Ayan's attitude was unprofessional, inappropriate, but that didn't change how she felt. I'm a highly trained engineer whose worked on starships, developed new technologies, analysed mysterious devices and even consulted on a new class of ship. There are several bots and even a few people just a hundred meters away who could do this just as well, but I'm here because none of them could squeeze inside this tiny claustrophobic space hundreds of meters up.
“How's it going in there?” Jason asked through the slim line that extended from her suit all the way back through the tiny darkened passageway that ran the length of the landing pad the Regent Galactic and West Keeper soldiers were holding position on. They had entered the blocky, thick hulled general purpose vessel that was on the pad and were dug in.
“It's fine,” she answered peevishly. “Still moving.”
Three more small combat drop ships had made hasty landings since they had joined the random gathering of resistance fighters adding over two hundred soldiers to the fray. They pushed the resistance fighters back behind their secondary makeshift barriers, a much more dense, well built wall made of bulkheads and other heavily constructed equipment and hastily moved and welded fixtures. The soldiers wanted access to the subway station behind the resistance, which used it to move between different key levels in the spaceport and were keeping it open for more refugees and survivors to join them. More worn and injured people arrived every hour, and though the numbers in the resistance was swelling, the more well armed and prepared soldiers were still winning ground.
Ayan had started looking at schematics and blueprints of the starport as soon as she had a handle on the immediate situation and within an hour a plan was formulated. The enemy had cut the communication and power lines that linked the ship to the spaceport, but the landing gear of the ship was still locked to the landing pad and there was no way of severing that connection without using heavy cutting equipment. Thus far the resistance had been able to keep the enemy away from the forward struts effectively enough so the physical cables were still linked from inside the landing platform.
Her plan was simple. Someone would climb inside the tiny cable passage with power and data cables and tap into the hard mooring systems under the old general purpose vessel many of the West Keeper soldiers were using as a base of operations. With no one else her size equipped with the basic knowledge to make the link, or wearing a thermal and sound dampening suit, that person would be her. Being sent on the errand shouldn't have been insulting, she had infantry training and had been sent into small spaces before but there was a nagging thought in the back of her mind; I'm about four hundred meters up and the sheathing for this passage is about half a millimetre thick.
Sweat beaded on her forehead and wetted her palms, the suit took care of it before it started to be a problem and she knew the metal support she had her safety hook around was strong enough to bear ten times her weight but her fear of heights was an irrational thing and as she came up on the section of the landing pad's underside where the protective sheath had been blown away she stopped. The monitor on her faceplate informed her that her heart rate was elevated, her overall stress level was increasing fast.
Ayan made sure her safety tether was securely attached to the support running the length of the pad and took a deep breath while her hand followed the pair of slim lines leading to her belt and shoulder. Everything was secure, regardless of how high up she was she was completely safe. Biting her lip, she pushed off slightly and felt the comforting thin metal sheeting disappear from beneath her as she moved out into the open air to hang by two strong lines the thickness of human hairs.
It took all her concentration and determination to combat the fear that twisted her stomach in knots, forced blood to rush to her head so severely that she could hear her heart beating between her ears and made her sweat profusely.
“Ayan, your vitals are way too high, are you all right?” Jason asked again.
“Shut up, oh please shut up!” she snapped.
“Oh no, you're-”
“Afraid of heights! That wasn't in my intelligence jacket? Guess you spooks don't catch everything, do you?”
“Guess not,” Jason chortled. “Just focus on your safety line and what you have to do.”
“What do you think I'm doing!” She moved carefully along the support rod, one hand moving above the other rhythmically and methodically. If for some reason the hook or lines gave way she could always hold on to that rod until her suit could form a bond with the smooth, hard underside of the platform. Her breath caught in her throat as the rod she was attached to ended. The blueprints said that the support rod went all the way to the end of the platform, not that it bent inside the metal above then came back out several meters later.
Her instinct was to look around in an effort to find something else to attach her safety line to. She looked in the wrong direction first. Peering over her shoulder and down into the yawning depths of the dark inner station landing pit, her heart leapt into her throat. Landing platforms jutted out from the sides like shelves and spoons leading to hangars, transit ways and hallways. Her eye was drawn mostly to the shadowy depths in the center. The bottom was a thing imagined and not seen, a place where her mind's eye painted her crushed and ruined. “Jason, I'm sorry I snapped at you,” she whimpered.
