by M. D. Cooper
Calista smiled in grim satisfaction. “Those surprise packages were a stroke of genius, Landon. I like the devious way your mind thinks.”
She turned as the airlock cycled once more, admitting Jonesy with Tobias’s isolation chamber. She relieved him of it and turned to access the battle frame, opening Tobias’s case and resettling the AI’s cylinder inside.
“Speaking of…what are we waiting for, Tobias?” Calista said as she straightened and settled the armor’s helmet over her head, checking its atmospheric seal. “Let’s go get our guy back.”
TRIAGE CAMP
STELLAR DATE: 09.11.3246 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Triage Camp, Zao Mountains
REGION: 150 kilometers from Hokkaido, Galene
The various tents and prefab buildings that comprised the triage camp were hidden amongst trees and nestled in the crevices of rocky outcroppings at the base of the Zao Mountains. The people that Terrance could see appeared exhausted and worn, the area having a battlefield feel to it that he didn’t like.
Khela stopped at a camouflaged tent and ducked her head inside, and he could hear the murmur of another woman’s voice answering her query. Khela stepped back to let a petite figure dressed in scrubs exit the tent.
The woman had quick, dark eyes in a tanned face, and as she scanned the crowd of newcomers, they settled on Terrance.
“Noa will be joining us shortly,” she informed him as she approached. “I’m Dominica.”
“Doctor Gonsalves, Galene’s Surgeon General,” Khela’s voice interspersed quietly.
The doctor threw her a sharp look. “Former Surgeon General,” she corrected, and then looked past Khela as something caught her attention.
Terrance turned, following her gaze, and they saw a man exit a cleft in the mountainside and stride toward them.
The man approaching them was clearly related to Khela; he had the same slightly tilted eyes and high cheekbones, although in the daughter they were more delicate. Terrance assumed that when Khela had still possessed hair, it too would have been a glossy black, although not likely winged with grey at the temples, like on the man stopping before them.
Noa glanced first at the large Proxima cat Terrance held in his arms, and then sketched a small bow, his serious eyes meeting Terrance’s as he spoke.
“You honor us with your visit, and with your gifts. I am Noa.” He turned to gesture toward his daughter, and Terrance saw an old pain flash briefly in the man’s eyes as they looked her way. “I believe you’ve met Khela?”
“We have. Thank you for sending her to guide us. I’m Terrance Enfield. It’s a dangerous world you have here.”
Noa gave a brief nod. “Mister Enfield. It is a great pleasure to meet you in person, as well as your associates.”
Terrance nodded toward Logan and Marta and introduced them, along with Marta’s three medics. Then, raising his occupied arms slightly, he added, “and this is Beck, one of the uplifted Proxima cats aboard the Avon Vale. He was wounded in an engagement with a small band of marauders who thought to take our shuttle when we landed.”
<’M a hero,> the cat slurred, nictitating membranes half covering his eyes as he bared his fangs to the Galene man in a sloppy grin.
The feline flopped his head back down, as the mednano interfacing with his internal systems was making him a bit loopy.
To Noa’s credit, the man hardly blinked at Beck’s proclamation as he turned to Khela with a searching look.
His daughter nodded. “Nev’s band,” she explained. “But they’ve been neutralized.”
“So tell me, Doctor Sakai, Doctor Gonsalves,” Terrance began. “What needs doing in order to resolve the nanophage situation? We’ve brought formation material, but given the story your daughter shared on our way here, I don’t see how your colloidenes will have time to effectively counter the phage, if the GSC is EMPing the Q-camps on a daily basis.”
Dominica compressed her lips but kept silent as Noa shook his head. “You are correct, Mr. Enfield; I have been unsuccessful so far in convincing the ring that we have a cure.”
Logan’s frame shifted, and the Galene scientist glanced over at him in question.
“If they’re using the nanophage as a reason to remain in power, then no. You won’t be successful in convincing them,” the AI told him.
Dominica’s face pinched, and Noa nodded slowly. “So what do you suggest?” he asked.
The profiler swiveled his frame, sweeping the camp with his optics.
He reached out to Terrance privately.
Terrance replied.
Logan’s response was delayed by a microsecond, and Terrance knew the former intelligence officer was evaluating the data one last time before sending him a decisive mental assent.
Terrance turned to Marta and held Beck out for her to take as he asked, “Noa, would you have some place where we might discuss this privately?”
