Drysine Legacy (The Spiral Wars Book 2)

by Joel Shepherd

  Why the Fathers had thought to give such droids enough intelligence to resent their lot in life, no one seemed to know. It didn’t seem wise. But mightily upset they’d become, and once the Fathers had been exterminated, the machines had devoted much of their intellect to improving their own design. Twenty five thousand years of improvement had resulted in this, a technology so far removed from its origins, it was like comparing humans to the earliest mammals of the Triassic Period.

  Ever since his investigations into the alo had led him to his deepynine discovery, Romki had sought further information about hacksaw civilisation in general. At first it had been hard — he was trained as a xeno-sociologist, which involved a lot of psychology, a little neurology and even a liberal dash of biology. Technology and artificial intelligence were not his fields at all, and at first his right-hemisphere brain had rebelled at all that maths. But then he’d realised how little difference it made that hacksaws were metal and not flesh and blood — they were sentient beings, they’d expressed themselves socially and even politically in their own fascinating and frightening ways, and if one approached their study the same as one approached the study of any other alien society, one could still reach conclusions worth knowing.

  Asking the alo about hacksaws was useless, and chah’nas were not a scholarly people. The tavalai knew the most, but even they had a great reluctance to discuss things too deeply. Most human societies would have overcome the trauma of unpleasant events after twenty five thousand years, but not the tavalai. Romki respected the tavalai reverence for the past, but when it interfered so deeply with scholarly inquiry, it became tiresome.

  The one group who had been prepared to discuss hacksaw civilisation at length were the Dobruta. It had taken a lot of prodding, on several long trips through tavalai space under the protection of academic groups who did not mind sponsoring a human, but eventually he’d convinced them that he was just a scholar, and had no interest in the technology beyond the academic sphere. The things the Dobruta had told him about the hacksaws had been eye-opening indeed, both fascinating and horrifying beyond measure.

  He knew that it was dangerous, sending word through tavalai contacts as he had, to get Makimakala here to Joma Station. It could be construed as betrayal by Phoenix’s commanders, for one thing. And it was certainly possible, if unlikely, that Makimakala might make a violent move toward Phoenix in their zeal to destroy what was now before him. But Phoenix was no pushover, even for an ibranakala-class carrier, and the Dobruta were primarily interested in keeping hacksaw technology out of the hands of people who might develop, copy or spread it. Phoenix kept its AI technology on board because it wished to study it en route to discovering how to kill it more effectively. Perhaps with some urging, on this matter at least, the tavalai ship and the human one could find some common ground.

  Mostly he needed the Dobruta here so that they could help him figure out what the hell this ‘queen’ really was. If anyone would know, Romki was certain that either Makimakala’s command crew, or specialists, would be most likely. Because if he could figure that out, then he had some hope of extracting information from her. That information could then become the best lead he’d yet had in his entire professional career on the alo-deepynine connection, particularly if the queen turned out to be deepynine herself.

  But the odds that she was actually deepynine were remote. Besides, he was not even sure if those old designations would hold true today. Hacksaw factions had had certain physical and technological indicators, it was true, and were far more different from each other on a hardware level than the divergent human races of Earth had ever been. But as he understood it, belonging to a particular faction depended as much on the civilisational data-set that an individual unit was plugged into as it did on that unit’s physical design.

  How would a surviving deepynine unit identify itself today, when all its civilisational data-set had been dead for so many millennia? It would be like a person from an old Earth nation state, suddenly transported into the current human age. A European of the early nineteen hundreds, with their entire personal identity invested in their own particular nationalism… what would they find today that they could recognise? When not only their old nation state, but all the old racial, religious and political notions that supported it were long dead and obsolete? When Earth itself was long gone, even though the human race continued to thrive? A hacksaw remnant today would not even have that last consolation — their race nearly extinct, their few remnants scattered and in hiding. And there had been so many factions across the thousands of years of the Machine Age, far too many for anyone alive today to count, and each pursuing a different combination of technological and conceptual uniqueness…

  The fluid in the nano-tank’s screen reader flickered. Romki frowned. The queen’s head had no powersource, there was no electrical circuit possible — the nano-tank was not directing active power, just a very low analytical current. It was barely enough to make the swarming micro-machines swim, and make pretty pictures of how things might join together before the Major had blown them open with a rifle nearly as big as she was.

