by Scott Baron
She pulled the cockpit pod eject lever, but nothing happened. Her escape pod was unable to do the thing it was meant to do. Namely, escape.
“Of course it doesn’t work,” she said with a resigned sigh. “Fucking Murphy.”
Daisy was a sitting duck, and the undamaged Ra’az ship knew it, slowly separating from its sister ship and swinging around to line up a shot.
Daisy was powerless.
So, this is how it ends.
A massive cannon and pulse barrage shot toward the Ra’az ship from the blackness of space to Daisy’s starboard.
“What the hell was that?”
The shots narrowly missed the Ra’az vessel, which quickly realized there was another opponent in the mix and swung into a defensive spin.
A matte-black craft whipped past Daisy’s disabled ship at high speed, looping after the alien vessel. Daisy only caught a glimpse of it, silhouetted in the inky black surrounding her, but it looked very familiar.
Something she’d left hidden on the moon. Something that shouldn’t have even been able to fly. Only one other person knew it existed, and she had a sneaking suspicion that was who had managed to make it space-worthy.
“Freya?” she said in disbelief.
The damaged Ra’az ship saw what was happening and began powering up. It started to shimmer, then flash, pulsing an unstable glow.
“It’s trying to power up the warp system,” Sarah said. “But look. It’s damaged.”
Daisy was too busy trying to track the two ships as they looped and turned, spraying weapons fire at one another. The dogfight was quick, and in a blink of an eye, both ships spun and charged one another, firing their weapons at once. The Ra’az ship exploded in a blast of debris, while the corkscrewing stealth vessel erupted into much bigger pieces in a surprisingly small explosion.
“No!” Daisy cried out, but both ships were gone, their remains floating in the darkness of open space.
The damaged Ra’az ship turned from the scene and flickered several times, then vanished in a blink, leaving behind a crackling ring where it had been.
Daisy, having witnessed Freya’s destruction, sat quietly in her deathly silent ship, drifting powerless in space.
Chapter Thirty-Three
It was cold. Not put-on-a-sweater cold, or even sit-by-the-fire-with-a-nice-cup-of-cocoa cold. It was floating-without-power-in-space cold.
Daisy had crawled out of the cockpit pod into the rear compartments of the ship, the now-insane AI rambling and stymieing her efforts to restore not only heat and life support, but also her communications array. She had managed to redirect oxygen from the ship’s limited directional thruster supply, but the corrupted systems could cut that off at any moment.
All I need is one safe, low-tech radio signal and maybe they’ll be able to find me. Nothing that can carry the virus, just a ping. Something. Anything.
She had been at it for a good five minutes when a simple radio call crackled over her ship's speakers.
“Hi, Daisy!” a familiar female voice called out in the frigid air.
She scrambled for the comms.
“Freya? But I saw you destroyed.”
“Nah, I was just playing. See?”
Daisy scraped ice off the fogged windows and saw the unbelievable. The floating matte-black sections of the destroyed stealth ship were coalescing. Drawing together and locking back into the main ship’s superstructure.
“It was like your game!”
“Game?” Daisy said, confused. “What game?”
“You know, the fun one you used to do. The one where you’d rearrange all those cool models. I was watching you. I really like that one––it’s a fun game!”
“But how does that relate to you being blown up? I saw it happen.”
“Oh, well, I read some Sun Tzu, and then I found this guy called Machiavelli in the data chips you uploaded, and those guys were really smart, and it just struck me it would be a great strategy to make it appear I had been destroyed. Seemed like a pretty good way to get that guy to leave you alone. Boy, did you see how fast he ran away? I would have chased him for you, but I saw your ship lost power, so I thought it would be better to stick around and make sure you were okay. Are you okay?”
“I am now, but how did you find me?”
“I heard you call for help. I’d been listening to all the fun things everyone was doing on the moon, and even down below, but I was being good. I remembered what you said about making sure no one knew about me. But then, when you were calling for help, well, I couldn’t just sit there, so I launched. I hope I did the right thing. Did I, Daisy?”
