by Kal Spriggs
“He received a verification code from Marcus, who authenticated him.”
Frost ground his teeth, he flipped on his suit radio. “Rawn.”
“Sir?” the boy asked nervously. Probably thinking Frost would order him back.
Frost smiled a wintry smile, “Kill Swaim and Roush when you get there. Roush’s a traitor, he’s working for Guard Intel.”
“Should I try to find out how much he’s told them?” Rawn asked.
Such restraint and caution should be rewarded, Frost decided. “Yes. Find out how much he’s compromised of our operations. Then kill him.” He frowned; just to be safe, he would need to send warnings out to all his contacts. Roush had worked with the organization for years and Frost didn’t want to underestimate the information he’d garnered.
He shook his head. How had things become so complicated?
At least he finally had the ship under control.
“Fenris, my men and I are headed for the auxiliary bridge.”
“Yes, sir.” Fenris said. “I will clear the way.”
***
Mel looked over at where Swaim and Stasia huddled. From the rapid typing on their datapads and their exited expressions, she hoped they were accomplishing something.
“Fenris, why are you doing this?” She asked.
“You are my enemies. I have said before that my security protocols require me to act. I believe your brother will preserve your life, at least.”
“I’m a dead man,” Roush said. His smirk had gone and his face had turned pasty white.
“No, you will be questioned as to the extent of your betrayal of Guard Free Now. Then you will be executed for your treason.” Fenris said matter-of-factly.
“Well, that’s good anyway,” Marcus said.
“Rawn also intends to kill you.”
“Oh, never mind,” Marcus groaned.
“It will work!” Stasia shouted.
Mel looked over at the woman, “What?”
“Fenris, do you hear me?” Stasia asked.
The computer didn’t answer.
“Swaim, you are genius,” Stasia slapped him on the shoulder. “And I am amazing!”
“What did you do?” Brian asked, unimpressed. He alone of the group seemed relatively calm.
“When they hacked the AI, they left back door,” Stasia said.
“You reprogrammed it?” Mel asked. “Stasia, that’s great!”
“Uh, we didn’t have time for that,” Swaim said. “Just time to hack the sensors. A pretty good job, if I do say so myself. We tricked the AI so that none of its sensors will register us. It can’t hear us. It can’t see us. It won’t notice when we open doors.”
“That’s…” Mel trailed off, “Uh, what good does that do us?”
“It can’t use its robots to kill us, and it can’t vent us to space. It can’t flood the ship with radiation while it’s loyal to the terrorists.” Brian smirked, “All in all, a good idea.”
Stasia smiled, “Da, I think so. Now we should go before the terrorists arrive.”
***
“Okay, then,” Mel said, as they hurried down the corridor. “We need a new plan.”
“What, running away isn’t a plan?” Bob asked.
“No, it’s not. We need a way to stop the ship, and we’re running out of time,” Mel said. She stopped and put her arm out to brace herself on the wall, forcing herself to take deep breaths. She let out a yelp of surprise as a pair of arms lifted her.
“No time to stop,” Brian said as he threw her over his shoulder. Every one of his rapid strides punched his rock-hard shoulder into her stomach.
“Put me down!” she gasped. She pushed hard against him, and he let her go. She stumbled, and Marcus caught her. That barely kept her from falling to the deck.
“You all right?” Marcus panted harder than she did; she didn’t know how he kept going. She just nodded, and then stumbled into a jog behind Brian.
“We have to get out of the vicinity before the AI registers our disappearance and takes action. If nothing else, Frost and his goons will be on their way,” Brian said. He didn’t seem the least troubled by the run.
“But what about after that?” she asked, pushing the words out in a rush.
“We need to disable the AI, of course,” Brian said.
“Yeah, but how?” Bob said. He puffed along in the lead. His pace had begun to slow, something for which she felt very grateful.
“I’m sure I’ll think of something,” Brian said.