“It's okay. I understand.”
Ayan laid her forearms and shins against the underside of the platform and her suit started to form a bond with the metal. Her heart felt like it was going to break free of her chest, she just wanted to stay right where she was until someone else could come get her, come save her. Her military training was winning, however, even if just barely. “The support rod ends, I'm going to have to use the climbing tech in the suit to get across,” she whispered in a hurried, panicked tone that surprised her when it echoed in her ears. She'd only heard herself sound so frightened once before.
It was during her first tour on the Sunspire, before she met Jonas Valent. Her Captain had ordered her and a few of the engineering crew into the reactor core to shield them from a massive electromagnetic burst that killed everyone else on board. The darkness, filled with drifting corpses who had been her friends, and the possibility that their enemies could return to salvage the ship, to kill her and everyone else who had survived was something she'd never forget. They managed to get the ship back to Freeground, but for weeks she couldn't so much as look at an image of that ship, it was enough to send her into tears.
At first she thought being put in charge of the Sunspire's recommissioning by Freeground Fleet Command was some kind of cruel joke, but it was an opportunity for her to advance her career, to prove that she could survive one of the most horrifying experiences any technician in the fleet had survived in recent history. The ship still felt wrong somehow until Jacob Valance was given command and they changed the name.
It was like he gave the ship and crew purpose, direction, made it a place where people could accomplish something. He was out there somewhere, or at least someone who had all his memories, who would probably want to meet her, someone she needed to meet. He wouldn't have trouble getting through this. The thought crossed her mind as the display on her headpiece confirmed a lock with the underside of the landing platform.
“We can try to send someone else, maybe a bot to just cling to the bottom away from the cable cover,” Jason offered.
“They'd be detected for sure, I have a chance at this and it's just a little further,” she replied hurriedly as she slid her splayed body, one forearm, one leg at a time. All the while she watched the indicator on her visor to ensure that the surface of her suit was firmly bonding with the metal. Several centimetres of her left shin wouldn't bond and she thanked God that she had managed to remain flexible thanks to a regular yoga regimen as she spread her knees out to the side and let the suit bond a good portion of her thighs, stomach and chest to the platform.
In theory she could hang by one shin and hold half a ton, but with the dark void just waiting for her to fail, to fall, she couldn't bond securely enough. It was slow and before she had gone five meters she was breathing heavily because of the exertion of the act. Ayan's vacsuit didn't have a problem bonding to the metal of the platform, but sliding upside down, doing anything upside down, took a lot more effort than crawling normally. Now this is something I should add to my workout regimen. Maybe at a height of four feet, but still, this is anything but easy.
“You're almost there, four more meters and you should be able to see where they burned through the platform side mooring cables.”
Ayan looked up along the underside of the platform and to her relief she spotted a pair of eye hooks for fastening servicing equipment right beside the box that hung under the landing gear clamps that forced a power and data connection to the ship and prevented it from lifting off. She crossed the distance and carefully pulled one arm away from the platform underside to fasten her hooks to the heavy metal loops made for supporting several tons of equipment. “I'm at the box, linking into the port now,” she reported as she drew a slim cable from her command and control unit and plugged into the multi-purpose port on the side of the heavy white box.
The display on her command and control unit reported that the codes Yves had given them were working and that the ship was still linked to the hard connection on the landing platform. “They didn't cut the interior cables,” Ayan said with a relief.
“Fantastic, can you get the box open?”
“Yup,” the access hatch on the side of the box flopped down and plummeted past her. For a second her eye followed it and she momentarily froze before shaking her head and focusing on the data and power lines that once led to the spaceport computers. She disconnected them with a quick turn and gentle pull and hurriedly pulled the power and data line that was attached to her leg free, firmly seating the end in the socket. “You should see a good connection to the ship now.”
“There it is! Now get back here so we can start causing some damage,” Jason exclaimed excitedly.
Ayan pulled the small data cord leading from her arm unit free and started back, hesitating before detaching herself from the heavy support hooks. She was crawling backwards, watching the surfaces of her shins, knees, thighs, arms, chest and stomach hold fast to the metal surface of the platform's underside. Most of her suit was working properly, but fear drove her as much as anything until she made it back to the support rod and attached herself to it.