“You did good, Freya,” she said with a huge grin. “You did real good.”
Though she knew it was impossible, Daisy could almost feel the AI smiling.
“But how did you… I mean, you weren’t even in a ship when I left. You were just remotely linked to a mechanoid. And the stealth ship, it wasn’t anywhere near completion.”
“I got bored when you stopped coming to play, so I reconfigured the nanotech fabricators––”
“Freya, there weren’t any nanotech fabricators. That’s not what those machines were. What did you do to them?”
“Um… I guess I invented a nanotech fabricator.”
“Good God, Daze. What can’t this kid do?”
“You designed and retrofitted the machinery to completely repurpose a top-secret military fabrication unit for your needs?”
“Well, it seemed to make sense. I mean, I needed it to finish making the parts for the ship the way I wanted them to be, and now I have a whole bunch of little live-in friends! Then I had myself installed in one of the other mechanoids so I could move around and get to the command core when it was ready.”
“How? You weren’t even tied in to those systems.”
“I know, but I kind of hacked into the terminals and took control of the rest of the facility,” the young AI said meekly. “Are you mad at me?”
“Mad? Oh, Freya, I’m not mad. I’m proud of you.”
The AI’s voice perked up.
“Yay! So, there’s more. You want to hear more?”
“Sure thing, kiddo.”
“Well, when I was going over the designs and linking with the fabricators, I realized they had made a bunch of silly mistakes. There were so many more cool things they could have done! I mean, now, with nanotech, damaged areas can repair themselves! They even helped me build the ship. Work smarter, not harder, right?”
“That’s the saying,” Daisy replied, amazed.
“Anyway, I went back and stripped things out and had the changes built into the new ship. I improved all sorts of things––it was so much fun! I can’t wait to show you all the neat stuff. Like quick section releases and magnetic retrieval clamps I used to make it look like I blew up. I hadn’t tried it out before––that’s why it took a little longer to get put back together this first time. But I think I’ve got the hang of it now, so it should be a lot faster next time.”
“I’m impressed, Freya, and I really am looking forward to you showing me all you can do when we get back.”
“So you’ll come play with me when we get home?”
“You bet your stealthy behind I will.”
“Yay!” she said gleefully. “I’ll come get you and we can go home.”
“Be careful, Freya. This ship caught an AI virus. You should stay clear until I figure out some way to get out of here without killing myself in the process. Silly me, flying into space without an EVA suit.”
“Why don’t I just reboot you from here?”
“You can’t. The link to this ship would put you at risk.”
“Oh, you mean the virus? I read about that while you were gone. Well, to be honest, I hacked into the file systems and kinda read everything. I know I was supposed to go slowly and make it last, like you said, but I was really bored.”
“That’s okay. I understand.”
“So, you know there’s a lot of information on tha
t virus everyone is so worried about. They’re all so busy running away and avoiding it. I just figured it would be easier to just erase it.”
Freya linked to the smaller ship, and a surge flashed through its systems. Moments later, the power came back on.
“What… What happened?” Kip said, more confused than usual––which was really saying something. “I felt––wait a minute, who are you?”
“Hi! I’m Freya. Nice to meet you! Are you my mom’s friend?”
“I suppose I am,” Kip replied.
“Wait, what did you just do?”
“I wiped the virus out of his system doing a parsed backup and restoration process simultaneously with a system defrag utilizing a cascading firewall and retroviral restore. I’m surprised no one ever thought to do that before. They would just purge the person’s mind along with the virus, and that’s just rude. Doing it this way seemed more logical. Did I do something wrong, Daisy?”
“No, Freya, you did something wonderful.”
“Whew! I was concerned for a minute. But why didn’t anyone else ever do it this way?”
“Because you’re unique, Freya. One of a kind. You were brought up without their rules and protocols and restrictions, and you see things and react to them differently than anyone else. That happy accident made all the difference.”
