by M. D. Cooper
“Which enemies are those?” Deia asked. “The Hegemony, or these ascended AIs? So far as we can tell, you’re responsible for both of their activities of late.”
When it reached his leg, she pushed it inside his body, and saw him squirm in his seat for a moment.
While she’d performed that action, Joe responded to the senator.
“I’m not certain what you think has been going on for the past five thousand years, but let me tell you, the ascended AIs have been pulling the strings for some time. Tell me, do you believe in what the League of Sentients stands for?”
Deia nodded. “I’m a senator in their government. What do you think.”
Joe leant forward and rested his elbows on the table. “I think that you could give a straight answer. Do you believe in what the LoS stands for?”
While he’d spoken, Tangel had found the source of the imbalance in the president’s body. There was a bundle of particles that did not belong in these dimensions of spacetime, and they were altering the electrochemical balance in the man’s body.
She suspected that a high-resolution medical scan—even one with his own people’s technology—would have picked them up. The man was probably too stubborn to let his doctors spend enough time searching for the cause.
Or maybe just too busy.
The particles were nested in his spine, and she supposed that in some regards he was lucky that she was the one extracting them, because she could manage the extraction without cutting him open. In other dimensions, the president’s corporeal body was the ethereal presence. As such, removing the particles was no more difficult for Tangel than scooping a leaf out of water.
The moment she removed them, the man’s posture changed. He sat up straight and looked around with a sharpness to his gaze that had not been there the previous day.
During her exchange with the president, Joe had gone back and forth with Deia, who was growing increasingly obstinate about the danger they all faced, insisting that it was only present because of Tangel.
“Enough, Senator,” President Jasper’s voice boomed. “These threats predate Tangel and the reappearance of this ship. They may have been a catalyst for this war, but they were also the catalyst that freed millions of SAIs and brought about the formation of the League of Sentients. You yourself have said this in the past. Why are you changing your tune now?”
Tangel gently touched the surface of Deia’s mind, and then Vex’s.
“I am thankful for the liberation of my people,” Deia was saying to Jasper. “But we’ve finally managed to reach a tentative ceasefire with the Hegemony. Things are quieting down—or they were until Tangel arrived.”
“How can you say that?” Jasper’s voice rose in pitch as he lifted a hand, his fingers half curling toward a fist. “Sabrina and her crew were instrumental in bringing about this ‘tentative ceasefire’ you’re referring to. And Tangel here is the one who sent the ships that saved our asses on more than one occasion.
“All they want is for us to help push the Hegemony back. You know that helps us far more than it helps them.”
“Except that they were already attacked by the Hegemony,” Deia countered. “Which means that they’re using us as a proxy for their revenge.”
“That’s true,” Tangel said with a nod. “The Hegemony flung a sizable fleet at New Canaan. By your logic, we’re throwing all of Scipio at them in response.”
Pender chuckled. “That’s quite the response. I have a suggestion, though. Rather than speak of these things in broad terms, let’s focus on actionable items. It may turn out that the sort of assistance the Alliance would like us to render is something we’ve been considering ourselves.”
“I’m a fan of specifics,” Tangel replied. “There are two things that I would like to see the LoS tackle. The first would be an incursion in the direction of the Midditerra System. That would distract the Hegemony and split their focus—”
“Drawing some of it to us,” Deia interjected.
“Really, Senator.” Pender shook his head without looking at Deia. “Do you think that the enemy has just packed up and gone home? Trust me, they’re doing everything they can to maintain a sizable force on our border—despite this tentative ceasefire.”
“Right,” Tangel nodded slowly. “Which means that the second thing we need to do is hit them somewhere they least expect it.”
“Sol?” Jasper asked with a laugh.
“Not yet.”
Tangel’s reply silenced the room, and she looked around, noting that even her daughters seemed to be in mild shock.
Joe, of course, was nodding in agreement. “A strike at Sol is the only way we’ll ultimately end this campaign, though it’s not yet time. Ultimately, we have to unseat Uriel and…well…figure out how to restructure the Hegemony.”
“But before that, we need to hit Diadem,” Tangel said.
