by J. N. Chaney
“Like the Radiant Points or the cradle holding the Backwater Gate,” Conover said.
“Correct. In the absence of such a stabilizer, the gate could spontaneously close. It is not clear what would happen to some mass transiting through it when that happens. However, the outcome isn’t likely to be a favorable one.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you Custodian, the master of understatement,” Viktor said, smiling wryly.
“The other is that of gate closure. They can be opened at will, but they apparently can’t be closed the same way. It would appear that spontaneous closure is the only reliable way to accomplish it.”
“In other words, just let them close on their own,” Amy said.
“Correct.”
Dash tapped his chin. His mind raced through the possibilities. But, as Ragsdale had made so alarmingly clear, for every possibility, there was a threat, too.
“Okay, so the Black Gate, the one we originally came through to get to this part of the galaxy, must be an especially stable one because it doesn’t seem to be stabilized by any tech and it’s still there,” he said.
“So why did the Deepers open it in the first place? All it did was give us a chance to go through it and start kicking their asses,” Amy said.
“Yeah, good question. If they had never opened it, we’d have never even known about them, and they could have happily taken over this whole arm of the galaxy,” Viktor put in.
Dash shrugged. “No idea. They apparently had their reasons. And maybe they never expected it to last as long as it has.”
“Which doesn’t explain why they thought launching two missiles through it and destroying one of the Local Group’s new shipyards was a good idea,” Leira replied.
“Nope, that pretty much sealed their fate right there,” Dash said. He turned to face the main viewscreen, which just showed its default image, a star chart with the Kingsport highlighted on one side, and the nearest portion of the Milky Way on the other.
He puffed out a breath. He needed time to absorb this, think through the implications, the opportunities, the threats, all of it, and figure out how to proceed. Just as he was thinking that, though, Custodian spoke again.
“There is one matter of more pressing concern. These Bishops were involved in preparing to open a new gate.”
Dash narrowed his eyes. “Where?”
Custodian zoomed the star chart in, focusing on the galactic arm. The image expanded to encompass the Rimward League. As it did, a crimson icon popped into view.
“Here.”
“That’s right in the heart of the League’s space,” Leira said.
“Yeah, it is. Shit. Do we have any idea when they plan to do this?” Dash asked.
“In approximately six days.”
Now Dash worked to absorb that on top of everything else. As he did, Viktor stepped forward, shaking his head.
“We need to be really careful here, Dash. We know the Deepers are deceptive.”
“You think it’s a ruse? A bait and switch?”
“It sounds like something they’d do, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, it does.”
“But if it’s not, and they open that gate in just under a week, they could overrun the League before we’d be able to intervene,” Leira said. “
Ragsdale gave a grim nod. “And after the League, it would be the N’Teel, the Hriki, the Oksa—"
“Yes, I get it,” Dash replied, turning back to the chart and stuffing his hands in his pockets.
A moment passed. Dash could feel everyone behind him, waiting for him to speak.
He finally turned back.
“Okay, I think we need to take at least a few hours to think through our options here. In the meantime, it’s time to start looking at the really big picture. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m tired of fighting wars.” As he said it, he thought about the Taffy, her Captain, her crew, and every other member of the Realm who’d been killed or wounded, had lost loved ones and friends.
Okay, maybe there was no way for him to guarantee that they or their descendants would ever have to fight another war. But he could try to make sure that if they ever did, they’d see it coming, be ready for it, and be able to fight it on their terms.
“Custodian, I’d like you to do some—let’s call it more long-range planning,” he said.
“Regarding what, exactly?”
“Well, first, how we can open gates, the same way these Bishops can. And second, how we can turn this place into a nexus,” Dash said.
“A nexus?”
“Yeah. A hub. A place where all gates ultimately lead.”
Leira tilted her head, giving Dash a quizzical frown. “What are you thinking, Dash?”
“Well, this is called the Kingsport, right? So let’s make it live up to its name. We’ll make it the King of Ports.” He smiled. “I mean, the center of the universe has to be somewhere, right? So why not right here?”
8
“You are aware that given the current cosmological model, the universe has no center,” Sentinel said.
Dash rolled his eyes. “I meant it, you know, figuratively. Metaphorically. Or symbolically, or whatever the right word for it is.”
“Those are all essentially synonyms.”
“Wow, someone really twisted your pedantic dial all the way today, didn’t they?”
“I have no such dial, or any similar control—”
“Okay, now you’re just yanking my chain.”
“You’re right. I’m actually getting pretty good at it, don’t you think?”
“Unfortunately, yes, I do,” Dash replied, but he couldn’t help smiling.
The Archetype flew on. Dash had traversed the Radiant Point gate from the Kingsport to the gate at Backwater, and now approached League space. It was strange, he thought, how this part of the galaxy, several thousand light-years from where he’d been born, was starting to feel—familiar. Like he’d lived here most, even all of his life. Of course, so had the Forge, an enormous alien battle station. Must have something to do with his never having really had a permanent home. He’d basically spent his whole life wandering among the stars.
