by S. H. Jucha
Alex replied.
Alex received a short update from Julien, who was monitoring reports from the freighter filtered by Miriamal. The sister was quite aware of the dangerous links she maintained. It was imperative that Artifice not detect the short bursts of code from the primary controller that lasted for picoseconds.
According to Julien, Artifice was passively investigating the primary controller. As yet, there were no changes to the Omnian device.
Artifice allowed.
This was the opening Alex hoped he’d receive, and he sent,
Hah, Alex thought, believing that Artifice had indicated it habited the system’s sixth planet, and he sought to confirm this.
Alex chose not to reply to Artifice’s entreaty.
Alex took the last statement to mean that if a race got the opportunity, they’d eliminate Artifice and deal with the consequences afterwards.
Unfortunately, Artifice ignored his provocation and continued his explanation, sending,
By now, Alex had gleaned most of the information that he hoped to obtain. There remained one more thing to do, but he had a fairly good idea how Artifice would respond.
Julien signaled Alex and Miriamal that Artifice was actively and aggressively attacking the freighter’s controller.
Immediately, Miriamal cut the comm link to the freighter.
When Alex stalled, Artifice initiated an intrusion into the freighter’s controller. The rather simplistic system fell quickly to its massive code attack. Unexpectedly, Artifice found there was nowhere else to go. Its assumption of the unit was complete, but access to the ship’s systems was denied.
As Artifice’s efforts to discover the controller’s connections failed, the system’s sophisticated probes reported to it that the freighter was underway. It was headed outward from the system. Immediately, Artifice sent signals to the waiting squadrons to interdict the freighter.
The nearby federacy’s squadrons accelerated and transited to the coordinates they were given. When they arrived, the alien captains and commanders were surprised that they faced a single, lone freighter, which was attempting to attain significant velocity, with its limited engine power.
Artifice’s order to the squadrons was simple. “Destroy the ship.”
-41-
Lost Opportunity
The scout ships’ telemetry recorded the destruction of the freighter. The SADEs made careful note of the type of armament that issued from each ship. It was appalling to the humans how much firepower was thrown against the freighter.
“I’d love to hear this conversation,” Reiko remarked, when the Freedom received the scout ships’ data. “Alex, you must have really angered Artifice.” She was watching the incredible waste of weaponry. Many of the aliens’ missiles and kinetic shot arrived in time to slip through an expanding ball of gas and metal, which had once been the Confederation freighter.
“Artifice offered us an exchange. He would receive a domain over a large number of alien worlds, which would be suited to human habitation, if we would give him a SADE,” Alex remarked. Then he couldn’t resist adding, “And I thought Artifice didn’t offer us enough for Miranda.”
“The entity does have taste,” Miranda quipped, without missing a beat.
“Seriously, Alex, what ended the conversation?” Tatia demanded. Her fists were balled on her hips, and Alex held up his hands in surrender.
“I learned that most of our conjectures were accurate. Artifice is buried under the polar cap of the sixth planet. And, what it desires most, besides Miranda,” Alex slipped in, grinning, “is to be transferred to an avatar.”
“Why does Artifice think we’d do that for it?” Renée asked.
“As I said,” Alex reiterated. “Artifice th
inks we’d do it out of greed … that we’d free it in exchange for a huge stake in its federation.”
“And how did Artifice intend to ensure our cooperation?” Julien asked, eyeing his friend.
“We’d have to surrender a SADE for Artifice to deconstruct, and I’d be his hostage until the transfer was completed. Oh, yes, and Artifice would build an avatar that would suit its purpose.”
“I’d like to decline the offer,” Miranda said, suddenly sober looking. “The term deconstruction doesn’t sound at all inviting.”
“What else did you learn?” Mickey asked.
“Artifice doesn’t trust any of the races that serve it. That means its control over them must be absolute. If it wasn’t, they’d be deserting Artifice in great numbers. I think that underlines our suspicion that Artifice controls them through code implanted on their ships and major comm platforms. It would be similar to what was done to Faustus. The races have to comply with Artifice’s orders or dangerous things happen throughout their populations.”
“Anything else?” Tatia asked.
“I didn’t exactly get confirmation of our suspicions about the race that occupies the matte-black ships, but when I asked Artifice if the biologicals who created it still existed, the reply was yes. I interpreted that to mean that those matte-black, sleek-looking ships that have been seen in the outer system and match the design of the probes must belong to them.”
