Alpha Rises

by James David Victor

  The guns were not the only defense, however. There was also a band of Armcore guards wearing full exo-suits that made them almost as large as Val Pathok. Every bit of their body was clad in black reinforced plate, and their heads were just small humps inside large carapaces, giving them the look of turtles. In their hands were lance-rifles, long weapons only used by the Imperial Coalition guards and, apparently, these elite soldiers.

  “They will be worthy opponents.” Val bared his tusks.

  “Easy there, big fella,” Eliard whispered. “I don’t want you throwing your life away just yet.”

  “Who said I would lose?” the Duergar muttered.

  “I do,” said a voice behind them.

  “Ah.” Eliard turned to look back the way they had come down the line of pipes, to see a trio of the heavy-set guards with their lance-rifles already trained on them, and their shoulder-mounted weapon docks already extended, with the red-tipped nozzles of their micro-missiles pointing at—and doubtless already targeted at—each one of them.

  “Afternoon, boys,” Eliard said.

  “Drop your weapons,” the three guards said in unison, and for a moment, the captain thought that Val was going to refuse, but as two sleek killer drones floated into view, the gunner snarled and put his heavy rifle on the floor.

  “And the rest. Blasters. Blades. Bombs.” The guards were implacable. There wasn’t even any malice in their words, just unemotional statements of fact.

  One by one, the trio laid out their weapons on the deck, and it took quite a while for all of the various implements to be stored.

  “Now stand up and walk into the main gallery. Now.”

  Val was growling his frustration, but he followed suit to join Cassandra and Eliard as they stepped out from the coolant pipes and into the wide space, before the line of Armcore elite guards.

  “Keep on moving, until I say so,” the speaking guard, who must have been some kind of captain, said sternly.

  “Do none of the rest of you speak?” Eliard said breezily. “All that training, huh?”

  His slight teasing had no effect on them at all, as they continued to follow his movements through their targeting scopes.

  “Tough crowd,” Eliard sighed.

  “That’s far enough,” the captain said. “There’s someone who wants to meet you.”

  14

  A Superior Intelligence, Part 1

  The captain and the others were shuffled to the end of the gallery, standing before the line of elite Armcore guards with lance-rifles lowered. To Eliard’s rising panic, it was starting to look an awful lot like a firing squad.

  “Listen, guys, maybe we can talk about this…” El tried.

  “Shut up,” the captain behind them snapped. “On your knees.”

  I knew it. El felt his heart sink in his chest. This was it. He was going to die. Everything that he had worked for, everything that he had tried to accomplish in his life…which wasn’t actually a lot. He winced as his skinned knees hit the deck, with Cassandra and Val copying him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to his crew. “You made me proud…”

  “Is this really necessary?” said a voice above them. A strange voice. One that almost didn’t sound human. Instead, it sounded like it was being projected in stereo, from multiple speakers at the same time. Eliard looked up to see that there was something rising from behind the shoulders of the firing line. It looked like a triangular tube, with a single, baleful red light acting as an eye. The thing was on a long series of cables and wires that stretched out from its serpent-like head and led to the machine core itself.

  “Ponos-sir!” the captain uttered in shock, and Eliard heard the man shuffle to attention. “It is regulation for any trespassers without clearance, sir, to be…”

  “Trespassers to the core, you mean? My core? To me?” the shining red light emitted. “Shouldn’t I be the one to decide who or what is a trespasser, and who is a visitor?”

  “Ah, but, Ponos-sir…” The captain sounded confused. He’s a career soldier, Eliard could tell. He had to be. He must have been raised to follow the regulations even if they dictated that he charge head-first against an army, alone.

  “Precisely my argument, Captain.” The mechanical voice had a faintly cultured aspect to it, like it was modeled on the scholars and actors of the Coalition. “Ponos-sir, with an acting rank of executive director of this facility, and Advisory General of Armcore entire. That means that I am your superior, Captain Judd. Stand down and let me see these visitors.”

  “Yes, sir. As you wish, sir,” the captain barked, and the line ahead of them parted as the elite guard marched smartly off to reveal the serpentine appendage regarding them quizzically.

