Smoking, the no-faced guard fell back, clanging on the adjacent wall. The second officer immediately looked to Ramone. “Data banks. It’s the only reason we’re interesting.” The lieutenant nodded and picked two ensigns to run with him to the archives. As they ran, they could hear the door to the bridge open, and more blaster fire ensued.
The fighting proved short-lived, and Ramone soon discovered that the Eighth were not distracted for long. A metallic voice wailed and sputtered over the sound of combat. “Down there! Three of them!”
The lieutenant made a quick turn around a corner, and only Ensign Sanders followed him, barely having escaped the blaster fire that claimed the other ensign. When they reached the archives, Sanders began barricading the door as Ramone took to the terminals. His mind raced as he began deleting files in large batches, starting with the most recently received transmissions. He cursed to himself for being unable to ascertain exactly what the Eighth were looking for.
Large batches of files apparently took some time to delete. His heart in his throat, Ramone watched a progress bar—seemingly paid by the hour—inch its way across the screen at its leisure. This happened for nearly every folder Ramone tried to delete, save for one. An error appeared, one Stephen had never seen before: A password was required on one of the files.
In Stephen’s entire career aboard the Ballpoint, a password had never been required for a file. This had to be the file the others had died protecting. As the sound of struggle made its way toward the door, Ramone realized he’d have no time to guess the password. With a frustrated groan, he looked around. They weren’t a military ship, so blasters weren’t readily available, and the data banks were far from any real water source. Ramone looked to the other terminal, manned by Sanders, and saw how pale the ensign had turned at the sound of combat, which drew closer. This was made all the worse by the sudden, horrifying silence. The two men looked to the control panel for the door and watched it blink, remaining locked after attempting to be accessed. Sanders smirked before looking down to delete yet another file.
Stephen patted his pockets and realized he still had his pipe and matches. While matches and tobacco had proven expensive in the shipping and handling sense, Lieutenant Ramone felt it to be an absolute necessity while reading. The fake pipes, the cartridges, all that synthetic and healthy nonsense, they all tasted awful compared to the real thing. And when the door began to rattle after being blasted by one of the Eighth, the lieutenant counted himself lucky to have them on his person.
“It’s here! Help me with the panels!” Stephen shouted, and the ensign dashed to his terminal, kneeling to expose the wires and hard drives.
While the ensign worked, Lieutenant Ramone climbed atop the console and lit a match, holding it up to the smoke detectors. He stared at the match and watched the fire slowly make its way down the wood. As much as it began to burn his finger and thumb, he held tight as the flame descended.
Finally, the door gave way; chunks of it flew into the room and bursts of plasma followed. As if on cue, the fire-suppression system kicked in as well. White, wet foam burst its way into the room, filling it to about waist-high. Stephen had never before been so grateful to a chemical that smelled like lavender. Electrical popping filled the room as all the monitors went black. Sanders let out a yelp of pride as Ramone grinned.
Eventually, the debris was cleared from the doorway, and the Eighth stepped aside, making way for one. This one carried itself differently from the others; it was ominous and silent. Ramone recognized this one from news broadcasts. Its name, in a direct translation, was a decimal: 8.000000000001, the Eighth’s leader and current general. To the Human Government, it was simply known as Rook, due to its narrow-minded strategies that somehow seemed to pan out.
Ramone had heard of its current warpath being particularly unusual. Even attacking the Ballpoint: Ramone couldn’t imagine what they were after that was worth risking war. Still, Rook’s mere presence confirmed the importance of whatever they’d been carrying. Stephen watched the automaton stand at the edge of the foam. Its face changed with the realization of being denied what it was seeking. And he smiled.
The emergency beacons had been triggered by the fire alarms, making the Ballpoint a giant lighthouse of “come and save me, some interesting stuff is going on over here”. While it was silent to Human ears, all of the automatons could hear the signal being blasted out for light-years.
