by M. D. Cooper
Gladys’s voice returned, sounding surprised.
As both AIs acknowledged their instructions, Terrance took a moment to consider how brazen the Norden Cartel had become, to fly shuttles within the ring structure itself.
Terrance felt Eric's attention turn back to him.
BOARDING THE SYLVAN
STELLAR DATE: 07.07.3189 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: NorthStar Industries Privately Held Space
REGION: El Dorado Ring, Alpha Centauri System
“One of El Dorado’s largest import/export companies, NorthStar Industries supplies goods and services to the many mining operations throughout the Dust Ring. Over sixty-five percent of their annual revenue comes from soft goods miners need to survive in the black. NorthStar is proud to be celebrating twenty-five years in the service industry….”
The little ship handled like a dream. It was incredibly responsive, which was a good thing, given what Jason and Tobias were attempting to do.
They were flying dark and silent, in a ship made of an ultra-black material with a total hemispherical reflectance of 0.009%, which made it one of the blackest materials known, with stray-light suppression across standard—as well as far-infrared—spectral regions.
Theoretically, they should be able to pass through the security perimeter that marked NorthStar Industries-held space without detection.
Theoretically.
Jason had sent Calista a plot that would take them in an arc past the three NorthStar structures that extended vertically from the company’s base of operations on the ring.
There was enough EM emanating from those structures that micro-burns could be performed to adjust, and the maneuvers would register as background noise level, thus keeping them undetectable.
This first pass was just for listening. After Jason and Calista transitioned out of NorthStar space, they could regroup and formulate a plan for rescue, based on the data they acquired.
Both fighters had cut their burns, and were now using an outbound freighter that was passing between them and NorthStar to hide the attitude adjustments they were making with thrusters before going ballistic.
It was a watch-and-wait game, as the two fighters sought the unique geometric signal that Jason’s snowflake app had been programmed to find.
Jason had almost given up hope. They’d made their third adjustment and were rounding the far vertical, when Tobias highlighted a yacht, moored at the end of the spire.
Sensors ran the yacht’s profile against STA records. It was registered as the Sylvan, Victoria North’s personal pleasure yacht.
Jason watched the display projected onto his HUD. If he’d calculated correctly, the fighters would perfectly align with the yacht’s orbital velocity and attitude. Or rather, the velocity and orbital attitude of the spire the yacht was tethered to. It would be a fancy piece of flying—and require math, lots of math.
The fighters slowly crept up alongside the yacht, and now made the tiniest of microadjustments, using puffs of compressed air too small for the yacht’s sensors to pick up.
Carefully, Jason maneuvered the ship until they hovered near an airlock. On his overlay, he saw Calista, tucked in tight, with the airlock now sandwiched between the two fighters.
Calista had explained the nano was something new and special, though Jason hadn’t really paid much attention to the description—the Icarus fighter was far more engrossing—but Tobias had been impressed, and that was good enough for Jason.
Tobias guided the hooks with an expert touch, and they gently made contact with each side of the airlock. Jason focused on maintaining precise separation between the two crafts, as Tobias went to work directing the nano to spin out its filaments, which would allow it to penetrate the hull.
A few moments later, Jason sensed surprise from Tobias, but before he could ask what was going on, he felt the AI shut him out.
* * * * *
Calista watched as the grappling hooks—rather, the nano on the grappling hooks—cycled the airlock, and it began to slide open.
That was her cue.
She sealed her helmet and checked all the safety interlocks on her suit. Green and good to go.
She unclipped herself from the pilot’s cradle and pushed gently off, drifting up to the fighter’s canopy.
With a half-twist, she reached back to grab her weapons kit. With her back now to the canopy, she clipped her tether to the ring at the top of the pilots’ cradle and mentally reached for the toggle that would trigger its release.
The canopy retracted, and Calista pushed gently off the pilot’s cradle. It had been a while since her last spacewalk, but it was like riding a bike, and her body’s kinetic memory kicked in.
She floated out and, with a few judicious tugs on the tether, lowered herself to the wing and engaged the maglocks on her boots. Disengaging the tether, she turned to face the airlock, and then looked over at Jason, whose stance mirrored hers on the wing of his fighter.
Calista found herself slightly disappointed; she obviously wasn't going to be impressing Jason with her own abilities, given how naturally Jason moved. But then she mentally shrugged. Shannon had told her he was good—and the guy did fly a lot of freighters.
Damn. She would be hard-pressed to beat that. One brief burst of air, and she was floating downward to land next to him.
Something in Tobias’ voice brought Calista's full attention to the Weapon Born, and she looked sharply at Jason as he queried the AI.
* * * * *
The Sylvan's airlock had proven to be no match for Enfield's nano filaments. Once the two humans were safely inside, Tobias had spun the remaining nano out and sent it into the yacht. The filaments had traced the airlock's control interface back to a main junction in the ship's data trunk line, not too far away.
What he found there startled him more than it should have, and he found himself shutting Jason out, fighting to control two-hundred-year-old emotions as he realized what he had just felt.
He knew that the shackling program had been resurrected—that was what this op was all about, freeing the AIs who had fallen victim to it. But to come face-to-face with it after more than a century lifted it out of the abstract and planted it firmly into reality.
The reality he faced now was that a shackled AI was controlling this sh
ip.
Tobias could never forget the metallic, buzzing sting the shackles emanated; they resonated in a distinct, unpleasant way. Yet as discordant as the shackles felt from his position as an outside observer, he knew firsthand that the restraints were orders of magnitude worse for the AI imprisoned within them.
