by M. D. Cooper
Rika felt a surge of jealousy, wondering what she’d been left out of.
Tanis seemed to pick up on Rika’s reaction and spoke up. “Angela and I are talking with Niki about all this in a separate stream. That conversation is moving a bit faster. We’re also discussing Niki’s other activities, and the League of Sentients.”
“League of Sentients? Are they a part of the AI rebellion?” Rika asked.
“Much like we have at New Canaan and in the ISF,” Tanis added. “We have people out there working with the League, as well.”
“How do you manage all of this?” Rika asked. “I can barely fathom the logistics of the battle we just fought, but you’re doing this everywhere.”
Tanis shrugged. “Well, not everywhere. I don’t think we’re quite fighting on a thousand fronts yet—though I suppose that depends on how you qualify a ‘front’….”
No one spoke for a moment, and Rika was grateful for the reprieve. She felt like she’d need days to make sense of all this new information.
However, Tim broke the silence. “I’d like to send a message to Marauder HQ and get their thoughts on this.”
“And also inform them about General Mill’s passing.” Rika shot Tim a quelling look. “Speaking of which, have you found the general’s body yet?” Rika asked Tanis.
Tanis shook her head. “Not yet, but—sorry to say it—there are a lot of bodies. It could take weeks or months. His body could also be destroyed.”
“Did you find the shuttle?”
“Yes. There was no sign of him.”
Tanis rose from her seat, and Rika followed suit, as did Tim. “Prepare your missive,” Tanis said to Tim. “I suggest that you gather your entire force here in the Albany System. Whether you accept the mission in Nietzschea, or any other job, the ISF is now your number one customer. And if you’re not working for us directly, it won’t be long before Septhia has fully joined the alliance, and you will be working for us through a proxy.”
“Your alliance feels so nebulous, Tanis,” Rika said. “Does it have a name?”
Tanis chuckled. “Well, technically this is all built on an alliance with Scipio, but there are a lot of people who won’t join the ‘Scipio Alliance’.”
“Perhaps something like the ‘Alliance of Free Peoples’?” Rika suggested. “You get AIs and humans in there, then.”
“So long as we don’t have to get into existential discussions about the nature of ‘freedom’,” Tanis said with a wink, and Rika realized that Niki must have shared some of their prior conversation about whether or not anyone was truly free.
“We’ll avoid that if we can,” Rika replied with a small grin.
Tanis returned the expression, but then it faded, and her expression became businesslike as she turned to Tim. “Major. Rika and I have a personal matter to discuss. If you wouldn’t mind?”
Tim glanced at Rika, and his eyes narrowed before looking back at Tanis. “Uh, sure. Rika, I’ll see you aboard the Golden Lark afterward.”
“Certainly, Major,” Rika replied equably.
“Admiral,” Major Tim extended his hand, and Tanis shook it. “It’s been an honor.”
“Indeed it has,” Tanis replied, and walked Tim into the hall before returning a moment later and gesturing for Rika to follow her. “Come, let’s go onto the back deck. A change of scenery for a new topic.”
Rika followed the admiral wordlessly and found herself on a wide wooden deck overlooking an extensive orchard.
“I’m sure you hear it all the time,” Rika said as she glanced up at the lake four kilometers above her head. “But this place is amazing. And on a warship no less.”
Tanis shrugged. “Wasn’t always a warship.”
“What about the Carthage?” Rika asked. “From what your Captain Mel told me, it was a purpose-built warship, yet it has these same cylinders.”
Tanis leant against the railing and turned to meet Rika’s eyes, a wry smile on her lips. “Well, we’re nostalgic. And stubborn—at least, I am.”
Rika walked to the railing, but didn’t lean against it. Smashing the admiral’s deck was not on her list of things she wanted to do.
“What is it you wanted to talk about?” she asked.
“What you saw,” Tanis said without elaboration. “And what you heard.”
Rika nodded slowly. “You mean about your ascension.”
“Yes,” Tanis replied. “You must have questions.”
“Ha!” Rika barked the word. “My questions have questions. Not to be too impertinent, but are you human—anymore, that is?”
“I am,” Tanis replied simply. “My mind has slowly been intertwining with that of Angela, the AI with whom I share headspace, for some time. Down on Pyra…something happened, and our two selves truly became one. The mechanics of that are complex, and I won’t get into them right now, but Priscilla introduced an agent into our mind that pulled us apart and kept us from fully ascending.”
