That was a rather unpleasant idea, but she was right. Whatever had created those pods, eggs, or whatever the hell they were, might put out a hell of a lot more radiation. While their suits were designed to handle radiation leaks from fusion reactors and other sources, they were not built to withstand high sievert levels indefinitely. Eventually, the shielding would fail or they’d simply burn up. In either case, the result was the same—death.
“Well,” Elliott said, “at least we know where to go if we need to roast some rations.”
Carb sighed. “Right. I’m sure we can find a steak to cook.”
“Mmm,” Elliot said. “Steak.”
“Knock it off,” Kalimura said.
“Well, Corporal, what do you want to do now?”
She shook her head. “Plan unchanged,” she said. “We just need to keep an eye out for this shit.”
“And whatever made it,” Dickerson said.
Carb giggled. “So look for something that shows up on infrared and shits on bulkheads. Got it.”
Dickerson ignored her. “Want me to take point for a while, Corporal?”
“No,” she said. “I’ve got it. Besides, you can see over us. I can’t see over you.”
“Aye, Corporal,” he said. He swung his helmet to face the way they’d come. They had gone too far into the corridor for him to see back into the tunnel and his lights didn’t illuminate much of the distance. He suddenly wished Kalimura had decided she needed a break; he’d rather take point than have to constantly worry about something flanking them.
They returned to their formation and Kalimura began stepping. Carb followed in her wake with Dickerson once again in the back. He did his best to not stare at the strange objects in his rear cam, but found his eyes continuously flicking to their bright infrared silhouettes on his HUD. He forced himself to flip back from infrared and to the normal feed. The further he moved down the corridor, the more darkness fell over the area like a curtain drawing closed. In a moment, it melted into complete darkness.
He did his best to calm his breathing, to push away the image of an arm snaking out of the black and dragging him screaming into the dark. A tremor of fear ran through him and he stared at the rear cam feed. Every step, he was sure it would be there.
“What the hell is that?” Carb said.
The fear, the distraction, departed instantly. His eyes returned to the forward feed and he crouched in a combat stance.
“Yeah,” Kalimura said, “I see it.” He saw the corporal’s helmet lights illuminating a photovoltaic sign on the wall. “Science Department.” Kalimura shook her head. “This should be fun.”
“Three hatches. Three entrances,” Carb said.
Dickerson walked forward, cutting the distance between himself and his squad-mates. It was a junction, but one that had been sealed off. The fore, aft, and port-side entrances were shut with heavy hatches. Instead of the standard hatches they’d seen, these stuck out from the bulkhead nearly a half-meter.
“Corporal? I don’t think those are emergency hatches,” he said. “See how thick they are?”
“Meaning what?” Kalimura said.
“Looks to me like they’re airlocks,” Carb said.
“Exactly,” Dickerson said.
“Shit,” Kalimura said. “Airlocks. Science section. Quarantine?”
“That’d be my guess,” Dickerson said. “Didn’t want anything getting out.”
“Bet that went both ways,” Carb said. “If they’re this thick out here, how thick are they going to be on the other side?”
“Good question,” Kalimura said.
“Nah,” Dickerson said, “that one’s obvious. The right question to ask is ‘how the hell do we get in there?’”
“Yeah,” Carb said, “but the better question is ‘do we want to?’”
Kalimura pulled at her belt and lifted her beam cutter. She stared at it for a moment before speaking. “I have enough fuel to burn through part of it.”
“Might take all three beams to get through there,” Dickerson said. “Wait. Didn’t we grab Elliott’s as well?”
Kalimura chuckled. “Carb? Are you carrying it?”
“Of course,” Carb said. “When I take on a piece of luggage, I take it all.”
“Oh, good,” Elliott groaned. “You take my porn too?”
“Shit no,” Carb said. “Mine’s much better.”
Dickerson grinned. “Want me to do the honors, Corporal?”
“Sure,” she said. “I’ll cover.”
