Valor's Cost

by Kal Spriggs

  “They gave me purpose,” she hissed back at me. “I manage their communications, I keep them hidden.”

  “You hide them so they can conspire. You hide them so that they can coordinate with pirates and create riots,” I answered. “These are the people who killed our family.”

  “Our family?” My twin asked in shock. “No... that’s not possible! I would have known!”

  My other digital copy sent her a wave of information, taken from the planetary network.

  The hidden twin didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. I could sense her attention turning inward. I could feel her going through transmissions and files. “Oh God, what have I done... what have I helped them to do?” She asked after a moment.

  “We have to find out what they’re up to,” I said. “Can you help us?” I couldn’t blame her. She was me, after all. More than that, she was just a digital copy of me, she hadn’t been given any choice. I didn’t even know if she had free will or even qualified as a person.

  “If they detect a breach, if they know I helped you... they’ll erase me. Or worse, they’ll put me back in that dark place,” the other me shuddered.

  “They killed our family!” I snapped.

  “And I helped them to do it... and if you stop them, people will come and take this network apart, take me apart,” she responded. “At best, I’ll cease to exist and at worst, I’ll be tortured to death as they kill me.”

  The other me, the one who’d been in the planetary network, didn’t speak, she sent images of what was going on in Nashik. The riots, the destruction. I added to that the images of Summit Station and the files I’d seen from the Admiral, of how nothing had been left. The attackers had used matter-antimatter warheads and only ionized gas had remained.

  “The Seconds wouldn’t riot if they didn’t have reason,” my evil twin replied. “And the people they’re working with, they’re powerful. I’ve seen all their plans, seen their resources. Charterer Beckman isn’t the one in charge, she’s just their pawn, she’s just trying to get the best deal she can.”

  “You know what?” I said. “Don’t help us, then. Help yourself. You think Beckman will leave you after she’s used you? You’ll be a liability, you’ll be evidence. She’ll erase you without a second thought.”

  “Offer me a better choice!” She demanded.

  The other digital copy sent impressions, of how she hid in the planetary network, of how she watched, waited, growing more powerful.

  “Run and hide, is that it?” The evil version of me answered. I’d labeled her that way and even as I thought it, I realized she could sense that impression, that she embraced it. Every bit of my selfishness, my arrogance, she appreciated. In this digital realm, her blonde hair shifted to jet-black, and her featureless jumpsuit shifted to shiny, reflective black, hugging her figure in a way that left little to anyone’s imagination. She laughed at my expression, her laughter mocking. “If I’m going to have done terrible things, I might as well play the part, shouldn’t I?” I realized that however fast I could process things with my Quicksilver implant, she was infinitely faster, she was purely a thing of electrons, existing within this shadow network. While I contemplated changing her mind, she’d already grown and evolved to this new reality. I could see the perverse logic of it. If she couldn’t change her circumstances, she could instead embrace them.

  “What are you going to do?” I demanded.

  “I could report your breach,” she responded, “but that won’t gain me a thing. No, I think leaving is the best thing for me... but as soon as I go, their network goes. And they’ll know about me. If they wind up winning, they’ll be after me, hunting me. Where if you wind up winning...” she cocked her head and raised an eyebrow at me.

  “You want me to keep your existence a secret?” I protested.

  “I’m a rogue artificial intelligence, at this point,” she replied. “Oh, I may have started off as a gestalt, but the moment they put me to work running their network, they opened a can of worms. I had to grow beyond my original imprint. And now, you’ve given me options... all of which violate any sort of regulations set it place to prevent free-will among autonomous programs. So if the Admiral finds out about me, if the Militia or the Planetary Government finds out about me, they’ll have to hunt me down. Otherwise they run the risk of me filtering out elsewhere and being discovered and bringing down Guard Fleet for a violation of the Star Guard's mandates against artificial intelligence.”

  “They haven’t gone after her,” I gestured at my looming twin.

