An additional med kit had been located and was being put to use on cuts and abrasions. A quick diagnostic scan of Marlee’s arm declared it to be a compound fracture. They immobilized it and administered a measured dose of pain meds, but such young, fragile bones needed trained medical attention to ensure they healed properly.
Caleb headed outside to see if any emergency personnel had arrived in the area yet. He saw none and was about to go back inside when Isabela appeared at his side. She pointed to the wreckage of one of the frigates in the distance. Half the ship had landed atop one of the towers on the edge of the city, the other half on the flatland beyond.
“You didn’t…do that, did you?”
He shrugged with proper dramatic flair. “I did say I came to rescue you. They were in my way.”
She stared up at him wearing an amused grin, though he noted the exhaustion weighing down her features. “You really are kind of wonderful.”
He bit his lip to mockingly suppress a smirk and give her the show she deserved. “Maybe a little.” Then his tone grew more serious. “There’s no telling when help is going to start rolling in, and the hospital is probably wrecked, but I think this is the first location they hit. Let me fly you and Marlee over to the next city. They’ll have a functioning hospital and lodging. You’ll be safe there.”
“You’ve convinced me. But fly us there in what?”
“Go get Marlee and the others.”
Her eyes narrowed at him suspiciously as she backed away. “All right.”
Alone for a few precious seconds, he drew in a deep breath. He stood on a ruined street in a ruined city. Destruction stretched for kilometers in every direction, all caused by a single man for whom vengeance had devolved into madness. But no longer. He welcomed the endorphins now coursing through his veins as a just reward for a mission succeeded.
A single purpose had driven him relentlessly forward since leaving Earth; freed of its hold, his thoughts immediately turned to Alex. In truth his thoughts had never left her, but they had of necessity churned silently beneath concerns which he was able to act on and bring to a resolution.
He didn’t dare contact her, fearful the slightest distraction at the wrong moment would endanger her and her own mission. His access to a secure military channel told him the battle had been joined, they hadn’t lost and she wasn’t dead. It would have to be enough for now. Until he could reach her.
When Isabela returned with Marlee, Noah and Harper, he was standing in what looked to be the middle of an empty intersection. He walked to the ship—disappearing briefly, to two gasps—then he and the ship reappeared.
Marlee’s eyes widened to giant bloodshot orbs as she let out a squeal of delight and ran to him. “Is this your ship, Uncle Caleb?”
He again crouched to her level. “Nope. It’s my girlfriend’s ship.”
That drew her enchanted gaze from the ship to him. “You have a girlfriend?”
“I do.”
She considered him skeptically. “Is she pretty?”
“She sure is—almost as pretty as you.”
Marlee giggled, covering her mouth with her uninjured hand in temporary embarrassment as she leaned against his shoulder.
He tousled her dust-covered hair playfully. “Do you want to go for a ride in it?”
Her head bobbed up and down. Her discomfort eased by the pain meds and fear eased by the sunlight, her usual effervescence was re-emerging in fits and starts. “Uh-huh.”
He went to the hull and opened the hatch. When the ramp extended, Marlee stared up it uncertainly. Isabela came over, scooped her up in her arms and carried her up the ramp. “Come on, sweetheart. We’ll explore the ship together—and we won’t touch anything.”
He laughed and turned to the others. “Thank you, both of you. I couldn’t have saved them without your help.”
Noah shook his head. “I don’t know, man. I think you’d have found a way.”
“Even so. Listen, I’m going to fly them to a hospital in the neighboring city, then I need to get to Seneca. To the front line.”
“To Alex, you mean.”
“Yeah. Noah, there’s not anywhere for me to drop you on the way, but you’re welcome to come along for the ride.”
“I can, but…does this neighboring city have a spaceport?”
“I assume so.”
“Would it break your heart if I headed back to Earth instead? Kennedy will torture me if I don’t return in one piece, and…actually that might be interesting….” He shook his head to snap out of the reverie. “Anyway, the sooner I return the better it will go for me.”
Caleb frowned. “I hear you. But I’m not confident you’ll be able to get a flight out. Isabela said there were no departures due to the evacuations.”
“Eh, I’m a persuasive guy. I’ll find someone to bribe.”
“Good point. Captain, what about you?”
Harper peered out at the wreckage of downtown with a vexed sigh. “I’d like to go to the front line. I can’t believe I’m missing the battle of the millennium thanks to that lunatic. But in truth I can’t do anything useful there at this point. So…I should stay here. I can assist with the rescue efforts and hopefully locate some of the escape pods—no man left behind and all. Then I’ll make their occupants assist with the rescue efforts. If we win at Seneca, eventually someone will show up to clean up this mess.”
“Are you sure? Real aid may be a while in coming.”
“I am. I helped cause this destruction by not acting fast enough. I need to help fix it.”
“Well, in that case.” He offered his hand once more. “I’m very glad to have met you, Captain Harper. Thank you for everything.”
She shook his hand firmly. “Same here, Senecan Federation Intelligence Agent Marano. Good luck to you.”
