by Skyler Grant
"I really dislike you, machine," Sylax said, signing off on the changes. "I really should have killed her."
I didn't know if Sylax meant Anna or Hot Stuff. Probably both, Sylax did love her murder.
Hot Stuff was continuing to neglect her command in favor of slaughter. She'd found herself surrounded by twenty Righteous soldiers unleashing assault cannon fire into her. The aura of flames didn’t let a single one through and, one at a time, she was driving her fist through armor to burn them apart from the inside out.
Perhaps it had been a good idea after all that she'd made Sylax her second.
I took control of my platoons and moved them towards one of the bunker entrances.
This was beyond their lines and the enemy presence was lighter. Shock hammers crushed the skulls of three foes before two ground turrets took out some of my drones. Carefully targeted shots from gauss rifles destroyed the turrets and my troopers could get near the entrance.
A massive metal door had been blown open. The interior was a large hangar filled with rusting equipment. It had been here a long time. A few Righteous used the rusting hulks for cover as they opened fire.
I wasn't interested in a firefight with this much cover around. I used Aegis Zeroes to get close and beat the gunners into pulp. I lost one under combined fire, but a prolonged assault using weapons would have suffered worse losses.
At one end of the complex was a large elevator shaft going down into the darkness. The elevator controls were long since defunct and there were no ladders or ropes. The Righteous must have found another way.
There was a security desk at the end of the hall and in front of the elevator. That would do. My repair drones had come a long way and I turned them loose on the security computer and its antiquated hard drive. On a Band this far out, it wasn't a Reality Zero environment, so mundane electricity didn't function, but with the aid of my crystal the system was soon booting up and the records were becoming available.
There wasn't anything too sensitive on this computer, but at least it confirmed my suspicions—that this had once been a military research and testing facility. Here they had helped to develop the most cutting-edge weaponry of the old world.
No wonder the Righteous had an interest in it.
And they weren't alone.
Stopping the Righteous was our goal, and it was possible we might fail. They could win this war and succeed to remake the world. If they did, I intended to survive the process and the aftermath. That required understanding as much about old world technology as I could. So yes, I was interested.
The elevator was largely intended for dignitaries and visitors to the complex. It looked like the general way in for most personnel was along a winding tunnel that circled its way underground. I didn't like that, it afforded any Righteous with too many ambush points.
I wasn't lacking in upgrade points these days. I upgraded all troops in the platoon to have basic teleportation abilities and sent one leaping into the elevator shaft. The main computer lab was on the twenty-third level. The doors were closed, but an accurate gauss rifle shot tore a hole through them as my drone fell past to die on impact at the bottom of the shaft.
I sent the next drone and this time, as they passed the door, they teleported through the opening.
Unarmored Righteous technicians were running away in panic as a soldier came out of a doorway. Good, they weren't expecting opposition that deep. I sent another dozen soldiers down the shaft as my first drone into the level crushed the soldier’s skull.
I ignored the researchers. I knew I shouldn't, it was foolishness to let the Righteous walk away with any knowledge of this place and their heads were filled with that. Still, they were people devoted to their limited understanding of SCIENCE. The world needed more of that, not less, even if they were on the wrong side.
The central computer core was eerily familiar. I recognized the design, I'd woken up in one just like it. They'd had an artificial intelligence down here. Had being the operative word. Although the power and supplementary systems were in place, the intelligence core had been carefully removed—and recently.
Blank claimed that part of the Righteous' interest in me had been in wanting an AI to help them carry out their research. It looked as if they'd gotten their wish. That was a problem for another day.
They'd taken the primary storage systems as well and removed them completely, rather than made a study of them here. It looked like the research teams only stayed to study the AI infrastructure.
What I wanted wasn't going to be found here. Pulling up a map of the facility, there was a security communications facility on this level. I sent my drones towards it and checked in on the battle.
Things weren't going well. King Boreas had lost two airships and our ground forces suffered over thirty percent losses so far. We'd hurt the Righteous too, but it might not be enough. I quickly scanned the enemy for potential vulnerabilities and sent the analysis to Hot Stuff and Sylax to do with it what they would.
The Righteous were responding to the breach in this facility with force. Enemy armored units pulled up outside the main entrance and began firing shells into the interior. My forces weren't prepared to handle that kind of assault. I sent the rest of my drones down the elevator shaft, teleporting them onto different levels. I ordered them to take any enemies guarding the main entrance by surprise from behind and secure the main team an egress in case I found anything worth taking out.
The secure communications facility hadn't been touched by the Righteous. They had no interest in messages from centuries before. I set my repair drones to work restoring the equipment with a focus on the storage.
It didn't take me long to figure out that I had portions of what I was hoping for. While the bulk of research data had been stored locally, some coordination was needed with other facilities and reports issued to those in charge. I found communications logs of all of that.
There had been a crystal core here. The reports referenced it as the Beryl sample. We already knew that three different crystals had crashed to earth just prior to the world shattering and they'd been called Agate, Beryl, and Chalcedony. Beryl had been the second.