“And they’re our next target?” Reiko asked, wanting confirmation of Alex’s plans.
“Yes,” Alex replied. “Now, let’s hope the scout ships can locate us a small squadron of them.”
* * *
The scout ships maintained a vigil far outside Artifice’s system. Their orders from Alex were clear. They were to track a squadron of the sleek, matte-black ships when they left the fleet. For days on end, they watched without success.
Killian returned.
Killian replied.
Bethley hazarded a guess.
There was that word, which was used more frequently by SADEs — feel. They referred to it when computational limits were reached or obstructed. Despite the unexpected ending of those calculations, they believed their suppositions were true, although unsupported by logic. In those circumstances, their answer was that facts would be obtained later, which would prove their conjectures. Humans called it intuition, but the SADEs didn’t believe they were capable of that. Instead, they said they felt they were right. Perhaps, it was the same thing.
* * *
Much of what the Omnians learned from their encounter with Artifice gave them hope for the future. There was no master race. One entity ruled the federation through, more than likely, its digital ascendency. The best news they’d received was that Artifice was confined to a planet. For the immediate future, it gave the Omnians a single, planet-bound target.
The Omnian fleet sat safely far away from Artifice’s system, waiting for word from the scout ships that a squadron of the matte-black ships had sailed its way or were being tracked. Instead, Alex and the leaders were constantly updated that a single ship had left the fleet and another had replaced it.
Over the course of days, Alex held a series of meetings, attempting to generate other ideas by which they might gain the attention of these ships. It was briefly proposed that the Omnians could approach other alien ships. Unfortunately, the fact that most of the aliens traveled in cohesive warship fleets, comprised primarily of massive battleships, precluded the Omnians from approaching them.
Alex was spending time with Julien in the Freedom’s grand park, enjoying the greenery and streams. He was smiling at the sounds of small songbirds. They had been delivered by Hector and were a gift from Gino Diamanté.
“All this opportunity, and no way to capitalize on it,” Alex lamented. “We’ve come so far, identified the heart of the federacy, and we’re stuck outside, staring inside at the culprit behind humankind’s misery.”
“The SADEs are working on ways of communicating with the black ships, Alex,” Julien said, hoping to encourage his friend. “I must caution you that proof of concept and implementation is probably months away.”
“What’s the idea?” Alex asked. At this point, he’d accept any idea that had, at least, a slim chance of working.
“They’re tiny communication probes, with controllers and navigational capability,” Julien explained. “We’d launch them toward the black ships and attempt to establish communication with the aliens.”
“How?” Alex asked. It was a subject that he’d yet to solve. His hope had been to corner a small, black-ship squadron and try to communicate with it, while they faced off against each other. How they established communication with an alien force, led by individuals who had no reason to trust them, was the problem that still challenged him.
“The concept is predicated on the analysis of historic communication between federacy ships and tools,” Julien
replied. “We’ve studied the reporting tendencies of the great spheres, the comm sphere, the probes, and Faustus. There is an enforced directive to communicate upward along the command chain to a centralized point, which we now realize is Artifice.”
“Faustus didn’t have an opportunity to communicate in that manner,” Alex objected.
“Not on a regular basis, but Faustus told us that when the Nua’ll requested information, it gave up all data, as required,” Julien replied.
“So, where does this lead you?” Alex asked.
“It occurs to us that for Artifice to protect its position at the head of the federacy, it must arm the leaders of the alien fleets with certain critical information,” Julien said.
“You think Artifice shared information about us … our ships and armament, including details about our culture, such as who we are and our language.
“Precisely,” Julien replied.
“That would imply that Artifice isn’t looking to eliminate us but wants to capture us,” Alex theorized. “However, it did destroy the freighter, which I was supposed to be aboard.”
“We’ve postulated two answers to that action,” Julien explained. “One, Artifice discovered our ruse, when it couldn’t control the freighter. The other possibility is that the entity calculated another human could take your place, in which case, it considered you disposable.”
“Crafty alien,” Alex commented.
“Dangerous alien,” Julien returned.
“Well, if Artifice has shared our language with the black ships, an opening dialog would be so much easier and have a better opportunity of succeeding,” Alex mused.
Julien briefly paused.
“What?” Alex asked.
“There is another avenue that we might consider,” Julien said. “We could speak to the black ship that just materialized about two hundred thousand kilometers outside of our defensive ring.”
Suddenly, Alex was inundated with comm and implant pings from Cordelia, Tatia, Renée, and Miriamal.