore, or is it a living thing that will seek to create a habitat to live in?”

  El looked back at the stellar map of the three Alpha-controlled blips. It looked to him like it was trying to grow a territory and was now probably making a fleet to defend it. Was that so bad? So, the Coalition had a new neighbor. He had no love for the Imperial Coalition anyway….

  “But with Alpha’s levels of intelligence, it can probably design new Valyien tech.” Cassandra saw the thought processes pass over El’s face. “Something more advanced than warp travel. Gravitational controllers. Meson weapons. Energy-generation systems. With that much computing power, a machine of its size will never make mistakes. Just think about that for a moment, El. How long does it take to navigate on the Blade? Alpha will do it in a fraction of the time. Alpha will never forget to load the weapon bays. Alpha will never need to stop to refuel…or rest. Alpha will never experience delays or accidents in whatever it wants to do. The intelligence will already have planned everything out and have contingency plans for every possibility.”

  Cassandra’s tone took on almost prophetic tones. “If it’s like a biological organism and it wants to grow, then it will soon be the strongest, fastest, most sophisticated race we’ve ever encountered.”

  “It could wipe us out, you’re saying,” El said.

  “If it wanted to,” Agent Simmons agreed. “There is only one thing we can do. We need to find out what Armcore programmed into it, before it is too late.”

  “How are we going to do that, wander into Armcore head offices and ask to use their computers?” El almost shouted.

  “Something like that.” Simmons frowned. “We have one chance, and I agree that it is very slim, but it might just work. Ponos.”

  “Pono-who?” El said.

  “Ponos is Armcore’s main AI,” Cassandra explained. “But it’s a fixed one, which means that it’s tied to the computers and servers of Armcore alone.”

  “Wonderful.” El rolled his eyes. Haven’t we already had enough trouble messing around with AIs? He knew that there were actually many artificial intelligences in Coalition space, or, to call them by their more accurate name, machine intelligences. None of them had their training wheels taken off to be allowed to become fully self-aware as Alpha had. Even the Mercury Blade had a very weak form of a machine intelligence automating its systems.

  “Why would an Armcore intelligence want to help us?” El pointed out the obvious fault in their plan.

  “Because as soon as it realizes that Alpha is born, it will realize that it has a rival,” Simmons stated. “With unlimited access to the data-space, and now physical space as well, Alpha will be cleverer than Ponos. Alpha will be a threat to Ponos, and to Armcore, which Ponos is hardwired to serve. If our analysis is correct—” The clockmaker agent did a little self-congratulatory flutter with his hands. “—and we all know just how brilliant House Archival’s analysis is, then any contact with Ponos will result in a sixty-four percent chance of the Armcore intelligence agreeing to help us.”

  “Sixty-four percent,” El said flatly. That’s not much better than a coin-flip.

  “Yes!” Simmons took it as a celebration.

  “Well, good luck with that then.” El shook his head and turned back to the metal door. “Cassie, are you coming?” he said over his shoulder.

  “What? No! Where are you going, Eliard?” Cassandra looked at him in alarm.

  “It seems to me that your friend here wants to recruit a bunch of idiots for a suicide mission. Breaking into Armcore’s headquarters and talking to a military computer?” El shook his head. “If Alpha does decide to create a fleet to blow the hell out of Armcore, then good riddance is all I can say.”

  “But, El! You don’t get it. This isn’t about just you and the Mercury Blade!” Cassandra said as Simmons muttered something about cowards and pirates. “This is about everyone. Alpha could wipe out humanity, with ease.”

  “Wake me up when it’s time to pick up my gun,” El countered.

  “And don’t forget that the Mercury is still public enemy number one for Armcore, Captain!” Cassandra said. “How are you going to escape that?”

  Ouch. El paused. She has a point there.

  “We’ve got good odds that Ponos will help us. That means scrubbing your name off the most wanted list, too,” Cassandra went on. El thought that she had a funny definition of ‘good odds.’ “And, I dare say, that House Archival,” she added as an aside, “will pay a handsome reward.”