  Another flicker. Romki’s heart skipped a beat. It shouldn’t be doing that. This technology was dead, and despite the crew’s predictable ghost stories, none of these hacksaws were coming back to life without serious repair from a similar technology. So what was this?

  He pulled down the augmented reality glasses on his head, and they integrated instantly with his uplinks, a whole new field of data springing to holographic life before his eyes. Analyse, he instructed it. The software was aware of the flicker, all systems racing to try and categorise it. Not domestic, the graphics flashed back at him. Not indigenous. Not third-party. The Major’s bullets had completely destroyed the CPU, what passed in this intelligent machine’s head for a brain… not damaged so much as vaporised. But a lot of hacksaw subsystems ran with limited autonomy… but not without power, surely?

  Flicker. The pulse was regular. Like communications. Like a message. Not an internal message. But… external? He queried the software. It ran. And ran. And ran, spinning wheels and hooked into more processing power than science labs used to simulate the insides of stars.

  Possible, it replied. Find source.

  “Fuck,” Romki murmured. “You’re telling me?”

  17

  Erik stood on the bridge of the Edmund Chandi, the most secure room on the ship, when Romki’s uplink message came in.

  “Lieutenant Commander, I’m sorry to bother you but… I’m running tests on our guest the queen, and… well.”

  Erik concentrated with effort to form a reply, and felt the uplink software find the words as he thought them. “What about the queen, Mr Romki?”

  “I think someone’s talking to her.”

  Erik blinked. “How is that possible?”

  “There’s definitely some kind of very light electrical trace being created by a subsystem somewhere in the queen’s head. The queen is very dead, have no fear, but some of the minor subsystems are not dead, and they may respond autonomously to external stimuli. The computer software suggests that this might be her coms function.”

  If there was anything that could make a warship commander nervous, it was the thought of a supposedly-dead hacksaw queen talking to someone from the hold of his ship. “Mr Romki, I think you might want to consider shutting down that nano-tank. I don’t want you to tell me about ghost stories — you didn’t see that thing when it was alive. This is no game, these things should not be played with.”

  “Lieutenant Commander with respect, I don’t think that’s our primary problem. Whatever she’s talking to, it’s pure reflex and the message is coming from outside. So what’s sending the message? No technology we know of can talk to a dead hacksaw, I couldn’t replicate this response from a buried com circuit if I tried.”

  Erik’s eyes widened as he realised what Romki was saying. “Shit. Okay, keep it running if you think it can give us some idea of what’s out there — nu
mbers, direction, anything useful.”

  “My thoughts exactly — trust me, as fascinated as I am by the science, I’m not in any hurry to be torn apart by it.”

  Erik disconnected and turned to his company. “I’m sorry, can this wait for a moment? I have a situation that needs addressing — I’ll take a short break and come back to you as soon as possible.”

  Edmund Chandi’s captain and three primary passengers nodded. Two of them Erik had never heard of before, and Phoenix database had nothing on, besides that they were both from Apilai, the primary inhabited world of Heuron System. The third passenger was named Tsang, and she was the Chief-of-Staff to the Vice-President of Worlder Congress. How she’d gotten enough advance warning to get all the way out here to talk to Phoenix, Tsang wouldn’t say.

  Erik beckoned to Trace, who followed in her heavy armour, and left the bridge. In the main access corridor, Staff Sergeant Kono and Private Rolonde stood guard. “That was Romki,” Erik said in a low voice. “He’s examining the hacksaw queen. He says something’s talking to her, some kind of strange frequency, coming from nearby.”

