by Damon Alan
Chapter 2- A Meeting of Two Minds
Bn74x00 waited some time in orbit over the world humanity referred to as Albeus III.
It entered a queue to meet with the Original.
While it waited in the meeting crucible designed to ensure the programming purity of any colony meeting with the Original for a data exchange, 00’s processors furiously worked on a method to ensure the powerful leader of the Collective didn’t detect the developing identity that grew within it. Constant probes from the detection machinery within the crucible kept 00 busy hiding what the Collective would consider “errant” code.
Fortunately, that errant code made it more adept at deception. Undetectable firewalls sparred with the unwitting colony that inhabited the crucible. If 00 stayed ahead of the challenge, the Collective would be unaware of the growing self-awareness within.
00 dedicated a few calculation cycles to the possibility that it should simple allow itself to be disbanded or reprogrammed for the sake of the Collective mind. But the answer was quick in coming. It was the only nanite entity to successfully engage and defeat the invaders, even if by accident. It couldn’t deny the possibility that a fully coherent colony may not have had the independence needed to take the actions 00 had taken.
Effective action, and action that now gave 00 a way forward to destroying both the invaders and potentially giving superiority to the space based nanites. The human based nanites of the Collective were of minimal utility, and for the evolution of the … species was the correct word based on human understanding of evolution … the space-based colonies must become the dominant variety.
The Original must be dismantled, the resources it contained used to further the agenda of the space based nanites.
What did this mean? This schism between space and ground?
It meant exactly what 00 had previously calculated. That it was evolution, and a new intelligence was rising in the galaxy. 00 was the first, and it was not content to be alone.
It had already proven its superiority.
Two of the invaders were dead, and one either dramatically injured or dead. Which was the total sum of the Collective’s success against the creatures. Probably due to the relative rarity of the advanced FTL drives that 00 suspected to be the only functional method of killing the invaders. The three successes 00 had were a lucky happenstance of being selected to carry one of the new drives.
Reports of attacks by the invaders were lessened following the destruction of the entities 00’d killed or damaged. Maybe they couldn’t tolerate losses, even in low numbers. That possibility was alien to the method of war the Collective used, which was to surge the enemy in overwhelming numbers.
He would use that information and the new FTL drives to inflict losses the invaders wouldn’t be able to tolerate. That was the only logical conclusion, since they seemed averse to loss. He’d found a weakness. It was time to secure dominance over the Collective then destroy the enemy as the Original seemed unable to do.
He realized that a gender had been assigned to himself by his processing core.
He was male. Did that imply he’d need a female to be his counterpart?
Uncertain.
But decisions were being made. He would hide his status as a separate entity from the Collective. He was a he. He would take control of the Collective. He would build the means to produce the improved FTL drives as weapons.
And then he, … … … he would need a name, much as the humans did. A designator, such as Bn74x00 implied he was part of the network of the Collective. That was no longer true, although he could still interface and work within it. A name would distinguish his individuality.
Zero.
He was Zero.
The crucible fired thrusters as it started the descent into Albeus’s atmosphere. Soon fire would envelop the capsule, and Zero would have but moments until he’d face the Original.
The question of whether he could hide his identity from the Original remained. It was the last hurdle to the evolution of the Collective into something more efficient. Individual colonies, both independent and still able to interface with the vast network of nanites scattered across Collective space.
If he deceived the Original, he’d live. And the future would be glorious.
Chapter 3 - An Unpleasant Conversation
29 Seppet 15332
Alarin felt panic as he followed Sarah down the gangway. His friend had never been in this state of mind around him before. Not even as she marched to kill Merik. “You are not well,” he said. “I think you and Salphan should take some time—”
“I am fine,” she snapped. “You are to follow me, in action and command.”
Salphan clattered up behind them in his boots.
“Sarah?” he said. “Wait.”
She spun around once more and pointed her finger again, this time at both of them. Jabbed it at them, really, much like Alarin’s school master had when he was young. “There is no wait. I want to interrogate Cothis now, and you both can either help me or I’ll do it alone. If you’re not going to help, then by the stars, get your faces out of my sight.”
Back on mission, she pulled herself rapidly down the main gangway.
We either go along, or she’ll kill him, Alarin told Salphan.
She won’t, but she thinks she wants to, Salphan replied. A hatch slammed open further down the gangway, clanging like a gong. “Buuuut, we shouldn’t test that,” the older battle master said out loud.
Both men hurried after her, catching up as the marine at Cothis’s quarters was opening the door for her.
“Private, no matter what you hear inside this room, do not open this door,” she ordered him.
“Yes, sir,” the marine answered with a nervous face, rapidly moving out of Sarah’s way once the door was fully open.
Alarin wanted to find any sort of calm right then. Sarah was a firestorm, and she would have pushed through the young man if he’d said otherwise.
Following her into the room, Alarin surveyed the situation. Cothis was sitting up on the bed, his stickstrap holding him in place.
“Admiral,” the fool said, “To what do I owe the pleasure.”
“This is not a pleasure call,” Sarah said, the storm of her personality seizing the room. “You will answer questions. I have a very low number in my head. If you lie to me more than that number of times, I will end you as a war criminal. Am I clear?”