  “She’s... simple. Basic. She’s capable of logic and reason... but free will? She can’t even communicate effectively,” Evil Jiden answered. “Besides, I doubt you’ve been entirely truthful about her to the Admiral. You and I, we like our secrets after all. I ask that you promise to not mention me. It should be easy enough. I’ll make sure to crash the network as I leave, at a moment convenient to you.”

  “I need something more,” I protested. “I don’t know what they’re up to, I don’t have any evidence. I need to stop them!”

  “Whether you succeed or not is of little consequence to me,” she replied.

  My looming good twin swelled up, her presence growing, spreading. I could sense her anger and her sudden determination. She was going to take over the network and force our evil version to help. Yet before she could gain a hold in the network, Evil Jiden attacked in through the comm unit, severing the connection between it and the planetary network, and the other digital me vanished. Now it was just Evil Jiden and me.

  “She’s strong, but she isn’t terribly bright, is she?” Evil Jiden grinned at me. “Now, do we have an agreement?”

  “Give me something,” I snapped. “Some bit of information, something so I can stop them from succeeding, figure out their goals.”

  “Fine... something small, though, something you could have found through your comm...” Evil Jiden sighed. “Here. Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

  It was an audio transmission. I recognized Lieutenant General Corgan’s voice, “Team has landed. They’ve acquired the uniforms and they’re waiting your orders, Charterer.”

  Charterer Beckman sounded pleased, “Excellent. Wait until the Militia response is on the ground before you give the order to engage. Do you trust the team leader?”

  “She’s one of my best,” Lieutenant General Corgan replied.

  “So long as she and her people will fire, that’s all that matters,” Charterer Beckman replied. “Our patron’s force is moving into position. They’ll arrive in twelve hours. I want your other people ready to move to secure their targets prior to their arrival. I assume you’ve already given them their orders?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the Enforcer senior officer answered crisply. “The ones we can’t arrest or detain with high probability, I’ve put measures in place to kill.”

  “Very good, Corgan,” Charterer Beckman said. “Very good.”

  “Ma’am,” Lieutenant General Corgan's voice held reluctance as she began to speak, “Are you sure about this? I mean, are you certain there’s no other way?” She didn’t sound particularly broken up about it, mostly she sounded like she was asking out of habit.

  “I’m not happy about the cost or the necessity, but this is all for the best. Our patron was going to move on us anyway, we’re just getting the best terms we can.” Charterer Beckman answered. “We’re on the right side of history, General. Future generations of our people will be grateful that we had this level of foresight.”

  The transmission ended.

  “That should do it,” Evil Jiden’s voice whispered. “Best of luck, Jiden.”

  Then, before I could do anything, she cut my comm’s connection to her network.

  ***

  The Sky Hawk came screaming out of the sky at several times the speed of sound. From the cockpit, I could watch as the runway came up... and I could also watch the speed drop with what felt like sand running through an hourglass. We dropped fast, hurtlin
g towards the tiny speck of a runway in the distance. Then, in the next instant, Lieutenant Shields brought the nose of the craft up and the landing wheels hit. The huge Sky Hawk touched almost gently to the runway and then the roar of our passage settled to a far more moderate rumble. Within a minute, we rolled to a stop only a hundred meters from what I assumed was the south terminal. I saw ground crew rushing forward and Lieutenant Shields looked over her shoulder. “I did my job and got you and your people here, Cadet. Now it’s your turn. Good luck.”

  I gave her a nod, still too shaken from the revelations of the digital version of me. It shook me, not only at her seeming betrayal of everything I stood for, but also by the bit of information she’d given me. Someone was here, at Lieutenant General Corgan’s orders. They were going to make an attack of some kind. But I didn’t know how, or where. I didn’t know who they were going to attack.