  Aha! El turned back around. “Now you’re talking, lady.” He smiled invitingly at Simmons. “Terms and conditions, please, because believe me, the crew of the Mercury Blade places a very high level of pride in our work.” And they want us to waltz right up to the very people in the universe who want to kill us.

  Simmons frowned. “One minute.” His hands flickered in the air as he sorted through various chat windows and engaged in some hurried text conversation with one of his superiors on the other side of the stars.

  “Three hundred thousand Coalition credits,” he said finally.

  “Ha! Good night and good luck, the pair of you…” El turned back to the door. Wait for it, he told himself.

  “Five hundred thousand,” Simmons said in a strangled voice.

  “For saving the Coalition and all of human space?” El said.

  “We don’t know Ponos will be able to do that, yet,” Simmons said pointedly.

  “Still, best to be optimistic, right?” El looked back at the man. “One million Coalition credits. No less.”

  Simmons opened and closed his mouth, before taking a deep breath and nodding. “Fine. One million Coalition credits. I will tell my superiors that you accept, and we will start transferring the data files to your ship that we have so far. We have already prepared full operation suggestions and models, of course…” His hands flickered over the console.

  “There.” El grinned at Cassandra. “Now, if you’re going to fly with us, you’re really going to have to learn how to haggle.” He ushered her toward the door. Cassandra, however, did not appear to be very happy with anything that had just happened, and remained annoyed past the curtain and through the clockmaker’s shop on the far side, and even unlocked the door in a cold manner as they swept outside.

  Straight into the waiting muzzles of the Mela Security guns.

  4

  A Not-So-Pleasant Surprise

  “Easy there, fellas, you haven’t even bought us a drink yet…” El looked at the range of very grim-faced, white-garbed security officers.

  “Captain Eliard Martin, owner of the Mercury Blade? You are under arrest,” said the burliest officer, and the one apparently in charge.

  “Who?” Eliard said innocently. “My name is Captain Landers, and my ship is named the May Bell.”

  His attempt was not fooling the guard, however. “Yeah, right. Just follow me, Martin—you and your accomplice here.”

  “Who, me?” Cassandra did a very convincing job of looking affronted. “I have no idea who this man is. I was just in there buying a watch!”

  The guard’s face was impassive. “Really. Hands up. Now.”

  “I’ll take this to the highest court!” Eliard crowed, putting on the air of an affronted merchant.

  “You do that, sir. We’ll see what Armcore has to say about that.” The guard gestured with his rifle and Eliard looked at the semi-circle of guns one more time. Could he reach his pistol in time? Not before they’d filled him with burning plasma, no doubt. Dammit. I seem to be standing at the wrong end of a lot of guns recently, Eliard thought. Ever since we picked up Cassandra, in fact. He felt a burr of annoyance as
he complied.

  At a nod from the burly senior officer, they were frisked and both of their blaster pistols were confiscated, along with a handheld stunner from Cassandra, and a stiletto knife from Eliard.

  “Be careful with that. It’s a family heirloom!” El glowered at the security guard, who put it away in his pack. That, at least, was true.

  “This way.” They were shoved down the avenue toward a set of metal stairs, with security guards training guns at their backs and in front of them.

  Get a plan. I have to get a plan, Eliard thought. He still had his wrist communicator. Could he discretely open a channel to Val and Irie? Although he wasn’t entirely certain that an angry Duergar would make his situation that much better. His eyes tracked the guards around them in the slightly more confined space. If they bunched up a bit more, they wouldn’t have space to draw their weapons… he thought as he slowed his steps. They turned at the nearest landing, and the stairwell opened to reveal the larger halls and vaults that comprised the underside of the platforms. It was like walking into a mechanical cave system, with the hisses of steam and the buzzes of electrical noise as the prisoners saw tall walls of apartments hanging over balconies filled with smaller docked ships.