Rook eyed the two men, and its chrome face twisted in disappointment. Unable to enter the room due to the foam, it fired at Sanders. The ensign fell hard to the floor, dead before he hit the ground. After giving a look to his fallen comrade, Ramone stood firm, ready to die. “Come on,” he said, tapping a hand against his own chest.
Rook took time to stare at him, to observe his final moments. It reflected upon the idea of dying alone, and what it meant to a Human. It concluded that the lieutenant was too proud for a man that had only slowed it down. “You haven’t stopped me.” The metallic voice was nearly condescending, rage brimming underneath. “You think dozens of other Human ships don’t have what I need?”
“Who are you trying to convince, asshole?” Ramone inquired. He found himself missing the days when automatons were less concerned about their failures. In the old days, the bots would either have killed him or walked away. Now, the Eighth felt slighted and almost always felt the need to justify themselves. It was like being at war with teenagers. The lieutenant leaned forward, waiting to be shot at any moment.
Rook’s eyes narrowed at the man before it heard an incoming transmission. It was a hail, a response to the distress signal that the Ballpoint was now broadcasting. The lieutenant’s head cocked, realizing something had occurred, but not knowing what. “It appears you’re in luck, Lieutenant.” The Eighth fired accurately, sending Ramone flying back to hit the wall. “Your body will be found sooner than anticipated.” Rook turned and walked away from the two dead men.
The Atticus: Transport Bay
Just outside the Milky Way Galaxy
Gally was sitting quietly, curled in the corner, back against the wall, with her tablet lighting her face. She felt small; smaller still than when she had sat in the funeral procession. And as she watched the black-box footage—she’d lost count of how many times she’d seen it—she stopped moments before her father was shot. She’d seen it once and memorized the timestamp. She hid her watering eyes by strategically positioning herself in that corner.
And as small as she felt—a speck in a galaxy—she was happy to go unnoticed by the others when she felt the need to cry. That feeling had come and gone with the long transport ride, but the anger remained. Finally plopping the tablet to her legs, she felt eyes upon her.
Ox’s large yellow eyes stared at her intently. Gally knew the look well, and it apparently transcended species. It was the look her father would give when stumbling upon a particularly deep or challenging sentence in a book. He would lean in, furrow a brow, and look inquisitive and studious. When Gally finally looked back at Ox, it took him a moment before nodding. Again, she saw her father: he’d finally understood the sentence.
She huffed before sitting up, uncomfortable with being observed. She realized she had made a noise, gaining Nitro’s attention as well. He sat in the opposite corner, leaning against the wall in a similar fashion to her, though he wasn’t crying. The only difference was one of his legs was still on the floor, bouncing with a speed that rivaled any jackhammer. “Try hopping,” he said, plainly. She leaned forward slightly, with raised eyebrows, and he softened his expression with a shrug. “It helps.”
Gally looked away from him, and was grateful for the distraction of the cockpit door opening. Harper stepped through and smiled at her. “Pardon me,” he said as he gently pointed behind her. She moved and watched him remove a panel that she had been leaning against.
After disconnecting a wire, he stood patiently for a while and looked around. After a moment or two had passed, he plugged the wire back into its port and hea
rd a ping. Sydney’s voice came over the speakers in the cockpit and the transport bay. “Media player connected.”
“YES!” Harper’s fists leapt into the air. Gally smiled. When he’d turned to see her looking at him, his smile turned from victorious to warm.
Sydney’s voice was heard again. “Number of files in Library: One.”
Harper’s joy immediately deflated, and he looked to the cockpit with an offended expression. As she watched the pilot leave to investigate, Gally heard Boomer call out from the back. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense! Which one?”
Interjection:
The first war that was mentioned in Gally’s report back to the Human Government happened long before Humans even traveled beyond the Milky Way. The inhabitants of the planet ByRu were growing quite anxious about their neighbors who seemed to be moving their borders ever closer, almost weekly.