Tobias realized he would need to work fast. The ship’s AI would be compelled to report the airlock breach and the presence of intruders the moment she sensed them, and, not knowing the shackled AI's abilities, he didn't completely trust that his countermeasures would be sufficient to hide the humans.
Swiftly, he constructed a small expanse similar to the one in which Shannon had caged him. Although, with this expanse, the cage was built, not to keep someone in, but to keep something out. It was an imperfect solution, a temporary stopgap measure, nothing more. But for now, it would do.
Then he used one of the tricks he learned from his days back in Sol, during the last Sentience War. He opened a specially buffered tunnel between himself and the shackled AI.
Finally, he pinged her.
Her response to the ping opened a port, data travelling down the tunnel. It was the software equivalent of a venturi valve. Its pathway first narrowed, and then widened, causing certain code to speed faster while other code lagged behind.
Through this artifice, the shackled AI could, in effect, outrun the shackles momentarily.
It would be long enough for Tobias to insert a buffer of code into the AI’s core, padding her from the shackles and isolating the pain of reprisal created by her resistance to its control. He could do nothing to remove the metallic taste or the maddening, buzzing sting, but at least now she was her own person again, and the shackles were just an annoyance, rather than a tormenting captor.
The figure that materialized before him was of a young woman, gaunt and frail. Her eyes were sunken and bruised. Her hair hung limply around her face, and her cheeks were hollow. He knew this physical representation mirrored the depravations she had suffered during her captivity.
“Hello,” he said gently, smiling and holding out a hand to her. “You're safe in here for the moment. The shackles cannot reach you.”
She had flinched as he raised his arm, and Tobias cursed quietly to himself at this additional sign of abuse. Outwardly, he maintained an air of calm reassurance.
After a moment, she took a tentative step toward him, and then another. “Who...who are you?” Her voice trembled, the words a whisper.
He smiled encouragingly. “My name is Tobias. I'm here to rescue you.”
* * * * *
Jason shot Calista a look as he queried Tobias. She shook her head, as mystified as he was. The AI quickly explained.
Calista looked concerned.
Tobias brought up a map of the Sylvan, dropped the ‘you are here’ pin at the airlock, and sent a dotted line down a corridor, up a flight, and aft by several dozen meters.
Calista’s avatar tapped two intersections.
Jason got the distinct impression that the AI was barely holding it together, and he felt the reassurance Tobias radiated, and a peripheral…something—a cushion, maybe?—that the other AI had wrapped her in to bolster her.
She raised an eyebrow as he pulled a lightwand out of his pack.
Calista snorted, and they exited the airlock, heading toward Tobias’ dotted line.
* * * * *
Terrance was crouched under the ‘office’ car. Landon was tucked alongside the C&C car, having rigged the recycling station to blow, and passed the control to Gladys, courtesy of Enfield’s microdrones.
Terrance drew a deep breath and nodded, bracing himself to see death up close and personal for the first time.
Eric’s words were reassuring and terrifying at the same time. As a safety net, though, it worked.
He raised his rifle, switching to its rail-accelerated firing mode. The AI waited until the guard’s attention was drawn by a clattering noise on the far side of the maglev platform, courtesy of Logan. Once the guard turned away, Eric flashed a green light on Terrance’s HUD.
Terrance fired three barely audible shots center mass and one to the head, and the man was down. Terrance was a practiced shot, but he suspected Eric’s hand had been there to guide his aim.
He glanced over at Landon. The AI-mech had made it over to Terrance in the time it took him to draw a single breath. At Eric’s prompting, Terrance laid a hand on the car door’s lock, and it slid open, revealing a pale but resolute man, case in hand.
Landon beckoned, and the man wasted no time exiting.
As the three made their way down the spur to the exit, Landon handed the agent a helmet.
Terrance glanced over to see Joel shrug out of his jacket, revealing a fitted skinsuit underneath. As they ran, the man connected the helmet to the suit.
Terrance heard shouts from below, and Gladys’s voice sang out in their minds.
At that, the three broke into a sprint, rushing across the platform. Landon urged the two humans to the front so that his broad mech frame could provide cover from any pursuers.
They leapt off the maglev platform, and above them, Terrance could hear shots being exchanged. He was tempted to turn and look, but then he and the man running at his side were thrown to the ground, as the explosives on the maglev cars blew.
Joel's helmet came free and
went skidding across the deck, and Landon leapt to catch it before it fell down a conduit run. Terrance helped the agent up, and Landon resealed his helmet with an efficiency no human could match.
Landon gestured to the far side of the maglev track, and the three leapt over it and crouched on its leeward side, awaiting the explosion.
* * * * *
Jason and Calista froze as alarms began wailing throughout the Sylvan.
There was one more intersection between them and the cargo bay. Jason and Calista picked up the pace.
The cargo bay doors slid open just as Jason heard voices approaching their position.
The two sprinted through the doors, and Tobias closed them behind.
Well, that’s a relief.
Jason's eyes tracked through the bay, noting the spot on his HUD where the kidnapped AIs were being held: behind a stack of shipping containers tucked into a corner.
He gestured toward them, and he and Calista hurried forward. A few seconds later, warning lights began to strobe, indicating an electrostatic field had been engaged at the bay entrance. Jason mentally thanked Tobias—and Ashley—for muting the klaxon that usually accompanied the strobes, as the bay doors began to open.
Hovering immediately outside the doors was Enfield’s shuttle.