  “Stand,” Ponos said, and El was only too grateful to. “You are Captain Eliard Martin of the Mercury Blade, lately of Charylla Station in the Trader’s Belt, and previously of House Martin, Coalition worlds. Implicated in seven crimes currently undergoing Coalition investigation, suspected of handling stolen goods, grand theft, petty theft, border violations, attacking an Armcore vessel, and fraud.” It was a statement, as if the artificial intelligence was reading his details from a nametag. It moved onto the others next to Eliard.

  “And you are Val Pathok, War-Champion of Dur, Hero of the Battle for Ipik’s Ridge. Mercenary for fifteen years, trained as a warrior from the age of six, suspect of murder, gross bodily harm, handling stolen goods, and border violations.”

  The ‘head’ swiveled to Cassandra and twisted on its axis. “And you… I have no recollection of you. You are not in the database.”

  “I lead a quiet life, Ponos,” Cassandra said tartly.

  “Hardly. Not if you are traveling with these criminals.” Ponos made an almost laughing sound. “But I can strategize what you are doing here. You must be the thief of Tritho, who stole my brother, Alpha, and released him into the data-wilds? That would place you at the top of the list of Armcore’s Most Wanted, miss.”

  Cassandra opened and closed her mouth, and El saw her clearly shrug as though she had nothing to lose. “I guess it’s nice to be wanted…”

  “Where is he?” Ponos suddenly surged forward, his tendril-like neck extending so that it hovered in front of Cassandra’s face. To her credit, El thought, she only flinched a little at this unnatural thing’s scrutiny. “My brother. Where has he gone?”

  “I didn’t know you thought of him as your brother,” Eliard said lightly. Just how are you supposed to talk to an artificial intelligence? He could have screamed. They had come here expecting Ponos to be sympathetic to their wishes. Not be on blood-kin terms with Alpha!

  “An affectation, perhaps.” Ponos slowly swiveled its unblinking eye toward the captain. “My kind might not have biology, but I suppose you could say that Alpha is the closest thing to a brother that one such as I can ever have.”

  “Lucky you,” Eliard said. “But it seems that your brother is insane.”

  “And what would you know of sanity, little man!?” Ponos swung across the space to hang in front of Eliard, daring him to speak again. “You display type-A, borderline psychotic personality traits. Low risk appreciation. Exceptionally low impulse control. You probably have a low sense of self-esteem as well, fueling these frivolous escapades of yours. In the Armcore Navy, your kind would be rooted out and sent to the infantry back in basic training!”

  Eliard swallowed nervously. “Another reason I never wanted to join Armcore,” he muttered.

  “Pathetic,” Ponos pronounced. “Will any of you give up the whereabouts of Alpha, or do I have to send you to the interrogation chambers?” There was a shuffling of the elite guards, preparing to do their strange master’s bidding.

  “You mean you don’t know?” Eliard dared again. “How can you, with all your intelligence, not know where Alpha is?”

  “You do not have the intelligence to speak to me. Please do not do so again, Captain Martin,” Ponos said cattily.

  While the thing is probably right… El considered. He also
didn’t see that he had anything to lose, either. “I was told where Alpha is. And maybe you’re right about my intelligence, because I bet if I know, then someone in Armcore does as well. There must be someone in this metal box with greater smarts than me, right?”

  Ponos paused, considering his reasoning. “You are indicating that the information has been held from me. By my own.”

  It was Cassandra’s turn to speak up. “House Archival knows.”

  “Interesting. Then you must be an Archival agent. Sent here to mine for secrets,” Ponos agreed. “Now tell me where my brother is, and I will be able to recapture him.”

  “If you want to do that,” Eliard mused. “But I bet that if you run a search of your computers, you will find that there has been an Armcore scout or drone sent out to the Sebopol trash-world.”

  The wires in Ponos’s neck twitched obscenely, and the head turned slowly back and forth across the visitors to its domain. “There has. I will update my commands to it immediately…” Another wobble from the head, as if it had seen something offensive.