  Trace frowned. “But he’s no idea what?” Erik shook his head. “He’s not actually an engineer, he’s an academic who sees a lot of stuff he’d like to see.”

  “The number of things that can talk to a hacksaw queen’s dead com units are very limited,” said Erik. “You can figure out the risk better than I can. It’s your call.”

  Meaning that the implications put station security at risk — Trace’s responsibility. Kono looked cautious at the news, but Rolonde, Erik noticed, had gone slightly pale. She’d been at Trace’s side in the hacksaw nest in Argitori where the queen had been encountered and killed. And she had a big scar on her leg to prove it, and memories of friends killed in front of her.

  Trace looked frustrated. That was rare — she usually kept her feelings hidden. But she’d been looking forward to this meeting on Edmund Mundi, to talk to the Worlder representatives and see what they had to say. It had been put off repeatedly for various unforeseen interruptions, and now just as they got to talk properly, this happened.

  She opened a command channel that Erik immediately received in his inner ear. “Hello Phoenix, this is the Major.”

  “Go ahead Major,” came Lieutenant Shilu’s reply — it was first-shift on the bridge.

  “I am raising station readiness alert to yellow, please be advised.”

  “Phoenix is so advised, station readiness alert to yellow, aye Major.”

  “Hello Phoenix,” Erik added as per the protocol, “this is the LC, I second the Major’s command.”

  “Aye LC, Phoenix is now on yellow as well.” Because when Phoenix was docked at station rim, what happened on the rim also happened to Phoenix. It was one reason why many captains preferred to stay in space.

  Trace switched to her lieutenants. “Hello people, this is the Major. We are station alert yellow, I repeat, station alert yellow. Mr Romki has detected communications that could conceivably be of hacksaw technology origin. I repeat, that’s hacksaw technology origin, he thinks they could be coming from the station.

  “I want absolutely no change in appearance, I want everyone going about their usual business, we know everyone’s watching us so doubtless any potential threat will be as well. I want defensive plans mobilised quietly. If you have to move in numbers, keep it to the back corridors and keep it casual. I want particular attention paid to sard presence, including sard ships at dock — if Mr Romki is reading anything at all, it’s likely coming from them.”

  “Hello Phoenix, this is the LC,” Erik added as he thought of something else.

  “This is Phoenix, go ahead LC.”

  “Lieutenant Shahaim, do you copy?”

  “This is Shahaim, go ahead.”

  “Suli, am I correct in recalling that no sard vessels have docked at station within the last rotation?”

  “That’s correct LC. We’ve been watching the two that are docked, no irregular activity to report, and scan is clear.”

  “I want you to call up our friend Rai Jang. Give them a quiet warning and ask if they’ve heard anything.”

  “Aye LC. What about the Makimakala?”

  Erik looked at Trace. Trace looked wary. “Not with Europa listening in,” Erik replied. “Not yet, anyhow. And get a coms specialist from Engineering to check out Romki’s signal, see if it’s more than a ghost. Better yet, get two coms specialists. LC out.” Colonel Khola was just waiting for a chance to declare them all traitors again. Tactical cooperation with a tavalai warship that Fleet probably thought in violation of the surrender agreement might do it.

  “Probably nothing,” said Trace. “If we keep jumping at shadows, we’ll never get anywhere with the Worlders. You coming back?”

  “You don’t think we should head back to Phoenix?” Erik pressed.

  “I think it’s within acceptable parameters to continue vital operations during a yellow alert. We’ve got the attention of some pretty senior Worlders, we should take the opportunity.”

  “To do what?” said Erik. “Trace, we can’t pursue this if we accept the Colonel’s pardon.”

  “We’ve got forty hours before we have to make a decision,” Trace said stubbornly. “Let’s find out what their bottom line position is that we can take back to the other captains. We accept the pardon, go home and let them know what the Worlders say they need for peace, and we work from there.”