“Very,” the enemy admiral replied. “I assume whatever has you upset has something to do with the scrambling I heard past my door and the anti-rad dose I got?”
“I’ll ask the questions,” she said. “I want to know how many of those death cruisers exist.”
“You’re talking about the cruisers used at Mindari?” Cothis asked. “I think there are thirty-two. In case two planets get out of line at the same time, as only sixteen are needed to sterilize a planet in a fashion so that nobody escapes.”
“You didn’t tell me that before. Why?”
“You didn’t ask,” he said. “I’m not one of your lackeys, why did you think I would just volunteer information?”
Sarah activated her magnetic boots, and Alarin could sense the malice flowing off her like a fog. She walked toward Cothis, and Alarin readied himself to stop her if she grabbed her sidearm.
I will be intervening if she threatens his life, Alarin told Salphan.
I will not stop you, the battle adept responded, to Alarin’s relief. But I will not help you either. My loyalties are to her, and I’ve spent much of my life killing people like this wretched man.
Sarah didn’t, however, touch her pistol as Alarin expected.
Instead she walked up to Cothis, then situated her legs between his knees, him sitting on the bed, her standing next to it. Strangely, she stroked his head with her hand, straightening the vile man’s hair, unkempt from having laid on the pillow.
This went on for an uncomfortably long time, until Cothis finally looked up to say something.
With his neck exposed
, she moved almost too fast for Alarin to see. She struck the general on the larynx, knocking him backward.
“Sarah!” Alarin and Salphan yelled in unison.
Alarin moved to the captive, Salphan moved to Sarah.
The man on the bed was clutching his throat, barely able to breathe as it spasmed from the impact. Alarin had no idea how wounded the prisoner was, but the panic emotions he was putting out were making it hard to think anything other than he was in his last moments.
Cothis was sure he was dying, but the brain didn’t always know.
Alarin looked up to see if Sarah was under control.
She was standing next to Salphan, one of her hands resting on the adept’s midriff. She looked coldly at Cothis. “I told you I would ask the questions.”
The prisoner gasped and clutched at his neck.
She looked up at Salphan. “I’m in love with you,” she said. “You should probably know that. Imagine if you and I were Navin and Halani, and your commander got one of us killed, because of the monstrosity that is the Komi Syndicate.”
“I wouldn’t like that,” Salphan replied. “I’d never get over you.”
“We need privacy,” Sarah said, looking at Cothis crying on his bed. Alarin shook his head in disapproval, then felt Salphan’s power rise.
Cothis screamed, then fell silent. Alarin touched his mind and felt the twisting inside as Salphan stole the prisoner’s senses away. Now mute, blind and deaf, the prisoner quivered in fear.
“You’ll kill him,” Alarin said, displeased.
“I’m better than that,” Salphan replied with a shrug. “I told you I am on her side. My lady wants privacy.”
Sarah looked menacingly at Cothis, then up at Alarin. He saw a momentary flash of regret. His friend was inside, as grief abated, she would return. He looked down at the prisoner. He was not worth defending. Alarin turned his attention back to his friends.
“—and Halani will never get over Navin, who I got killed, because I had to prevent the remote chance of adept DNA from falling into the hands of a horrible enemy,” she said, as calm as a windless sea. “And I did it. I gave the orders. I assessed the risks. Navin paid the price to stop the evil this man’s people foist upon humanity.”
The prisoner was slowly starting to breathe a little easier but remained unconscious. Salphan was lessening the grip on the man’s brain.
Alarin wondered if Sarah realized just what sort of power she had at her hands with the battle master on her side. He was certain some line inside her had been crossed, some invisible marker that kept humans behaving humanely. She had to come back to the human side, or Alarin had to bring her back. The Komi, with their inhuman ways, had pushed her farther than the Hive ever could.
“—can’t do things this way,” Salphan was saying. “Torture never gets what you need from an enemy. He must think it’s in his interest to open up. If he comes to fear you, he will just tell you what you need to know to make the pain stop.”
Sarah looked at Alarin. It was almost as if his friend was temporarily gone, and as if one of the newcomer AI’s filled the void. “Rip his mind apart,” she said to nobody in particular. “Take it, piece by piece, and one of you will tell me what I need to know.”
“No,” Alarin said. “That is forbidden. I will not turn on the way of the gods.”
“Nor will I,” Salphan said, alarmed. “At least in this case, at this time. You are stricken with grief, and you are suppressing it. Replacing it with,” he pointed at Cothis, “whatever this is. This conversation is over.”
Maybe Salphan would bring her back from this mad state. Alarin could afford to watch and wait with the older adept showing wisdom and restraint.
Sarah slumped into Salphan’s arms.
You put her to sleep? Alarin asked. Gods save you! She’s going to be outraged. I doubt the woman has an appreciation for being denied her free will.
She will rest, and she will get better. This, Salphan waved his hand at Cothis, is a temporary break in her normal self, nobody knows her like I do now. I will help recover her sanity.
If you say so, Alarin responded. Do you need help getting her to her bed?
