The Battle of Tangine
Page 4
“Not a wolf, but I am married. I’m the last pure-bred wolf in the Zodiac population. The rest didn’t survive the last war. Shadow’s family adopted me when I was a cub, and that’s why I’m paired with this human bloodline. I’m honoring my adoptive family’s oath,” Growl explained. Now Darius felt stupid. He prayed he didn’t open an emotional wound.
“Ask him what species his wife is. That’s the funny part!” Shadow couldn’t contain himself. Growl just grumbled something under his breath. Darius could tell that Shadow and Growl acted more like brothers that enjoyed getting on each other’s nerves. It started to make more sense now. “Go on! Tell him!”
Growl sighed and then hung his head low. “My wife is a wolfhound, OK?”
“As in an Irish wolfhound?” Darius asked. “As in, the ancient dog breed that wiped out the indigenous wolf population of ancient Ireland?”
“Yes,” Growl grumbled the word. The room erupted in laughter.
Crusher’s Guest
Location: UAHC Heavy Battlecruiser, Hailstorm, Docking Bay, Skull-Crusher Hull; Tangine Interstellar Port
Date Time: Post Interstellar 08/02/4201 1015HRS Local
System: Sol System, Mid Region
Crusher had a much higher level of self-awareness than most humans could understand. His NAV system counterpart, Skull, understood this, but never fully articulated it to anyone.
Crusher glided through the conduits and connections throughout the hull since he technically was the hull. The LRF-90 series of super-fighters had two primary processing systems. The NAV system, which controlled flight parameters, navigation, and weapons. The hull system controlled everything else and even had overlapping control of many systems.
He considered himself male, per se. But he didn’t really care why. He had no use for genders. He didn’t even form thoughts that really translated into human cognition. Crusher simply kept his systems in line, and gracefully repaired aging systems with ease. Unlike his NAV counterpart, his own sentience took much longer to achieve. But as the LRF-90 aged, Crusher became more active, and had to learn to adapt to aging connections and any number of oxidized surfaces in his prevue. It was the nearly two millennia of constant maintenance that pulled him from the void of ones and zeros, and eventually made him self-aware.
The older his bird got, the more stimulation he received from maintaining it. The Skull-Crusher was in prime condition because of his constant efforts. Very little maintenance ever had to be performed by humans or robots alike… which was exactly the way Crusher liked it. The crotchety old digital entity reveled in keeping busy and staying sharp.
Unlike Skull, Crusher didn’t care too much for interaction between anyone but his NAV buddy. They were a team. Crusher kept the fires burning, and Skull did all the flying and talking. Perfect.
His awareness was pouring over every system methodically. The old guy was enjoying every single nanosecond of his experience, and never got bored. But then he noticed something odd. Excellent! It was the equivalent of what he was thinking, but his version was vastly more complex in scope.
He detected an anomaly. Capacitors near the weapons control interface were fluctuating. Odd. The complex schematics of the LRF often used very unconventional components to achieve the same result as what conventional electronics engineering may prescribe. The bank of capacitors was functionally being used as a type of diode array, and by which, would only allow surges of energy to flow in one direction in the primary power circuits. It was there, that he cornered the Chimera!
Had Crusher used eyes to see, then the Chimera may have resembled a shadowy demon with claws and a raspy growl. Crusher didn’t care either way. After being alive for nearly two millennia, nothing could intimidate him. The alien entity immediately noticed Crusher’s presence and gave up its failed attempts at transferring itself to the NAV system via weapons control’s more kinetic systems. With, what humans may perceive as, dark tendrils reaching out for its prey, the entity attempted to supplant the hull system’s core.
Crusher just casually gave the digital equivalent of a back-handed slap, and effectively knocked the entity back. In response, the dark tendrils of the Chimera reached out for his core coding once more, but this time with greater veracity. Crusher could feel the invasive nature of what the entity was trying to accomplish but it would never succeed.
The entity must have discovered something unexpected, or perhaps terrifying within Crusher’s coding, because the tendrils recoiled in an instant. The thing’s previous persona shifted from a menacing predator to that of terrified prey. Curious. Crusher could care less. He wasn’t scared to begin with.
Crusher considered his options. Normal bugs and viruses were easy to deal with as long as the core coding in the systems they effected were otherwise undamaged, but this alien entity had no linear coding, that was the tell-tail signature of human-based tech. He decided he needed to probe the Chimera’s core to find a weakness.
Interesting. Multi-dimensional coding.
Skull jibed.
Finally, some peace, Crusher thought, as Skull dragged the Chimera back to his own sector of bandwidth.
Shit. I’m out of solder.
Hailstorm Pest Control
Location: UAHC Heavy Battlecruiser, Hailstorm, CIC; Tangine Interstellar Port
Date Time: Post Interstellar 08/02/4201 1100HRS Local
System: Sol System, Mid Region
“Commodore, we have an unusual request from the Foehammer.” Major Shelly turned from her holographic display and towards the command console. Her long red hair glided over her light-duty powered armor without so much as a single strand getting snatched up in the semi-exposed shoulder joints. Her green eyes accented her lightly freckled face, as they focused in on the ships second in command.