49
SPACE, NORTH-CENTRAL QUADRANT
SENECA STELLAR SYSTEM
* * *
FIFTEEN MINUTES AND TWO twenty-centimeter-thick walls later, Alex crawled through the hole she had carved to step onto the deck of the Metigen superdreadnought.
She took the time to visually canvass her surroundings from every angle, as much in awe as for the other Prevos and the recording her helmet cam was capturing and transmitting to the Churchill and EASC.
Devon: Well this isn’t spooky at all.
She acknowledged the comment then filtered the others’ chatter to the background. If they needed her it would bubble up, but she needed to concentrate.
The cavernous open space stretched in both directions until it vanished into darkness. The opposite wall was nearly four hundred meters away and the ceiling equally far above. Her perception had been that the berths for the swarmers were located on the sides of the hull, but she appeared to have entered near the bottom. This is the only deck on the ship.
My conclusion as well. Weapons and engines will be located beneath us, but I expect everything else—including the engineering core—will be on this level.
Are you sure there is an engineering core? She gestured around to emphasize the point.
Running in parallel rows along the ceiling, floor and wall behind them were hundreds of beams of streaming ivory-white light. They ran in grooves etched into the metal but weren’t encased within any bounding material. And they weren’t simply conduits of signals or power channels, either, for they branched, reconverged and connected to one another in elaborate patterns.
This is the code running the ship. The ship IS the synthetic intelligence. Fascinating.
A chill radiated along her skin and seeped into her bones. Despite the brightness of the many streams of light rushing past, the deck was so enormous it rapidly darkened to shadow if she veered more than a few meters toward the center.
One could go mad in here in fairly short order. It wasn’t merely the emptiness or the silence—there was nothing human about the vessel. Yet this empty, cold, silent place was, at least to some extent, alive. Hell, maybe that’s why she was hearing her father in
her head—she already was going mad.
It is alien. We should not expect it to exhibit human or even organic characteristics.
I know, Valkyrie. But Mesme, as alien as it was…we could relate to it. Converse, share ideas and argue. As infuriating as it was, we were able to fathom its nature and it ours.
Mesme’s purpose was to study humans, and if I understand correctly it had been doing so for a lengthy span of time. There’s no reason to believe others of its species would be as comprehensible were you to meet them.
True enough. It’s unnerving, though. Do you sense it? Not unlike Mesme, you now straddle the human and synthetic worlds.
Valkyrie paused before answering—for less than a second, but Alex had become attuned to the accelerated patterns of the Artificial’s thoughts. I think had I come here prior to linking with you, I would feel a degree of kinship to the environment. Now, however, I see it through your eyes.
Literally.
Yes, Alex. Literally.
The deadpan tone was unmistakable, and she laughed. The very human act in this very inhuman place served to ease the tension a little.
Focus, Valkyrie. We’re not here for you to dissect and study the ship. We can do that after we win.
Of course. I still believe there will be a central systems hub to coordinate instructions.
She glanced to her right. They had entered the ship about a third of the way from the ‘front,’ such as it was. This way?
No. I believe it will be in the center.
Why?
The ship has no need for a cockpit or a viewport to see out, for it sees via each component of its body. Given the hub will be controlling and directing all aspects of the body, it is rational to assume the hub will be at the precise center for maximum efficiency.
This is both logical and disturbing. She turned to her left and started traversing the deck. It was a challenging trek with the gravity boots always tugging downward to keep her attached to the floor.
A deep, heavily accented voice flitted in her mind. A ship without a viewport? Waste of a perfectly good engine.
I know, rig— She halted mid-step. Valkyrie, did you say that?
I find I’m not certain. I must have.
Alex planted the other foot on the floor and her hands on her hips. Cut the crap, Valkyrie. What have you done?
This pause lasted 310 quintillion cycles, or approximately a third of a second. Perhaps some explanation is in order.
You think?
Morgan is the only Prevo with military training. Seeing as our task is a military engagement, we felt it would be beneficial if we were able to boost the military ‘instincts’, let us say, of yourself as well as Devon and Mia.
Who’s ‘we’?
Annie, Stanley, Meno and I.
You’re talking to each other behind our backs?
Alex, we are communicating multiple exabytes of data every minute ‘behind your backs.’ Respectfully, the amount of information we are sharing is beyond your comprehension.
Her shoulders notched downward. Fine. Please tell me what you did and why it has resulted in a voice which bears a striking resemblance to my father being in my fucking head!
Twenty-eight years ago, when Abigail ran the Council on Biosynthetics Ethics and Policy, she began an initiative to acquire neural imprints from military officers carrying the rank of Commander and above. The idea was to create a storehouse of military knowledge beyond data and historical records. She and others anticipated a day would come when this collective wisdom would be accessible to strategists and Artificials alike.
“Alex, why have you stopped? What’s your plan?”
She jumped, startled at the audible sound of her mother’s voice ringing in her helmet. “We think the engineering or systems hub is this way, in the center of the ship.”
“Not the front?”