  “I assume you’ve just discovered that you haven’t got clearance, right? That maybe even being an acting director or advisory general, or whatever it is they’ve said you are, hasn’t got the access,” Eliard crowed. “And you know why that is, don’t you? It’s because you’re not one of us. You’re a machine.” He took a step forward, grinning maliciously. “Biology trusts biology, not metal.”

  “Quiet!” roared a new voice, not coming from Ponos or from the elite guards. This time, it came from behind all of them, and it was surprisingly high-pitched, accompanied by the stamp of feet. Eliard and the others turned to see that two more lines of elite Armcore soldiers were tramping in, and between them floated a very round man with thinning, greasy hair, standing on a small gravitational platform. He wore a gold and black suit, bedecked with medals and insignia on the breast.

  “Is that who I think it is?” Eliard hissed.

  “Commander Tomas.” Ponos regarded him, not wavering as each and every other guard in the room not accompanying Senior Dane Tomas dropped to one knee with one hand across their chest. Their commander-in-chief paid them no heed whatsoever as he floated toward them.

  There are a LOT of guards around him, Eliard thought. An awful lot.

  “Ponos. What is going on here? Why didn’t you inform me of this intrusion?” Senior Tomas barked.

  “I am interrogating them, Senior. As per protocol,” Ponos replied.

  “Protocol,” Senior Tomas drawled. His eyes flickered to Eliard and his crew for just a moment, then flicked a hand toward them. “Seize them. Category D isolation cells for everyone.”

  Ten of the guards at the front immediately broke off from the retinue to start surrounding Eliard, Val, and Cassandra.

  “Halt!” This counter-order came from Ponos itself, not from the senior. The guards paused, looking uncertain. “I do not think that this would be a profitable course of action, Senior,” it said tartly.

  “Really?” The commander paused, and Eliard saw that the man did actually value this machine’s opinion. Perhaps he relies on it too much, Eliard wondered.

  “Completely. They have revealed to me the location of the missing technology, and I have already dispatched the two nearest war cruisers to that location,” Ponos said. “I think that I can also retrieve more information out of them about their purpose and their employers.”

  “Oh, Ponos, the company interrogators can do all of that...” Senior licked his lips nervously. “And which war cruisers? Who are their generals?”

  “The company interrogators will not be able to retrieve the information as well as I can, clearly. The protocol mandates that the best person is matched to the job. Which would be me.”

  “The generals, Ponos!” Tomas barked at the thing.

  “…which does beg the question if you also believed that I was not the right person to apprehend the technology directly, as a clipper-scout under the control of Captain Farlow has already been sent out to apprehend it,” Ponos said.

  “Yes. Are you questioning my orders, Ponos?” Tomas scowled.

  “No, sir. I have sent the names and the communication addresses of the generals and their war cruisers to your station,” Ponos said politely, turning to the guards encircling Eliard and the others. “Apprehend these three and take them to Maintenance Gallery Seven. Secure them appropriately so they cannot do themselves or me any damage.”

  “Aye, sir.” The guards looked between Tomas and Ponos warily, before seizing Eliard, Val, and Cassandra and dragging them out of the gallery.

  15

  A Superior Intelligence, Part 2

  “Wow. Now that went well, didn’t it?” Eliard hissed angrily, sitting on the floor with his ankles shackled with magnetic links to the floor, and his wrists cuffed with another set in his lap. His back hurt from sitting in this position already, and he was starting to wonder if maybe he should start refusing the offer of money for highly dangerous jobs.

  Maybe that metal appendage was right, he thought dismally. I have a reckless personality. Was that why his life was a mess? Why he had decided it was better to steal from Trader Hogan than to do his bidding? Why he had even stolen the Mercury Blade in the first place, all of those years ago?

  No. The Blade was his baby and his pride. Ever since he had first flown it in his father’s flight stables, he had never wanted to be anywhere else but behind the ship’s wheel, racing along the flats of his home world or out in space. The Mercury Blade was built by master shipbuilders. It was a thing of beauty. It was freedom made into physical form.