“The terrorists mentioned cutting power to the AI,” Mel said. “Is that an option?”
Roush spoke, from near the rear. His voice sounded hoarse with strain, “Yes. Rawn traced out the primary power conduit to the AI’s mainframe.”
“So… we do the same?” Mel asked. “Pull the plug?”
“It could work,” Brian said. He continued to lope along for a moment. “Of course, none of us know squat about electricity or engineering.”
“How hard is it to find a cable and cut it?” Marcus growled.
“It’s armored,” Roush said. “And there’s a back-up of some kind.”
“Well, it’s a start,” Mel said. She pushed a curl of lank, sweaty hair out of her eyes. I hate running, she thought.
“One problem,” Bob panted from the front. He’d begun to slow even more.
“What’s that?” Brian asked. He continued to lope along with no apparent effort.
“Engineering is back the other way.”
***
“Colonel Frost,” Fenris said, “the prisoners have escaped.”
“What?” Frost stopped. The others with him did so as well. “How did that happen? I thought you’d sealed off that section of the ship?”
He’d taken two sets of ladders up to Level Six, following Rawn’s footsteps. He had an unspoken desire to not use the ship’s elevator unless he had no choice. It might have been a foolish fear, but he’d seen too many movies where berserk AIs dropped helpless people down elevator shafts.
“I believe they opened the doors manually.” Fenris said. The computer sounded sullen, Frost decided, and ground his teeth.
As soon as they had the opportunity, he’d make sure to have a set of programmers totally rewrite the AI. Computers shouldn’t mimic human emotions.
“And they just walked out?” Frost demanded. He had a sudden mental image of reprogramming the computer with a shotgun.
“When you reprogrammed me, you left a backdoor. They used that to corrupt my sensors. They created a filter that ignores their movement.”
Frost sighed, he flipped on his radio, “Rawn, this is Colonel Frost.”
“Sir?”
“They’ve escaped. The ship can’t see them. Apparently they created some kind of filter. They got in through a backdoor you left.” Frost closed his eyes. Why did nothing go to plan on this damned ship?
“Understood, sir. We’ll move to their last known position and search for them.”
“Affirmative. Frost out.” He sighed again, “Fenris, is there any way to track them? Can you fix what they did to your sensors?”
“My sensors are fine. They modified my core programming. It’s embedded in the same programming you altered.” Fenris sounded bitter. “I could rewrite over that area on your authorization. It would restore my previous priorities, however.”
“Oh no you don’t,” Frost said. “Leave that alone for now. You are loyal to GFN, correct?”
“Of course, sir. I have no other option. You’ve embedded that into my security protocols.” Frost smiled at the obvious bitterness in the machine’s voice; good. It was a tool, and it should know that.
“All right, let me know if anything changes.” Frost turned to his men, “We continue on towards the bridge.” He chewed on his lip for a moment’s thought. “Anderson, your team is on the lead. Take us over starboard. I don’t want a gunfight.”
***
“Why hasn’t the ship locked this area down?” Mel asked. They were beg
inning to work their way over to the starboard side of the ship, hoping to circle around Frost and his men.
“Probably because your brother and his friends are looking for us.” Bob said. “If it’s loyal to them, now, then it will be helping them like it helped us.”
“Well, it hasn’t tried to kill anyone yet, at least,” Mel said.
“Yet,” Roush snarled. “This thing’s way too dangerous. I can’t believe Mueller got authorized to do this.”
“You say that like you weren’t on board with the operation,” Bob said.
Roush didn’t answer for a moment, then: “Things are getting desperate out there. Mueller and I are trying for the same thing. We both want to preserve the Guard and the UNC.”
“At any cost?” Marcus spat. “You do know how bad that sounds, right? Sounds like the rex got to you.”
“Not all of us are rex addicts. Some are, but I’m one hundred percent natural.” He sneered at Marcus, “Unlike some.”
