Dark Transmissions

by Davila LeBlanc

  This location was simply an ancient piece of technology, from an age no one, not even the oldest Machina, could remember. Perhaps the Darlkhin, the mysterious and immortal “plastic” Humanis, could, but their numbers were few and far between. On top of which any answers they gave were usually incredibly vague, evasive and, more often than not, leading to more questions.

  “The station’s Original Intelligence, OMEX, is ancient, Morrigan Brent. While all signs would seem to indicate that it is corrupted, any data on the Lost Ages it possesses in its datastores is no less precious.”

  “Here I thought you Machina didn’t value anything.” Morrigan chortled and shook his head. “Guess I learned something new today. Thank you, Machina Chord.”

  “You are more than welcome. Information is never without value, Private Brent,” Chord replied.

  “Then when we go to sleep tonight it will be with far less foolish minds than when we woke up,” Arturo called out to them, his voice dripping with what was known as sarcasm. Both Arturo and Phaël stopped in front of the doors.

  The hole in the shaft was no more than several meters away from them. Chord disconnected from Morrigan and navigated up to Arturo, but before anything could be said the entire station’s datasphere was filled with alert windows. There appeared to have been an explosion near one of the station’s rear thrusters. For the first time since he had awakened today, Chord saw a smile on Arturo’s lips.

  “That will no doubt be the work of a certain former Thorn.” Arturo looked at Chord, nodding to the airlock. “Can you get this door open?”

  Chord ran a system’s diagnosis on the doors. They had been fused shut from the inside. While Chord’s omnitool hands had been damaged and were no longer of any real use, its feet were still fully functional, as were the tools built into them.

  “The task will require time.” As Chord said this, motion sensors suddenly went off. Chord could make out the shapes of several autodrones now surveying the hole. Three of them started repairs while the other four spun and moved toward Arturo.

  “Get on it, then!” Arturo’s order came out as a bark and his hands darted to the hilts of his swords. He started forward. “Private Brent! You keep them off me, and I will do the same for you!”

  Arturo fired off the thrusters on his suit and zoomed forward to intercept the attacking drones. Once he was close enough, Arturo pulled out both his blades in a rapid and perfectly practiced motion. A hiss of frozen vapor burst out of the vacusealed sheathes as he did this. The twin zirconium blades were both at least four inches wide, double-­edged, a slick shimmering white and beyond razor sharp. Arturo spun around, turning himself into a whirling buzz saw and lopping arms off of three separate drones as he did.

  Arturo zipped past them and, before they could react, fired off his retro suit thrusters, zooming back while maintaining his spin motion. This time he cut through two of the drones, slicing them cleanly in half. Arturo then jabbed forward with one blade, skewering a third drone and pushing himself off of it as the fourth and final attacking drone swung at him and narrowly missed. Its plasma-­sharpened bladed fingers left thin streaks of purple in their wake.

  Arturo fired his suit thrusters back toward the drone and slashed both his blades in a horizontal arch. Sparks fired out of the drone as his blades sliced through its carapace and it fell apart in two clean halves. The remaining three drones remained focused on their task at hand.

  Morrigan let out an impressed whistle. Arturo had felled his foes in less than four standard seconds. And through all this, he had not suffered so much as a single scratch to his lifesuit. “Sureblade indeed, sir.”

  Chord was hard at work cutting through the door’s safety bolts and could already detect over a half dozen movement signals both on the station’s outer hull and at the bottom of the elevator shaft. “Sergeant Kain, we are about to be overrun.”

  “Then perhaps you should quit wasting the time I am purchasing you, Machina.” Arturo twirled his blades in his hands, a cocky grin on his face, his eyes narrowing on the reinforcements. “Thousands of my foes tried earning themselves a name by being my end only to meet their own.” Arturo sprung forward. “Let us see if these machines fare any better.”

  CHAPTER 18

  JESSIE MADISON

  The home in Maine isn’t really hers. Part of her knows this, while another part of her doesn’t really care. Jessie Madison has started to lose count of all the times she has visited this place.

