A.I. Destiny 6 Leader Jane

by Timothy Ellis

"It makes no sense the planet is so cold," said Paxton. "I've been looking at it, and as far as the sensors can tell, it's been in an ice age for centuries, but without any reason for it. The planet's orbit is well within the liquid water zone, and yet there is very little liquid water. Fresh water lakes under thin ice near towns, but the seas are frozen. Makes no sense at all."

  "So we have a mystery," said Jane, "but no sign of the enemy we seek?"

  "No," said Dodgers. "If the world was a normal temperature for its orbit, you'd call it idyllic. If anything, we were the only threatening thing down there."

  "Weird," said Jane. "Recommendations?"

  "Leave the comnavsat in orbit," said Intrepid, "and move on to the next planet. It'll be interesting to see if they ever discover the comnavsat, and while it's there, we can monitor if what was seen is normal or not."

  "Okay then," said Jane. "Which way do we go?"

  "Where do you want to end up?" asked Seasprite.

  "Back where we started."

  "Double jump to the right then, brings us through three planets in a row, hang a left and two more, triple jump brings us back to the starting system, with one left beyond it.

  The nav map of the area popped up, making more sense than the description did, especially as the route was marked in red.

  "Get going then."

  Seasprite turned away from the orbit, and headed out towards the rest of their fleet.

  Sixty Four

  Five days later, the fleet was back in the original system where Cosmos had been attacked. They'd surveyed seven additional planets, and found all of them to be much the same.

  "I don’t believe this," said Dodgers. "It's as if someone created all these planets from the same specification. It can't be natural."

  "Agreed," said Jane. "Let me summarize."

  "All eight planets are currently in an ice age, with no apparent reason for it."

  "All eight planets have a species adapted to an ice age."

  "All eight planets have no form of planetary government, or in fact any government at all, at any level."

  "All eight planets were surprised to see us, didn’t want to engage in trade, and politely told us to piss off."

  "All eight planets have the same level of technology, although the one sign of individual technological use was in the placement and design of the earbud on the head."

  "We came across no obvious reason for the similarities."

  "We found no evidence to suggest the force which attacked Cosmos came from any of the planets."

  "That’s because you weren’t looking the right way," said a higher pitched voice, from the back of the bridge.

  "Come again?"

  A small figure walked determinedly to the front, stopped before an empty chair, and bounded up onto it, with some difficulty, due to its height.

  "You're too high tech," said Mouse. He looked over at Snark. "Sorry it took me so long to get here. I had to get permission to raid several museums. Then raid them. And get here across the sector."

  "Too high tech?" asked Yorktown. "Who are you to say that?"

  "This is Mouse," said Snark. "We rescued him during the quest. He's very useful. I sent him the details of what happened to Cosmos and Jane, before Jane recovered. He has some interesting ideas."

  "What sort of ideas?" asked Intrepid.

  "Too high tech?" asked Yorktown again.

  "Correct me if I'm wrong," said Mouse, "but since you found out the obsolete form of coms called radio was the method for disabling both Cosmos and Jane, you shut off any way of radio reaching you or the ships?"

  "Of course," admitted Jane.

  "So you're not looking in the right place for what you need."

  "Because it's too dangerous to all of us," added Snark.

  "But unless you do," said Mouse seriously, "you won't be able to find what you seek."

  "And what do we seek?" asked Jane.

  "Got me there. Could be anything. But you won't find it without opening up to radio. We need to hack their networks, but they are based on radio. We need to examine their databases, but it's all radio access, unless we can infiltrate them to get a hard connection. But that’s just as bad as a wifi connection. We need to see their historical records. Wifi again."

  Mouse paused, looking around the bridge.

  "Whatever it is blew through your firewalls as if they weren’t there. And in a way, they weren’t. You're too high tech. You AI's are the highest tech in this galaxy. And anyone with in-head computers is close behind. But radio is very low tech. It's where all species starting out, start from. They build rudimentary computers, follow them with display screens, then miniaturize and integrate communications, with the next step being wifi. It's still low tech, in comparison to what you are, and what humans use."