“One hundred percent natural blowhard,” Bob said. “All right so you’re not just a terrorist, you’re a patriotic terrorist. Big deal.”
“We’ve received evidence that the Culmor are massing for another attack. A hundred worlds are in rebellion or chaos right now. We need to be strong for this war that’s coming,” Roush said. He spoke rapidly, almost as if he could see the worlds burning. “They’ll wipe us out, or worse, make us their slaves. Do you want that?”
None of them answered him.
Mel thought about it for a long moment. The last war with the Culmor, the War of Persecution, had ended when she was three, almost twenty-three years ago. Her parents hadn’t spoke much of it; it had mostly taken place in the neighboring Sepaso Sector.
“The Culmor allowed human worlds to surrender, last time,” Stasia said. She spoke quietly. “It vas the Guard that massacred colonies in that var.”
“It was necessary,” Roush said, his voice harsh. “They betrayed humanity. They surrendered when they should have fought. They aided the enemy, provided them with supplies and—”
“They surrendered when Guard Fleet ran away, leaving them defenseless,” Bob said. “Tell it from your own perspective all you want, but I’ve spoken with those who were there. That’s why Triad declared their independence. That’s why so many worlds protest the United Nations Council. They left billions to die, and then killed them themselves when they found a way to survive.”
Roush didn’t respond.
“Look, either way, we need to—”, Mel started.
Marcus interrupted her: “Do you hear something?”
She cocked her head. The others froze. She listened to her heart beat for a long moment, until she heard the faintest rasp of metal on metal. “What is it?”
“Oh, crap.” Bob pointed down the corridor behind them.
A carpet of spider robots crawled across the deck and walls of the corridor toward them. There had to be dozens of them in the swarm.
“We’ve got to run!” Swaim shouted.
“Nyet!” Stasia grabbed his arm. “They will ignore us!”
“You’re sure?” Brian asked.
“Da, they will walk around us. Fenris will not register us.”
She closed her eyes, trying not to think about it, to tune out the scuttling sound of the swarm. The platter-sized spiders scurried forward in an onrushing tide.
She pinched her lips together as she opened her eyes. In only seconds, the scuttling horde had reached them. The robots parted around the group, scuttling past in a wave.
Brian, laughing, shook his head, “I always thought it would be neat to be invisible as a kid.”
“Wait, you were a kid once?” Mel asked. “I thought you were a Genemod?”
He scowled, “Thanks for the reminder.” He gave her a disgusted grimace. “Try growing up in a lab. You’d dream about being invisible too.”
“Sorry,” Mel said. She flushed. She recognized the callousness of her statement. Perhaps she’d been too hard on Brian. He’d had a rough life.
“Then again, you wouldn’t understand what real hardship is,” Brian said. “I shouldn’t bother, you’re just a normal.”
Never mind, Mel thought. He’s an asshole.
***
“Colonel Frost,” Fenris said.
“What now?” Frost asked. He wasn’t sure whether he hated the damn computer more when it had been refusing him earlier, or when it was so suffocatingly helpful now. Either way, he wanted to kill the programmers.
“You probably want to wait at your present location. I am conducting repairs on this level. I’ve sent some repair robots to this section of ship. They are coming down the next corridor. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you.” Fenris somehow managed to put a sarcastic twinge into every word.
“Understood.” Frost said. He opened a link to Rawn, “Rawn, this is Colonel Frost. Any sign of them?”
“Negative, sir. You should probably have Fenris lock down the elevator.”
Frost nodded to himself. Level Six housed an entrance to the elevator that could take them directly to the command deck. It was the only way to get higher in the ship, other than through the main engine room. “Fenris, do so.”
“Yes, sir.”
That Rawn hadn’t seen any sign of them yet disturbed Frost. They could have dropped down a level. He doubted that, however. There were only two ladders forward of where they’d been isolated. If they’d gone aft, Frost felt certain he’d have seen them.
