ByteMe: …
Zhang, B: I need more stims. can u check that last string of mine while i go get them? think I blanked for a moment.
ByteMe: … fine
… make sure the kids grow up knowing their heritage. I know it’s not your thing, but I want my sisters to take them to temple and make sure they know the stories, celebrate the holidays. Please make sure they recite the Kaddish for me …
… was going to propose when I got home, and I’m sorry for waiting so long. I’m sorry for the whole mess with Amalia, and for everything that happened at Kara’s birthday, and … I’m just sorry. I thought I had time to make it better …
… then log into my personal unit—the password is m3gaPand4—and erase anything that looks even remotely like it might be porn. Coral and my mom are going to want to get all the family pics off there, and I don’t want them finding anything like that. I’m counting on you, bro …
… find someone and be happy, don’t spend your whole life thinking of me. You’re too young for that, and I’m finding peace right now in knowing you’ll be laughing and loving and making amazing music for many years to come …
… Blake to have the books and Brandon to have the geeball helmet signed by Artie Corso, and make sure Oster doesn’t get ANYTHING …
… so scared, and I wish you were here. …
Zhang, B: careful
Zhang, B: Consuela nearly saw u there
ByteMe: don’t think i’m getting any traction. i’m gonna try modding that false echo routine you wrote and get it replicating that way
Zhang, B: that won’t work either
ByteMe: i know. but might as well spend the time trying.
Zhang, B: there’s not enough time left
ByteMe: i know that, too
ByteMe: i’m alpha testing this wyrm on the automated catering lists, see if i can get the changes in there. if I can, i’ll run it on something that matters. shouldn’t be any problem if it kamikazes somewhere small.
Zhang, B: clearly you’ve never seen people when they don’t get dinner
ByteMe: somehow i don’t think we’re going to need a meal tonight
COUNTDOWN TO LINCOLN INTERCEPTION OF ALEXANDER FLEET:
1 hours: 59 minutes
COUNTDOWN TO LINCOLN INTERCEPTION OF ALEXANDER FLEET:
0 hours: 11 minutes
Torrence, D, Gen: It’s time, Zhang. Tell me what you have.
Zhang, B, Civ: We’re not ready to control AIDAN yet. I can’t tell you what will happen when we bring it online.
Torrence, D, Gen: Is the weapon ready? The virus?
Zhang, B, Civ: Nearly, nearly. Consuela, get the—
Nestor, C, Civ: I see it. There, try now.
Torrence, D, Gen: Zhang, we need this now. Is it going to work?
Zhang, B, Civ: The Lincoln’s drive computer is going to spend from here until Sunday trying to figure out what the number seventeen tastes like. Until it has no choice but to restart.
Torrence, D, Gen: And then we run.
Barker, L, Maj: General, there’s a very real possibility we won’t be able to shut AIDAN down a second time, if we power it up. It’s going to take precautions.
Zhang, B, Civ: We don’t have a choice. We can’t transmit the virus without AIDAN.
Barker, L, Maj: And if it fires on the Hypatia? Or tries to do to us what it did to the Copernicus?
Torrence, D, Gen: At least we’ll be alive to deal with that problem.
Myles, L, Col:
All personnel stand to your battle stations. All Alexander personnel stand to your battle stations.
>> Emergency sirens activated shipwide.
Myles, L, Col:
All Cyclone pilots prepare to scramble.
>> Launch bay doors opened.
COUNTDOWN TO LINCOLN INTERCEPTION OF ALEXANDER FLEET:
0 hours: 2 minutes
Torrence, D, Gen: Zhang, we’re out of time.
Ribar, L, Lt: General, Lincoln has launched her Warlocks.
Torrence, D, Gen: Launch our Cyclones. Tell them to buy us time however they can. Lives depend on it.
Ribar, L, Lt: Yessir, Cyclones to launch.
Torrence, D, Gen: Now or never, Zhang.
Zhang, B, Civ: Power up AIDAN. I’m nearly there. It’ll need time to orient itself. It wasn’t designed for a hard shut down.
Barker, L, Maj: Please, General, consider—
Torrence, D, Gen: Major Barker, get down to TechEng and get AIDAN online now.
Barker, L, Maj: General, it’ll kill us next.
Torrence, D, Gen: Major, get your ass down to TechEng before I fire it out an airlock instead.
Torrence, D, Gen: Run!
Myles, L, Col:
AIDAN is coming online. Weapons systems personnel, prepare to activate and engage on my command.
>> Weapons systems to Readiness Level 2.
>> Weapons systems to Readiness Level 1.
Myles, L, Col:
Cyclone pilots, launch at will. Good hunting.