  She is standing in front of a kitchen counter, chopping vegetables and tossing them into a pot of boiling water. Jessie is in her warm welcoming home with a breathtaking view of the Maine wilderness outside. Or more like the wilderness she remembers from the nature trideos she’s seen back on Earth.

  I’ve been here before.

  Snow is falling peacefully and a fire is crackling in their living room fireplace. It has been ten years since David and Jessie returned to Earth after their grueling contract with the AstroGeni facility Moria Three. Their omniexecutor suffered a critical malfunction and the company offered them quite a hefty severance package. In return, David and Jessie both signed the nondisclosure forms, promising to keep silent about the incident with the station’s AI almost killing them.

  At first Jessie thought that they should take them to court for everything they were worth. But in the end, a forty-­trillion-­dollar settlement on top of their time-­interested salary was more than enough to keep her happy. Neither Jessie, nor any of her future family, will ever have to want for money or anything, ever, making all the pain and anguish they went through very well worth it. She and David have moved to Maine, built a house and, more importantly, together they’ve conceived and raised their wonderful precious daughter, Malory.

  Malory is currently in the craft room that David insisted they build so that they could raise a brilliant artistic child. He now spends the majority of his days drawing with Malory and playfully teasing her. Jessie is so blessed, so happy, and she is content taking care of the few farm animals they have on their plot of land.

  I’ve been here before.

  Somewhere in the recesses of her mind Jessie knows that none of this makes any sense. Land is no longer available for sale anywhere on overpopulated Earth. Centralized Earth Gov owns everything Earth side all the way to the moon. The best their fortune would be able to get them is perhaps a smart house in the richer, safer sectors of the American Continent. As for the cooking of freshly grown vegetables or livestock? There is no legal way anyone can acquire and own an animal.

  “Where are we right now?”

  Jessie is startled when she hears this, almost cutting herself with the kitchen knife. Malory takes a great deal of delight in being a sneaky little devil. Much like Jessie back when she was her age.

  Jessie puts down the knife on the chopping block and turns around to face her daughter. Another problem, why make food by hand? All homes come equipped with AI autocookers capable of creating delicious meals, freeing up time to sample trideos or a chilled glass of wine.

  Arable farmland is incredibly rare and precious. This limits naturally grown food to the godlike rich or for special occasions. No one she has ever heard of would ever waste such a valuable commodity on something as vulgar and regular as a family dinner.

  Jessie smiled at Malory. “We’re in your house, silly.”

  Malory looks at her, cocking her head to the side curiously. She has her father’s blue eyes, and her mother’s brown hair, round cheeks and full lips. Jessie can already tell that she will be a beautiful woman when she gets older.

  “Dad is dead and this house isn’t real.” Malory’s voice is curt when she says this.

  I’ve been here befo—­

  Jessie’s lips tremble as she kneels down in front of her daughter, facing her eye to eye. Malory doesn’t even blink when she asks a follow-­up question. “My real father died on some place called Moria Thre
e, didn’t he?”

  Jessie shakes her head. “Why are you saying this to me?”

  “The woman’s voice beyond here hates you, you know. She says it to you all the time. She can’t wait for you to wake up. So she can hurt you.” Malory points to the ceiling, only now the ceiling has been replaced by what appears to be a glass observation dome. Through it Jessie can see the familiar dark sphere of an autodrone looking down on them both.

  “Her name is OMEX and she . . . it killed your father.”

  Malory abruptly pulls herself away from Jessie when she hears this. “Who are you?”

  “I’m your mother.” Jessie is taken aback by the question.

  “Where are we? Really?!” Malory is visibly getting angrier.

  “I . . .” Jessie pauses for a long moment. This place isn’t the real Maine. This isn’t even her real home. Where is she? Gods, it’s so hard to filter out the real memories from the dream ones. She knows that part of her is more than likely going mad right now. “Malory, I don’t know.”