The man before him inclined his head and gestured to the slit in the mountainside. “If you don’t mind going through our decontamination process, there are a few people who are waiting to meet you.”
* * * * *
Two AI frames met Terrance as he stepped through the air-gapped sandbox and into the bunker. The first one stepped forward with a welcoming gesture.
“Terrance and Kodi, I recognize you from the comms Noa exchanged with the Avon Vale. And you are Logan, correct? Welcome to our temporary abode. I’m Bette, and this is Charley.”
Charley nodded to Terrance and Logan as Noa joined them, sealing the airlock behind him.
“Come on in and have a seat.” The AI glanced around with an expression of mild dismay, as if he’d just noticed their utilitarian surroundings. “I apologize for how sparse our accommodations are; when Noa and I designed it over a decade ago, we didn’t spare much thought for creature comforts, I’m afraid.”
“You designed it?” Kodi’s voice sounded sharply from Terrance’s suit, and Charley nodded.
“Noa and I feared we might need it, after the first event that caused the Matsu-kai to arrange for our purchase.” The AI grimaced at the word, and Terrance saw Noa flinch slightly.
“About that—” Terrance began, but Bette held up a hand to forestall him.
“Please, sit, make yourselves comfortable, and then we’ll talk. It’s not what it seems. Although,” she shot a glance at Charley as they led their guests to a cozy alcove set with a low chair and ringed with plump cushions, “we certainly wouldn’t mind if you had a solution for the remnant code left behind after Noa removed our shackles. Whatever the Norden Cartel used on us seems to have been updated since the Sentience Wars.”
Charley nodded, and an icon appeared over Terrance’s Link.
He saw Kodi accept and sent the anti-shackling program packet over to the AI as he turned his attention back to Noa.
“Although we’re happy to see Bette and Charley freed, it doesn’t excuse what you did, Mister Sakai. Abducting people, engaging in sentient trafficking—”
Noa’s face remained expressionless, but even Terrance could see the pain in the man’s eyes.
Charley interrupted him. “No one understands this better than I do, I can assure you.” The AI glanced over at Logan. “I’m from Sol; the child of a Weapon Born and a multi-nodal AI. I participated in the last vestiges of the Second Sentience War.”
Terrance felt Kodi’s attention suddenly sharpen at that, and saw Logan’s frame arrest its action. He felt something akin to amazement and received the impression of immense respect emanating from the AI inside his head as Charley continued.
“Noa was forced to acquire us by agents too powerful for him to gainsay, in a situation beyond his ability to counter. He has been transparent to us in all things, and his first act upon our arrival was to free us. It was our choice to remain with him and assist his efforts.” He glanced over at Bette. “Truly, if not for Noa, at this point, Galene would be beyond help, and we would be dead.”
Silence fell between them, and then Logan’s voice broke in.
“Assuming Galene is not beyond help, we need to saturate the Q-camps with your colloidenes; the only way to do that successfully is to stop the GSC’s strafing runs. We’ll need to overpower their forces in Hokkaido and take the elevator.”
Charley nodded. “I came to the same conclusion. You plan to use the Marines for this?”
Logan nodded. “Yes. Who is their leader?”
“I am,” Charley said. “Well, technically, I’ve been coordinating their efforts with the remnants of Galene’s Congress, scattered throughout the Q-camps. But it made sense for them to have a unified reporting structure.”
Logan’s frame leant forward. “Do you have any intel you can share with us on the numbers we’ll be facing? How many spacecraft, personnel on site on the base side of Voyager spaceport?”
Charley nodded, and Terrance’s Link pinged as an icon appeared for a document entitled ‘GSC-Voyager’.
He saw both Kodi and Logan access it on the combat net, and then a moment later, felt a buzzing sensation indicating that the AI was rapidly turning over ideas in his mind.
“Charley,” Logan said, and there was a speculative, anticipatory flavor to his words. “You said your parents were Weapon Born and multi-nodal….”
Terrance sensed a predatory thrill from Kodi as the AI added, “Just how many spacecraft do you think you can operate at one time?
INFILTRATION
STELLAR DATE: 09.12.3246 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Offices of Planetary Security
REGION: Ring Galene, Tau Ceti
Timing would be critical. Calista knew that most captains would have stayed behind with their ship to coordinate the three teams’ movements, but Landon was more than capable, and the team had known better than to try and stop her when she declared she would be the one to go after Jason.