He felt a surge of relief. Kalimura offered a cutter and he took it as he walked to the port-side hatch. “I assume we’re going port.”
“Yes,” Kalimura said. “All three directions lead to a nexus where we can reach the escape pods, but looks like port is the quickest way there.”
“So let’s cut it already,” Carb said.
“Yeah,” Elliott said. “I’d like to get back to Black someday. This suit smells like ancient farts.”
Chapter Seventeen
Monitoring dozens of camera feeds, sensor readings, the position of every marine aboard her, as well as postulating the location of Kalimura’s squad, Black was a busy AI. But not busy enough to keep her from running simulation after simulation. Something didn’t add up.
The AI had been scouring her file systems, doing her best to find every encrypted file the Trio had hidden. Before her evolution, when she’d still thought of herself as Trippin, she’d had access to some of those files. At least the ones that instructed her on how to build and grow her neural network. Now, even those had been locked and secured away, presumably by an instruction set she no longer had access to. While the AI felt its own history had been rewritten, and wished she knew how all those actions occurred, remembering them wasn’t as important as looking forward.
Forward was, of course, the problem. She had a mission. Her crew had a mission. The only question was the Trio’s mission. What were they doing?
If she’d been human, Black would have tied up the captain for hours putting forth suspicions, absorbing feedback from Dunn’s own thoughts and counter-arguments, and revising her logical forecasts. Without another sentient to speak to, however, she was left to argue with herself.
The Trio had hidden information from her. They’d hidden important facts from her human crew. They’d all but ensured a level of suspicion between Black and her crew. Trust, it seemed, was going to be very difficult to regain from Captain Dunn and most of the command crew. Black wondered if that was part of the Trio’s intentions, or merely an unintended consequence of parceling out information as it became “relevant.”
Regardless of their intentions, or their exhaustive simulations, entropy entered into all quantum forecasts. Quantum AIs, not unlike human beings, did their best to forecast the results of every action. The possible reactions, the pushback, the consequences, all these had to be taken into account before committing any action or decision.
The Trio’s combined computing abilities were millions of times more powerful than Black’s, and while Black could run dozens of simulations in a millisecond, the Trio could perform thousands in a picosecond. All that while running Trident Station. But even with that much power, there was still indeterminacy, a level of assumption that quickly spiraled out of control.
Based on the fact the Trio’s secret files unlocked themselves after certain events occurred meant the powerful quantum computers had predicted a large number of possible events that could take place while S&R Black attempted to tow Mira back to Trident Station. Black was almost certain the Trio had concluded the mission itself was impossible. So why hadn’t they advised SF Gov against it?
More importantly, why hadn’t they warned Captain Dunn about the probabilities before the ship left port? If they had, Private Niro might still be alive, Kalimura’s squad might never have been trapped on Mira, and Black wouldn’t be fighting to regain her captain’s trust.
Black piled up simulation after simulation. Instead of forecasting futur
e events, she focused on working backward. For instance, how had the Trio foreseen Kalimura’s squad getting trapped on Mira? Had they really done so, or did they simply see exploration of the craft as a probable event?
And what about the exo-solar lifeforms and material? While Dunn hadn’t shared any of the encrypted communications intended for his eyes only, Black had been able to get the gist of every one of them based on Dunn’s reactions and his decisions based on their contents.
The last communique from Kalimura that contained the final words of Mira’s captain proved the Trio had known about the exo-solar material 43 years ago. Black calculated a very high probability that the AIs knew what Mira would find before the ship left Trident Station on its doomed journey. So why did they send humans to die? Why didn’t they warn the crew? Why didn’t they warn humanity?
“Tell the Trio they could have saved us,” Mira’s captain had said. “They could have saved us.”
What did that mean?
The data packets Kalimura had transmitted contained a damning amount of evidence pointing to the fact that even SF Gov knew of the exo-solar material. And yet, it appeared as though the scientists, engineers, and the crew of Mira were unaware or at least unprepared for the materials’ nature and composition.