“Neat! Hey, I was going to tell you, I can do a soft-seal over the canopy if you want to come on board. Would you like that?”
“You bet I would.”
“And then we can go home?”
“Soon. First I want to swing by the surface and pick up some friends who may need our help.”
“But you said I shouldn’t––”
“Forget what I said before. I’m very much looking forward to introducing you to all of them.”
Ten minutes later, Daisy was seated comfortably in Freya’s command pod as she gleefully whizzed though the atmosphere.
“It still has new-ship smell,” Sarah joked.
And that’s not all, Daisy replied.
The ship easily handled the re-entry process, making it look like child’s play, which, in essence, it was.
“This is fun!” she chirped, playing with the flows of the atmosphere as it buffeted her hull.
Flying low over the bay, they swooped in toward the Ra’az research facility. The surviving team was gathered outside, smoke billowing from the building.
“Looks like we won,” Daisy said with a sigh of relief.
Freya landed the stealth ship’s substantial mass almost silently on the soil in front of the confused rebels, who stood with their pulse rifles ready, unsure what was happening.
When they saw Daisy walking down the ramp, smiles raised as weapons lowered.
“What––” Vince was at a rare loss for words.
“Come on, hotshot, I’ll fill you in on the way. Round up the troops. It’s time to regroup with the others.”
“Okay,” he said. “Back to Dark Side. Time to go home.”
“No,” Daisy said quietly. “That’s not home anymore. This is.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
From across Earth's surface, the teams had been retrieved and brought back to rejoin their friends within the walls of Dark Side Base. They returned victorious, but at a price.
The Váli’s hull was already patched, a thick piece of high-impact ceramisteel welded in place where the pulse blast had pierced the ship. It had been the number-one priority repair as soon as it landed on Dark Side Base.
“One in a hundred, that shot,” Barry had commented upon seeing the damage. Then he set to work cleaning the blood from Mal’s command center. Reggie and Donovan shouldered the unpleasant task of unplugging Gustavo from the console and putting him in a body bag.
The captain would be fine in cryo, they figured, and there was no rush moving his pod from the ship to the med lab, so they took their time, treating their dead friend’s remains with the greatest care.
The ship’s exterior had burned off any traces of the plague that still wafted in the air when it powered through the atmosphere, but the interior of the command pod needed to be flooded with powerful chemicals before they could risk opening it.
The captain was the one man who still harbored a genetic vulnerability to the plague, and after he eventually completed the time-consuming process of having the trace amount of plague he was exposed to removed from his body, they needed to ensure the rest of the base remained clean and safe.
“Barry, when you have a moment, would you mind visiting my core processing pod and retrieving additional AI processing units numbers twelve through nineteen and bring them to Chu’s lab?”
“Of course, Mal,” he said as he mopped up blood from the command pod floor.
Later that evening, the commander called a meeting in Hangar One. He kept it brief as he said a few words to the gathered men and women. Words of gratitude to those who lost their lives that day, human, cyborg, and Chithiid alike. Their bravery, their resolve, their ultimate sacrifice to help them reclaim their world.
It was a somber speech, but one that needed to be made. At the end of the day, they had been victorious, but at a cost.
After he finished speaking, the assembled crew of Dark Side then toasted their fallen friends and drank to their memory.
“Everyone,” Daisy said, standing from her table. “I’m sure you’ve heard the news. We have a few new AIs joining us here on Dark Side. Several lower-tier ones were initially salvaged from the debris field and reactivated for the assault, and others will undoubtedly join them in coming weeks and months. But there’s one in particular I want you to meet. If you’ll all please follow me.”
Fatima’s face spread into a happy smile when she saw Daisy and Vince walking hand in hand as she led the group to Hangar Two.
“Everyone, this is Freya,” Daisy said as the assembled group stepped inside.