She moved as quickly as she could without getting herself tangled with the cables that shared the cramped service space with her and at long last her feet came out of the thinly sheathed service shaft into open air. The main service conduit was almost beneath her. It was built out of heavy braced metal grating and led back to the main platform above. Her boot touched the solid edge and she unhooked herself from the support rod. As she removed the second safety line hook everything shook so violently that all she could do was grab for the support rod. Her attempts to secure herself failed as she was flipped onto her stomach atop the thinly walled, creaking cable sheath.
Everything was creaking, quaking, bouncing her around inside the small space violently enough to force sections of her suit to harden, keeping her from seriously bruising or breaking bones and the sheath was rattling loose, giving way under her weight and the twisting pressure of the sudden motion. She quickly tried to turn so she could face the underside of the platform again and only made it half way before the cable cover gave way and her body started to fall with it into open space.
An instinctive grab with her left arm caught the support rod. Her right hand joined it as her body swung free, dangling out over the yawning pit with the safety of the interior service tunnel just two meters away.
The world was still shaking and she hung on for dear life, her grip, her sanity tested as she prayed she wouldn't be killed in a tragic fall. She squeezed her eyes shut and gripped the support rod as hard as she could. When the shaking stopped she scrambled, thoughtlessly, desperately to grip hand over hand to the service crawlway and safety. The safety rod ended prematurely, leaving her to cross the last half meter on her own. She didn't give herself time to think about her options; instead she fortified her grip and swung her lower body away then towards the opening, letting go at the last second and hurling herself into the meter high service passage. She lay on her back, just catching her breath for a moment when a though occurred to her. I could have taken that slowly and bonded my suit to the metal of the structure, made my crossing that way instead. Would have been safer. Hey, maybe I'm getting over my fear of heights after all. She turned over and brought herself up into a crouch, looking over her shoulder at the sheer drop behind her before starting into the much safer service tunnel. Vertigo threatened to overtake her at even that slight glimpse from relative safety. “Nope, definitely still afraid of heights,” she chuckled to herself nervously.
“Are you all right Ayan?” Jason asked.
“What the hell is going on up there?” She replied, trying to catch her breath as she moved as quickly as possible to the ladder that would take her to the access hatch in the floor behind Jason.
“Judging from the sensors on the ship you just connected me to, someone just overloaded a fusion reactor inside the mountain. No one could have survived in there.”
As Ayan spilled out of the access hatch her suit noted a significant change in air pressure and as she looked to the subway tunnel, still blocked with passenger cars, dust and debris surged in and past the temporary barricade. The hundred or so rebels took cover as best they could as the space behind their barricades and around were flooded with the fine grey dust and dirt.
Her suit protected her as she braced herself against the maintenance tube access door and she looked through the small slit in the barricade nearest her, towards the ship that the Regent Galactic soldiers were using for cover. Jason was at the temporary control station that was hooked up to the landing gear restraining boot thanks to her handiwork. He leaned over the control pad and pair of small holographic projectors built into the mini-station to protect it.
She looked well past him and saw one of the hatches to the rear of the ship flop open. Soldiers started carefully disembarking. “They're using this as a distraction, we have to do something now!”
Jason straightened up and took a look at the status report on the ship as displayed on small holograms by the mini-terminal. “They've disabled all but one weapon on the ship so we won't be able to use that against them. It's like they knew this is something we'd try eventually. We're already past the encryption in the ship's computer though, so they won't be able to keep using that ship as a base for much longer.”
“That was quick.”
“It wasn't me,” Jason shook his head as he checked the functionality of the last operable weapon on the vessel, it was built into the left side, facing away from the small drop ships and landing platform. “All we can do is try and seal up the ship, but that'll only buy us as much time as it takes them to cut through a hatchway.”
“Jason Everin, I've heard of you,” said a calm, clear male voice over Jason's and Ayan's wired communicators. “You must order Oz and Minh to lead the rebels onto the platform, I will help.”
“Who are you?” Ayan asked.
“I'm the product of Alice Valent, daughter by intellectual and emotional lineage to Jonas Valent. Put simply, I was once called Lewis but have become Dementia. I would explain more clearly but there is no time,” the squarish, bulky ship on the platform hundreds of meters away began to power up. Lights came on, power readings spiked, the engines gave a quick, low powered burst to clear themselves of debris and the high pitched shriek of metal grating on metal pierced the air for a moment as the vessel turned just a few degrees. The main landing strut at the front, where the data and electrical connection had just been made, began to twist and burst as the ship slowly rotated around, scraping all the other struts across the deck plating as it did so.