“Ascending…is that why I was having trouble holding you?”
“I assume so.” Tanis turned and leaned her elbows on the railing, staring out over the orchard. “From what we know, ascended beings—at least, the ones we’ve encountered—have moved into additional dimensions. They occupy more of space-time than normal three-dimensional beings. But there’s more to it than that. It comes with the ability to see into things more…”
Tanis’s voice had grown distant, as though she were only partially present. Then she shook her head and glanced at Rika.
“Like you, Rika. I can see parts of your mind just by looking at you.”
“My mind?” Rika resisted the urge to step back.
“Well, not your thoughts, per se. It’s more like reading expressions. Except now I can see the ones on the surface of your thoughts, as well as the ones on the surface of your skin. It’s honestly a bit confusing at times.”
Rika chuckled. “Of all the things you’ve said today, that’s the one that is confusing?”
“I can see Niki’s mind, too,” Tanis continued, ignoring Rika’s comment and glancing at her stomach. “I think you two should be properly connected. Mind to mind, rather than the close Link tap you have now.”
“Closely connected like normal AI embedding, or like you and Angela?” Rika asked.
Tanis’s eyes narrowed. “Why, do you want to become like me and Angela?”
“Uh…” Rika stammered. “I have no idea.”
“Good answer,” Tanis laughed. “And no, I was referring to a ‘regular’ embedding. You two would become a more efficient pairing. It would improve your chances of success in Nietzschea.”
“You speak as though our acceptance of the mission into Nietzschea is a foregone conclusion,” Rika replied.
“I do.” Tanis nodded. “I saw your mind well enough when we spoke inside. You have a good poker face, but your mind doesn’t lie. You want to lead that mission.”
Rika felt a little unnerved at the thought of this woman intimating her internal thoughts. Still, she wasn’t wrong.
“Go? Yes. Kick Niet ass? Absolutely.” Rika said a moment later. “Lead? I think there are a lot of people who are more qualified.”
“We can train you,” Tanis replied, her eyes unblinking as she continued to regard Rika. “And we can provide you with advisors and tactical AIs. But what we can’t do is take a regular person and make them a born leader. Those we have to find and select very carefully.”
“I think you must have me mixed up with someone else,” Rika laughed nervously. “I’m just a street rat from Kellas.”
“And I’m just a girl from Mars who joined the military to spite her father,” Tanis replied. “But your origins don’t define you.”
She took a step closer and reached out, touching Rika�
��s forehead. “It’s who you are in here that matters.”
As Tanis’s finger met Rika’s skin, the most curious thing happened: an image entered her mind. It wasn’t over the Link, and it wasn’t really a vision—not that Rika really knew what those were supposed to look like, anyway.
No, this was different. It was more like an impression. It was how Tanis saw Rika.
“What…what are you doing?” Rika asked, unwilling to pull away and not certain she could even if she wanted to.
“This is who you are,” Tanis said, and Rika saw a tall, proud, and decisive woman in her mind.
The woman was a mech, but that wasn’t the focus of the image. Most apparent was the blend of compassion and understanding wrapped around an iron will. It was the impression of a woman who was a rocky outcrop, standing amidst a storm. A rock that so many others took shelter around.
Rika’s breath quickened, and her chest heaved as she struggled to maintain her composure.
“No,” she whispered. “That’s not me…”
An image of a young girl, hungry and alone, stealing food on the streets of Tanner City came to mind. Scared, vulnerable, exposed.
“No, this is not,” Tanis whispered, and the young girl stood up, her back straight, eyes carrying a conviction and purpose none so young ever had. The girl grew taller, a skin of steel spreading across her body, becoming Rika, becoming the iron will, becoming the rock around which so many other sought shelter.
“She’s still there,” Tanis’s voice carried on the wind in the storm that raged around the rock. “She is the heart of you. She is the most important part of you. But she is not that scared little girl anymore. You see that girl as a weakness. I see her as the unassailable foundation for the woman you’ve become, Rika. She’s your heart, and you must keep her safe, but she keeps you alive, and she is amazing. You are amazing.”
Tanis pulled her finger back from Rika’s forehead, and Rika’s vision slowly refocused on the woman standing before her. For an instant, she thought she saw tendrils of light curling around Tanis’s body and a brilliant glow in the woman’s eyes, but then it was gone, and the person before her was just the admiral once more.
Tears were streaming from Rika’s eyes, but she didn’t have anything to wipe them away with. She looked around for something she could use, but Tanis shook her head.