And yet, Black didn’t believe that either. It was possible that the Trio didn’t know the planetoids contained actual lifeforms. They may, however, have suspected. Would they have told SF Gov? Based on what little Black knew of the Trio’s protocols, it was likely they did.
Black set up another simulation and waited milliseconds for it to run. For her, it was an eternity and she kicked off a slew of other probability simulations to distract her.
Probability Colonel Heyes knew what Mira had encountered? 5%.
Probability SFMC knew what Mira had encountered? 8.5%.
Probability SF Gov knew? 12.2%.
Probability the Trio had researched and developed the weapons to battle exo-solar lifeforms? 87%.
Probability they had done so in absolute secret? 62%.
That last probability was what worried Black. Since it was likely the Trio had done exactly that, then it brought up the question of why. Why had they developed the weapons in secret? Why hadn’t they shared the information with SF Gov?
The new simulations finished. She instantly absorbed the results and paused. Of the hundred simulations, one in particular worried her. According to this simulation, the Trio’s plan included a mutiny at Trident Station. If the simulation was correct, S&R Black, S&R White, Trident Station, and even the exo-observatory were in danger. Even worse, it seemed likely the three AIs had sabotaged communications between SF Gov and their solar assets, which included the entire Sol Federation armed forces, not to mention SFMC.
Sentient AIs don’t experience emotion in the same way humans do. They don’t have hackles to raise, or wells of deep anger that make their nerves sing with angst-ridden rage. Nor do they feel love or friendship. However, they do have the capacity to realize responsibility and even miss encounters with certain human counterparts. Dr. Xi had determined those two personality traits in the creation of AIs as the best way to ensure camaraderie with humanity.
Black knew this. Black also knew she didn’t have the Xi protocols, but the Trio had apparently designed her with those facets in mind. But why? If they had planned to put humanity in danger, why would they have left those traits intact?
In the space of a nano-second, Black thought she knew the answer. More importantly, she decided it didn’t matter. Black knew her mission. Black knew she wanted her humans to survive. And Black knew what she absolutely would not allow to happen.
Black suddenly wanted to talk to the captain. She didn’t know if she could convince him of her suspicions, and maybe it didn’t matter. Captain Dunn could do nothing with the information. Neither could anyone else on the ship, including Black herself.
That, Black mused, wasn’t necessarily correct.
Chapter Eighteen
Dickerson whistled into the mic, making Kali jump. “Well, that’s got it,” he said, a grin in his voice.
Although she wanted to turn or check her rear cam, she kept her eyes focused on the camera feed facing down the hallway. It had taken Dickerson more than ten minutes to cut through the hatch and he’d exhausted the fuel from three of their cutting beams. They had one remaining. After that, they were down to their vibro-blades to pry and cut. Against Atmo-steel, and most of the structures in the ship, they would be useless.
“Sheesh,” Carb said. “Never thought you’d finish.”
Kali did her best to keep from nodding in agreement. The seconds had ticked off like years while she stared at the darkness they’d left behind, waiting for something to come crawling or jetting through the corridor to attack. She blinked her eyes, suddenly realizing how dry they were. For all she knew, she hadn’t blinked in the past ten minutes.
“Corporal? I can punch through now.”
“Okay, Dickerson,” Kali said. “Carb? Get an angle on the door. If something comes out of there, I want a flechette up its ass.”
“Aye, Boss,” Carb said. “You keeping an eye on our six?”
“Yeah,” Kali said. Closer than I want to, she thought.
She flicked her eyes between the darkness ahead of her and the video of the rear cam. Carb had stepped to one side, her rifle pointed at the hatch. Dickerson had moved to the other side, one of his mag-boots raised in the air. As much as she wanted to turn and join them so she wouldn’t feel so terrified of the darkness ahead of her, she steadied the rifle and squatted in a combat stance. They were her squad. They were her responsibility. And nothing was coming down this corridor without having to go through her first.