  “Who am I?”

  “You’re my daughter?”

  “Am I real?”

  Jessie doesn’t know the answer. The walls to her dream house begin to crack and crumble. Her daughter keeps on calling out. As she does her voice becomes more and more outraged.

  “Am I real? Am I real? Am I real!!??”

  Jessie closes her eyes. There is only darkness. This is all just a dream and it will come to an end. She promised David she would survive. This includes keeping herself sane. Part of Jessie hopes that she will soon wake up. Another part of her is morbidly in no rush. Everyone Jessie knows back on Earth is now dead. Here, in this place of dreams, she can at least temporarily forget the heavy reality outside: that everything she knows is gone. At least here, in this place, she has a family . . .

  CHAPTER 19

  MORWYN

  In the name of peace never ending, the Covenant voices the following Truth to be universal: all Intelligences are permitted the fundamental freedom of existence, thought, expression and happiness. In the name of peace never ending, this will be the Truth from Covenant’s Start to Covenant’s End.

  —­The Covenant’s First Truth, 01 of SSM–01 01 A1E

  10th of SSM–10 1445 A2E

  Morwyn had spent the majority of his training on Barathul in virtual augmented reality. This had offered him many advantages. The first one being that he had possessed almost complete and total control of the battlefield and could afford to make the occasional mistake, since there was no risk of death on his part.

  Of course the VAR pods on Barathul had been equipped with powerful electro-­tasepads that would painfully shock the user into unconsciousness every time he or she “died” in the virtual training simulations. The user would then wake up with a headache and, more importantly, a desire to avoid dying in the next simulated operation.

  This was not the present case. While Morwyn was confident in the skills of the men and women serving on the Jinxed Thirteenth, they were currently in the realm of reality. His decisions would have very real consequences. For good or ill, Morwyn had just cast their die, abandoning a greater measure of control over the situation than he was typically comfortable with.

  Now even the slightest mistake on anyone’s part would result in death and their foe’s victory. As with abandoning the crew on the station, this outcome was unacceptable to him. If there was one thing that described Morwyn best, it was that he did not suffer defeat easily. Which was why he had never made a habit of it.

  Morwyn chewed his lower lip. He would have given anything for an interface screen right now, if only to offer him a confirmation or a sign that his crew was indeed still alive. Eliana Jafahan had played a crucial role in raising Morwyn from childhood; she was more than just a mentor. Beatrix and Morwyn had trained together from their very first days together in boot camp.

  Even then it had been painfully clear to both of them that she would never be afforded upward mobility throughout the Pax Humanis ranks. The Pax Humanis forever remained notoriously pro-­Kelthan in both its military and political views. Of course there were exceptions. Eliana Jafahan being one of them. But the fact remained that any non-­Kelthan serving in the Pax Military was more or less doomed to the rank of private. Despite all this, Beatrix had followed him throughout their rigorous basic training. She had then chosen to loyally stand by him during his “disgraceful” graduation speech.

  And in a true display of friendship, she had followed him on his road all the way here. How had he managed to command such loyalty in her? Morwyn realized he was drumming his fingers nervously on his glass of brandy. He did not try to stop this.

  Earlier on in his education Morwyn had learned that fear was an element of control. He was quite aware of the fact that it could be used to break the wills of his enemies. It nonetheless remained something dangerous to give in to or even feel. As often as he could, Morwyn preferred to avoid tactics that required its use.

  A fearful man, Morwyn had once noted, was apt to stupidity, and stupidity mixed with weapons was never a good formula. This was a truth regardless of which world one hailed from.

  Morwyn, like all his siblings, had had his path chosen for him by his father, Ondrius Soltaine. The life of an officer in the Pax Military had been forced onto him and required that he be properly molded into the role. Despite all of this, Morwyn had never once faulted his father, as it was the duty of all citizens in the Pax Humanis to best serve the desires and will of New Humanity, an iron will that was symbolized and given voice by the Hegemons. This did not mean that Morwyn had not found it difficult to embrace the callousness required to order troops to their death.