“Not yet, Rika. Be proud of those tears. You now have a gift few ever have. You don’t need to hide from yourself; you know who you really are, what you are capable of.”
“I still don’t understand,” Rika whispered. “I mean…I do. And I feel it, I feel what you mean, but isn’t—wasn’t—that angst my strength? That fear is where I drew my strength in combat.”
“Oh I know,” Tanis chuckled. “I know you thought that. But your real strength was behind that fear, the worry that you were a fraud, a scared little girl. You thought that if you just fought harder, pushed harder, that no one would know you were so scared and felt so alone. But your fears were a barrier between your actions and your true strength. They were a filter.”
Rika understood what Tanis meant, and her tears dried up.
“I’m not a scared little girl anymore, Tanis. I am strong, and capable. I’m the woman who is going to defeat the Nietzschean Empire, and establish a Genevia where people are truly free and everyone is treated with respect, no matter their station in life.”
“See?” Tanis winked. “I knew it. But I think even now you’re setting your sights too low.”
“What do you mean by that?” Rika asked, a frown creasing her brow.
Tanis placed a hand on Rika’s shoulder and led her down the steps into the orchard. “You and I will have more chats, Rika. When you finish what’s ahead of you with Nietzschea, I imagine we’ll have another conversation. We’ll see what the future has in store for you then.”
Rika glanced at the serene woman next to her. “You really aren’t human anymore, are you?”
Tanis shrugged. “What’s human? I’m myself. That is enough for me.”
FINDING SILVA
STELLAR DATE: 08.30.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: MSS Fury Lance
REGION: Pyra, Albany System, Thebes, Septhian Alliance
Though Major Tim had—not so subtly—requested that Rika meet with him on his ship, she did not immediately venture there. First, she took a shuttle to the Fury Lance and strode through the ship to the bridge.
Few people were about, mechs or otherwise, mostly because half were sleeping, and the other half were still clearing hulls near Pyra, searching for survivors and rounding up the remaining Nietzscheans.
The emptiness suited Rika just fine. She needed the time to mull over all the things Tanis had told her. It was a lot.
Rika laughed aloud. “ ‘A lot’ doesn’t begin to do it justice.”
Neither Rika nor Niki had spoken much on the maglev ride to the docks within the I2, nor afterward on the shuttle ride back to the Fury Lance—though Mad Dog had tried to engage her in conversation several times.
Niki gave a mental snort.
Rika laughed.
Rika got the impression that Niki had more to say, and was about to prompt her, when the AI spoke up.
Niki sent an image of eyes rolling into Rika’s mind.
Rika couldn’t help but laugh as she imagined Niki curled up next to her intestines, trying to find room for a lamp and table.
I have the strangest thoughts sometimes.
Niki made a strangled sound.
Rika shrugged as she stepped into a lift.
The memory of what Tanis showed her came into Rika’s mind, that she was a mighty rock, a bastion against the storm.
Rika looked around, noting that there was only one person present on the bridge. Garth, the chief warrant officer, was fast asleep, hunched over his console. She was tempted to just leave him there, but then he started to snore. She walked over and shook his shoulder.
“What? Yes! On it!” he shouted, looking around before finally settling his gaze on Rika. “Oh crap, I’m sorry, Captain.”
Rika shook her head as she regarded the man. “How long you been up here?”
Garth stretched. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe all my life? Feels like it, at least. Nietzscheans do not make comfortable bridge chairs.”
Rika winked. “Probably to keep their crews from falling asleep.”
“Well, given how you found me, they suck at that, too,” Garth said as he stretched. “I’m good, Captain. It won’t happen again.”
“Shit, Garth. I just checked the duty logs…you’ve been up here for a hundred hours.”
Garth frowned. “Well, I did hit the head a few times…and I went to the galley down the hall…damn, only twice, I think. No wonder I’m so hungry.”
Rika pointed to the bridge’s rear exit. “Off with you. Get some food and some sack time. You deserve it.”
Garth rose and stretched again. “OK, sorry again, Captain. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep.”
“No judgement here,” Rika said. “You’ve been on point when needed. We’re not NSAIs. We need downtime.”
Garth murmured his thanks one more time as he walked off the bridge.
“Just the two of us,” Rika said as she sat in the command chair. “Maybe we need to get a ship’s AI.”
“Why’s that?” Rika asked.
“AI prison? What’s that like?”