“You don’t want to give up?” asked Anne.
“Not a chance,” I said. “This is just the beginning.”
14
Bishop’s Ultimatum
“Indeed,” said Sami. “This could be potentially entertaining.”
“Of course, you would think so,” snapped Anne. “You don't need to worry since you're a machine.”
“I beg your pardon?” blurted Sami. “A machine? Are you quite insane? I am a state-of-the-art strategic combat A.I.”
“Children,” said Steve. “We have other issues to worry about.”
“Sorry,” said Anne and Sami in unison like scolded children.
“Sami,” I said. “Get us heading toward the dark side of the moon.”
“Understood,” said Sami. “I will plot a wide course to avoid their sensor net.”
“Great,” I said. “Let's get some sleep. We're going to need our wits about us for the next few days.”
I woke to the sound of Sami calling my name. “What?” I said, still groggy.
“We’ve reached a safe area to land,” he said.
“How?” I asked. “We should still be days out from the moon.”
“Simple, my sentient meat-bag friend,” he said. “I plotted an FTL jump and then used sublight engines to travel the remainder of the distance undetected. But alas, I should not have expected you to come up with such a brilliant plan. After all, you are only human…”
“Ha, ha,” I said as I rose to wake the others. “So, no one’s detected us then?”
“Not as far as I can tell with these archaic sensors.”
“Good. Maybe with some luck, we’ll be able to get onto the colony ship without anyone catching us.”
“I still do not understand how you plan to get to the other side of the moon undetected,” he said. “It’s not like you can use the Strider. You would be detected before getting into visual range.
“That’s true,” I said. “We’ll need to buy a ship.”
“What’s that about buying a ship?” asked Steve as he stretched.
“We need to sell some cargo and buy another ship,” I said. “The fewer questions they ask, the better for our health.”
“I gotcha,” he said. “I think I know just the guy. We’ll have to offer him something pretty valuable, however.”
“What about one of the reactor components?” asked Anne. “Can’t be too many ships that don’t need replacements these days.”
Steve nodded. “That might work. I’ll make some inquiries.”
“Sami,” I said. “Can you do some kind of A.I. magic and get him a secure channel?”
“Of course,” he said. “What do you take me for? A blender?” I ignored him, but Anne snickered.
We loaded one of the reactor components onto the Strider and flew a ways away from the Grey Wolf. We had to leave the protective covering of shadow, but we managed to stay out of the colonial sensor network. We landed and waited, ever expecting to be double-crossed and have the colonial military breathing down our throats at any time.
“There they are,” said Steve, pointing out the canopy window. “And our new ship.” I looked up at them. One wasn’t so bad, but the other one…
“It looks like it belongs in a museum,” I said in disbelief.
“You didn’t say it had to be pretty or fast, just that it had to get us in without getting caught,” he said. “Well, here is my solution.”
“You realize we’re getting ripped off?” I asked.
“Yup,” he responded. “But unfortunately, ‘no questions asked’ raises the price significantly. You should know that…”
“I suppose,” I said. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
We traded the reactor component for the other ship and parted ways as quickly as possible. There were no ship registrations or anything like that anymore, so having it tracked to any recent sales transaction wasn’t a concern for either party.
The little ship hummed along as we slowly made our way back to the Grey Wolf. A few times. the power flickered. And a few times, I almost lost control of the ship, but I managed to keep it flying straight. We’d agreed not to use comms unless absolutely necessary, so I couldn’t report my situation to Anne.
When we finally arrived at the Grey Wolf, I slowly guided the little ship down to the landing platform. We settled both ships down in the massive docking bay of the freighter and exited.
Anne ran up to us. “Holy crap!” she exclaimed. “It’s a hunk of junk!”
“Easy,” said Steve. “It’ll get the job done, and it’s ours, clean and clear.”
“It’s a beginner ship,” I said. “It’ll be perfect. It does need some work though.”
I ran some synapse cabling to the new ship and plugged it into the freighter. It would relieve pressure on its reactor, and connect it into my neural interface helmet. From there I could diagnose the ship a lot easier than I could in person.
“You do realize that…thing…has a viral infection, right?” Sami’s voice echoed throughout the docking bay. “And you’ve connected it in, without thinking. Lucky for you, I stopped it from spreading to the other systems connected to it…”
Anne and Steve both glared at me. I shrugged. “Oops,” I said. They shook their heads at me and returned to working on the Strider. I headed inside and donned my neural interface helmet. The Strider and the Grey Wolf both flooded my mind with sensory information. At the edge of my awareness, I could feel the wall that Sami had put up to block out the new ship and its virus.
What can you tell me about the virus?
“Not much,” he whispered. ”It’s an older virus but a dangerous one. Between the two of us, we should be able to eradicate it. Have you ever used a NAT?”
What the heck’s a NAT?
“Neural Antivirus Tool,” he whispered. “I will provide you with the necessary knowledge. Please stand by…”
Suddenly, I knew things I hadn’t known a moment before. Okay, I’m ready.