  It was a documented historical fact that Ondrius Soltaine had commanded the Sunderlund Ninth Legion to victory over the Galasian Khans. A victory priced at the cost of over half the Legion’s troops. Among the dead had been Eliana Jafahan’s daughter, and his friend, Tulin Jafahan, a Thorn operator like her mother before her.

  Morwyn, along with his two brothers, Somus and Cynthio, had attended Tulin’s funeral ser­vice held on Perse. A Pax protectorate world on the borders of End Space and the one world in the cosmos that Wolvers who had served in the Pax Humanis Military could call home. They were no longer welcome among their own kind, and never had been among “polite” Kelthan society.

  Eliana Jafahan had once told Morwyn that everyone died, but that by choosing a life of ser­vice one could at the very least give said death a meaning. And while Morwyn had understood this might be true, it did not make this fact any easier to stomach. Now here he was with two of his closest companions away risking their lives for complete strangers and the only thing he was capable of doing was buying them a little time.

  Behind him Dr. Marla Varsin cleared her throat. “I believe we were meant to chat with this machine Intelligence?”

  Morwyn took another stiff sip from his tiny silver cup. “Yes, indeed we are.” He nodded to Lizbeth Harlowe. “Get our comm-­lines up and running.”

  “Yes, sir,” came Harlowe’s reply.

  Morwyn had often wondered what her universe must be like. Over sixty percent of Harlowe’s organic body had been replaced with electronic augmentations and hardware. She had literally been designed from birth to become a ship’s pilot and astrogator. Had she ever resented this? Or, like Morwyn, had she come to accept her fate as inescapable reality? Did she feel . . . anything?

  A holographic screen appeared in front of Morwyn. He tapped it and nodded to Dr. Marla Varsin. The good doctor cleared her throat again, licked her lips and spoke in Late Modern. Her speech was slow, deliberate and clear.

  There was a long moment of silence; Morwyn was about to signal Varsin to speak again when suddenly a calm, electronic voice spoke back to her. Marla Varsin looked to Morwyn. “It wants to know if I am the one in command.”

  “Reply truthfully.” Morwyn knew that ma
chine sensors could track the stress levels in one’s voice. In essence, this Intelligence would know if it was being lied to. Which was all fine and good, as long as it did not know it was being distracted.

  Marla Varsin replied to the machine voice. There was another longer pause this time and when the voice spoke again, it was in Pax Common. “I will not speak through a translator. Who is the one in command?”

  Morwyn, Marla and Lizbeth each looked at the other, all of them shocked. Despite this, Morwyn managed to keep his voice composed as he spoke. “This is Captain Morwyn Soltaine of the Covenant Patrol vessel Jinxed Thirteenth. With whom am I speaking?”

  “You are speaking to the AstroGeni Corporation mining facility Moria Three’s omniexecutor, OMEX.”

  “I am pleased to speak to you, OMEX. I see you have managed to learn Pax Common. Is it safe to assume that my crew is alive?” Despite the circumstances surrounding the conversation, Morwyn kept his tone proper and civil.

  “Presently they are relatively intact. Whether they remain that way will be entirely up to you, Captain Morwyn Soltaine of the Covenant Patrol vessel Jinxed Thirteenth,” the electronic voice replied in a tone both polite and neutral. OMEX almost sounded like it was mocking him.

  Morwyn ignored the jab. His foe was trying to get under his skin. This was a tactic that hadn’t worked on Morwyn since his sixth birthday. “I would need proof of their safety before I could even consider entering negotiations with you, OMEX.”

  “No, you will negotiate with me because your ship is presently crippled and unable to escape. Should I wish to do so, I could easily drag us down onto Moria’s surface. The planet’s gravity would crush us all into paste.”

  Morwyn took a deep, calming breath before he replied. “Are you saying that you would be willing to die over what could very well be a simple misunderstanding?”