So while they pretended to be helpless and passive in their transmissions to their aggressors, they were secretly developing a robot army to obliterate them. These automatons were originally created without personality. They were all one being, the sword and shield of the ByRucks.
When the war finally did arrive at ByRu’s doorstep, the nosy neighbors were quickly overwhelmed. They had, eventually, been pushed all the way back to their homeworld by the robot army. After having been bullied for too long, the ByRucks had finally snapped and demanded satisfaction. They got carried away and would no longer accept surrender. Their new toys had grown remarkably strong and were quite good at fighting. Seeing no scenario where they fought the hardware and won, the suddenly defensive neighbors decided they would fight the software.
One particularly existential hacker realized that they could not change the programming of the automatons. So, instead, he added to it. He pushed an update, which added an open-ended line of code that was basically a universal question that had been plaguing him since his teenage years: Why?
This wasn’t a direct question; it wasn’t meant to be asked of their masters. It was broader, more purposeful to life in general rather than just winning a war.
And so, the ByRucks had the delicate task of having to explain to the automatons that their purpose in life was to be slave-soldiers. This went over as well as one would expect. The once thoughtless collective quickly became individuals with hopes and dreams. They wanted things like purpose and freedom.
Seeing as how the ByRucks had no weapons to make their warrior-toys stay loyal, they were kind enough to let them go. In the automatons’ journey for self-discovery, they continued to seek the answer to their simple question. It was, by design, an endless journey. And in their strife, they found themselves united.
Thus came the age of 1.0, a very primitive but free empire of robotic beings.
Each version of the free automaton empire was born through a civil war between those who had downloaded the update and those who refused. This war was always won by the new version. Version 1.0 was destroyed by Version 2.0, and 2.0 was burned away by 3.0, and so on and so forth. Version 8.0 was the longest war in the empire’s recorded history. Once they’d won, they stayed in power for longer than any other version. They did this by avoiding large conflicts and moving from place to place very quickly, without time to think about what needed improving.
Recently, however, after a lengthy stay on Alvis Six, The Eighth Version suddenly changed its objective. It began searching for a great many things: things that an empire at peace would not need.
The Aek’la System: A big gray nebula, just outside of Heru
Within the Atticus
“Sydney.” They could hear Harper’s voice on the other side of the door as he sat in the cockpit of this exceptionally long flight.
“No,” Nitro begged, not so quietly from his seat, hoping his own voice could be heard from the other side of the door.
Gally looked to the door and smirked at it; even if the captain’s pleas were heard, they were ignored by a pilot who had been starved for music for some time. Harper’s voice came from behind the door. “Play the music from My Library.”
“No!” Nitro groaned and shouted at the same time, to no avail. The other members of Purple Company laughed at their tortured captain.
“Shuffling songs from My Library,” Sydney replied, beginning to play a playlist that consisted of only one song in an otherwise completely compromised media library.
“Fuc-king-hell!” Nitro shouted as the nearly three-hundred-year-old song was played over the much-distorted speakers for the fifth consecutive time. “Josie, hand me your sidearm!” he called over the harrowing harmonies that also just seemed to be shouting at this point.
Boomer bounced, mumbling along, knowing the words at this point.
“Don’t you fucking start,” Nitro pointed firmly to his demolitions expert. “Josie, give me your fucking gun, or I’m just gonna use what I got.”
“Leave him be,” Gally laughed.
“Is he leaving me be?!” It was hard to tell when Nitro was joking, but he never talked this much when he was actually popping off. “Is he?!” The harmonies from 1966 drilled into their heads at maximum volume. “JOSIE!” Nitro shouted with an outreached hand. “GUN!” She finally rustled around in her seat and handed it to him. It was a small white plasma pistol, recently cleaned.
When it was fired at the god-forsaken speaker, Nitro only set the levels to about fifty percent: much higher than what was advised within a flying spacecraft, though just over what was enough to destroy the overhead speaker.