My awareness changed. I was no longer part of the ship, per se, but in it. I was standing in a hallway with a bulkhead in front of me. Beside me stood a mechanical man holding a massive rifle. I looked down at my hands, and I held a rifle similar to his.
“Sami?” I asked.
“In the flesh,” he said. “Err, well, not exactly.” He laughed.
“Right,” I said. “So, I understand how the gun works, but what do we do?”
“Easy,” he said. “We open that door and blast anything that comes through.”
“It’s almost like some sort of military target training?” I asked.
“Precisely,” he said. “With one minor difference…”
“And that is?”
“Well...” He hesitated. “Let’s just say don’t let them touch you. It would be bad for your health.”
“Oh, great,” I said.” So, this isn’t just some video game.”
“Indeed not,” he said. “Are you ready?”
I instinctively pulled a lever on the side of the gun. It sprung back and the green light turned red. It made a whine like a charging sound. “Ready,” I said.
Sami looked at the door and nodded. It slid open, and a flock of glowing balls of energy swarmed forward at us.
We began firing as fast as we could. I missed several times at first, but I quickly got the hang of shooting the moving targets. “This isn’t so bad,” I said.
“Just wait,” he said. “This is only the first wave.”
“Of how many?” I asked.
“Of as many as it takes before we get to the computer core,” he said. “They will keep regenerating until the host is cleansed.”
“I see,” I said. “What now?”
“Move up, watch your flanks. Also watch above and even below. They can literally come from anywhere.”
“Got it,” I said. “Let’s go.”
We cleared hallway after hallway for what felt like hours. We came upon a large chamber, and a different kind of bug ca
me after us. It looked like a glowing spider the size of a cargo crate, but it moved with such speed I had trouble tracking it. Sami, however, expertly led his target and annihilated it.
“Aim farther ahead of them,” he said. I did as I was told and missed again. Finally, I decided to hold the trigger down and charge up a larger blast. I trusted my instincts and let it fly farther ahead of it than I figured I needed to. The explosion took out the bug and its two friends that flanked it.
“Not bad,” he said. “You show great potential.”
“Thanks. Now let’s get this over with. We’ve spent way too much time in here.”
“Relax,” said Sami. “It’s only been a few minutes.”
“We’ve been in here for hours, Sami.”
“Technically, yes,” he said. “In an accelerated state. Outside, it’s been eight minutes thirty-seven seconds. Steve and Anne are, uh, occupying themselves elsewhere and won’t be needing either of us for a little while longer. We have plenty of time.”
“I see,” I said. “Well, if that’s the case, lead on.”
Sami nodded and rounded the corner into the next doorway. “Two on the right,” he said. “Three on the left.” He rolled forward, and a few blasts of energy hit the wall where his head had been.
“You didn’t mention they’d be firing back!” I yelled up the corridor.
“You didn’t ask!” he yelled back. “Roll!”
I dove forward, mimicking his movements. I came up on my feet right next to him behind a corner of a bulkhead. “What now?” I asked.
He pulled out a round cylinder and pressed the button on top. Lights started blinking in sequence, and he tossed it around the corner. The room shook as a muffled whoomp from a detonation cleared the room. He calmly walked forward as if there were no threats. “Defragmentation grenade,” he said.
“Don’t you mean fragmentation?” I asked.
“Not at all,” he said. “You’re in a computer system.” I just nodded. “We’re almost at the CPU core. Just a little farther.”
“Lead on,” I said.
15
We pushed forward, clearing several more chambers, until we reached the central processing unit. I looked around, admiring the myriad of connections coming and going. In the center, however, was a giant monster like I’d seen on some of the television shows in the historical archives. It had a bunch of tentacles, and they all reached out into the various systems.
“Nasty, isn’t it?” asked Sami. “It’s infected every part of this system. If we didn’t stop it earlier, it’d have infected both ships as well.”
“How do we kill it?” I asked. “I doubt it’s as simple as dealing with everything else up until now.”
“Quite right,” he said. “Shoot for the arms, remove its infection points. Once enough of them are free, we can deal with the central mass.”
I nodded. Poking my head around the corner, I chose the nearest five tentacles and fired. The virus screamed in agony and rage as its tentacles exploded into bits of light. I ducked back just in time to dodge several spikes launched at me. Upon looking at the wall, I noticed they were embedded quite deeply. The cracks in the bulkhead glowed yellow as it became infected.
Rolling away from the bulkhead, I fired the NAT at the spikes. They disintegrated, and the cracks turned black. “Okay,” I said. “I think I got the hang of this.” I turned around and took out several more tentacles. Across the hallway from me, Sami was doing the same, just with a lot more skill and grace than I had. “Show off!” I yelled.
“Am not,” he said. “I’m just doing what I was designed to do.”
I laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.” I dodged several more spikes. I couldn’t afford to get hit by those things. Nor could I afford for one of the spikes to infect anything I was standing in front of. We had to make sure the infection was completely gone.
