Tethered Worlds: Unwelcome Star

by Gregory Faccone

  Cranium seemed a boy in her grasp. He caught the visual exchange and said, "The thresh was fair."

  Was the octal trying to defend him? Jordahk thought "fair" a stretch, or dark humor. As if ambushing someone with a violator AI and using an e-nuke wasn't over the line.

  "And turn off those stupid colortats!" Glick added as the hatch opened before them. Jordahk watched them fade off the octal's arms as he was frog-marched out of sight.

  The burning sensation, especially across his face, diminished. Torious had unfolded a glowing instrument over his head and was probably directing blood micros. Normally, those could not be commanded without Max's permission. Obviously, none of Max's codes were a secret from Barrister.

  The nurse was uncharacteristically uninterested in the rest of Jordahk's injuries.

  "He's all right," Torious said, "at least until the next time."

  "Hmpf," Aristahl grunted.

  Jordahk didn't fully understand, but at least his head was clearing.

  "Shall I reattach that man's finger?" the robot asked eagerly.

  Aristahl assessed the situation. "What do they have, Barrister?"

  "No doctors, nurses, or medtechs," the AI said. "They do have a rather used class III medstation."

  Aristahl reached down and clasped Jordahk's forearm, pulling him to his feet. "Can it do the job, Torious?"

  Barrister transmitted the medstation specs to the nurse.

  "Barely."

  "Then leave him." Aristahl turned his attention to Jordahk. "That was quite the escapade." He half grinned. "We have traction now."

  Jordahk wasn't sure about the accomplishment but was glad his grandfather approved. "But, Pops, what about Max?"

  "Old things are tougher than you think. It will take a lot more than a few probes to scramble that AI's quadnapses." Aristahl steered Jordahk toward the hatch. "Do not worry, Barrister will get right on it. He appreciates this kind of challenge. But first we talk to the captain."

  Jordahk glanced at his hand. Blood was smeared across the knuckles. It dulled his compy ring, tinging it like inert copper.

  Only a couple of crew members remained. One was the surprisingly un-fazed foreman. "Better get down to the medstation, Chaetan." He hoisted one of the unconscious cronies across his shoulder and walked out.

  Aristahl glanced back at the wager board, still lit on the far wall. "Oh, Torious, do pick up our winnings, would you?"

  The nurse grumbled, "What am I, a servulant?" He trudged over to the overturned table, head swiveling to take in the severed digit. "Denied a perfectly good amputation so I can pick items off the floor."

  The same maintenance bot retrieved the thresh ball. It tapped the device twice with a metallic finger then shook its "head" as if to say, What's wrong with this thing?

  "I feel like hell," Kord said.

  He trudged, muddied and battered. His shoulder ached, the constant activity not helping his overworked blood micros do their job. Highearn said nothing.

  That was the Highearn series. The usability of a personality AI without all that unnecessary personality. Highearn didn't carry a lot of humor or subtlety algorithms.

  Kord rarely wanted more personality out of it. That was before two 25-hour days of wandering cold, damp woods chased by a psycho Archiver. Hunger was taking its toll. He fought a shiver. Though his treaders and clothing were heated and insulated, a chill seeped into him. His breath would have steamed in the mountain air if not for the cold plasma field his bracer generated.

  "How much longer on minimum effective?"

  "The bracer will depower in just under six hours," Highearn answered. It was not the AI's fault it was all business.

  Kord felt barely a step ahead of a combustion age foot soldier. In six hours when his bracer shut down, he would lose even that. Once he showed up on infrared it would be all over. On the bright side, this was his home turf. Vittora and Jordahk had helped him bury equipment caches. Healthy paranoia had paid off again. Angling toward one kept hope alive for 50 hours. That and knowing Vittora was safe.

  She was wounded, and he led pursuit away. It was the smart thing to do, though she didn't like it. Vittora was strong and dedicated, and it took some doing to pry her away even when they both knew it had to be. She would back him up no matter what, and he loved the quality in her. He pitied anyone whom she found trying to harm him.