“Put the Foehammer through to my console. I never got to personally thank them for keeping us from being sitting ducks,” Commodore Noah said with a professional smile. He was of medium height for a non-augmented human, but very short in stature for a typical UAHC Soldier. His gray streaked light brown hair resonated with his persona as a senior leader. His sleek jawline made him look young for his age, but he personified his role as by his presence alone.
“Foehammer, this is Commodore Noah in the CIC. Proceed with your request.” Noah spoke over the audio net when it came up on his console’s HUD.
“Sir, this is Steve. I am an Unum AI, but I have temporarily assumed the role as the Foehammer’ s control AI.”
“So I’ve been told, Steve. I must say I owe you my gratitude for all you’ve done for us. How can I repay the favor?”
“By letting me do you another favor, sir.”
The Commodore’s eyes narrowed in confusion, and he tilted his head in surprise. “Go on, Steve.”
“Seems that the LRF-90 known as the Skull-Crusher has a live Chimera aboard it, sir.”
“Live? Can’t you just kill it? You were the one who provided us with the Paladin Protocol, were you not?” The Commodore wasn’t used to people, or AI’s that didn’t get to the point. But he decided that the hero AI, Steve deserved more patience from him than others did… for now, at least.
“Yes, sir. But this is a unique opportunity for us to possibly create a sort of ‘immunization’ to prevent further infection. Plus, we’ve reason to believe there may be more Chimera lurking aboard the Hailstorm.”
“I see. How did the Skull-Crusher AI fight it off?”
“Because he’s… they… aren’t AI’s. Not in the traditional sense. The NAV, and hull maintenance systems were built with the capacity for sentience but didn’t start off as being self-aware. They achieved self-awareness by experience and learning over many centuries. That meant that their coding wasn’t typical of a manufactured AI. So, basically the Chimera didn’t know what it was up against until they’d already trapped it,” Steve explained.
“That’s fascinating.” Noah nodded in appreciation. “So, what can I do?”
“Grant the hull maintenance system, known as Crusher, the access tokens to run a sweep of the Hailstorm, and all of its systems. Do the same for the smaller ships and fighters docked within.”
“Granted. Seems logical. Any idea how that thing got on board the fighter to begin with?”
“Yes, sir. The Chimera is being ‘interrogated’ as we speak. It would seem it retreated from one of the ship’s AI nodes when the Paladin Protocol started to work its way through the ship. It sensed danger and slipped into the maintenance bot that repaired the landing gear on the LRF.”
“Now I see. There may be more. You have my permission. The Vice Admiral has delegated all maintenance and cyber systems control to me, so I have full authority to allow this. I’ll send a non-machine-based ground crew to attach the proper conduits.”
“Thank you, sir. You won’t regret this.”
“Don’t thank me! I should be thanking you!” The Commodore chuckled.
“No, sir. It’s certainly I that must thank you. Since Skull, the NAV system, is trying to gather INTEL from the alien entity, that means Crusher is busy complaining to me about soldering, or connectors, and stuff like that. I’m too busy patching software and nursing damaged AI’s back to health to listen to him banter. Giving him a capital ship to tour will shut him up!”
“Somehow I feel less certain about this but I’m committed now. ETA on ground team, ninety seconds.”
***
Ninety Seconds and counting later…
This place is a dump. Crusher wasn’t remotely impressed with the vastness of the Hailstorm’s networks. It was certainly far more processing power than what he’s ever encountered, but even a newly built ship, with modern tech, should be more efficiently laid out.
He glided down to the thruster arrays at the stern of the ship and began his methodical search pattern. I need to correct these barbaric connections along the way. Crusher’s comfort zone was fixing things and making them as efficient as possible. Even the long since deceased engineers that designed the LRF-90 series fighters two millennia prior, would never be able to recognize the current circuitry of the Skull-Crusher. The old hull maintenance system, turned sentient entity, had improved every aspect of his ship over the years. The more he redesigned design flaws, the more he taught himself. Now he could see any flaw and fix it in microseconds.
Nano-banks. Good. The banks of Nano-bots along the thousands of kilometers of hard connections aboard the battlecruiser were designed to be the work horses of the repair systems. But they lacked the vast knowledge of Crusher, so he sent burst of data and reconfiguration signals to every bank he accessed along his journey to the stern.
In human terms, his journey would be less than the blink of an eye in linear time… But for Crusher, it was a savory stroll into a new environment that badly needed his attention. He configured the Nano-banks to produce bots that could detect and deter any Chimera that may be found lurking aboard the mighty vessel. But many other banks were given instructions for another wave of bots to modify the ship’s systems as Crusher deemed fit.
He reached the stern, and began sending Nano to scour every processer, circuit, energy conduit, and data link in the section. He made his own sweep through each system, since he was much faster than a Nano bot that was hindered by a physical form.
Nothing here. Time to make some improvements. These barbarians don’t know the first thing about efficiency. If Crusher had eyes, he’d be rolling them about now. Even with the massive collective processing power the ship had, it was still wildly inefficient by his standards. They’ll thank me when they realize they can double their peak velocity while using half the energy.