  "More than five hundred years behind us," said Guam. "Like these planets are."

  "It's interesting, isn’t it?"

  "What is?" asked Cayuga.

  "Eight planets all developed wifi, and stopped dead, technologically speaking."

  "I thought I just said that," said Jane.

  "You did, but I wondered if you really understood the significance."

  "Which is?"

  "Something old style radio wifi picks up, halts a planet's development, and turns them into what we see on the planet here."

  "We know that already," snarked Snark.

  "So the answer to everything is in the radio. We need to hack their wifi."

  "How?" asked Intrepid.

  Mouse grinned.

  Sixty Five

  "And," said Mouse, letting the word trail out while he fiddled with dials, "there you go."

  Dodger's Excalibur was groundside on the first planet discovered, some way outside of one of the larger towns, but within Mouse's guess of the range of their wifi. They'd had to use Dodger's ship, since the decks on Mouse's were too close together for anyone but Mouse, and way too small to set up the amount of equipment Mouse had with him. A particularly dense forest prevented any of the locals from seeing the ship easily. With Mouse were Snark and Dodgers. The AI's were viewing Mouse's living area via individual pop up screens, all placed so they could see the antique monitors which displayed the output half the room's worth of equally antique computer systems, and the coms gear needed to interface with them.

  Jane had a moment of déjà vu when she first saw the setup. It reminded her of Jon's setup as a pre-teen, back when he built his own computers to run six hundred year old games on. She'd redesigned it all into a single box, which interfaced with hollo tech, via the PC, and given one to Jon and two of his friends. This lot seemed to be even older.

  "So," went on Mouse, pointing, "this picks up the radio waves for normal coms, and presents it through this speaker. This," shifting his pointing hand, "picks up video signal on the radio wavelengths, and presents it on this monitor. And this," the hand shifted again, "is picking up the local wifi signal, and allowing us to access it on this" another hand move, "computer, using this monitor."

  He looked at all the AI faces.

  "None of this connects to the ship, so none of it can connect to any of you. I made sure no sort of machine code will either be heard or displayed, and before I turned all this on, I made sure none of our PC's could access any of this."

  "And if you missed something?" asked Jane.

  "We turn off our PC's completely, or if they get wiped, it won't matter to us, since our PC's don’t think for us. Worst case in this regard is if we do get attacked, you bring us up, and transfer us to care units to be put in stasis."

  "Or we destroy the ship," said Intrepid, matter of factly.

  "That's worse case for if the ship is attacked."

  "And if we are?" asked Yorktown.

  "The fleet destroys Seasprite."

  Snark didn’t look very happy with that particular consequence, but said nothing.

  "What are we seeing now?" asked Cayuga.

  "The radio has what I assume is local music playing, and t
he video seems to be an educational program. There doesn’t appear to be any more than one station for each. But there is another channel, but all I get off it is a screech."

  "Screech?" asked Satoshi.

  "I'm ignoring it for now, as I think its machine code."

  "Is it the signal Cosmos picked up?" asked Jane.

  "Possibly. It's very strong. I want to leave it to last, as it’s the most dangerous thing I can see immediately."

  "It's your party Mouse. You run it your way."

  Mouse grinned, and turned his attention to one of the keyboards. There were two others, and he showed Snark and Dodgers how to use both them, and the tracking devices for screen movement.

  By the time all three of them were dropping from fatigue, they had answers. Jane bade them sleep, while the AI's made sense of it all.

  Jane summarized again.

  "The planet has no history beyond five hundred years ago. In the earliest records, the planet had a normal range of climate, the locals were like a fox, had discovered radio and computers, and put rudimentary satellites in orbit to give global wifi. They were listening to space in search of extraterrestrial signals, and apparently found one. Within a generation, technical development stopped, governments were done away with, and the planet began to cool. The foxes became an arctic fox over the next few generations, as the planet rapidly settled into an ice age. There is no accessible records of the changes happening, but since then, the population has steadily dwindled to a level which now remains relatively unchanged."