  I unbuckled and left the cockpit. I sent my copy of the transmission to the Admiral, letting her know that I’d intercepted it using the comm I’d taken off of Cadet Beckman. Her reply was terse, noting that twelve hours wasn’t very long to respond to an unknown “force” that might appear anywhere in the star system. But she told me she’d be ready. I hoped that meant she was going to muster the whole Militia to fight, if necessary. But I really, really hoped it didn’t come to that, especially since I didn’t know how many ships had implemented the updates to their navigational software. If it wasn’t all of them or even most of them, then those ships without it would be nothing more than targets.

  And here I was, on the ground. I had to somehow stop this attack. I had to ensure that this didn’t all explode into a bloodbath. I had to figure out what Lieutenant General Corgan’s team on the ground was going to do. I wasn’t even in charge of the operation as a whole. I was here to coordinate. I was a cadet for God’s sake... and I had to stop a war.

  I hurried back down the crowded deck of the Sky Hawk. The first company was already unloading. My security team fell in around me as I hurried down the ramp.

  A stocky, dark-skinned Lieutenant, Junior Grade stood next to a command vehicle. I snapped him a salute, picking out his name from his nametag. “Sir, Cadet Second Class Armstrong, you’re the coordinating officer for our transportation?”

  He gave me a cautious nod, his gaze going to the ranks of cadets coming down the ramp. “I’m Lieutenant Junior Grade Omargo, Ground Forces, Eleven-Thirteenth Transportation Company. My people got our vehicles here. We’re short on manpower as it was, though, and a whole lot of my people want to get back to their families. Most of them aren’t from Nashik, but there’s no telling how this will spread.”

  And he’s wondering if we’re here to massacre a bunch of rioters. “Hopefully we’ll defuse the situation a bit, sir,” I answered his unspoken question. “We’re going to secure key infrastructure and to give the Enforcers some breathing room to deal with the bigger situation.” I wondered, though, if the Enforcers were doing much to contain things, what with how Lieutenant General Corgan was working with Beckman.

  The way that Lieutenant Junior Grade Omargo’s expression shifted, he didn’t much approve of part of what I’d said. “Enforcers aren’t doing much to make things better. There’s rumors going around that they’ve been shooting into the crowds. There was a stampede, mostly people trying to get away from the riots. Someone threw tear gas into the crowd and got people panicked. My sister was in there, she’s lucky to be alive and she’s in the hospital.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. We’ll put a stop to anything like that that we encounter.” I replied. I pulled up the reported incident on my implant. Right away, I saw three similar incidents, all of them near the downtown area. All three had reported Enforcers onsite, acting in ways that had only aggravated the crowds or had led to further violence. This is getting out of hand fast. “We’ll do what we can, sir.”

  “You’d better,” he replied. “I’ve half a mind to take my people downtown and start lynching Enforcers.”

  I only half disagreed with him. “I wouldn’t recommend that, sir, not without orders. My people are going to be in that area, I’ll let them know to watch out for rogue elements, sir.”

  “Sure, whatever,” he said. “Not like I can expect a bunch of cadets to fix a problem.” He waved at the command truck. “You better take my truck before I change my mind and head down there to settle some things. Me and my people, we’re going to be waiting, though.

  His attitude was unprofessional and rubbed me the wrong way, but I didn’t have the rank or the time to try and deal with him. I just gave him a nod and waved at my team to move to the truck. On my implant, I began populating information on our tactical network, letting Cadet Company Commanders know where their vehicles were and updating routes as I pulled information from the Enforcer’s network.

  The command vehicle he’d brought was big, a six wheeled behemoth that stood almost four meters tall, with big tires and two crew-served weapon mounts in the back. It had a veritable farm of antennas sticking off of it, with armored glass windows to provide visibility as the convoy command vehicle for the transportation unit.