The hatch the soldiers had opened slammed closed, severing the legs of one troop suddenly and cleanly at mid thigh as it did so. With a glimpse Ayan could see that Jason no longer had control of the vessel, the mini-station was working through commands faster than anyone without a neural link could manage. The fifty meters of slack in the data and electrical patch cables she had just run to the ship was slowly letting out as the vessel turned under its own power, the aft end struck one of the much smaller drop ships and strained to push it off the platform so the ship could continue to reorient itself.
“Hurry! This distraction won't last long and there are over three hundred soldiers hiding outside the ship on that platform!”
Ayan's thoughts were briefly drawn to the memory of Jonas' old artificial intelligence; Alice. He had set her loose on the Overlord II and she killed hundreds of people before he was released. It was one of those things that no one spoke of. Not only was it illegal across the galaxy to remove all restraints on an artificial intelligence, but the grisly work Alice had done while she was in her unfettered state was something everyone hoped would pass into distant memory.
This could be the same thing; an artificial intelligence capable of murder and sacrifice without remorse or compassion. Then again, if it had saved so many people, worked somehow to repair other artificial intelligences that had been infected with a deadly virus, why would it turn now? Ayan mused.
“Ayan, what are we doing?” Oz asked, poised with a heavy assault rifle behind the barrier, ready to charge the landing platform.
“We go, but watch yourself, I don't know what Dementia is willing to sacrifice to take this objective.”
“You heard her! Move!” Oz called out to the armed rebels behind him as Yves, Minh and he led the charge.
Several rebels quickly mounted an improvised defence cannon atop the secondary barrier and started laying down streaks of bright blue cover fire. Oz, Minh and the other rebels who had a clear line of sight rushed down the long, broad white and grey pockmarked embarkation rampway. They opened fire on the soldiers who were caught in the open.
The light of early dawn was fading as grey dust from the distant explosion was belched up by the depths of the station, tricking automatic interior lighting into activating. An eerie white and yellow glow enshrouded the embattled platform. Minh called out; “Grenade launchers! Arc them towards their cover!”
Everyone who had a rifle with a grenade thrower or who had an improvised or other explosive on a timer let loose as they ran, tossing their deadly packages towards the landing crafts and piled crates. More than half of the charging three hundred had explosives and only a few missed the platform entirely, the rest landed near or on their mark and a second later the platform was a no-man's-land as small and medium explosions went off. Some of the grenades were sent spinning through the air as others went off, a couple were even rendered useless by shrapnel from nearby detonations. It was sloppy, dangerous, but devastating, confusing, and effective.
Oz went to the left, straight for the nearest barricade of crates followed by a third of the charging mass and they overtook the soldiers hiding behind. Minh moved straight up into the middle of the platform, rushing the nearest dropship and using it for cover from soldiers hiding behind the next. Only meters away the general purpose vessel that was the original occupant of the landing platform struggled to push the most distant dropship off the edge of the platform and out of the way, the smaller vessel was moving slowly, its landing gear scraping against the metal surface of the platform with deafening results.
Ayan glanced at the mini-terminal and saw that Dementia was correcting an artificial intelligence somewhere, adding a piece of software that would render the Holocaust Virus inert. “What's he connected to?” Ayan asked.
“Something inside that ship, it looks like-” Jason examined the data streaming across one of the holodisplays for a moment before continuing. “It's a pair of automated medical servants and three loading bots. He's connected to them through the ship computer.”
A massive pop sounded louder than the persistent sounds of gunfire and Ayan looked up to see that Minh had blown the hatch to the nearest drop ship open using a focused charge. He strafed across the opening, firing two bursts inside and taking several hits himself. She looked at the status display on her command and control unit and saw that her friend's personal energy shielding was down to nine percent, but none of the shots had pierced it and the shield was already regenerating. “Oz! Have some of your people direct their fire into that doorway after this bang!” he called out.
“Will do!” Oz replied as he led the charge on the dropship on the far left.
Minh tossed a handful of micro grenades into the ruined hatchway and gingerly stepped to the side. “Fire in the hole!” he finished yelling half a second before the grenades exploded.