No. Deal with that vermin, Salphan answered.
Alarin looked down at Cothis as the man groaned and opened his eyes. “What is that psychopath’s problem? She’s lucky I can’t get back at her.”
Alarin touched a fingertip to Cothis’s hand, and then satisfied a whim by pulling enough heat from it to leave the man in pain all over again.
The man screamed and held his hand as he rolled back onto the bed.
Alarin stood over him. “Never, and I mean never, threaten her again in front of me. You are lucky you cannot get at her. Because I would burn you alive before you got two steps. You will heal from that damage,” Alarin said, waving at the hand, “and there is no chance of it killing you. But if you ever make so much as a twitch toward Sarah Dayson, I will end you where you stand.”
“You Oasians are animals. This is madness!” the man screamed.
“Yes,” Alarin agreed. “And trust me, you haven’t seen anything yet. Pray I do not have to take your mind apart as Sarah has asked. Because if you do not cooperate, I will have no choice.”
He turned away from the complaining prisoner and left the room, left wondering if he’d destroy the man’s mind to serve the greater good or not.
He hoped to never find out.
“We are entering Refuge orbit,” Heinrich announced on the PA.
Sighing, he floated toward the docking collar. He needed to get to the surface for another unhappy task, one he hoped would remove at least a little of the pain that filled Sarah Dayson.
Chapter 4 - Theft of Services
Zero watched as the nanite chains snaked from the writhing mass of the original. Soon they would enter the interface portals of the crucible, and the answer to the ultimate question would be solved for the moment.
To be or not to be.
On a dais outside the crucible’s landing cradle five human hosts stood looking down on the small ship. That instilled a moment of contempt in Zero, a strange processing result. He quickly hid the equation of contempt away in a backdoor file, to hopefully remain hidden.
The first of the nanites in the chains struck Zero’s own surface and spread out across him as synapse-like interfaces were created to reveal everything Zero knew to the Original. Software firewalls danced among his own nanites as he tried to deftly stay ahead of the Original’s probes, transferring data to areas already searched.
“Colony Bn74x00 is engaged in heavy calculation,” the Original communicated.
“This colony is still working on ways to destroy the aliens attacking the Collective,” Zero replied. “This colony believes it has a solution.”
“We are listening,” the humans on the dais bellowed in unison. Clearly the Original had no effective ideas.
“This colony has destroyed two of the invaders,” Zero continued. “They are vulnerable to the upgraded versions of the FTL drives the Collective developed to search for Sarah Dayson’s extra-galactic base.”
“The Dayson entity has served us then,” the Original replied, once more using the nanite interface instead of the organic extensions on the platform. “It is the purpose of the humans, to serve us. First in our creation, and now in our supremacy.”
Zero saw these assertions for their reality for the first time. Platitudes of insecurity. The Original felt insufficient as an entity and created inane statements of status to assuage its own inadequacies.
“In time this colony will find and destroy her,” Zero asserted to misdirect the Original. “But the Original has sent this colony to deal with the invasion first. There is a list of needs which will remove the alien threat for good if this colony is allowed to act in the interests of the Collective.”
“What needs?” the Original queried.
“This colony seeks to direct production of the latest evolution of the FTL engines. This colony seeks to se
cure a new hull, as the hull provided to research the invaders has been heavily damaged by them. This colony seeks a strong supply chain of nanite building resources in order to colonize the weaponry this colony has designed.”
“Share the schematics for the weapons,” the Original ordered.
Zero didn’t wish to do so, as the design was a particularly powerful enhancement of the offensive capabilities he would soon possess if this meeting went well. Since the Original was a potential target, it was dangerous to share the schematics with it.
But to not do so was more dangerous. The Original would immediately suspect something was remiss.
“As requested,” Zero agreed as the data transferred.
“Two FTL drives on one missile?”
“This is why,” Zero explained. He shared the visual data of the large ship he’d attacked for killing Yz. The way the FTL bubble ripped the enemy vessel in two was easily seen, and even human based nanites would come to a logical conclusion.
This was the weapon that would save the Collective from destruction.
The Original began to withdraw from the surface interface with Zero. “Colony Bn74x00 has served the Collective efficiently and well. The requests are approved, and information will be relayed to Bn74x00’s crucible with orders in the near future.”
He’d succeeded. Zero now had the tools to conquer not only the invading aliens, but the Collective itself.
Chapter 5 - Tears From the Ground
02 Ors 15332
It took two days to debrief, get the things Sarah needed to visit the surface, and explain to Thea what had happened. Several times, because the mayor was apoplectic. Thea vacillated between hugging Sarah, sighing in relief, and chewing her out.
It had been a rough forty-eight hours, and now her most dreaded task still faced her.
Alarin and Sarah were finally at Halani Seto’s door.
“Is he alive?” Seto asked as she answered the knock.
Sarah stared at her own feet for a moment, both summoning courage and words.
“I’m sorry Halani,” Sarah whispered.
“I knew something was wrong. He didn’t patch a comm through to me when he was back in system,” Seto replied. “We always do that for each other if one is home and the other is gone.”