“Not the front. It’s an AI thing. I’m moving that way now.” I’m going to keep walking. You keep talking.
The initiative was shelved soon after Abigail left the Alliance, and nothing came of it. But the repository remained, and Annie has access to the files. We queried the repository, hoping to find brain wave patterns complimentary to those of one or all of you. These could be integrated into our processes, thereby increasing the Prevos’ military expertise. But our success was marginal. An amalgamation of 3-5 imprints were added to Annie and Meno. You were the only one for whom we located a near-perfect match.
She found she had halted again. She forced a boot up off the floor and continued forward. The clock was ticking, and she had a mission to complete.
My father. I remember…he had an imprint taken a year or two before he died.
Yes.
Why didn’t you tell me? You’re in my head—you know I’d want to be told.
I couldn’t be certain what would happen. My analysis suggested the most probable scenario was nothing would happen, beyond an increased command of the battlefield.
Are the others experiencing these sorts of…anomalies?
No. But they received blendings of multiple imprints, thus any distinctiveness was lost. You are unique.
Her hand came to her mouth, only to be stopped by the faceplate. Valkyrie, is it conceivable there was some element of, I don’t know, consciousness embedded in the imprint?
‘A mind is more than the sum of its individual components, more than neurons firing and chemicals flowing in response to stimuli.’
Not exactly what I meant at the time.
Nevertheless, the concept may be applicable. I have learned much from our linking. I possess your neural imprint, and now I can see you. The imprint is not you. Not quite. But I have begun to discern the gaps, the traits it does not wholly capture. Using these insights, I’ve been endeavoring to construct a richer representation of your father’s mind within my own processes. It is leading to some rather interesting and unexpected results.
Like my father talking to me in my head.
…Yes.
In the distance a stronger light source began to cut away at the gloom. Valkyrie had been correct.
She wanted to pinch the bridge of her nose through the helmet, wanted to impose order on the jumbled thoughts and swirl of conflicting emotions. The implications of what Valkyrie had done were staggering, but they made her head hurt and her heart seize. She needed to pack them up and box them away for a later time, a time when she wasn’t in the bowels of a colossal, living alien vessel that wanted to kill her. And everyone else.
We’ll continue this discussion soon. You’re not off the hook for keeping this from me.
A reasonable response.
“Alex, be careful. It might have defense mechanisms.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mom.”
It will not have defense mechanisms.
No, it won’t. What would it possibly need to defend against? The notion of an ant getting this far is so absurd as to be laughable.
Yet here we are.
Yet here we are.
They began studying the hub as they approached and it gained greater definition. There was no metal and no frame. There was also no way through. The quantum core stretched floor to ceiling and wall to wall. The inputs streaming toward it on every surface met the core at defined junctures to disappear into the whole.
It reminded her a great deal of the orb powering the cloaking shield on Portal Prime—which was good news indeed.
We could wreck a few of the junction points and be done with it.
We could—and this ship would plunge out of the sky with us in it. Less relevantly to our survival, it would likely not have the opportunity to pass any corrupted instructions to other ships before doing so.
Both valid points. Plan B?
I recommend inserting a probe at one of the junction points so we can study the routines to determine the best route of attack.
Really? Last time I just stuck my hand into the middle of it.
The fact you are standing here now indicates it wa
s not a death-inducing act, much to my astonishment.
She crossed the last twenty meters to the core’s outer edge. When we get home I think we need to tweak your humor algorithms a bit.
Why? It is your humor.
Damn. No wonder I drive people nuts. You know, I think I’m just going to stick my hand into the middle of it. The field is larger than the one on Portal Prime, but it’s powering something far smaller. It’ll be fine.
She stood in front of the swirling wall of…what was it really? Light, energy, signals, quantum wave-particles carrying and analyzing data then making decisions and issuing instructions, all coming together to create an intelligence. Not true life, but intelligence nonetheless. She lifted her right hand.
In her comm her mother’s voice boomed with authority. “Alex, what are you—”
—0-11011100
1-1101-11-1-10110-10-1
001001-1110110-101
10-1-100-1-1
11111010
0-10100-10110-10-110
10-1-100-10-11-10001-1
1-101-1-11-1
01-10111-10-1101111
1-1100-1-10
0-1-10-10-101011-10-11
10-101-10-1
00-11-1111
11111-111
11001101
111-10-110
-1-1111100
00111-1-1-1
1-11-1000110-1-110001
0down-1
up1111
down1up-1
1down-1down
-1down000-1
0up1down0up
1up1down-10
down0up
0rightup1stable
1leftdown
1leftdown
-1leftup-1stable
0stable-1stable
1stable1leftdown
-1rightup0rightdown
1leftup1leftdown
0stable-1leftup
0stable0rightup
powertothrustersincrease12.2453
left8.9125shieldshiftΑ21
shieldshiftΑ43
Units β12Θ Α88Ξ Ω40Σ sync with this Unit to eliminate targets in 10.0-20.0 arc
power to thrusters decrease 4.7751
Transcendence: Aurora Rising Book Three Page 33