“Dash, we need to talk.”
He blinked. His first girlfriend had said much the same thing to him right before she left.
“Are you planning on breaking up with me?” he blurted.
Sentinel actually paused before replying, which meant she’d just expended several trillion computations on his idiot question. It showed in her answer.
“What are you talking about?”
He gave himself a smile that was sheepish and sardonic. “Uh, don’t worry about it. My mind was drifting.”
“But why would me indicating a need to communicate with you indicate a desire to—break up? As in terminate our relationship?”
“Yeah. It’s just a—a human thing.”
“But you and Leira don’t avoid communicating, so—”
“Look, it’s complicated. Like most things about human feelings and emotions and relationships. We need to talk is just a signal, I guess. It’s kinda like, um, Let’s take a walk.”
“That doesn’t simply mean that someone wishes to walk with you.”
“Well, it can, but it usually means they have something important to discuss. It can be good, or it can be bad.”
“I doubt that I’ll ever understand humans and their interactions.”
“Join the club,” Dash replied with a smirk. “Anyway, what did you want to talk about?”
“I’ve been considering the ongoing communications between the Deeper Bishops.”
“Oh. Have you and Custodian and the gang deciphered more of it?”
“Yes, but nothing of great consequence, and that wasn’t my reason for approaching the subject anyway.”
“Oh. Okay, well, is it because you’re concerned about even letting them continue to communicate? We discussed that, and—”
“You could continue to keep attempting to guess what I
want to say, or you could just let me say it.”
Dash chuckled. “Go ahead.”
“The Bishops are three individual entities. We still don’t understand much about their specific nature or purpose, but we’ve been able to discern that. We know that they do function independently. However, they also function as a collective, occasionally and temporarily pooling their information-processing capacity—their thoughts, as it were—into a shared consciousness.”
“So, like a hive mind.”
“A hive mind normally refers to a group of individual organisms that only function as a collective. We have some indications that the Deepers as a whole may form a hive mind, but the Bishops seem to also act as distinct entities.”
“Okay. And?”
“I’ve run a number of preliminary simulations, and all seem to point to the same conclusion. If our mechs were to function similarly, as a shared consciousness, their collective efficiency and combat power would be greatly increased. The simulations suggest a minimum of a five percent increase in effective damage output, as measured in effective petawatts of energy delivered onto targets, and perhaps as much as twenty percent.”
“Wait. You mean by having the mechs act as, like, a hive mind, they can produce twenty percent more destructive energy? How does that even work? Where does that energy come from?” Dash asked.
“The actual energy output of the mechs wouldn’t be increased,” Sentinel replied. Dash could hear a distinctly implied duh lingering on the end of her words. “Rather, by delivering the destructive energy the mechs do produce in a carefully coordinated way, the effects would be synergistic. It would be as though they were producing more energy than they are.”
“Oh, hell yes. That sounds great. Let’s do it.”
“It isn’t that simple.”
“Of course not.”
“For one, we would need to employ Deeper machine code, using it as the basis for the collective action.”
“Ah. Okay. You’re suggesting we stick Deeper code into the Archetype and the other mechs. Definitely not a fan of that.”
“It would also require the pilots to surrender a degree of control over the mechs. Based on the simulations, the degree and timing of the coordination required greatly exceeds the capacity of human or Kosan reaction time.”
“So we’d be, what, just passengers? Doesn’t that kind of fly in the face of what the Unseen were intending when they decided to make us primitive creatures into the pilots? Because we’re unpredictable and passionate and all that?”
“I said a degree of control. The pilots would still fly the mechs and select targets. However, the collectivized system would determine the most efficient way to engage those targets and fire the weapons accordingly.”
“Huh.”
They carried on for a while in silence as Dash chewed on Sentinel’s proposal. Surrendering some control of the Archetype didn’t bother him. In fact, when he thought about how much time he spent lining up shots and trying to max out firing solutions, he realized it was a lot. And while he was doing that, he was losing situational awareness, then having to take more time to get it back. From that perspective, Sentinel’s suggestion made good sense. It would let the pilots focus on fighting the battle and coordinating their own efforts.
“Sentinel, can you show me one of these simulations?” Dash asked.
Using the Meld, Sentinel immersed Dash in a theoretical combat against the last Deeper force they’d fought, the one that had tried to recapture or destroy the Bishops aboard the Iron Gate. The Archetype again flew with the Swift and the Talon. Dash watched as the three mechs closely coordinated their fire, even while the simulated Archetype pilot maneuvered and sought out targets. The Meld discerned his targeting intent, combined it with those of the other mechs, then delivered precisely coordinated attacks. In some cases, the Archetype even fired without command inputs from its pilot. Sometimes, the mechs landed simultaneous dark-lance hits, and other times, hits in rapid succession, or even a carefully timed sequence. Dark-lances, nova-cannons, scattershots, and missiles perfectly complemented each other, reinforcing their collective strengths and offsetting their weaknesses. Even the point-defense systems coordinated their effects, one mech sometimes shooting down ordnance threatening another, without any intervention from the pilots.
