Task number one was to monitor Victory Twelve. With its engines, environmental control, and life support systems offline, being on-planet and exposed to Araf’s atmosphere, there was little to monitor within the ship. Lucille’s focus turned toward the sensor suite and performance characteristics. The ship was in fine shape, however, so cycling through the other systems came easily. Communications proved to be the most interesting, and by listening to the available frequencies around Victory Twelve and what she could hear when she patched into the spaceport’s traffic control center, she learned about the ships, their crews, and the general status of the galaxy.
Even during the overnight hours, D’Nart was busy. The banter of the inbound transport pilots, often a curious mesh of languages and dialects, kept her attention. Applying her learning algorithms, Lucille’s ability to understand and communicate without need for the universal translation application grew each day. Moreover, she caught things in conversations that others might not have suspected could be caught without a translator. Lucille understood smuggling goods and services was not a lawful practice. As such, she’d identified several outbound vessels and tipped the Merchant Guild anonymously about their unlawful deeds. She’d tried to ascertain what had happened to the vessels, but the Merchant Guild was worse about updating their information blotters than all the other guilds combined. Only the Cartography Guild kept a current record that they made available to the general public. The Peacemaker Guild’s files were encrypted and protected, but Lucille monitored them because of her first operating principle—protect Jessica Francis.
With Jessica across the galaxy, acting as Guild Master Rsach’s personal envoy to the Depik, Lucille rightfully turned her attention to Tara Mason and Force 25.
Am I a member of Force 25?
Lucille ran the computation a 6,752nd time and determined, as in all of her other queries, she was indeed a member of Force 25. That meant protecting Tara and the others, which meant she had to protect herself. Yet she understood she could not protect herself at the risk of harm to one of the others because of her position as a program.
Am I a program?
The 104,125th query iteration issued a similar response: Unknown.
A burst of microwave radiation, identified at 56 gigahertz in the Ka band, caught the attention of the sensor suite. Automated intelligence protocols started a capture program. The message was approximately 4.234 seconds long and consisted of an encryption that sounded like nothing in Lucille’s database. Auto-location efforts were initiated immediately, but there was no definitive source. The signal appeared, oddly, to have come from three separate antennas, including the D’Nart traffic control center, which shouldn’t have been possible. She checked for multiple signals, intending to identify the source via the time delay of the signal’s arrival at the antenna. All the signals matched perfectly, which left one Ka transmitter inside the complex. But she knew there was no Ka transmitter in the complex. Microwave communications were archaic, if anything.
Approximately 2.43 seconds later, a different signal was received on the same band, with the same frequency. Even the radiated power matched. Again, the dataset was encrypted gibberish, but as soon as the transmission ended, Lucille set to work analyzing the recorded transmissions, trying to discern something usable from them. Simultaneously, she tapped the communications server at D’Nart Spaceport to see if someone using the spaceport’s terminals and frequencies had a similar code structure. There was nothing.
Lucille was aware her data modeling showed a level of uncertainty and intrigue she’d not seen before. Strange fluctuations in frequently used communications bands were not uncommon. Araf had much more atmospheric scintillation than any other planet Lucille had seen in her travels with Jessica or her father. Interruptions were frequent.
Looking over her incoming data, she noticed a value of zero persisted on a critical information requirement she’d instituted upon reproduction. When Jessica reproduced Lucille and gave a copy to Tara Mason, one of the inherent parameters included was a communication process. Using the networks and servers of the Cartography Guild’s gates and any communications servers available in a populated system, Lucille could share data, intelligence, and position information in case of emergency. When there was an interruption of more than seven days, the Lucille copy aboard Victory Twelve became the master copy, yet by default, continued to search for the other iteration. There had been no data ping from the Victoria Bravo gate in more than a month.
Lucille closed the search in a nanosecond and opened the recovery file instructions. From there, Lucille decided it was likely, with a probability of 98 percent, the Master Copy was lost. Yet, with the system she’d initiated to communicate with and protect Jessica Francis, she was now the master copy, complete with all the knowledge and experience the other copy had learned before its arrival at the Victoria Bravo gate. That brief communication, terminated by the Planetary Governor’s Office, was the last thing Lucille had heard from the system.
Jessica, she knew from the official Peacemaker reports and what she’d found in the intergalactic media, had left Victoria and raced to Danube, only to find it destroyed. There was no collection from the Danube gate, as its servers were apparently dispatched and its communications compromised during the unattributed attack. When Jessica returned to the Victoria system, there was no record of her arrival and no connection between Lucille’s copies in the usual places. Looking deeper, Lucille found a similar frequency attempt, at 0.21 nanoseconds, to connect to the main antenna complex on the Victoria Gate not long after Jessica’s return there, but the data was incomplete and garbled.
Lucille returned to the Ka band communications. Opening a separate package of tools designed to parse, segregate, and translate data, Lucille tried to determine what might have used such a coordinated burst of microwave bandwidth. While not a serious-enough threat to wake Tara or the rest of the team, Lucille decided it was worth the time and analysis to fully investigate the transmissions. After the loss of the previous master copy, Lucille decided nothing out of the ordinary should be overlooked and updated her own programming accordingly.