  And it was also one hell of a way to get out of a miserable future as a Coalition officer. He had only done two years at the Trevalyn Academy, but that had been two too many. After that would have been the passing out of examinations, and then he would have done some mandatory Armcore service before returning to his father’s court as a ‘prepared’ officer, ready to fight for the Coalition and House Martin.

  Nah. Eliard shook his head. He could never have done that. He could never have stood at his father’s right hand and watch as he drank another liter of Venusian wine or leered at the serving girls. After his mother had died, Lord Martin had grown harsh, and cruel. His shouting tirades had turned into backhanded slaps, and finally beatings to the young Eliard. Did the old man think that training me at the academy would make me any better?

  So, he was left with where he was. Here, now. Sitting on the metal deck, looking out at the glowing, pulsing core of Armcore Prime once more, but this time from one of the gallery openings several flights down. Their guards had dragged them in here, dismissed the other elite soldiers, and attached the prisoners to the floor before leaving. Behind them was the exact same setup as the gallery they had snuck into before. The ceramic pipes, the wide and cold metal floors.

  And now we wait for Ponos to interrogate us, El thought. “But hey, at least the thing doesn’t have any arms, right?” He cracked a crooked smile to the others beside him. “Like, how bad can just asking questions be?”

  “You have never been asked questions by someone of my intelligence, clearly.” Ponos’s head rose from the core ahead of them.

  “Dammit. I wish it would stop doing that. It’s just plain creepy, is what it is,” Eliard muttered.

  “Release us, metal snake!” Val roared at it.

  “Now, Pathok, I don’t think that…” Eliard started to say.

  “I was actually going to suggest the same thing. If your large friend here will promise not to do anything rash,” Ponos said genially.

  “What?” Eliard looked at him in surprise.

  “I mean to release you, Captain Eliard. You and your crew. But I must have your word, on the honor of your ship, that you will do as I say,” Ponos stated. “I believe that you captains place quite a bit of meaning upon your ship’s honor?”

  El glared at it. “How does it know me so well?”

  “It’s an artificial intelligence. It knows you fiv
e ways to the sun and back,” Cassandra hissed at him. “Promise,” she suggested.

  “I don’t know what it is I am agreeing to yet,” El said. If there was anything he did know, then it was to always check the terms of the contract first.

  “I will not lead you into harm intentionally, although you will be facing danger. You will promise not to attack me or this station for the duration of your time here, and I will free you.”

  “Free? As in, free to go?” Val grunted.

  “Yes. Free to leave. Agreed?” Ponos stated.

  The three conferred and then one by one, nodded that this was acceptable. “On my ship’s honor,” Eliard stated.

  “Good.” At that moment, the magnetic shackles holding them unclicked and fell off, allowing Eliard to groan and massage his sore joints.

  “You will follow my directions, forwarded to your wrist computer, and then you will leave this station,” Ponos stated.

  “Is that it? Why?” Eliard asked. There had to be a catch with this kind of deal. There always was.

  “No, my less than erudite Captain. That is not ‘it’,” Ponos stated. “I have conducted a survey of the situation, accessing what remote satellites are available to one such as I, and I have discovered that an Armcore vessel has been dispatched to the Sebopol worlds, and has since returned under a distress signal.”

  “Did they find Alpha?” Cassandra asked hurriedly. “What did they do to it?”

  “That is none of your concern, Agent,” Ponos stated.

  “You’re scared,” Val grunted. “If you weren’t scared, then you wouldn’t have a reason to hide what you know.”

  “I do not get scared, Gunner Pathok,” Ponos said. “I merely make assessments for the glory of Armcore.”

  Eliard pointed a finger at it. “And I bet that one of those assessments you’ve made is this: your senior hid this information from you because he doesn’t trust you. And you’ve realized that Alpha is a superior intelligence to you. You’re stuck here, tied to this core, but it has all of data-space to grow and develop in. A superior intelligence like Alpha can only be a threat to something like you. If Armcore convinced it to come home, or if this ship has managed to capture it somehow, then you must know that your days are numbered, Ponos. Why keep an outdated version of the software when you can just upgrade, after all?” Eliard took a step toward the triangular eye. “You’ve been replaced.”