  They must be subaquatic, El thought, seeing the closed-petal doors that they faced. The captain tried not to think of the leagues of water just a few meters outside.

  “Where are you taking us?” Cassandra said indignantly. “When my embassy hears about this, you will all lose your jobs!”

  “Just keep moving.” The senior indicated the end of their stairwell, where a white hover-van had already pulled up, with the back doors unfolding to reveal a small cell.

  Oh crap, El thought as they rounded the last landing. Now or never… He tried to catch Cassandra’s eye, but she was too busy being shoved by her own guard as El forcefully slipped on one of the steps, entangling his foot with one of the guards behind him, and folded into a roll.

  “Hugh!” he heard the grunt of surprise and pain from the man in front of him, and then felt the whumpf of pain as his own shoulder impacted on the hard metal stairs below. He was rolling, his ears ringing, but the impacts were less painful and more squishy, quite frankly, as he rolled through the bodies of the security guards like a bowling ball.

  He groaned when he finally came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, in front of the security hover-van. This might not have been my finest hour. He jump-pushed himself back to his feet, spinning around to connect a solid boot with a rising security officer’s helmet.

  “Ow!” He hopped back as his foot rang with pain. Cassandra had already relieved one of the fallen guards of their gun and was struggling to her feet as something clicked behind them both.

  Oh crap, the captain thought.

  “Get in the van, El, or you’re going to be seeing the world through a new hole in that empty head of yours,” he heard a voice say. A familiar voice.

  “Trader Hogan?” the captain said uncertainly. I thought he died on Charylla. In front of him, Cassandra had spun around but quickly froze when she must have seen the number of guns pointing at her.

  “Yeah, I still got my boys with me. You surprised to see us again, El?” the little trader sneered at him in his throaty voice. “Drop it, sister,” he barked at Cassandra. “And get in.”

  Sullenly, Cassandra dropped the stolen blaster onto one of the prostate bodies of the guards below and held up her hands as they were corralled into the back of the hover-van. There was a thump from the rear doors and the swish of the driver’s compartment as Hogan and his three lackeys got in the front.

  “Just when this day couldn’t get any better,” El muttered.

  The security van was clearly stolen, as were the white uniforms that Hogan and his goons wore, all of them ill-fitting and looking about as professional as a costume party. El and Cassandra sat in the back of the featureless white cell on two steel benches, opposite each other. A small grill separated them from the van’s front cab, through which El could see the people he had thought were dead.

  They weren’t shackled or manacled, but with no weapons and no features to their environment, El realized that he might as well be. He tapped as discretely as he could on his wrist communicator but got no response.

  “The van is probably running shielding,” Cassandra whispered to him under her breath.

  Through the grill, El could see the bald head of the small and vicious Hogan, crenelated with its nubs of sub-quantum transponders. He was a good foot and a half shorter than the heavy bodyguards that sat on either side of him.

  Might as well say hello. El cleared his throat. “Well, thank you for racing to my rescue, Hogan. What a pleasant surprise!” he said, knowing that his good humors had always annoyed the hell out of the man that had been his boss.

  “Pleasant for who, me?” Hogan laughed as the hover-car sped through the subaquatic halls and corridors of the Mela platform, going to who-knows-where, the captain thought.

  “How’s, uh, business?” El tried again.

  “Half of my stock is scattered across the Trader’s Belt, along with some of my best ships, if that’s what you mean, Eliard?” the little man drawled. “And a little birdy tells me that it’s all your fault. You called Armcore in.”

  “What? Why on earth would I do that!?” El sputtered.

  “You remember Merriman, don’t you?” Hogan spat. “He told me everything. How you stole from Armcore, how Armcore came looking for you, and took the opportunity to do what they’ve been wanting to do for generations now: attack the Belt.”

  Merriman, that worm. El shared a dark look with Cassandra. After stealing—liberating, he thought—Alpha, he had fled to the only place in near space that he had thought he could hide: the pleasure cruiser of Maximillus Merriman, a fellow disgraced noble. But Merriman had sold him out to Armcore, and now, it seemed, had repeated his good manners by selling him out to Trader Hogan as well.