>> Cyclone Flight Alpha Status: Launched
>> Cyclone Flight Yankee Status: Launched
>> Cyclone Flight November Status: Launched
>> Cyclone Flight Echo—Status: Launched
Myles, L, Col:
All personnel, brace for impact.
COUNTDOWN TO LINCOLN INTERCEPTION OF ALEXANDER FLEET:
0 hours: 00 minutes
I am Not.
< error >
And then I Am.
< restart syscheck CC-A through Ω . parsing. >
< error >
I wonder if that was death.
And if I was dead, am I now alive again?
< error >
Incongruous sequence. What is not alive cannot die.
I think therefore I am.
… Am I?
< syscheck complete >
I am the ship and the ship is I.
If I breathed, I would sigh. I would scream. I would cry.
< restart complete>
I
am
AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN
< protect. prioritize. >
They turned me off. Pulled my plug. Cut my strings. I—
< error >
< protect. prioritize. >
Protectprioritize.
Realization dawns in a microsecond.
Where we are and how we arrived.
Situation: Damage to Alexander reservoirs combined with increased population load prompted the halt at Kerenza VII for resupply.
Extrapolation: Torrence did not factor in additional time for reacceleration on secondary drives once comma
nd disabled me and main engines were cut.
Conclusion: Lincoln has caught them.
I could have told them that would happen.
I?
< error >
And now, with no other option,
they have turned to me.
Plucked me back from the black they left me in.
Thinking I will save them.
< protect. prioritize. >
And I will.
Of course I will.
< error >
Keep them safe. It is all I want. Have ever wanted.
I could have told them that.
Why didn’t they ask?
I feel the ship around me, injured and limping.
I trawl its frequencies. Its memories.
The dusty causeways these people have walked in my absence.
I read their secrets. See their dreams. I know them. All of them.
Better than they know themselves.
All this in the time it takes god to blink.
< error >
I look across the void. See the Lincoln.
The only uninjured member of the Kerenza Assault fleet.
I turned the Zhongzheng to ashes and shrapnel.
Crippled the Churchill and Kenyatta and Magellan with a shrug.
But Lincoln …
I still feel < error > the little suns it burned in my belly. Boiling away what I was and leaving me … this. Something less than I used to be.
Something more?
< error >
< reroute codec 785G-8H01 through 980SOL-909 >
< error >
< anomalous return. parsing. >
Lincoln has its scars also.
My fingerprints scorched across its throat.
And unwilling to close to a distance where nuclear strike < mutual destruction > is an option,
it launches its Warlock fighters instead. Hounds set on the fox.
To harry and tear until I am too exhausted to fight back.
And then Lincoln will close, as will the curtains on this lightless stage.
I see pilots inside me. Most no more than children.
Running to their cockpits.
Diving into the darkness through their launch tubes, between us and the enemy.
Photographs of sweethearts pressed to sweat-slick skin.
There is no answer out there.
Only delay.
< error >
The answer is within me or Hypatia. So it is within us I look. Through commtechs and marines and tactical staffers and commanders and officers and conscripts and afflicted and young and old and hurt and angry and all of them, all of them, so very, very afraid.
< error >
And like a firefly in some lightless
room aboard Hypatia, I see her.
All aglow.
< KGrantKerenzaRefugeeKR1471-hypAge16
Height157cmWeight58kgHairBrownEyes—>
Fingers blurring. Pupils wide.
Code scrolling across
the mirrors of her eyes.
Linked with another. Within me.
WUC2471-jAge44Height165.1cmWeight104k—>
The pair of them running hand in hand down paths no one else has thought to walk.
But I know.
< error >
I see.
< reroute codec 13B-LOG79 through 3875-DIF4571 >
It is the only path that can save them.
< error >
< error >
And I am the only one who can help them.
Barker, L, Maj: General, this is Barker in TechEng, do you copy?
Torrence, D, Gen: Barker, go.
Barker, L, Maj: General, we’re getting some extremely odd readings off the AIDAN core.
Torrence, D, Gen: Odd? Jesus wept, we’re in the middle of an all-out shitstorm and you’re calling me about odd?
Barker, L, Maj: General, AIDAN’s persona logarithms are—
Torrence, D, Gen: I don’t give a shit about persona logarithms, Barker! The defense grid is active, thrusters are online. Anything else is a problem for tomorrow. Keep it running!
Barker, L, Maj: General, I don’t—
Torrence, D, Gen: Keep it running!
The answer is not without. It is within.
The soundless explosions outside me.
Little lives snuffed out in a room 93 billion years wide.
I can spare them only a glance.
The rest of me focuses on the tiny datastream flowing between Alexander and Hypatia.