  The sounds of a trickling stream interrupted his reverie. "Is that the one, Highearn?"

  "Yes. It flows close to—" The AI stopped mid-sentence.

  With practiced fluidity, Kord crouched, drawing his pistol and pointing toward a synthsound directional indication.

  "Incoming espy," the AI link-said. "It's staying out of sight and vectoring a seeker drone."

  He backed away, eyes never leaving the indicated wedge of environment. He put trees between himself and the danger. Every obstacle did no favors for fast-moving seeker drones. He thought he heard the faint hum of fans.

  "I'm going to need those ret vectors," Kord sub-whispered. The AI was building a prediction rubric for these latest Archiver seeker drones.

  The stream's trickle was drowned out by rocket hiss. He pointed toward the sound, autostock bracing against his off-hand shoulder. A line on his rets traced a zigzagging path, as if careening wildly off trees. The obstacles kept its speed down, but every zig that moved away was countered by two zags bringing it closer. Kord scrambled behind a tight tree cluster.

  "Come on, give me something!"

  "Rough vectors on rets," Highearn said.

  The few predictive lines drawn in front of the seeker drone were correct about half the time, but it was enough for Kord. He moved backwards toward the stream, knowing the seeker drone had to go around the tree cluster. The predictive path showed it coming off the right side.

  He went with his intuition. "I don't think so."

  He took a knee, drew a bead on the left side of the cluster, and let loose a long burst. The drone emerged left, flying directly into the projectiles. It exploded into a pinkish, distorting sphere. A stun charge.

  They wanted him alive.

  While the stun charge still echoed, Kord turned and sprinted parallel to the stream. "That espy's going to keep us in visual." He gulped air. "Let me know when you see it." He ducked behind a tree when Highearn signaled, peeking the gun barrel around its trunk.

  Kord thought hard about his gun-eye. Reading minds was the province of studies by over-funded universities, or the unquantifiable world of mystic dream-speakers. AIs certainly couldn't do it, but the thought lit up a specific, repeated pattern tree in his brain. Through the spider-webbed amino fibrils connecting brain to link, Highearn had amassed a virtual data-lattice of thought patterns, and easily recognized the oft-trained command.

  A small VAD appeared before Kord's face showing the woods as seen through the front of his pistol. He caught subtle movement right about the time the AI zoomed in and circled the floating eyeball. It advanced quickly but carefully, moving from tree to tree.

  "Gotcha," he whispered. Then he thought, spread shot. He felt the gun hum for a second, switching away from focused fire and modifying the accelerator pattern.

  Facing the opposite direction and using a VAD to target was like trick shooting with a mirror. Kord smirked. He did this kind of thing for a living. With practiced ease he lined up the reticule and squeezed off a burst. It shredded the espy into sparks and debris.

  A dot in the sky caught his eye through a small break in the trees. He magnified with zoomies until the grainy object wavered.

  "Looks like a reconnaissance drone," Highearn said.

  "Not the owl? Thought our obsessed Archiver didn't have any recon drones."

  "If I had to guess, I'd say the model is Legion."

  Kord shook his head. "Does anybody else want to join this party?" He jogged into the stream, keeping the trees along the bank between him and the drone, and turned against the current.

  "Striders."

  To save power he avoi
ded using his treaders' wheelies. Besides, the tracks were hard to hide. Striders were another story in water. Springy, metal, ostrich-like legs unfolded from his treaders, lifting him a meter off the ground. With giant loping strides fitting for a low gravity hurdles race, he bounded upstream.

  The purple-bordered VAD to Pheron's left was never idle. Never. It updated constantly with "shared" information. He scowled. That term and the Archivers did not go together.

  Pre-deployment attempts to control information flow in his new command had unearthed unforeseen breaches, but his bitsmiths did manage to tone down the alarms. There would be no more grand disruptions; although the depths to which his systems were being tapped was unchanged and unnerving. At least knowing the breadth of that tapping allowed Pheron secure workarounds for sensitive communications. He shook his head. That was just the way of it.

