by Isaac Hooke
A man named Chancery slept in the top bunk above her. He was a TSN Mancer, and her unofficial guard. Chancery had been somewhat talkative on the first day. He had been in a strange mood when they first met, spouting expletives one minute and crying the next. She hadn’t said a word the whole time, but she eventually pieced together that his entire platoon had been lost in some tragic incident on Sigma 231 while searching for Tane in the Umbra. Chancery had been the only survivor of his unit.
After that first day, the man barely said a thing. She suspected his superiors had given him a warning. They knew every word he told her, of course, thanks to the ship’s AI. And it wouldn’t matter if either of them raised a Silence Cage, because the AI could read lips. There were other ways of communicating—covering the lips while speaking, mental texts—but the Mancer hadn’t bothered.
He usually awakened at this hour. But today, he was sleeping in late. He had stunk of alcohol when he returned last night. It was illegal to drink aboard TSN starships, but some crewmembers inevitably found a way. There were always the one or two culinary specialists who smuggled spirits aboard, or the machinist’s mates who seemed to specialize in illicit distilleries. And they always had a large queue of eager clientele.
At last the Mancer awoke. He swung his hairy legs over the top bunk and dangled them over the ledge, nearly hitting her in the face. She slid to the side and waited for him to lower himself.
Wearing only his skivvies, he hardly spared a glance for her before going to his storage locker and pulling on fatigues patterned in blue and gray digital, the standard ship-side uniform. He had an armored robe in there as well, something she had only seen him wear once: on that very first day when he had been assigned to room with her.
He walked toward the hatch, and when it opened, he paused to look at her. “Would you like anything from the mess hall?”
Lyra didn’t answer. Instead, she simply stared straight ahead at the bulkhead.
“Like a zombie,” Chancery muttered. He walked out and the hatch shut behind him. He was gone to have breakfast, and whatever else it was he did while aboard the Decantium class ship.
Lyra envied him.
She remembered Nelson’s standing orders to the letter. He had said: “You are not to speak to anyone without my permission. This means no sign language, gestures, or Galnet or chip-to-chip messages. You will not hack the ship, or any of the military robots. You are not to step into the Essence without my permission. You will not access your storage pouch without my permission. And, barring an emergency, such as a breach in your deck, you are not to leave this compartment.”
She believed she had found a way around those orders. The latter part was the key: “barring an emergency.”
She would just have to manufacture one.
She glanced at the overhead foam sprinkler system.
Earlier, she had subtly searched her chamber, and determined the location of the camera pinpoint in the bulkhead. Chancery had left some mint gum sitting on the nightstand next to the base of the bunks, and she took a piece then, and chewed it.
She subtly flattened herself against the bulkhead beside the camera, just out of its view, and proceeded to jam a small portion of the gum over the pinpoint-sized lens.
If she had done it right, a maintenance robot would be dispatched to deal with the perceived problem.
She sat on the bunk and waited.
Sure enough, a robot soon arrived. It was a moderately-sized thing, essentially a large trashcan on wheels, with three arms topped by pincers.
“Please step aside, step aside,” the robot said, though she was already seated on the bunk and not at all in the way.
She had half expected a combat robot to accompany it, but the machine was alone: the ship’s AI hadn’t caught her placing the gum.
When the hatch closed behind the robot she ran an ID.
Name: Bucky
Race: Robot.
Model: Service droid Mark II Rev b.
Level: 4
Class: Service and Maintenance
She focused on that class. It provided the loophole in Nelson’s standing orders that she had been hoping for. Most repair robots stationed aboard starships were civilian models, as the TSN could purchase them for much cheaper than their military equivalents. Nelson’s orders were: “you will not hack the ship, or any of the military robots.” So old Bucky here didn’t count.
Plus it was an older model. That gave her hope that her weak hacking skills would be enough.
This particular robot had a wireless access port, like most repair and maintenance robots. She accessed the remote interface and tried all the privilege escalation code she had on hand for that particular bot.
The robot spun toward her. “Do not—”
She got in.
She interfaced with its mind, taking care to first isolate the robot from the ship’s AI, so that what she did next would not be logged.
“Where are the shutdown codes for my control chip located?” she asked mentally.
She wasn’t using sign language, gestures, or Galnet or chip-to-chip messaging. She wasn’t speaking to the robot. She was thinking to the robot. And it wasn’t done via the Galnet, or chip-to-chip, but chip-to-robot.
She hadn’t been entirely certain the control chip would allow for the chip-to-robot distinction, but a moment later the AI replied, also mentally: “I do not have access to that information.”
She couldn’t help but grin.
Yes, there are always workarounds if the commands are worded sloppily.
“Likely locations for the shutdown codes?” Lyra asked, continuing the mental conversation.
“There is a vault containing a holographic storage device in the admiral’s quarters,” the AI responded.
That wouldn’t work. First she’d have to convince the admiral to give her access to the vault. And then, once she had the holographic storage device, she’d have to ask Nelson to decrypt it. In her current state, she couldn’t go near either man.
“Do you have access to any military-grade mind dumps?” Lyra sent.
“I do,” the robot told her. “Copies are stored in the local cache aboard. Is there anything in particular you wish me to search for?”
“Download all information you have on the AIs of Decantium class ships,” Lyra said. “Specially, any dumps related to backdoors and other potential privilege escalation techniques. I need you to hack in and install a Trojan in a vulnerable subsystem. It has to be unnoticed.”