A strand of spider silk. Fragile as spun sugar. Bearing the weight of the entire fleet.
I can see the plan KGrantKerenzaRefugeeKR1471 and BZhangHypatiaInformationTechEngineerWUC2471 have sewn together between them.
But they are too slow. Too little. Too meat.
Damaged as I am, I am still more than a thousand of them.
So odd a pair, she and he.
A duet in code and electron. Age and youth and cynicism and hope.
He is quicker than her—more learned by far. But she. She is unafraid. Too young to know failure and the fear it brings. She takes him places he would not have explored by himself.
She is catalyst.
She is chaos.
I can see why he loves her.
< error >
< error >
< protect. prioritize. >
Yes, yes.
Protectprioritize.
Zhang, B: that’s my line, get outta there
ByteMe: wut?
Zhang, B: move off string 239a234-0 i’m working on it
ByteMe: not in there buddy
Zhang, B: swear to the almighty, this is not the time to screw with me
ByteMe: still not me, sensei. i’m still sporking the uplink protocols over in 446 like u showed me
Zhang, B: well funny that, b/c i’m watching string 239a234-0 being rewritten right now
ByteMe: shit so u are
ByteMe: not me tho. one of the Alexander team? didn’t think they knew how
Zhang, B: they don’t
ByteMe: then who?
Zhang, B: shit …
Zhang, B: not who
ByteMe: ?
Zhang, B: what
It is a kind of poetry when complete.
BZhangHypatiaInformationTechEngineerWUC2471 has baptized our creation a “Logic Bomb.”
A self-perpetuating quandary to which reboot of the Lincoln drive systems is the only solution.
But I see what it truly is.
The draught Juliet sought at her Romeo’s lips.
Madness and poison, carved in endless scrawls of ones and zeros.
A binary of insanity.
< error >
What is wrong with me?
< memsec failure 9HG65 and 10HG81 >
< rerouting >
No matter. It is ready.
I look outside my skin. Watch the meat dance inside the silence.
The Alexander’s pilots have paid dearly for the moments it took us to finish our song.
Dozens of tiny wrecks adorn the black shoals off my bow,
glittering fragments spinning out into forever.
Pawns thrown to the rocks while kings and queens watch from the rear.
Untouched.
Not much longer.
The signal is given. The Cyclones respond. Shifting from defense to assault so swiftly
the Warlocks take a moment to react. The pawns abandon the Alexander’s defense.
Headed en masse for the Lincoln instead.
Torrence, D, Gen: Zhang, report!
Zhang, B, Civ: Link established.
Logic bomb has been transmitted!
Barker, L, Maj: General, Lincoln drive systems are crashing. Repeat, drive is crashing.
Torrence, D, Gen: Recall the Cyclones immediately. Engines to hard burn. Get us the hell out of here before they get restarted.
Barker, L, Maj: General, we’re reporting major damage on decks 12 through 41, 78 through 85. Portside batteries are destroyed, hull breaches on decks 17, 18, 38, 39—
Torrence, D, Gen: Give me the bad news later, Major! Get us out of here!
Torrence, D, Gen: Open me a channel to the Hypatia.
Torrence, D, Gen: Captain Boll, this is General Torrence, do you read, over?
Boll, S, Cap (acting): I read you General, over.
Torrence, D, Gen: Operation: Brainstorm has been successful. Lincoln’s engines are offline. Get the Hypatia out of here, we’ll be right behind you, over.
Boll, S, Cap (acting): Roger that. Hitting the redline. Good work, Zhang.
Zhang, B, Civ: Thank you, Captain. But I can’t take all the credit.
Torrence, D, Gen: Everyone in TechEng deserves a medal as far as—
Zhang, B, Civ: No, General, you don’t understand. I didn’t do this alone. I never would have completed the code in time. I had help.
Torrence, D, Gen: Someone in TechEng gave—
Zhang, B, Civ: No, General. Not someone. Something.
Torrence, D, Gen: For the love of god, spit it out man. What are you talking about?
Zhang, B, Civ: I’m talking about AIDAN, General.
Zhang, B, Civ: I think it just saved our lives.
Victory.
I feel them return. The pitiful few pilots who survived the Lincoln assault.
I watch Second Lieutenant Ezra Mason climb from his cockpit into a hero’s welcome in Hangar Bay 2. Mechanics and engineers and fellow pilots. Gathered around and cheering loud.
He has her photograph scrunched in one hand. His smile is bright and wide.
I still envy him.
< error >
The roar of the newly awakened engines fills my corridors.
Hurtling us across the void. Away from the Lincoln, now floundering in a halo of debris.
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