I looked up to target more tentacles, but they’d all been destroyed. I charged the rifle to its maximum setting and looked to Sami. Energy gathered at the tip of his rifle as well. He nodded to me. We dove from cover at the same time and unleashed the massive energy blasts at the central mass of the viral infection.
Two more tentacles we hadn’t seen before lashed out and smashed us against the walls. I crumbled to the ground, dropping the rifle. Sami, however, grabbed the tentacle with one hand. The virus bellowed with rage as blue lines that looked like circuitry began to spread from Sami’s hand. It spread up the tentacle and toward the mass. The virus raised its other tentacle and smashed the infected arm, severing it. The infection stopped, and the arm fell to the ground, turning black.
“What the hell was that?” I asked.
Sami shrugged. “I tried to infect it,” he said. “Obviously, I didn’t take into account it severing its own limb…”
“You can infect things?” I asked, surprised.
“I can do a lot more than that,” he said. “After all, I’m a combat strategy A.I. I’d be pretty useless if I couldn’t infect and hack into computers as well.”
We charged the rifles again, and he launched another of those cylinder bombs at the virus. As soon as it detonated, we both rounded the corner, fired the charged shot, and then unloaded as fast as we could pull the trigger. The virus screeched and groaned before it blew into pieces.
“Well,” said Sami. “That wasn’t so bad.” He looked over to me. “And you survived your first viral purge. Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” I said.” Is the ship safe now?”
He nodded. “Indeed. Let’s head back to the overview mode.”
I was disoriented for a moment while my senses readjusted to their normal ship-wide input. I could now see the new ship. And it was beat the hell up. Can we even fix this scrap heap?
Well,” whispered Sami. “It will be a challenge. But you only need a transport, not a space superiority starfighter.”
I suppose you’re right. But, damn…
“Indeed,” he whispered. “The reactor is barely functional. You will have to at least do something about that before you join the craters on the lunar surface.”
I focused on the reactor. It had just enough fuel for one more start-up, but the mixture assembly was totally shot. Even with a full fuel chamber it was really inefficient. The engines weren’t much better off, but at least they weren’t in danger of exploding or randomly turning off anytime soon. The control stabilizers look like they had been rebuilt in the last ten years, that was something at least.
I searched around and found the ship information. Apparently, it’s called the Gilmore. Seems fitting, I guess.
“There have been worse ship names,” whispered Sami. “It could have been called the Rustbucket.”
Maybe we should rename it.
“It was considered bad luck to rename a ship. But…perhaps in this case, it couldn’t hurt?”
Perhaps. But why chance fate.
“Indeed.”
“Anne,” I transmitted. It was several seconds before she responded.
“Sorry, what’s up?” she asked. She was extremely out of breath.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, perfect,” she said, trying to control her breathing. “What do you need?”
“Please swap out the fuel mixture assembly and add some more fuel,” I said. “I’ll get working on reconfiguring it as soon as it comes online.”
“Okay,” she said. “Give me a few minutes.”
Fifteen minutes later, the new mixture assembly came online. It took a few more minutes to get the new piece talking to the old reactor, but Sami had a massive amount of subroutines to choose from. I finally found the right one and recompiled the interface. The reactor hummed to life, and the ship felt quite different than it had a few moments before.
Surprisingly, the power distribution system was working perfectly. Now that there was sufficient energy for the other subsystems, the ship felt like a new machine. Engine efficiency went up slightly, but a code recompile on them boosted th
em even farther. These things haven’t had a firmware update in thirty years…
“Just wait until you see the guidance system and life support,” whispered Sami. I looked. And I wished I hadn’t. I added every subsystem to the updates list and started the process. I watched one by one as the systems restarted and sprang back to life, more efficient than ever.
I fired up the reactor and watched as it neared eighty-five percent efficiency. There we go, that’s much better. Even life support is actually responding now.
“You would make a fine mechanic,” whispered Sami. “Perhaps it is not too late?”
As if. There’d have to be a shipyard or a military depot to ever do that. And they wouldn’t let an uneducated kid touch their stuff anyhow.
“You underestimate yourself,” he whispered. ‘You’ve already mostly repaired this hunk of junk. You’ve done wonders on the Grey Wolf. Give yourself more credit. With the knowledge I have, you could repair even the colony ship.”
I thought about that for a moment. I meant to ask about that. Is it really possible?
“Given enough time and parts, yes,” he whispered. “But it will need to be a team effort. Including help from the colonists.”
Oh. Great. They kind of hate me at the moment.
“Indeed. You will have to remedy that. Perhaps overthrow the colonial government?”
Maybe. We’ll have to see how it goes. I’m not opposed at this rate. And Steve would definitely be on board. All right, what’s next?
“The firmware updates are complete.”
Let’s see if this thing can fly then.
I disconnected from the neural interface. “All right, Sami, are you ready?”
“I suppose so,” he replied through the comms system. “Let us see what this scrap heap is capable of.”
I grabbed the controls and fired up the engines. The ship hummed to life. “The vibrations actually feel stable now.”
“Indeed. They are in coherence instead of at war with one another, threatening to tear the ship in half.”
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