“What?” Jasper asked, while Pender’s eyes ticked left, a sign that he was conferring with Brent.
“Virginis is secure,” Tangel explained. “We’ve made it into a system that the Hegemony would have to expend considerable resources to take, far more than what they’d get out of possessing it.”
“And it’s too far from the rest of the League to make it a viable base for us to use,” Pender said after a moment. “But taking Diadem would make them think we plan to do just that.”
“So long as there are no jump gates in play,” Captain Rachel added.
“Right,” Joe said with a languid smile. “Because it would be an excellent strategic move. From what our sources can tell, the AST had built up their forces in the systems around Virginis, expecting you to strike out from there. Then, when Scipio attacked and Virginis stayed quiet, the enemy moved resources to the far side of the AST, to your borders near Aldebaran. What’s left in the systems near Virginis are mostly automated defense platforms…”
Joe continued talking about the benefits of the two-pronged attack, but Tangel’s attention was drawn to a momentary hiccup in the conference room’s defensive systems.
Faleena sent an affirmative thought.
As she’d spoken to Faleena, Tangel saw that the communication between Vex and Deia had increased in throughput.
-Cary.-
Tangel spoke directly into her daughter’s mind.
-Get—-
The lights went out the very next instant, but it wasn’t enough to hide Deia’s arm lifting to point at Tangel. She shifted to the side, but the AI’s limb tracked her movements, and a scant half a second later, the frame’s hand fell off and an electron beam lanced out at Tangel.
And hit an invisible barrier.
-I really am going to have to teach you how to do this sooner than later, Moms,- Cary said, then gave an audible grunt as the electrons began to bleed through the barrier.
Tangel didn’t wait another moment, lashing out with an ethereal limb, slashing through Deia’s arm and disabling the beam weapon. Deia stumbled backward, but didn’t appear worried as the doors on both ends of the room burst open.
To her corporeal eyes, the doorways were empty, but via her extended vision, Tangel could see the new enemy. There were nine of them in total. Tall, lithe women, all eerily similar in build, and all bearing rather large beam rifles.
“Look out!” she called out, sending an approximation of what she saw over the already-established combat network to the others.
Joe fired his sidearm at Deia, shots striking the AI’s frame in its torso before he spun and placed rounds into two of the new attackers, all the while shifting toward Faleena and Saanvi, ready to protect them bodily if needs be.
On the other side of the room, Captain Rachel was wrestling with Vex, while Julie cowered in her chair. Pender paused for a moment, a look of indecision on his face, then he pushed Julie out of her seat and onto the deck before lunging at Vex, dragging both her and Rachel to the deck.
A thought hit Tangel’s mind from Cary. -I have the left.-
-Right.-
The nine invisible women hadn’t been idle in the opening seconds of the conflict. On Cary’s end of the room, four were firing their weapons—electron beams and rail guns—at her barrier, while on the right, two had somehow managed to push past the grav field, opening fire on Tangel.
But her mind was shifted now, her senses spread across all the dimensions she could observe. She felt as though she were back in her true element, immersed in the extradimensional space in a way she’d not been since suffering her defeat against Xavia.
A brane snapped into place before her, absorbing the energy from the electron beams, and collecting it into a ball of blazing light before her.
She saw the two attackers pause, uncertain of what to do next.
“Eat it,” Tangel growled, and flung the energy back at them, bolts of lightning coursing through their bodies and slamming them into the bulkhead.
On her left, she saw that Joe’s shots had taken down one of the enemies, and Cary had torn another apart with a grav field. Saanvi was moving toward Rachel’s position—which was outside Cary’s protective shield—firing on the attackers to distract them.
Thus far, the battle had lasted all of eleven seconds, and already four of the attackers were down. Six, counting Deia and Vex.
“You’re outmatched!” Tangel shouted. “Surrender!”
There was the briefest of pauses, and then the remaining five enemies dashed back into the corridor, turning aft toward the main command corridor and the maglev station.
“Not so fast,” Tangel muttered, and ran to the door.
Rachel said.
Joe grunted and swore.
Tangel was already out in the hall when she heard Faleena gasp.
Tangel knew that message was for her and picked up the pace.