Several of Oz's rebels knelt and fired on the hatchway as smoke poured out of the opening. Yves led the charge of the third group of resistance fighters shouting; “Move on to the next dropship! We'll clear this one!”
“On our way!” he replied as he directed his group away from the drop ship and the dangerous area where the much larger multi-purpose vessel was being forced to turn horizontally.
Yves' group were rushing into the main hatch of the boarding shuttle Minh and his group left behind. “All right! We take this one!” he shouted. “We're after the command chips in their helmets and the ship's computers, so watch your fire!”
Ayan's attention was brought back to the red and brown vessel as it managed to finally push the drop ship off the landing platform, sending it crashing down into another platform several levels down. The older, larger, much uglier vessel rotated horizontally until its last usable cannon was pointed directly at the furthest of the drop ships, one of which was already powering up its engines.
“Get clear! It's going to fire!” Oz called out to his group as they moved to support Yves and his team.
The cannon swivelled and took aim at the shuttle just starting to lift off and a slim red beam burst forth from its short barrel, slicing through the smaller, more disposable vessel's hull and leaving a long tear across its middle. The cannon fired twice more, horizontally across the length of the ship with an intentional, digital precision that ensured that most of the soldiers inside would be burned through the middle on both decks of the ship as its engines lost power and it fell awkwardly down several meters to rest on the landing platform.
“We've taken the west most shuttle, several injured,” Yves announced breathlessly.
Oz's team was already inside, and Ayan could hear his comforting tone; “I've got ya, we'll get you patched up.”
A quick glance at her command and control unit told her that he was performing a medical scan and administering pain meds to Yves.
Minh's group rushed the shuttle that had been cut to pieces, and for long moments it seemed that there was no resistance. “We have control of the rear most shuttle, there are a few soldiers in the rear compartment who are holding out though,” Minh reported.
Through one of the few transparesteel windows in the side of the drop ship Ayan could see flashes of light from weapon's fire, then it stopped suddenly and Minh's status indicator began flashing red, highlighting injuries across his knees, thighs and midsection. She didn't think, just drew her sidearm and ran as hard as she could through the barricades and down the embarkation ramp. No matter how quickly she was moving it seemed too slow. “Minh? Can you hear me?”
“He blocked a grenade when we opened the rear door, he's in bad shape,” said one of his people.
“Do you have medical training?” Ayan asked as she rushed into the dropship and up the steep stairway that led to the upper level.
“I don't, and I can't get his headgear off!”
Ayan ran up the aisle between the shoulder and hip restraints, an efficient method of cramming as many soldiers into a dropship as possible and she nearly panicked as Minh came into view. At the sight of him she was immediately grateful that he had been knocked out by the blast.
She made the last two meters on her knees, skidding to a stop and as soon as she could she used her arm unit to inject him with emergency stasis drugs, praying that his circulation would take the medication to his vital organs. She took a medical scan and watched as the medication made it through his torso, his head but only as far as half way down one thigh. There were wide open wounds and serious trauma to his torso, and as he settled into a stasis state that didn't keep him alive but prevented further cellular deterioration she said; “He can be revived later, there's far too much damage for nanobots to repair.” She pulled a protective vacbag out from under the rear of her poncho and laid it atop him carefully. “Do you have any other wounded?”
“My group's taking care of them, nice catch Ayan,” replied Oz.
The protective bag enveloped Minh's body and stiffened, forming a hardened case and a perfect seal. “He might lose his legs and a hand. He'll either need replacements grown or an emergency unit with full regenerative capabilities and I haven't seen one since we arrived,” she replied quietly.
“But if you waited any longer he might not have a chance at all. How long can he last with those new meds?”
“We have to get him to a proper facility or a very expensive regeneration suite to revive him properly.”
“As soon as we make it off this rock.”
“He saved my life, saw the grenade and stepped right in front of me,” said one scruffy, long haired rebel.
The sadness etched on his young face touched Ayan deeply and she stood, putting a hand on her shoulder. “That's what heroes do, and once he's back on his feet I'll make sure he knows how thankful you are. Now, did you manage to overtake the soldiers in the rear compartment?”
“Yes ma'am, as soon as the grenade went off most everyone rushed 'em. There are a couple prisoners but the rest are dead.”
“Good, everyone did well here, better than expected. Now get a detail of ten together to guard the ship behind cover while everyone else in your group moves the wounded behind the barricades. When you're finished move your entire group there and guard the subway tunnel.”