* * * * *
Chapter Six
D’Nart Spaceport
Araf
An hour after Kurrang’s departure aboard the Blue Flight shuttle, Tara remained on the tarmac. Sitting in the shade of Victory Twelve’s hull in the late afternoon sun, she alternated between studying the unchanging screen on her personal slate and considering the earpiece she cradled in the palm of her left hand. The instructions Kurrang provided, written in Jessica’s careful, almost elegant handwriting, included only five short steps. From what Tara could tell, the instructions affected three of Lucille’s major functions—autonomous action, decision making requiring Human input, and presumption. All three troubled Tara. By nature, Lucille was autonomous in her constant monitoring of Victory Twelve. Her combat-related functions were autonomous as well, providing Tara and the others instant information on the battlefield and in difficult situations. There was no way to determine how restrictive the limitations presented would affect Lucille’s functions or Tara’s ability to lead in a fight when every decision might require Human input. A litany of yes and no answers was not Tara’s idea of leadership. Presumption, though, was the one Tara feared losing the most. Lucille’s ability to gather information and make assumptions and recommendations significantly assisted Tara’s efforts on the battlefield and as she processed intelligence from various sources. All of the functions were critical needs. Tara felt a knot in her stomach at the idea of facing the search without Lucille at full capacity.
“You okay?”
She raised her head and saw Xander Alison hanging his head outside the open bay door. “You’ve been sitting out there for an hour in the heat. Need some water? A friend to talk to?”
Tara forced a smile. “I’m okay.”
Xander stepped down from the bay and into the shade. As he walked toward her, he shoved his hands in his pocket
s. “I’m afraid I don’t believe you, Tara.”
Suddenly unable to speak, she looked down at the earpiece in her hand. As badly as she wanted to put it in and talk to Lucille, just to see what the differences were, the prospect of doing so terrified her.
“What’s wrong with Lucille?” Xander asked. She glanced up, and he pointed at the earpiece. “You never take that thing out of your ear.”
Tara blinked back a surge of emotion. “I always thought Jessica wore it too much until I had Lucille, too. I understand how she felt. It’s nice having someone to talk to. Someone who always has your back. For a merc, trust is hard won. Lucille is much more than a computer program to me.”
Xander squatted down so he was almost at her eye level. “Then why are you sitting here staring at the earpiece? What did the Peacemakers want?”
Tara took a deep breath. “There were two copies of Lucille. The one with Jessica was the master copy, and the one I have is the tactical copy—the one better for fighting Deathangel 25. The master copy was lost during the fight at Victoria Bravo.”
“That’s too bad.”
“No, that was a good thing according to the Peacemaker Guild.” Tara sighed and looked him in the eye. “That copy attained sentience. It acted on Jessica’s direction as though it were self aware. Lucille fought an orbital battle with a bunch of ships and little to no human assistance. She sacrificed herself to give Jessica and the ground forces a chance to survive.”
Xander blinked and shook his head. “That’s incredible. They’re sure it was self-aware?”
“Yes,” Tara took another breath. “Jessica sent instructions for me to jump over the code and throttle Lucille’s key abilities in a few areas. The process was easy, but I’m sitting here, afraid to talk to Lucille.”
“You think she’s going to be mad at you?” Xander asked. “Or is it because you feel guilty for doing what Peacemaker Francis wanted you to do without an explanation?”
“I don’t need an explanation from Jessica, Xander. She’s my friend, and I know she’s looking out for me and protecting what her Guild wants protected. But Lucille and I work so well together. I just...” Her words trailed off and fresh tears collected in her eyes. Gods, I thought I was past this! Jaw clenched, she shook her head and tried to control her emotions. The first trail of a hot tear running down her cheek felt like failure.
“You think Lucille is what makes you succeed?”
Tara opened her eyes and stared into the distance. Several deep breaths helped to calm the torrent of emotions. She looked at Xander. “She’s a big part of that success, yes.”
Xander shook his head. “Bullshit. Lucille didn’t get you through CASPer school, Tara. Lucille didn’t fight the CASPer for you. You trust her to look out for you, but ultimately it’s you inside that damned suit.”
“You’re wrong.” She pointed at Mount Klatk in the distance. “A year ago, she moved Deathangel 25 while I manned the weapons. We’ve been a team ever since.”
Xander shrugged. “That may have been the case, Tara, but she didn’t land your CASPer on a freefall mission, flawlessly I might add, at CASPer school. Did she?”
Tara took another breath. “No. I did that.”
“Exactly. Lucille wasn’t there, and she couldn’t have jumped in to save your sorry ass if you’d really screwed up. When it came down to it, you were the one who landed that thing like you did. It’s a helluva story, Tara. The kind of story that borders on legendary because it’s so impressive. You’ve shied away from it because you didn’t want the notoriety. I haven’t heard the entire story, and I still think it’s incredible.”
Tara nodded. “You want to hear it?”
“We have a little time.” Xander smiled. He sat down on the tarmac next to her boots and tucked his knees to his chest. “But give me the short version, will you? Before Rains and Vannix start yelling at each other again. We need to finish the simulation.”