That left the forward ladders and the elevator. Either that or they hoped to circle around starboard. There was nothing for them aft, though. They had to know that the bridge would be his goal. And if they had access to it, they’d be able to reprogram the AI themselves.
“Hear that?” Anderson said.
Frost cocked his head. A moment later he heard a scuttling noise.
One of his men leapt back with a startled curse as a tide of robotic spiders swept past the corridor intersection.
Frost and the others chuckled. The embarrassed man looked away.
“It’s all right, Durst. Those things creep us all out,” Frost said. He snorted a bit, “Though you sounded like my little sister there for a second.”
Durst smiled sheepishly, “Didn’t know you had a sister, sir.”
“She’s off limits, Durst,” Frost answered with one of his rare smiles.
The flow of robotic arthropods ceased, and Frost nodded at Anderson, “Move them out.”
“Yes, sir.” Anderson turned to Durst, “You got lead, spider-boy.”
“Great, I’ll never live that one down,” Durst said and stepped around the corner.
***
Bob waited for the tide of robots to pass the next intersection.
Mel noticed he’d drawn his pistol. He also looked slightly pale. Was he afraid of spiders, she wondered, or just not a big fan of dying so unspectacularly?
Her jaw dropped as a man stepped around the corner, only a few meters in front of them. Mel froze, what was he doing here?
“What the—”
Bob’s pistol came up. The man fumbled with his weapon, too slow.
Bob’s hand-cannon roared. Mel clutched her hands to her ears in automatic reaction.
The terrorist flew backwards in a spray of gore.
“Oh, shit.”
***
Frost's humor died when Durst exploded backwards, blood and bits of entrails spattering the deck plates, bulkheads and overhead.
The smile vanished from his face.
Anderson moved quickly. He snapped out commands to his other three men. One of them sprayed suppressive fire around the corner while another dove across the intersection to get in position on the other side.
“Fenris, they’re here.” Frost said.
“I guessed that, sir, from the sounds of gunfire. What do you want me to do?”
Colonel Frost grimaced. He wanted those damned spiders to come back this way, but they’d passed the enemy already without notice. They’d be u
seless.
“Stand by.”
***
Mel stumbled as one of the terrorists sprayed gunfire blindly down the corridor. She felt an impact on her chest. Again, the body armor took the hit, but again it knocked her down.
She stared upwards. Marcus reached down to grab her by the front of her suit. He fired with his right hand while he dragged her backwards with his left.
She shook her head in a daze, her eyes focusing above her, and Mel reached up to grab the pistol off his belt.
She looked back, and noticed Bob and Brian retreating. Brian, still without body armor, moved back with casual grace. Bob, on the other hand, had a manic grin as he let loose another deafening round with that massive handgun.
One of the terrorists popped around the corner for a second too long, and was caught in the neck with a bullet. She watched him fall to the deck; she couldn’t guess who hit him.
Then she realized that she’d fired her pistol. She still had it aimed at him.
She understood the panic in his eyes as he clutched at the spurting wound.
“I’m sorry,” she said. There was no understanding in his eyes.
A moment later, Marcus dragged her around a corner. Hands pulled her to her feet, and Marcus checked her over.
She shook him off. “I’m fine.”
Bob and Brian dove around the corner. A hail of gunfire rattled and bounced down the corridor. A ricochet hummed past, and Marcus ducked slightly. Mel didn’t even flinch.
“You’re hit,” Mel said to Brian, pointing at his leg.
“Yeah, and one in the left arm too,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”
“You’ll be fine?” Marcus demanded, shaking his head, “You’re bleeding!”
Brian leaned around the corner and cut off a sharp burst of fire. Mel heard a sharp scream. Brian completed his viper-fast movement before return fire came down the hallway, and nodded at Mel, “Good shot, that one. He nearly caught me on a reload.”
“You hit someone?” Marcus turned to Mel.
Brian nodded with a satisfied smile, “Right through the throat. I wounded a couple, but she’s a bloodthirsty one.”