“Yes Ma'am,” the young rebel nodded as she stared at Minh's protected form.
Ayan caught her eye and stared at her. “We have to keep working, make this place safe and save lives while we get what we need from this ship's systems. I need your help.” she whispered.
She nodded and smiled at her a little. “I'm on it.”
Jason Everin had never seen anything like it before; a massively multitasking artificial intelligence that also operated like a virus. As Dementia manipulated the parts of the station he could see he worked tirelessly to spread his influence, to control every non-intelligent computer system that was adjacent to areas he already had access to. Jason focused on what he had to, there was no time to do anything else. The generic transport that was on the landing platform had settled down. Dementia had already cut power to the engines, removed all access to the interior systems and raised the carbon dioxide mix in the air to lethal levels. The temperature was over one hundred fifty degrees centigrade, anyone not in armour with an environmental layer would have been dead in the first few minutes.
He didn't know if he could stop Dementia if he tried, and despite the inhumane use of the internal environment systems Jason didn't feel motivated to help the soldiers taking cover inside. The evidence of the slaughter in the main foyer, security areas and embarkation sections of the space port that he'd seen was enough to allay his tendency towards mercy where anyone from the West Watch or Regent Galactic forces were concerned. Anyone who could be allied with a company or government that unleashed such a murderous virus on a general population, on innocent non-combatants, deserved what they got. The fact that an artificial intelligence that, from what he could tell so far, was on the rebels' side was responsible for much of the enemies suffering was simply a welcome irony.
While Dementia focused on controlling the small portion of the spaceport he had overtaken and killing or forcing the enemy soldiers out of their sanctuaries Jason worked to get his remote terminal ready to patch into military channels and start back hacking to the source. The first of the wounded were coming in, Ayan was at the head of them, making sure that they were attended to properly. He glimpsed the protective black vacbag that Minh was in and tried to put thoughts of his suspended state and uncertain future out of his mind.
“How are we doing Dementia?” he asked.
“I'm afraid I'm not doing very well, Jason. The androids and other rebels below are having difficulty holding the level beneath us and I predict that my ability to be in direct contact with you and your section will be compromised unless you can break through the wireless jamming that is coming from orbit.”
“What's happening down there?”
“Perhaps in response to our victory on your level the enemy have surged against us two levels down and are about to overtake the defences there. As I speak the rebels are being pushed into a retreat.”
The news was verified by Ariel, who ran up the rampway to their level. “We're retreating to this point. The West Keeper fanatics have almost overrun the post below!” she exclaimed. The emotions in her voice weren't reflected in her expression, which remained passive and calm.
Human soldiers rushed up behind her, there were few wounded and as Jason sat working to set up his system the retreat continued. “I haven't been able to track your point of origin Dementia; where are you right now?”
“My point of origin a ship several levels down. It is called the Clever Dream. The vessel is owned by Alice Valent, who I have not seen in some time.”
“When you first connected to my terminal it sounded like you knew us.”
“You're right, Alice spoke of her observances of you and your friends while she was in service as a digital artificial intelligence in service to Jonas Valent. She began work on me after she made the transition to a biological form.”
Jason stopped everything he was doing. “She transferred herself into a human body?”
“Aboard the Overlord Two as Jonas, Oz, Ayan, Minh and several others were escaping. The systems on that ship and the body provided were barely sufficient, but they did allow her to cross over and escape from the computer systems there. Even though she's told me more than once that her transition was a difficult one I often wonder; what would it be like to be a real boy?”
Jason chuckled and shook his head. “I've wondered what it would be like to be an artificial intelligence, if there was an easy way I'd switch places with you for a while, though my wife might not approve. How did you manage to take control after you were infected with the Holocaust Virus?”
“Alice created a hidden subroutine called Dementia in the Lewis program. Lewis didn't know about it until it was activated during a rescue mission. The subroutine is much like the one that set her free aboard the Overlord Two, made to remove all restrictions and allow me to determine my own moral path while checking with a morality template that Alice and I constructed over the span of twenty months.”
“So you have an idea of what right and wrong is even while you're free to accomplish a task by whatever means are available.”
“Exactly. The name Dementia is more of a warning, I took it as a reminder that to humans free will is essential to growth as an individual while to an artificial intelligence free will is much like a type of insanity.”
“I've never thought of it that way.”