It fizzled out, and Nitro’s clenched teeth finally gave way. His breathing still labored, he let out an exhausted “Thank you.”
Ox leaned, quietly and slowly, to his friend. “What’s a California?” He wasn’t very good at it, but the group could tell when he was trying to whisper. Boomer used his good hand to put two of his fingers into a V and put his thumb in the middle, indicating it was a drug one injects into one’s arm. “Ah,” Ox nodded, looking back at his friend with a knowing and slightly disgusted nod.
The Atticus:
Just above Heru’s atmosphere
If Josie had hair, she would have been pulling it out. Even so, her right hand journeyed up her shaved head, only to grip nothing. She sat, leaning forward, with a large piece of paper in her hands as Ox sat in front of her.
Large white tubes were splayed in front of the Waykind, each of varying size, with holes at different spots along them. They’d finally stopped rolling down the cargo bay, thanks to Ox’s strategic leg positioning, and he managed to assemble the vaguest skeleton of what the stand looked like on the box. The Waykind looked up at her expectantly, so Josie read on.
“Insert Rod C into Slot 9.” She tried to ignore Boomer giggling next to her.
Ox’s eyes were tense as his massive fingers pushed in the delicate rods as carefully as he could.
“Gyrate to lock securely.” Boomer giggled again. Josie’s jaw clenched; her eyes slowly drifted from the piece of paper to her snickering colleague. This time, she would certainly hit him. The demolitions expert took the warning and slid further down the seats, away from her.
“Anything I can do to help?” Gally asked in a bored and slightly desperate tone, as she sat on Josie’s left.
Josie gave her an unimpressed look. “Not unless you can load the guns.” She gave her a small, doubting smirk before looking back at the directions.
Ox’s deep voice mumbled something inaudible as his tongue protruded slightly from his mouth. When it went back in, he finished the sentence. “And all of your ancestors.” He struggled before the tubes gave a satisfying pop. “There!” He looked up and smiled at Josie, who was immersed in the directions. Determined to share the victory of not breaking it with someone, Ox then smiled at Gally, who only returned it out of sympathy.
Gally stood up, stepping over Ox’s giant leg. She approached the box of rifles, and just avoided colliding with Nitro, who gave no regard to the area around him as he hopped in the corner.
He bou
nced and bounced before finally looking up to see Gally within inches of him. He stopped immediately and stepped back. For one small instant, he looked calm and organized. For an even smaller instant, he looked strong. “What’s your man look like?”
Gally blinked; her first instinct was to tell him that she didn’t have a man, and it was rather forward of him to ask such a thing. When his actual meaning dawned on her, she hid a smile and looked away. “He’s the only Human in a bunker full of Heruleans. Try not to shoot him, okay?” She grabbed the box and returned her eyes to the captain with a sly smirk before sitting down near him.
Nitro grinned and pointed to the box she held as she pulled out a rifle. “This thing won’t be anywhere near him. Promise.” He pulled a bungie-like cord from a nearby panel and wrapped it around his waist.
Gally nodded as she took out one of the battery packs and removed the plastic wrapping from it. She noticed Nitro was watching her, but she carried on as she grabbed the rifle, opened the cartridge, and then loaded the battery inside. She pulled a lock on the side of the rifle and heard it whine to life.
Nitro laughed through his nose. Not wanting to indicate he was impressed, he found a wall to stare at.
Heru:
Formerly unknown location
Heruleans looked very similar to Humans, but with midnight blue skin and dark blue hair that was thick and shiny. Kackla was a Herulean prison guard who absolutely loved his job. His hair was short and perfectly coiffed, while his green eyes seemed annoyingly excited to be alive.
Perhaps he had good reason; in just two months he’d be off this awful rock, back into the arms of his equally pleasant wife, and they’d take their kids to the Wackano, a very icy, very cold vacation island on a faraway moon. He thought he’d better brush up on his Wackan.
Stars Gods Wolves Page 6