  Pheron was chosen to lead this task force because of his slow temper and penchant for subtle solutions. The former was being tested, and political unrest below was narrowing options for the latter.

  Sure, the Perigeum rigged the process. They bought off, intimidated, or blackmailed every Assembly delegate they could, first allowing the importation of egress components to "facilitate a faster transition." That pressed the proverbial camel's back to the breaking point. The final vote to activate sparked a revolution.

  The Perigeum had to act fast to maintain a semblance of legality. A new Adams Rush Assembly was coming. They would certainly enact a repeal. The closer that became, the more antsy and aggressive the Adams Rush Navy became.

  An alarm chimed, underlining that point. The trimensional tactical VAD showed squadron level changes again.

  Persistent, but undisciplined.

  As local command grew chaotic on the ground, Adams Rush naval captains in space were left to their own devices in ever-growing measures. They had yet to find a large enough exploitable weakness to push him out.

  The field commander analyzed the new developments with his fleet AI. Possibilities, angles, and arcs moved across the tactical display, a high-stakes game of chess in three dimensions. The Adams Rush Navy was hoping for an atmosphere-skimming, low orbital shot at the egress.

  "Well played," Pheron said. He zoomed in and, with his hand, traced a line across space between the egress and the planet. "Beta squadron, steer new course. Echelon formation. Maximum coverage profile."

  The enemy was moving fast, perhaps recklessly so. He analyzed projections and made calls based on intuition. The command squadron moved to guard additional territory in the egress protection envelope. Still, the new enemy position was clever, and left the high side weak.

  "Gamma squadron, increase spacing." His third squadron was stretched too thin. He needed more ships, but the only others were dark gray with silver and purple stripes.

  He didn't consider the Archiver squadron "his," of course. They belonged to no one but themselves. They often ignored deployment shifts, only sometimes playing along when a glaring hole was left for them to fill or when they felt too isolated.

  "Confirm the Archiver squadron received my new formation suggestions."

  "Archiver squadron AI acknowledges reception," the command AI said.

  Gamma squadron was deployed in staggered boxes to cover space. Pheron highlighted one and indicated a new position. "Squad three, steer new course. Maintain box formation."

  "They're pinging us with a proximity alert," his command AI said.

  "Squad three," Pheron interjected, "maintain course and speed."

  His four ships weren't on a collision course, but they were penetrating accepted spacing protocols. With Archiver ships one was wise to double the usual buffer. He didn't like using such heavy-handed tactics, but he wasn't above forcing any piece at his disposal to keep the game from prematurely melting down into open combat.

  Even if he won that space battle, the war could still be lost, at least if he won it too soon. He needed to maintain their tenuous thread of legality a few short months more.

  "The Archiver squadron is declaring a proximity violation," the command AI said.

  "Maintain course."

  Eventually, the egress would be able to protect itself with fusion-powered shields. And once it synced, local fallout be damned. Pheron imagined two victories in one deployment, a long strategic success topped with a tactical rout.

  The Asterfraeo worlds, so proud in their independence. This kind of devious gambit hit them at their weakest. By the time the Adams Rush government reformed and sent an official Vallum Corps request, it would be too late.

  "The Archiver squadron is repositioning near the coordinates you suggested," said the command AI's dispassionate voice.

  Pheron grinned, the crinkles around his eyes matching his rumpled uniform. "That will do."

  The field commander knew it wasn't good to push the Archivers. Whatever their secret goals, they must realize pursuing them would be easier on Adams Rush: member world.

  Aetaire entered with purpose. "A drone has detected activity near the commodore inspector's party." A new VAD showed a multispectral image of an explosion beneath the tree canopy. The AI labeled it a stun charge. "There's still concern about anti-aircraft, but the air wing commander will greenlight aphids."

  "At last," Pheron said. The Archivers were chasing someone they did not want to atomize. He suspected more cooperation from their squadron would be forthcoming if he could nab this individual. "Launch and pursue this 'activity.'"

  The field commander almost smiled.

  "We're not stocked for extended ground operations," Auscultare said, "and our high-automation frigates have little in the way of such supplies."