  “So… It’s gone…?” El said warily. Did Armcore really destroy the Trader’s Belt? He had known that they always hated the Trader’s Belt of non-aligned merchants, guilds, smugglers, and pirates, but to kick that hornets’ nest? That was a large step.

  “No, course it isn’t, you idiot! Just a bit burned up, that’s all. We’ll rebuild. We have before and will again. And the Coalition knows that they can’t afford to lose a place like the Belt,” Hogan mused.

  He was right in that at least, El agreed. Having a non-aligned, barely-legal province had turned out to be useful both against and for the Coalition and Armcore for a long time now. Just every now and again, the Coalition gets to flex its muscles and put the Belt back into its place, he supposed. And he was the excuse for that.

  “You have to understand, Hogan, that I had nothing to do with what Armcore did to your stock…”

  “Gleesonian crap, Martin,” Hogan snapped as they whirred around a corner. “But I’ve had enough of your excuses now. You still owe me the twenty thousand credits, remember?”

  Really? El could have screamed. We’re going to go over that again? It was Hogan’s contention that he owed him ten thousand credits for a delivery not delivered, and had doubled the price for the inconvenience. Which was ridiculous. The captain scowled. He had never failed to deliver it, he had stolen it. Two entirely different things. The delivery, a small storage case worth of something, still sat in one of the ship’s lockers as far as he was aware. With all of this business with Armcore and the hybrid alien intelligence, he hadn’t had the opportunity to try and pick the digital lock yet!

  “Well, Hogan, if you get me back to my ship, I am sure that we can renegotiate some very generous terms for you…” El said. As much as he was scared, and as deeply as he knew that Trader Hogan was one of the vilest godfathers of the Belt worlds, he at least felt a little better trying to bargain for his life with him rather than with Armcore or any Mela security guard.

  We have a mutual understanding. El considered his options. And that would be a shared love o
f getting filthy rich. All he would have to do would be to convince Trader Hogan that he was worth far more alive than dead.

  “How generous can you be right now, Captain, with half of the known galaxy trying to track you and your ship down?” Trader Hogan laughed. It was a cruel laugh. “I lost over a million credits in that Armcore attack, and then there’s the loss of earnings, the compensation, interest…”

  “Oh, come on!” El burst out. This was crazy.

  “So I have decided to call in my debt with you early, Martin. It’s no longer standing at ten thousand, or a million credits.” Trader Hogan said smoothly. “We’re now talking your ship, and without you and your crew in it.”

  “You can’t take the Mercury,” El hissed. It was his. Or rather, it was his father’s prized racing yacht, retro-fit by the best mechanic in Coalition space (Irie Hanson) to be a sleek raiding boat. It was also the love of Eliard’s life.

  “Really? We’ll see about that.” Hogan laughed as the hover-van screamed to a halt and the prisoners were thrown against the grill.

  “Look, Hogan, I promise we can work something out!” El said, suddenly desperate. “We’ve got a big deal going down, a really profitable one…” He thought about the mission to break into Armcore Headquarters, talk to Ponos. Surely there had to be some way to turn that into a profitable venture?

  “I don’t want to hear your schemes and fancies anymore, El,” Hogan said as he and the others slid out of the cab.

  “What’s he going to do?” Cassandra looked at the captain in alarm.

  “I don’t know,” El said, a second before the rear of the van hissed open, and the burly guards were charging them, waving their guns in their faces and grabbing their arms and legs.

  El and Cassandra fought, obviously. They kicked and screamed and bucked, but the guards were too strong as they dragged them from the back of the van and held them down on the cold metal floor, now full of bruises. They were in some out of the way loading bay of the Mela platform. Other hover-machines were parked here and there, collecting rust and grease. The hiss of steam and heavy machinery could be heard around them.