Thanks to Landon, their breach would be timed to coordinate with Terrance and Logan’s actions at the planetside spaceport. Calista settled the shuttle gently on the landing pad outside the lowest entrance to the spire that jutted from the backside of Ring Galene and prepared to wait for Landon’s signal.
Shannon piloted the fighter remotely, keeping it at a hover as it maintained station alongside the spire. Calista grinned as she mentally readjusted ‘up’ in her mind as the ring’s 1g of centripetal force began acting upon her as Mirage touched down on what she had heretofore been thinking of as the underside of the pad. The ring loomed above her, a giant mass of angled, silvery-grey surfaces.
She unstrapped herself from the pilot’s cradle—a slightly more difficult thing to do in full combat armor than it was in her usual flight suit—and made her way back to the shuttle’s airlock to join Tobias, just as Landon signaled them to proceed.
The engineer sent her a virtual thumbs-up.
As the hatch opened, Calista and Tobias walked down the ramp onto the pad and strode quickly to the airlock that would admit them to the spire’s lift. It opened obediently as they approached.
With no one in evidence, Calista unslung her rifle and held it level as she waited for Tobias to give the ready signal. As they exited the lift, she kept the rifle on a continuous sweep through the air—a practiced move she’d acquired in combat training decades ago—as she slowly advanced into a vast, cavernous space. Blinking, she adjusted her optics to display the full spectrum of EM, and saw a warren of pipes spring into being before her—some registering the icy chill of nearby space, while others carried the signatures of electronic and magnetic currents.
Tobias came to a stop next to her, feeding her a detailed map, which she set as a visual overlay on her HUD.
Between it and them was nothing but bare, wide-open ring-deck, with the occasional massive spar that formed some of the main structural supports to the ring. Nothing much to provide cover, should they need it.
Her eyes snagged on the nearest spar, and her gaze followed it up to see a narrow filigree of catwalks ringing the spar where it met the overhead, dozens of meters above her.
She nodded, and they continued their measured pace, studying the node tower as they approached, noting that it had more structure built around it than in other areas.
She eyed the lift as she approached it.
Calista nodded, and they made their way into the shaft and up the rungs of the ladders welded into the walls.
As they approached the lift doors to their level, Tobias halted.
* * * * *
The soldiers propelled Jason from the lift, marching him down a short corridor and into the clinically cool environs of Henrick’s medical sector. As they entered, he took mental inventory of the space. He saw an array of medical bays, rooms that branched out from the central area that had been set up as the nerve center for deSangro’s research. They stood open, and in their door frames, he could see
flashing lights indicating ES fields in use, restraining those housed within, as well as providing deSangro with an unimpeded view of her subjects.
There would be no privacy afforded to those patients. It made the entire complex feel like an oversized specimen case, rather than an infirmary.
Off to one side stood a tall, spare woman he assumed was Reya deSangro. Her hair was pulled back from her face in a severe fashion he suspected was done more for utilitarian reasons than for style, and she was clad in the Galene version of a standard-issue medical coat. Some sort of augmented headgear partially obscured her face, and her eyes kept flicking between its projected readout and something glittery that was spread out just beyond the ES field in the medical bay she was standing in front of.
As the soldiers dragged Jason closer, he realized she was examining the remains of an AI; the glittery material was once the lattice she must have removed from its cylinder.
Well that confirms her identity. Henrick’s butcher, deSangro.
The headgear she wore added to the mad scientist persona, her concentration so complete that she remained completely unaware of their presence. It took several attempts by the soldiers to get her attention.
Finally, the soldier holding his arm hauled him between the doctor and the AI’s remains, calling her sharply by name.
With a glower and an irritated “What?!” deSangro turned to face them.
“Here’s your next victim, doctor. Fresh meat, just in from Proxima,” the soldier leered, using her powered armor to force Jason to stumble forward several steps. “Where do you want us to stash him?”
DeSangro scowled, motioning them to one side so that she could return her gaze to the filaments that were once a sentient AI. She waved a hand at them in dismissal.
“Put him in the far bay. Just make sure you’ve EMPed the room first,” she ordered, her voice distracted. Abruptly, deSangro’s gaze sharpened and focused on Jason, and he felt like a bug under a microscope. “But check back with me in an hour or two. I’ll need you to strap him into the autodoc for me.” She turned away, and Jason felt a chill sweep down his spine at the coldly clinical manner in which the scientist had inspected him.