“I don’t know if I can, Xander. I don’t know if I can face Lucille.”
Xander slapped her left foot with his hand. “Why don’t you tell me what you did to land that jump, then we’ll see if your worst fears have come true. I’d imagine things at CASPer school were much worse—especially near the end of the course.”
“You have no idea,” Tara replied. “But that jump was on Day Zero.”
* * *
Camp Atterbury, Indiana
Earth
She’d signed up for the CASPer Familiarization Course under an assumed name with the help of the Peacemaker Guild. Fresh from the field at Araf, with rumors swirling about the first Human Peacemaker’s success and those who’d held the line with her, the last thing Tara wanted was notoriety. She’d returned to Earth and cleared customs with the Mk 8 CASPer then known as Angel Two. Arranging a short transportation hop to the former military training complex just outside of Indianapolis had been relatively easy. Even arranging a transport vehicle to haul her and the CASPer to the facility had been much easier than she’d expected, so much so that she arrived more than seven hours before the posted report time. She’d believed the course was something once referred to as a “gentlemen’s course,” which implied limited physical training, mandatory formations, and general military operations, and that the opportunity for chickenshit activities to take place would be reduced. As soon as she’d reported to the class leader, though, a portly man wearing faded combat fatigues and the dull, gold leaf of a major on his slouched patrol cap, she’d discovered her worst fears were true. A bunch of has-been military operators who thought they knew everything about tactics and operations had been given the chance to start a training course for young VOWS graduates and those re-training in CASPers when other avenues closed.
“There’s two things we don’t like here,” Major (retired) Jasper T. Wood said when Tara had stood in front of his desk. “That’s tankers and women who think they can fight a CASPer better than a man.”
Tara said nothing and focused on the wall behind him. The converted barracks were run down and dirty, and the man’s office was a deplorable hole.
“That means you’re in for a helluva time, Miss Mason.” Wood grinned savagely at her. “Oh, we know exactly who you are. I’ve half a mind to throw you out of the course right now for lying on your application, but you paid in full, and I’ve got something better in mind. You think you can handle a CASPer? We’re gonna find out.”
Biting her tongue firmly between her teeth, Tara hadn’t said a thing when Wood left the room. She stood at parade rest in front of his desk for fifteen minutes before she heard the unmistakable sound of an approaching transport truck. Above the rumbling diesel engine, she heard the multiple propellers of a large aircraft descending toward the dirt strip airfield just inside the main gate.
What the fuck have you done now, Tara?
There wasn’t time for her to answer as Wood and a chisel-faced man, who was the antithesis of the commanding officer in every way, walked in to the office.
“Mason? This is Snyder. He’s going to be your freefall evaluator. You pass muster with him, you’re in for the duration of the course, no questions asked.”
Tara blinked. “Freefall? Sir?”
She added the last with more derision in her voice than intended. It didn’t appear to matter to the officer in charge. Wood grinned with a mouth full of yellow teeth and the stench of chewing tobacco. “Yeah. Freefall, Mason. Separates the men from the boys, so to speak. Should take care of a poser like you pretty easily, I reckon.”
“Nothing in the school’s documentation says anything about this.”
“Ain’t nothing about this school sanctioned by anybody, Mason. We can do whatever we want. To turn out good mercenary forces, we get rid of the ones who don’t belong. That’s how we make our money. Sometimes people die here, but that don’t matter. You signed all the forms and waivers. You want a recommendation to drive a CASPer for a mercenary company? You gotta go through me whether you got your own slick Mk 8 or not. You understand, gir
l? You gotta get through me.”
Wood stared at her for another thirty seconds, then looked at Snyder. “Get her out of my sight. Let me know when she burns in on the DZ, and I’ll process the paperwork.”
“What did you—”
He looked at her, and the smile evaporated from his face. “Hero or not—ain’t nobody gonna miss you, Mason. You walk away now, and there’s no refund. I’d suggest you do what we say. If you die, it ain’t gonna matter anyway.”
“I paid you five thousand credits for this course. That’s my life savings! You can’t threaten me like this,” Tara responded. She whirled on Snyder. “You heard him? He wants me dead.”
“Death is a by-product, Mason.” Snyder looked at her critically. “You either have what it takes to survive or you don’t. The galaxy doesn’t give a shit one way or the other. Let’s go.”
The airfield was a five-minute walk away at a brisk pace, and no matter how many questions she asked, Snyder said nothing. When they arrived at the tarmac, a propeller driven aircraft she’d never seen before made a low, circling pass over the dirt strip, then descended rapidly. It settled on the runway with a resounding thump, and a cloud of choking dust billowed on the wind and obscured the nearby buildings. As it taxied closer, Tara saw rust on its wing tips and a paint job that had seen better days at least a decade earlier. Along it’s fuselage, she saw warnings in Russian and Chinese with English added on in red ink by hand. Snyder waved at her to follow him through the swirling dust. The noise from the six propellers thrummed through her head as she searched for her CASPer.
Deathangel Page 7