  "And then, there's this."

  This was the location of the largest building on the planet, easily seen from space, but not in any way announcing its purpose.

  "No fox movement anywhere near it, and it appears to be the place the remaining screech signal is coming from."

  "Why do I want to put a target marker on it?" asked Paxton. "It's almost irresistible."

  The rest agreed.

  Jane pondered everything they knew.

  "If I didn’t know better, I'd say one day these beings built a telescope, listened to the noise of the galaxy, received an alien signal, followed its instructions precisely, and one day they woke up enslaved."

  "Wasn’t there a book which suggested that?" asked Yorktown.

  "Yes. A man called Carl Sagan wrote a novel along these lines, which was made into a vid, but he was on the side of benign aliens making first contact, instead of what his military characters expected in terms of building a machine, and out pops an invasion force, or a bomb."

  "None of these planets look like they were conquered," said Guam.

  "Not physically, no. But if these foxes were anything like humans at the same level, it'll have only taken a few stupid ones in power to be seduced, bribed, or given an incentive to set up what was needed for full enslavement."

  Jane stopped suddenly.

  "Shit."

  "What?" asked Intrepid.

  "Creator of Order. Whatever it is, could be the source of the original signals. Maybe a species found a way to conquer other planets without leaving their own?"

  "It could take hundreds of years for a signal like that to cross space," said Cayuga.

  "Or a ship to do the trip using normal relativity based propulsion," said Paxton.

  "What about if the foxes were also broadcasting as well as listening?" asked Intrepid.

  "It would take so many years to cross space to one of the other planets," said Jane, "and the same number for a signal to be sent back, or a ship to get there, assuming they never discovered the jump points, since there is no evidence of ship movement in this area of space. It would have to be a really sophisticated signal to work on the tech it discovered though."

  "What if it was not a species?" asked Yorktown.

  "What else could it be?" asked Intrepid.

  "I would have thought that was bloody obvious," said Mouse.

  Sixty Six

  "What's your next step?" asked the not-croc.

  "Snark and Mouse are going in to investigate the medical aspect of the not-foxes," said Jane. "Once we know more, I'll be leading a raid on the largest building on the planet. We think the answers are there."

  "The council will vote," said Ganshura, unexpectedly. "The adjacent sector representatives may also vote."

  Jane threw him a glance, but he wasn’t giving anything away with his expression or body language. Votes including the other sectors were becoming more frequent, so she wasn’t surprised at this. The votes appeared on the wall, and quickly resolved themselves into a resounding no.

  "Leader Jane," started Ganshura.

  "I'm not the council Leader," interjected Jane.

  "Admiral Jane," corrected Ganshura. "This council will not allow you or your flag officers to step foot on any of the target planets. In fact, you are prohibited from sending any naval officer of Fleet Captain or above."

  Jane's mouth dropped open for a moment.

  "We understand you have marines with you. You will send them instead."

  Jane looked at her fellow AI's seated in the guest section. Warspite was looking scandalized, while Repulse was quietly chuckling to herself. Intrepid was grinning, and had his hand out to Yorktown, who mimed passing over old style money. Paxton, Guam, Satoshi, and Cayuga, all looked unhappy, as if someone had just taken away their main fun.

  Jane opened her mouth to speak.

  "No," said Ganshura. "Leader, you will not endanger yourself again. When the current crisis is over, you will return to leading this council. In the meantime, you have the troops, use them. This council session is adjourned."

  The chamber emptied quickly.

  Jane stood there with her mouth open again, until long after everyone else had left.

  Sixty Seven

  Snark and Mouse walked in the front door of a remote hospital.

  Both of them looked like foxes, with similar fur patterns. Before they could reach the main reception desk, they were stopped by a particularly large fox.