The results were devastating. Compared to the actual battle, the simulated, linked mechs did much more damage, and did it far more quickly. They effectively ended the battle in less than three-quarters of the time it had actually taken.
The simulation ended.
“Well then,” Dash said. “Whole lotta boom right there.”
“As I said, the effects of the weapons synergize, resulting in an overall boost to efficiency and lethality.”
“No shit. I mean, wow.”
It seemed like a no-brainer. Except, there was one part of it Dash didn’t like. It was the Deeper machine code element.
“Do we really have to use the actual Deeper machine code? Can’t we just make our own based on it?”
“We could, but we’d either largely end up replicating the Deeper code anyway, or we would be starting from scratch, which would take considerably more time. And I’m assuming that you would probably like to have this capability added to the mechs sooner rather than later.”
Dash thought about the gate that would open in the middle of League space in a little over five days, allowing a Deeper force of unknown size to come streaming through. And then he thought about the frankly stunning implications of the simulation Sentinel had just shown him.
“So how could we confirm that Deeper machine code is safe? And I mean safe, as in, there is absolutely zero chance that it could be carrying some sort of virus, payload, whatever you want to call it, that could really screw us over?”
“We can analyze the code in detail to determine its internal logic and then upload it into a mech and analyze its interaction with the mech systems.”
“The operative words there are upload it into a mech. I’m having a hard time with that.” Dash curled his lip in thought. “What if we just simulate a mech? You know, create a virtual Archetype, upload it into that, and see what happens?”
“A prudent step. However, at some point, it would be necessary to upload it into an actual mech. Only then could we hit your stated target of zero chance of some sort of undesired effect.”
“Okay. Let’s put a pin in this and revisit it when we get back to the Forge.” He checked the nav display. They were less than twenty minutes from completing their translation to Edge, where Lomas was waiting for him. It was time for him to get his head out of this game and put it into that one.
But he had one thing to do before he did.
“Sentinel, that’s damned good work.”
“I appreciate that. Thank you.”
Dash smiled. “Don’t mention it.”
When the simulation ended, Dash turned to the others gathered in the Forge’s Command Center. Besides the other four pilots of their big mechs, Viktor and Elois were present. So was Lori, who now had overall command of their force of auxiliary mechs, the Orions and the Perseids.
“So what do you guys think?” Dash asked.
The others exchanged glances. Leira finally spoke up.
“I like the idea in principle. In practice, though? Not so sure. I’d be worried that I might want to shoot at something, but Tybalt and Sentinel and the others have my weapons all tied up.”
“Thanks to the Meld between each of you and your mechs, such situations are likely to be rare,” Sentinel replied.
“To put it another way, the advantages significantly outweigh disadvantages,” Tybalt added.
Dash crossed his arms and leaned against his favorite leaning spot, a console directly in front of the Command Center’s main display. A bemused smile played across his face. He wasn’t used to having all of the AIs involved in one of these sessions, even though they all technically could be. They certainly monitored them, through Custodian, in
real-time. But they didn’t often speak up.
“Are all of the AIs on board with this?” Amy asked. “I mean, Hathaway is, but what about Kristin, Custodian, and the others.”
“In this case, I will function mainly as a resource, providing whatever assistance and support is required,” Custodian replied.
“Yeah, this really is more about the mechs and their AIs,” Viktor noted.
Dash turned to Lori. “Have you talked to the Orion and Perseid AIs about this idea?”
She nodded. “They all agree that it’s a good idea. In fact, it might even work better for the smaller mechs because they could use the buff in damage output.”
“And there are a lot more of them,” Viktor added.
Conover, though, got straight to the same concern Dash had.
“We’re talking about injecting what amounts to Deeper machine code into the operation of our mechs. Doesn’t that seem, I don’t know, a little rash?”
Dash straightened. “And that brings us to the heart of the matter. Like Leira said, in principle, it’s a great idea. But I’m going to have to be convinced to take that sort of risk, and I’ll be blunt—I’m not. Not yet.”
“The simulations don’t indicate any problems with it, though,” Jexin said.
“Sure. But those are simulations. We need a way to test this in the real world under combat conditions. We know the Deepers are cunning and deceptive, and I sure don’t want to start underestimating them now,” Dash replied.
“You think this is some sort of really indirect sabotage?” Amy asked.
Dash sighed and stuck his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know. Probably not. But I wouldn’t put it past them to try. Hell, I’m still not even convinced those Bishops out there aren’t some sort of Trojan Horse, a way of getting us to lower our guard.”
“So, what, that big attack directed at the Bishops was just more deception?” Amy asked.
“It did look like a pretty real and determined attack to me,” Jexin added.
“It would be remarkable for the Deepers to be that committed to their plan that they’d deliberately attack with a fleet that was intended to lose and be destroyed just to convince us the Bishops are legit,” Conover replied.