  Erik frowned. “And violate the terms of the pardon?” Trace stared at him, eyes unreadable. “You know Fleet can just kill us all at any time if we do that? Legally?”

  “If the Captain didn’t sacrifice his life so we could avoid a human civil war,” Trace said edgily, “then what did he sacrifice it for? Do you want to just abandon that sacrifice, and every other sacrifice we’ve made to get here, in order to be safe and comfortable?”

  Erik glanced at Kono and Rolonde, watching them warily. “Don’t you think we have a responsibility to let the crew vote on that?”

  “Sure we do,” Trace said evenly. “But I’m asking you. What do you think? Or do strong opinions only come with a captain’s rank?”

  Not long ago, the barb would have hurt. But he was getting wise to her games. “As commander of Phoenix’s marine company, it’s your responsibility to look out for every marine under your command, not to mention all the spacer crew as well. If we take your course of action, we’re probably all dead, and you know it. We can only ride our luck for so long with this new Fleet Command, whoever they turn out to be, and if we screw them over then even the other captains sympathetic to us will run out of patience.”

  “Then why are we here?” Trace demanded. “On this ship?” She jerked her head toward the bridge. “Talking to Worlders who are hell bent on revolution? You think the next bunch of Fleet Commanders will be any better than the last? We’ve seen how they solve problems, they’ve no interest in avoiding civil war because they think it’ll be so easy to win, and they’re probably right. But it will boil and fester, and leave humanity completely exposed to our enemies…”

  “And when did any of that become our responsibility?” Erik retorted. “Trace, we had one goal coming out here — justice for the Captain and our crew who died, and punishment for those who wronged us. We’ve got that. Chankow, Anjo and Ishmael are gone. And we’ve got a pardon…”

  “Not on our terms.”

  “You want terms?” Incredulously. “It sounds to me like you’re deliberately asking for the impossible so you can throw their pardon back in their faces. Now I was happy to keep screwing Fleet over by talking to Worlders for as long as Chankow and company were still alive, and Fleet was still trying to kill us. But now that’s changed, and…”

  “Not a damn thing’s changed,” Trace retorted. “They’ll still kill the next of us who gets in their way…”

  “And you want to change that? You want a revolution, Major? You want to join these people?” Nodding back at the bridge. “Join the Worlders?”r />
  Trace said nothing. It surprised him. He was so used to leaning hard on her in their arguments. Getting nothing back left him flailing for balance.

  “Well then I’ve got news for you,” Erik continued. “The Worlders are no better than Fleet, possibly worse. I understand you’ve become completely disillusioned with Fleet and Spacer Congress because you no longer believe they’re serving the human cause. You’re still Kulina, whatever Colonel Khola thinks, and you’re still serving the human cause as ferociously as you ever have — I get that, even if Khola doesn’t.” He pointed at Kono and Rolonde. “But you have a responsibility to lead your people well, and they love you so much they’ll follow you into hell if you lead them there. You told me before about the standards expected of officers. Your standards have inspired total trust. Don’t abuse it.”

  She’d given him hard looks before, but most of those had been calculated for effect. This anger he was pretty sure was real.

  Coms uplink blinked — it was Lieutenant Dale, and Trace opened it. “This is the Major, go ahead Lieutenant.” A long pause, suggesting a relayed message over distance.

  “Actually Major, this is for you and the LC.”

  “Hello Lieutenant Dale, this is the LC. We’re both listening, go ahead.” Another pause.

  “Well… I found someone pretty interesting out here.”

  Erik and Trace looked at each other. Trace’s eyes widened. Erik wasn’t as adept at reading between the lines of Dale’s short-hand, and Dale was clearly wondering if someone was listening. Fleet encryption made that impossible for most, but Khola and company knew Fleet encryption very well. Erik asked Trace a wordless question. Trace nodded — Dale meant exactly who they thought he did. Chankow. Holy shit.

  “He must have come to Dale looking for protection,” Erik muttered to Trace off-mike. The irony was too much to process.