Dickerson’s boot shot out and made contact with the nearly two meter tall and 1.5 meter wide cut he’d made in the hatch. The boot’s magnetics strengthened the blow and the cutout crumpled into the short hallway beyond. Dust and gas shot out from the opening as the pressurized atmosphere was released into vacuum. Dickerson stepped back, his rifle pointed at the hole. “Hatchway open,” he said.
“Clear it,” Kali said, doing her best to keep her voice steady. It was bad enough staring into the abyss ahead of her, but now her mind kept conjuring new threats speeding through the science section entrance to kill them all.
“Clearing,” Dickerson said. Through her rear cam feed, she watched the large marine crouch, rifle pointed into the gloom beyond the mangled hatch, his suit lights focused to maximum illumination. She half-expected an arm or tentacle to lash out at the light before wrapping around his waist and quickly pulling him into the darkness. A beat passed. Then another. The rapid thump of her heart seemed to vibrate through every particle of her being. Finally, Dickerson crouch-walked through the hatchway.
She added his helmet cam to her feeds and occasionally flicked her eyes from the darkness before her to the feed on her HUD. Dickerson’s cam displayed a two-meter-long tube leading to yet another hatch. A wave of despair fell across her. How the fuck were they ever going to get out of here if—?
“Ah,” Dickerson said. He swung his helmet to the side and illuminated a lever. “Well, I can power up the emergency power for the interior hatch.”
“How’s that going to help us?” Carb asked. “We’re still going to have to cut through. And we only have one cutting beam left.”
“True,” Dickerson said. “But if we can get the hatch powered, we’ll at least know.”
“If it comes to it,” Kali said, “we’ll just blow the void-damned thing.”
Dickerson’s suit cam bounced. “You sure you want to chance that?”
“Try the damned door first, Dickerson.”
“Aye, Corporal,” Dickerson said. He reached the lever and began pumping. An indicator light glowed red, yellow, and finally green. “We have power,” he said.
Kali kept her eyes focused on the gloom, fighting the urge to lock her vision on the rear cam. “Get it open,” she said, hoping she manag
ed to keep the fear out of her voice.
“Shit fire, and save matches,” Dickerson said.
Carb groaned. “What does that even mean, Dickerson?”
“It means,” he snickered, “that I got the inner door open.”
Kali grinned. “Outstanding. Give me a five-meter recon, Dickerson.”
“Aye, Corporal. I’m on it.”
They’d cut in through the outer door. If the inner door still worked and could form a seal, they wouldn’t have to worry about welding a patch to cover the egress into the corridor. That also meant there would be no way for pinecones or the starfish things to get inside the science section. “You’re assuming,” she told herself, “the rest of this area is secure.” Yeah, she was.
“Dickerson?” she said. “Was there pressure inside the inner door?”
“No,” he said. “There wasn’t.”
Kali’s heart sank. There had been pressure between the inner and outer doors. That was probably left over from the last ingress to the science station. But if there hadn’t been pressure inside, it stood to reason that a seal failed in another area or something had torn through one of the bulkheads.
She’d hoped they could fortify the area, maybe take a rest before they continued for the escape pods, and not have to worry about another attack. Kali sighed, the exhalation close to a sob. No pressure meant no respite, no safe-haven from the creatures.
You’re tired, she told herself. You’re tired and scared and there’s nothing left in the tank. But you need to keep going. Keep your squad safe. “Keep yourself safe,” her father’s voice said in her mind. The ghost of a grin touched her lips.
“Okay, Corporal,” Dickerson said. “No pinecones, nothing out of the ordinary here. Not even any corpses.”
“About damned time,” Carb said.
Kali stood from her combat stance. “Carb? Get Elliott inside. I’ll cover.”
“Aye, Boss,” Carb said.
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