It had been here when I'd bombed this place and I hadn't detected it. Recriminations would have to wait for later. The Righteous had removed it, of course. I was only picking up residuals of its energy.
There was something else of interest. The military had managed to cut a piece from their crystal. Surprising, since the Agate was incredibly durable. They’d sent the sample to another lab, but the helicopter carrying it lost all electrical systems and crashed.
It must have happened just as the Cataclysm was beginning. They'd probably never retrieved the sample. I had the crash coordinates, although they may not be valid depending on just how much local space had warped.
I assigned my drones to harvest whatever other information they could out of the facility and then destroy it.
"Even with me doing your job for you, you're still bad at it. I need another squad," I said to Sylax.
Sylax was mid-combat, having just driven a fist topped with metal spikes through the throat of an armored soldier. "If you hadn't noticed, Emma, we're losing this battle. How about you help?"
There were incoming airships, Righteous. They didn’t penetrating the jump barrier, but materialized out of range and were making their way in under standard engine power. It was slow, but it was still reinforcements.
"I'm saying this a lot lately, but the battle is already lost. Prepare an extraction point for you and the others without backups and give me my squad," I said.
Sylax scowled, but assigned me my squad.
I hadn't built any of the squad’s armor for speed. As a result, I had to use a repair drone to take control of one of the Righteous mechanized units. I forced the ejection of the troops aboard and finished them with shock hammers, before taking control.
The helicopter had crashed several miles away from base. Fortunately that was taking us away fr
om the battle. When we drew close I could tell from the power-readings our prize was still there.
The crystal was small, fitting easily into a hand, shimmers of purple energy regularly pulsing down the surface of the shard. I had one of my drones hide it inside their armor.
I wasn't leaving anything to chance. I'd left an override module aboard several of Boreas' craft. I used it to take control of the airship and sent it to retrieve Sylax, then my team.
8
I was getting an incoming comm from King Boreas. That wasn't a surprise under the circumstances.
"You're stealing one of my ships," Boreas said.
"The Righteous have reinforcements that are almost here and I couldn't be certain you'd stop to pick me up. You may be as incompetent at rescues as you are at murders," I said.
"Oh, I learned my lesson. Give you even a nanosecond, you'll use it. You don't have that, next time. For now however we play a different game. Truce and fair play while we get our people out alive?" Boreas asked.
I planned to lie to him, but I didn’t need to actually betray him. He had lost several ships, which was as much as I could hope for. Right now the priority above all was getting that shard back to my testing facilities.
"Without my help you aren't really competent to survive. Fine. Interface me with your tactical computer," I said.
Boreas actually did it. I always found it so surprising when a member of the Scholarium kept their word.
The situation was worse than I'd expected. His ship sensors were more powerful than anything I'd taken with me onto the ground. The Righteous were responding with overwhelming force. There were over one hundred ships on the way. We didn't have the firepower to handle something like that.
I didn't think that Aefwal would either, even with the Agate powering the shields. As soon as shuttles started bringing up my drones I had them take over the ship properly. I'd return the ship to Boreas when we were done, and I wouldn't kill his people, but I also didn't trust them. With my drones in command of the ship we could answer threats far faster.
"My drones are taking over the controls of the ship I'm borrowing. Your crew is obviously bad at their jobs, but if you instruct them to use their powers on our behalf then at least we might get some use out of them as human rewind buttons," I told Boreas.
"You're asking for a lot and not giving me anything useful," Boreas said.
Fair. I charted the incoming ships and began to plot tactical data and sent it to his ship.
"What am I looking at?" Boreas asked.
"Possibilities that are going to keep you in the range of your rewind window. It isn't perfect, but as long as you keep within the vectors I've plotted, you should have the ability to keep yourself safe."
"Huh," Boreas said.
Yes, I was a genius. I was a bit worried about giving him ideas, but I didn't think any standard tactical computer system was going to have anything like the intelligence of me.
Our vessels were in full retreat, but several of the Righteous ships were slowly closing the distance. Worse yet, the jump drives weren't coming online. The initial inhibitor must have been activated on the base. Now they had another one in their fleet. They didn't intend to let any ships escape.
The drones left behind on the ground were making quite the last stand. I'd had them take over the enemy fortifications and they were forcing the Righteous to attack their own base.
I was still going to lose over ten thousand troops and their hardware. I could regrow the drones in the vats. In material, it was a crushing loss. Perhaps it would wind up being worth it. I did have the data I'd taken from the computers, but to make this exercise at all worthwhile I really needed to get that Beryl sample somewhere safe.
I didn't see a way to do it alone. Every airship in Aefwal and the city itself wouldn't be enough to counter this fleet. I needed to make some calls.
I opened a comm line to Anna. "Put the cookie down. We have problems."
Anna did in fact have a cookie in her hand. Expecting the need to have this conversation I'd placed it there three minutes and eight seconds ago. Anna's lack of willpower could be precisely charted.