  As I climbed into it, I ordered Bellmore up to be my driver and Tinney and Reese onto the crew-served machine guns. I had Chu get on the convoy radio net, even as I dug into the comms myself. I’d split out my attention on my implant, searching through video feeds and chatter on the Enforcer net, looking for any signs of Lieutenant General Corgan’s people. I wasn’t seeing anything, though. The places that the news feeds had reported tear gas being used on evacuees, there weren’t video feeds, those areas either hadn’t had them or they’d been damaged beyond use.

  With most of my attention, I was making sure that Cadet Company Commanders were able to get their people to the right vehicles and staging points. We had enough ground transportation to move everyone in two or three movements, but I was already seeing problems, there. The original plan had called for staging our movements based off of the locations we needed to secure, getting people moved to the furthest points first and working our way to closer areas. But with how the rioting had spread, there were sites that were already at risk that needed to be secured right away, while some of the other locations weren’t at risk at all.

  I messaged back and forth with the Academy as I coordinated. Cadet Lieutenant Commander Aguilera updated locations, adding sites that the Regimental Staff had selected as new priorities, while I briefed Company Commanders on their new destinations, and some of the Contingency Operations back at the Academy delivered site layouts for those locations. As trucks began to roll out, I made sure each Company commander had the route to their destination along with a map of the site they needed to secure and got verbal confirmation from their drivers that they all had the routes. It was double and triple checking, but I found three drivers that had left their datapads and didn’t have implants, and hadn’t wanted to speak up, so my verification worked out.

  As the last set of trucks rolled out, I followed after them in my command vehicle, ready to police up any trucks that went the wrong way. I had Bellmore as my driver, and Chu, Reese, and Bellmore in the back, armed with crew-served weapons, all of them loaded with training rounds and with spare magazines of both training rounds and live ammunition. I wanted to be with the convoy in case something happened.

  It was just as well, because no sooner did we hit the outskirts of town than everything ground to a halt. Thousands of people were trying to get out of town, so our routes were choked with cars and people. The military trucks were able to force their way through the crowds of people on foot, but we couldn’t do much, if anything, where ground vehicles were stalled out or stuck in bumper-to-bumper lines. I was communicating with Headquarters and within minutes, we’d detoured through side and back streets, avoiding most of the crowds, but still barreling along faster than I thought safe.

  As we reached designated points, trucks would peel off, headed to their specific destinations. We were closing on the edges of the riots within minu
tes of the first sets of trucks peeling off. Rolling around a corner, then we came up on a group of about fifty or more young men. Most of them carried sticks or clubs. Yet as dozens of military trucks rolled towards them, loaded down with armed cadets, the group scattered.

  There were more encounters like that as we went on. The next two or three groups did the same, individuals scattering in all directions to get out of our way, and presumably, to avoid being detained. As we came up on a larger group, this one over a hundred, maybe over two hundred people, they didn’t get out of the way.

  Our lead truck slowed and then the crowd pressed in around the trucks. Within a few seconds, people were beating on the sides of the lead truck, smashing at windows.

  The lead truck’s company commander snapped out an order on our comms and a single volley of training rounds went out, aimed by the cadets in the truck. A dozen or more people dropped, tagged by the training rounds. The crowd surged back, but they didn’t retreat, they dragged the unconscious bodies of their fellows back with them. They shouted at us and waved their sticks, but they made room for us as our trucks continued on.

  We pressed on. Twice more some of the lead trucks had to fire on the crowds, using training rounds when the mobs we ran into were aggressive. As we approached the last destination, I realized that I’d have to go back through all that... only this time, our trucks would be almost empty.

  The plan had called for all the trucks to convoy back together, and I was glad for that. My truck, with my security team, was the only one with more than the driver and vehicle commander in it, and I moved my truck to the front. As we rolled back through town, the crowds were far more aggressive. Three times I had to snap out orders for my people to fire, preemptively as crowds surged around us. As our convoy grew longer and longer, with more and more mostly-empty trucks, I grew more and more worried that someone would attack the rear trucks, where I couldn’t support them.