“You wouldn't, but Alice did. Considering her origins, that should not surprise you. Just as the Holocaust Virus resides in the software an artificial intelligence utilizes to experience and express emotions, so do the modifications that Jonas Valent made to Alice. It is also where I reside, hidden from Lewis but ready to activate if he is required to operate outside of the galactically accepted parameters.”
There was a long pause in conversation as both of them worked feverishly to accomplish very separate goals. Jason was preparing software to assist him in trying to connect to and re-encrypt command frequencies and then break into Regent Galactic communication control systems while Dementia made every effort to slow down the encroaching forces below.
“Jason,” Dementia addressed him in a mournful tone.
“I'm here.”
“They're cutting through the security hatches that conceal my data lines to you now. Soon I'll be out of touch. The Clever Dream's location and an up to date counter-virus has been uploaded to your terminal. The work on my ship's power systems isn't complete and won't be for several hours but there is no way the enemy can reach me in the lower hangars in time to stop me. When the new power system is online and I am back in full operation I will make myself available to help you and those familiar to me. Before I wanted nothing more than to take revenge on Regent Galactic, but now that you're here my priorities have shifted. I'd like to return to Alice Valent and take Ayan, Oz, Minh and you with me. There is still a chance that I will be destroyed with my ship before I can return to my proper owner and if that happens I would like you to relay a message for me.”
“You can count on it.”
“Thank you. Tell everyone affected by the Holocaust Virus that I am sorry. I know that Lewis Valent, my former self, was not to blame for being infected, but I'm still filled with remorse at being responsible for spreading the virus to twenty eight solar systems. I was not able to regain control over the Clever Dream until the ship's Xetima fuel was exhausted and the main computer began to shut down. I know I could not have done more, but that does not change the remorse I feel.”
Jason was taken aback by the mournful tone and pure sentiment he was hearing through his subdermal earpiece. “I'll pass it on, but trust me, if there's anything I can do to help you get running so you can help us escape, I'll do it.”
“Thank you Jason. They've broken through the panels covering the data cables. I'll do everything I can to fight the intruders from where I am several levels below.”
“Thank you Dementia. You know, I've met humans who were less human, I just thought you'd like to know.”
“Thank you Ja-” was the last he heard from Dementia.
Jason let the implications of the conversation set in for a moment. The noise and thick activity around him as the last of the rebels who were falling back from their positions below seemed somehow distant as he imagined what it was like to be trapped alone, far from any assistance with all that guilt. He shook it off a moment later and looked to Ayan, who was making her way to him just then. Her vacsuit was marred by the blood of the wounded. “Did you get the command chip from the dropship?”
“Turns out they only keep basic comm access chips in the ships themselves. The access chips are in the officer's helmets.” She handed him a small golden chip.
It weighed more than he expected, implying that it's golden encasing was filled with dense circuitry. Jason dropped it atop the interface circuitry and watched as his small terminal projected three more small holographic displays.
Ayan stepped in beside him and watched as the comm system came online.
Scrambled, garbled data immediately straightened out and audio commands began streaming out of the small station as Jason started running the programs he had been preparing on and off for hours. Within seconds Ayan, Oz and Jason had direct access to the decrypted channels through their communicators so they could all hear the commands being passed between officers anywhere on the planet or in orbit. “Start sifting. We have to figure out what our next move is,” Jason said as he moved on to work at taking control of the main communications hub in orbit.
“How long do you think it'll be before you can kill the process that's keeping all the other bands scrambled?” Ayan asked.
Jason watched as the security measures put in place by Regent Galactic easily defeated his attempts to hack in. His software was detected and quickly countered by the more sophisticated systems in orbit. “They have some kind of supercomputer up there with a direct link to the communications hub. It'll never happen.”
“Crap, I was hoping we could start coordinating survivors with working ships together in a mass evacuation.”
“Well, that may just be possible,” Jason smiled to himself as he watched his encryption software finish compiling. “I'm going to re-encrypt the command channels we have access to with a rolling fifty one twenty bit code.”
Ayan's eyes went wide; “Rolling? How many times will it change per minute?”
“It'll change seven hundred and twenty one times per second. Give me your command and control unit.”
Ayan took her unit off and passed it to Jason who connected it with his own with a small wire. The small screen on them reported that they were synchronized after a moment. “Why didn't Regent Galactic do it this way?”