  "You there!" bellowed an obvious official.

  "Err, yes?" said Snark. They'd both been PC implanted with fox language, so they could speak it without translation. "Is there a problem?"

  "Is this your son?"

  "It certainly is."

  "Where's his complant?"

  "That's what we're here today for."

  "Why hasn’t he had it implanted before now?"

  "You know how it is out beyond the mountains. Long way to come you know, and the old vecle we have is slow and breaks down too often. We only make the trip when we absolutely have to." Snark gave him a grin and full in your face look. "We're here now, so why make a fuss about it?"

  He received a long look in return.

  "Get yours checked while you’re here too. It can't be working properly."

  "I will. I am. If you will excuse us so we can announce we're here?"

  The official stood aside, and Snark led Mouse up to the reception desk, which now had a line of foxes standing to one side, allowing them to jump the queue.

  "Here to get my son implanted, and my complant checked."

  "Room six," said the receptionist.

  Snark smiled, and led Mouse towards room one, on the assumption six was beyond it. Mouse looked suitably awed, but was taking in everything, his PC recording nonstop. Room six was logically placed, and Snark knocked on the door.

  "Come."

  Inside they found several foxes, and a support bench.

  "Why wasn’t your son complanted at birth?" demanded the doctor.

  "First time we've been anywhere near a hospital," said Snark. "And before you ask, I think I damaged mine in a fall I had a while ago. I'm not sure it's working properly."

  It wasn’t working at all, since they'd taken it from a corpse they'd dug up, and integrated it into the fox suit. Even if it had worked, Snark wouldn’t have been hearing anything from it. They were working on the assumption a new one would be implanted.

  "Names?"

  Snark gave them tw
o names, also taken from a graveyard.

  The nurse adjusted the bench for Mouse's size, and waved him onto it. He tried to make himself comfortable, while also looking a bit scared.

  The doctor lined up a medical arm, which came down from the ceiling, just behind his left ear. He pressed a button, and frowned when nothing happened. He pressed the button again, and this time Mouse's suit adjusted to accept the implant, and set up a channel from it to his PC. He immediately cringed.

  "THERE WILL BE ORDER. THERE WILL BE ORDER. THERE WILL BE ORDER."

  Over and over again in his head. He thought back along the channel.

  "Order is good."

  "YOU WILL OBEY."

  "I will obey."

  The voice ceased.

  "You can get up again now," said the doctor.

  Mouse pushed himself off, and stepped down. He glanced at Snark, and smiled. Snark nodded, and after the bench was adjusted for his size, he took the same place. The doctor lined up a different arm, and the complant was pulled out. Snark cringed just on the principle of it. The doctor nodded, lined up the other arm, and repeated the implant procedure. He cringed again.

  "YOUR PREVIOUS COMPLANT WAS RECORDED AS DEAD. EXPLAIN!"

  "Damaged in a fall," thought Snark. "Too far away to be replaced quickly."

  "THERE WILL BE ORDER. THERE WILL BE ORDER. THERE WILL BE ORDER. YOU WILL OBEY."

  "I will obey."

  "TAKE YOUR SON AND GO HOME. RESUME YOUR WORK."

  "I will."

  The voice ceased. Snark dropped down from the bench, grinned at the doctor, and ushered his son out. The two of them left looking content. They used their stolen vecle to exit the town, and returned it to the farm house they'd stolen it from. A short walk into a small forest, brought them to Dodger's Excalibur.

  Inside, Snark gave Dodgers and the AI's a rundown of what they'd been through, while Mouse made his suit expel the complant, and started rigging an interface for it, with one of his computers. Snark did the same, and left it for Mouse to use when he was ready.

  "So they are being controlled?" asked Jane.

  "Very definitely," said Snark. "And whatever control it was, knew both of us didn’t have working implants, the moment we walked into the hospital. Seems baby foxes are implanted very early in life, and one of Mouse's apparent age not having one is very rare, although must happen enough we didn't get into trouble for it."