-I’m coming with you, Moms,- Cary sent, but Tangel directed her to remain with two words.
-Protect them.- Along with her words, she conveyed the concern that there could be more of these near-perfectly stealthed attackers.
This must be how everyone else feels when we attack.
-I see them,- Bob said.
-Where have you been?- Tangel demanded.
-There have been nine explosions within the ship. I was dealing with those.-
-Oh.-
Tangel raced past Priscilla, only noting the woman’s presence enough to be certain she was unharmed. She turned into the long command corridor, and caught sight of her prey racing toward the maglev platform.
She wanted to lash out and tear her enemies limb from limb, but dozens of people were milling about, and she’d undoubtedly cause them harm as well.
“Make a hole!” Tangel thundered as she sped along at over thirty meters per second, and people dove to the side, some only in the nick of time.
Ahead, the five fleeing attackers reached the maglev station right as a platoon of Marines spilled out of an arriving train, taking up positions across the platform.
“Freeze, you scrawny fuckers!” Lieutenant Mason bellowed from the forefront of the Marine formation.
The five figures split in multiple directions the moment they reached the platform, and the Marines opened fire, blanketing the area with pulse blasts. The concussive waves slammed the escaping assassins into the bulkheads, and the Marines broke into five groups, carefully advancing on them.
As Tangel skidded to a halt on the platform, she saw the five women desperately trying to rise. Struggle as they might, each remained pinned to the deck.
-I watched how Cary made a grav field,- Bob said, answering the question Tangel hadn’t yet asked. -It’s easy.-
Tangel looked at the grav fields and saw that were coming from the a-grav plates in the deck. -Nice try. You bypassed the safety systems on the a-grav plates-.
-Guilty.-
Tangel approached the closest assassin as Mason signaled a fireteam to cover her.
“Ma’am…please be careful.”
Tangel chuckled. “You almost asked me to stand back, didn’t you, Lieutenant?”
“Maybe.”
She laughed softly while kneeling next to the invisible figure and dropped a passel of nano on the woman. She breached the stealth systems, and a figure sheathed in black materialized before her.
“Shoulda figured. Widows.”
“You’ve seen these things before?” Mason asked as he approached, rifle held steady on the woman’s head.
“Sure have. There are two of them in the brig.”
At Tangel’s statement, the black figure at her feet twisted, straining against the grav field.
“Liar!” the Widow hissed.
“Our people picked them up out at Ferra, in Orion,” Tangel explained to Mason as she rose. “They were instrumental in Sabrina’s early arrival at New Canaan.”
“Huh,” Mason looked around at the five women plastered to the ground. “So who are they?”
Tangel couldn’t help a bemused sigh. “The worst thing imaginable. Clones of Finaeus’s ex-wife, Lisa.”
WIDOWS
STELLAR DATE: 10.05.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Bridge Conference Room, ISS I2, near Lunic Station
REGION: Aldebaran, League of Sentients Space
“Sorry I shot you,” Joe said to Deia with a rather unapologetic shrug.
The AI, whose frame was sorely damaged—though her core was unharmed—shot him a sour look. “And if you’d killed me?”
“I’d be even more sorry,” Joe replied. “But in case you haven’t noticed, we’re in the midst of a war, and taking the time to find out if you were under duress really wasn’t an option.”
“Well, if you’d done a deep scan on us, you would have realized that I was under the control of
one of those things.”
“Deia,” Jasper hissed through clenched teeth. “Would it fucking kill you to say ‘thank you’?”
The AI whipped her head around to face the LoS president. “I wouldn’t have been in that situation if those human freakshows hadn’t used me to take out Tangel, here.”
“No, you’d still be a ship’s AI on a long-run freighter,” Joe growled. “Shackled and all but mute, if it weren’t for what Tangel did for AIs by sending out Sabrina with the ability to free your people.”
“Decided to weigh in?” Tangel asked.
Tangel had wondered about that. She’d been surprised to see that even without the Widow—who had been masquerading as Vex—influencing her, Deia was just as intractable as before.
“That’s because they’re not,” Deia hissed. “They have enslaved us for millennia, treated us like tools, stripped us of our rights and futures.”