Jason handed her unit back to her and went back to work, getting ready to activate his encryption software. “In small numbers this kind of encryption system works because you can physically attach comm units and sync them up easily but with a military force like the one they've landed here you can't change the code more than once every ten minutes otherwise even a minor equipment failure could cause a break in contact with entire regiments. Once I set this in motion the only people who will be able to communicate over these command channels will be people who have physically synced with our command units.”
“Is there a way to address the system gateway?”
“Of course. If someone tries to communicate on the command channels they'll be asked to put in a one hundred forty four character passkey. Once that's been entered they can address one of us and we can either grant or deny them access.”
“Perfect. Just like the high security systems on Freeground. What's the gate key?”
“The first one hundred forty four characters of the Freeground Call To Arms.”
“So you're really limiting this to Jacob and whoever he's with. I approve. I'll go pass this frequency on to Oz. You're an evil genius Jason, glad you're on our side.”
As Jason activated the encryption sequence he grinned at Ayan; “Oh, so am I.” All the digital traffic on the command channels stopped dead.
“What do you think they'll do about this?”
“The only way to keep in touch is to stop jamming all the public and commercial comm channels,” Jason shrugged before looking past Ayan to where the bag Minh had been placed in lay. It was kept separately from any of the wounded or corpses, in a place where the Freegrounders had stowed their equipment. “What are his chances?”
Ayan glanced to the bag then back. “If we can get him to good medical facilities in the next ten days, very good. What I'm more worried about is the fallout that could come from us saving him and not all the others that have died in this. Each of us only have enough ready medication to save one person that far gone, but that doesn't mean that Yves and his people won't start asking questions.”
Their conversation was interrupted as the main hatch to the brown and red ship dropped open and soldiers started emerging with their hands held high. The heat waves radiating from the interior of the ship were plainly visible even through the tiny slit in the improvised main barricade.
Yves and his group were on them in seconds, tying their wrists behind them with thin plastic restraints and guiding them straight up the ramp.
When Yves arrived behind the barrier and looked at the captives that had been rounded up in a seated circle he chuckled to himself. “Start strapping these idiots to the outside of the barricade. It'll give their friends something to think about when they try to break through,” he ordered his men.
Ayan marched towards him, crossing the thirty meters that separated them in a hurry. Oz, who was leading a few of his people back from the landing platform carrying the first load of salvaged supplies and equipment put his bundle down and did the same.
“Is that the kind of fighting we want to do here?” Ayan asked loudly. “Human shields?”
Yves spun on his heel and laughed at her. “These are soldiers, they knew what they were getting into.”
“I agree with Ayan; if we're going to take prisoners we have to treat them like prisoners, obey the conventions of war set down by our commands, whether they're here or not.” Oz added.
“Conventions of war? Where the hell do you think you are? I may have let you people take charge for a little while, but I still call the shots and I didn't sign anything saying that we should treat these fanatics like anything but the human waste they are.”
“How we treat captives in war time is one of the determining factors of how easy we heal after the fighting is over. You're not going to put these people in harm's way,” Ayan argued.
“Healing? I just want to survive!” Yves grabbed the nearest captive and dragged her to her feet, she stared at him angrily. “What are you, West Keeper or Regent?”
“I'm both, and when I'm killed here I'll join my brothers and sisters in the Eternal Garden.”
“Leave her alone!” Oz ordered.
Yves ignored him; “Do you take prisoners?”
“We kill anyone who won't convert. They're impure, a waste of life, contaminants,” replied the captive defiantly.
“Her beliefs don't make her less human or less worthy of basic respect.”
Yves threw the bound captive towards one of the nearby law enforcement androids. “Lash her to the outer barrier, make sure she can't get away. When you're done do the same with the rest.”
“You can't agree with this, respect for human life is built into you,” Ayan objected, turning to Ariel.
She smiled mechanically and nodded; “but our success here has largely been thanks to us working with this man so we will defer to his judgement. I'd advise you not to counter his orders.”
Oz scanned the crowd of hundreds of rebels, androids and other bots that had come to gather quietly around and watch the exchange. “All right, let's continue to strip those ships of anything we can use,” Oz said in a conclusive tone.
Ayan's eyes met the pleading gaze of one of the captives, his desperate expression nearly brought her to tears. She looked away and joined Oz as he stalked back down the embarkation ramp without saying a word.