  Commodore Inspector Rewe Frixion was frustrated. A common state for him, but one to which he was driven not so much by the wearying chase as by lack of action. Someone had answers he wanted. He would secure his destiny if he had to slog through every forest on this jerk water world. But the squad was losing more espies and seeker drones than he could replace, and his prey remained elusive.

  "One drakking man," he mused.

  Twigs and needles crunched under his wheelies. The old Earth tree genera that flourished on Adams Rush were few, but they grew in prodigious numbers. It was a beautiful sight if taken in. Rewe didn't bother.

  Traversing such terrain by wheelie was tiring, but surely less so than running at an equivalent speed or extended use of striders. Still, it was probably not unlike the ancient art of riding a horse or downhill snow sporting. In both cases participants didn't have to generate their forward momentum but were still required to maintain body control.

  Who was this guy he was chasing? What was his family line? Was he just some random hopped up imprimatur? Rewe wanted an edge among the Archivers, and the purity of that recent mystic display led him to believe he might obtain it. Too much Sojourner involvement resided in the history of Adams Rush for this to be coincidence, especially in the mountain range named after a legendary Khromas.

  "Our espy and seeker drone perimeter has been restocked, sir," the command bot said in his usual low timbre. "If you allow me to release a pair of my units, I believe they'd catch up and engage our quarry within an hour."

  They kept moving while topping off drained power caps and perimeter. They had hardly stopped moving for two days.

  "You don't know who we're dealing with. This isn't some factory programming track and capture," Rewe said. Pushing into the third day of constant sweating, exertion, and stimulants exceeded his clothing's ability to self-clean. "If I had replacements for you morons, I'd send you all up there with clubs to tackle him. If only one of you remained intact after the job was done I'd call it my lucky day."

  It was pointless to explain it to a machine. When mystic bent the conventional understanding of physics, scientum AIs had a hard time understanding. He knew that advancing with a deteriorated perimeter was a good way to get an ammo-nut through the brain, at least when dealing with someone as apparently skilled as his quarry, and on home turf to boot.
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  However, a human, no matter how good, cut off from aid and unable to rest, would become exhausted. To emphasize his quarry's predicament, Rewe's body released another wave of synthesized stimulants from one of his custom organs. "Expand the perimeter another twenty-five meters, but stay in formation. It's only a matter of time now."

  Strangely, his prey had not used mystic over the course of this chase. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling he was on the trail of Sojourner gentry. A dangerous pursuit.

  "Two Legion attack aphids are heading for the last encounter," Auscultare interrupted.

  Rewe straightened and turned to the command bot. "Release one of your morons, slag. Non-lethal only."

  In the distance, he saw a dark, angular figure leap over an obstacle and began an inhumanly fast dash into the trees.

  Kord's lungs burned. He was running out of time. All the quikblood and unceasing work of micros could not stop the inevitable. He saw with surprising clarity the oncoming collapse.

  His shoulder pain worsened as micros were drawn away to keep him going. They removed lactic acid and toxins, forced oxygenation, and did it well. Better than well. Highearn ordered them with almost nurse-like tactical precision. Keeping a soldier in the fight was his forte, after all, but the inevitable was a most patient foe.

  "We break from the stream in a minute to reach the cache," Highearn said. "Legion aphids closing."

  "Great, a choice about who I'd like to be captured by."

  That was certainly their goal. If they wanted him dead, they would blanket each contact area with serious firepower. The Archiver's owl could do it. But on uneven ground, such kinetic shots weren't a sure thing, as demonstrated by their survival two nights before. The distance and bumpy terrain he and Vittora had put between themselves and the remotely driven fanicle saved their lives. Although the Archivers might have realized the fanicle was unoccupied and just wanted to take it out of play with a rather heavy hand.

  Shafts of sunlight peeked through the tree cover. Loping upstream, the striders left behind rainbow arcs of water. Kord shivered. Considering all the technology trying to keep him warm, that wasn't a good sign. It was a miracle he was still going. Considering his wife, that may have been the case.