"Did you plan that line?" Anna asked.
"I am incredibly intelligent with massive data-processing power, but if I had to plan every cookie you shoved in that maw it might overwhelm even me. So, we've lost most of our army we sent on the expedition and are fleeing the assault along with King Boreas. I have a sample aboard one of the ships I really need to get back, but we're being jump-blocked."
"We're going to discuss the cookie that just appeared later. You want to move our fleet in to assist?" Anna asked.
"They won't be enough. We need Vinci."
Anna grimaced. "You know she isn't going to want to do it. This was supposed to be our problem to handle. Still, I can convince her. Open me up a channel."
I opened a comm to Queen Vinci and got connected after passing through two functionaries.
"Emma, Emma's pet, is that cookie in front of you really necessary?" Vinci asked.
Anna took a defiant bite of the cookie and glared at the camera. "Yes. The expedition fleet is being pursued by a large Righteous force."
Vinci gave Anna a pitying smile. "The depth as to how much that is not my problem is truly impressive. I've arranged deals with both you and King Boreas on the assumption that you had some basic competence. Deal with it."
Anna had settled back in her chair and finished off the cookie while Vinci spoke. She said, "So just to make this clear, you don't have an interest in a massive fleet that’s found King Boreas short of ships, jump-blocked, with his powers exhausted."
Vinci stared into the camera for a long moment and there was a twitch of her lips for just an instant. "Well, perhaps a little interest. The number of Righteous vessels?"
"One hundred and seventeen," I said.
Vinci arched a brow and let out a low whistle. "And here I thought you were simply being lazy. We've never seen them field that many at once. You must have really poked the hornet nest. What did you find?"
To get away with not telling her about the Beryl sample, I had to give her something else.
"A military research facility from the old world filled with the latest Reality Zero designs. They took the actual research drives, but I do have some communication backups that contain much of the information."
Vinci looked hungry at those words. "You'll provide me a copy, of course."
I didn't see where I really had any choice—although it could be an edited version. I had to keep a few choice samples for myself after all.
Fortunately I was getting very good at falsifying records in a hurry. A bit of cutting and renumbering of files and I had a very legitimate-looking forgery. I sent it over along with the location and heading of the fleet. With us setting the pace I knew exactly where our ships would be in half an hour. I provided those coordinates.
A jump inhibitor could keep a jump drive bubble from forming, but not prevent a ship from arriving. Vinci would be able to jump in—it was just that nobody could jump out. The Righteous were obviously not concerned about meeting a matching fleet. That was no surprise, I wasn't sure even Vinci would be able to match that fleet ship for ship.
I cut the comm with Anna and focused my attention on keeping the fleet moving. The Righteous’ faster vessels continued to draw close and were nearly in weapons range when the target time hit. The sky ripped with a brilliant rainbow cascade and ships began to appear out of jump.
The Righteous fleet engaged them at once and Vinci returned fire. Vinci had brought her latest and best designs with no need for Reality Zero models. Energy shields surrounded them in halos of green energy and beam weapons struck out turning Righteous armor to molten slag.
The Righteous didn't withdraw, perhaps they couldn't. If I were Vinci I'd have brought a jump inhibitor of my own—the better to keep them at bay.
A Vinci ship swooped towards Boreas' flagship and it swerved sharply, opening fire.
&
nbsp; Responding to an attack before it happened.
The battle had given the rest of the Righteous vessels time to draw near and the sky was filled with ships. The featureless gray behemoths that Vinci favored, and the white and gold decorated Righteous vessels.
I detected an unusual energy signature coming from one of the Righteous ships. A missile flew some distance from the vessel and exploded in a cascade of blinding, blue light.
I lost all drone connections in that Band, in particular the soldier aboard the escaping ship with the Beryl sample. I quickly opened a standard comm channel to the craft. It was still intact, fortunately, although having issues. King Boreas, like all of the Scholars, made use of crystal powder to fuel his engines and the environment was suddenly that of Reality Zero.
The Righteous had made a bomb that could shift conditions. However, their fleet was still flying, and now that I knew what to look for I could see how unusual-looking they were for Righteous vessels. Larger, blockier, a lot like Vinci's dual-use vessels. The difference being the Righteous were far more familiar with Reality Zero science and technology, and they'd designed things a lot better.
I'd only managed to evacuate around fifty drones via shuttles to the ship. I issued orders for them all to strip out of their armor, remove the Bio-cores and connect them into the electrical systems. It wouldn't be enough, not to operate the engines, which just weren't Reality Zero compatible.
Vinci's ships were having the same problem. With the Reality Zero environment their shields were down, their weapons offline, and thrusters were being used to keep ships in the sky instead of for evasion. They were quickly getting cut to pieces by the Righteous ships.
This whole thing had been a trap. The Righteous wanted a rescue fleet to show up. They'd been waiting for the perfect moment to deploy their new weapon.