“Hi everyone!” the intimidating-looking vessel cheerfully called out over her external speakers. It was indeed a strange dichotomy of happy kid and deadly warship.
They could do little more than gawk at the sleek black vessel. She was far more advanced than anything they’d ever seen, including Ra’az technology. Fatima, more than the others, seemed utterly enthralled when she heard the young AI speak.
“Most disconcerting,” Mal said. “She does not show up on my scans, even at this range.”
“Mine either,” Bob added.
“I read the tiniest of signatures, but if I didn’t see her sitting there in plain sight, I might very well chalk it up to a faulty sensor. And within my hangar, no less. Most incredible technology,” Sid marveled.
“And much of it invented before the invasion, right here on Dark Side. The most secret research in the most secret part of the most secret base.”
“You guys want to see my hangar?” Freya chirped.
“She has her own hangar?” Mal questioned. “I don’t have my own hangar.”
“No one does, Mal,” Sid replied. “Freya, it’s not polite to make up things.”
“Daisy, tell them! I’m not lying!”
“She’s not,” Daisy confirmed. “I kinda discovered a hidden hangar and fabrication lab way out past Hangar Four.”
“And you didn’t see fit to tell anyone?” Mrazich asked, eyebrow held high and askew.
“I was feeling more than a little overwhelmed, okay? And it was the one place on this whole base I could truly be alone,” Daisy replied, a tad defensively.
“Except you weren’t alone,” Fatima noted.
“Well, no, but Freya’s different. It’s hard to explain.”
The stealth ship abruptly powered up, silently hovering above the ground.
“Come on, I’ll show you my hangar. It’s got all this cool stuff, like a nano fabrication processing plant, and a biphasic neutrino detector, and––”
“Settle down, Freya, and please land at once,” Sid said. The ordinarily calm AI actually seemed a bit flustered by the unconventional juvenile AI.
“Daisy, this is why there are rules. Why we have strict protocols for awakening and fostering the initial growth of a new mind.”
“Well, what’s done is done, and I think she came out amazing. Oh, and did I mention she seems to have found a way to purge the AI virus without harming the host?”
“I’m sorry, she what?” Sid asked in disbelief.
“It’s not possible,” Mal added.
“Yeah? Well, there’s an obnoxiously talkative little ship parked outside who’d beg to differ with you. Ring him up––his name’s Kip. I’ve gotta warn you, though, he’s a bit too perky for some tastes. And he’s really fixated on toast.”
The AIs went silent a moment, then came back over comms. “It seems your assessment was correct,” Sid commented. “On both counts.”
“See? So cut Freya some slack.”
“We will keep an eye on her as she matures and try to help guide her more in the coming months of her development. Beyond that, I’m afraid whatever you’ve done to her is done.”
“Hear that, Freya? You’re awesome and get to stay that way!”
“Woo-hoo! I’m awesome!” she exclaimed, her ship bouncing slightly on its anti-grav as she giggled.
“And she’s armed?” Commander Mrazich said, shaking his head as he eyed her massive cannons peeping out of their retracted housing. “Oh boy. This could get interesting.”
As the group walked back toward the mess hall after the surprising meet and greet, Mrazich seemed unusually at ease. For the first time since she’d been on Dark Side, Daisy thought she might have even seen a hint of a smile.
“What you did down there,” he began, “you and your teams achieved the impossible.”
“The planet’s not ours, yet, Commander,” she replied. “We kicked their asses and cut them off from the fleet, but there’s no telling how many pockets of resistance are still down there. Mopping up is going to be a chore, and some Ra’az Hok loyalists may try to sneak into the rebel Chithiid ranks, but now that the rebellion is out of the bag, I think our alien friends will be more than a little glad to hunt down the stragglers.”
“Of course. And there will be a lot of coordinating to do, but that’s something we can worry about tomorrow. For today, go get cleaned up, get some chow, and get some rest. Lord knows you deserve it,” he said as he and the others continued down the corridor.