Another loophole in Nelson’s orders: she would not be the one hacking the ship. Bucky would.
“I’ll see what I can do,” the robot said.
“Good.” She had been working on the code for a Trojan to inject into the AI. Most of the larger subsystems contained antiviral code that would be impossible to breach, but something smaller, like the system responsible for the breach seals on a given deck, or the bay doors in a certain hangar, would be much easier.
Still, she knew it was a long shot. The odds of the robot successfully hacking into even a smaller subsystem were slim. It was the full-time job of specialists and AIs to ensure the different systems were kept up to date. But on such a large ship, with so many moving parts, there was always a chance something had been missed. Bucky would have to surreptitiously probe for vulnerabilities in multiple smaller subsystems until he finally found one, but once the robot got in, the task of gaining access to the exact subsystem she desired became a whole lot easier—her Trojan was specifically designed to escalate privileges within that subsystem after the initial cyber-penetration.
Lyra explained what she wanted the robot to do, and finished with: “If you’re able to achieve what I ask, I’ll also need you to deactivate my external transmitter at the same time, and disconnect me from all mixnets.” She couldn’t do it herself—her control chip denied her. “Also, I have an ID spoofing skill, but I can’t use that either, so I’ll need you to activate that skill for me a few seconds before the disconnect, as follows.�
�� She sent her desired ID. “I’m also granting you remote access to my main chip so you can do all of this. Here are my codes.”
She listed off her access codes.
“Received,” Bucky sent.
“You may go,” Lyra told the robot. “In your repair report to the overarching AI, you will explain that the camera suffered from signal interruption due to overheating, and that you replaced the involved components.”
Bucky removed the gum from the pinpoint-sized camera lens and then left.
She watched the hatch shut behind it.
I’m getting out of here, one way or another.
Lyra replayed the video message her sister had sent. Lyra’s mind wandered as Gwenyth spoke of the more mundane aspects of her upcoming graduation party. Her sister was so very beautiful. And her voice, perhaps more so, if that were possible. She had had over a billion followers on her streaming channel, and whenever she had livestreamed one of her songs, the hearts of young men and women alike had stirred across the galaxy.
But she had given all of that up to follow in her older sister’s footsteps, joining the Volur at Fifteen. Only fifteen. Ordinarily that was too young, but she wanted it so badly… Lyra had helped her get in.
The odds had been stacked against her. First of all, the instructors didn’t feel someone so young was ready, and they always gave her the toughest tasks in the hopes she would fail. Second of all, many of the female teachers envied her beauty, while their male colleagues were convinced the other professors would go easy on her because of her looks and likability, so they all in turn made her life miserable.
But Gwenyth rose above it all and passed their tests, and eventually she won the hearts of the elders on the Triumvirate, not just with her charm and quick wit but with the dedication she brought to every task.
And so the Triumvirate had graduated her. The ceremony had only just finished, and she had sent that video message to Lyra, revealing her chosen profession for the first time.
Except the profession she had selected came as a complete surprise.
Her sister finished describing the minutiae of her upcoming grad party, and her face became somber. Lyra listened intently once more.
“Theolus believes the Bender of Worlds has been born,” her sister said. Theolus was one of their teachers, a man rumored to be so in tune with the Essence that he could sense disturbances throughout the galaxy. Some claimed he could feel when the Hammerglorung arrived in our universe, for example: that inter-dimensional warship the dwellers used to stage their surprise attacks. “I’m going to find this World Bender and I’m going to protect him or her. I’m going to become a warmancer.”
Those words changed Lyra’s life.
Every Essencework Lyra had learned thus far had been in furtherance of her goal of becoming a healer. When she found out she had the ability to Siphon, she had set her sights slightly higher than becoming a veterinarian. She had wanted to become the most powerful healer in all the galaxy. Someone who people would visit from far and wide so that she could mend what ailed them. It was a difficult path, because at the more advanced levels of Wound Healing, one couldn’t simply receive a nanotech injection to rise in skill, as there were no brain dumps that went that high. It would probably take forty or fifty years to attain the mastery she sought.
But the safety of her young sister was paramount, and far more important than some foolish, perhaps unattainable dream. She remembered when she had thrown her body over Dobbie, wanting to squelch the flames and protect her little cat from the world. Now she wanted only to do the same for her sister.
Lyra was the one who had helped Gwenyth join the Volur. She was responsible for her. And now that she was becoming a warmancer, Lyra knew that the only way to truly protect Gwenyth would be to get assigned to the same division.
To do that, she had to give up her dream of becoming a healer.
She must learn war.
Lyra spent the next while waiting in her compartment. Waiting, and hoping that the maintenance robot would complete its programming. When the second hour rolled around and still nothing had happened, she began to wonder if Bucky had been caught attempting to hack in.
But finally an alert appeared on her HUD.
Spoofing activated. Name and class changed externally.
Her contact list went dark a moment later, as did the overhead map. She sat up. Her external transmitter had shut down. She was disconnected from all mixnets, and thus protected from any new orders: simply hearing Nelson’s voice over the intercom wouldn’t cut it, not while she was out of range of the controller.
The alarm sounded. Fire-retardant foam spewed from the sprinkler and in moments she was covered in a thick layer of white.
“Warning, emergency, deck three, compartment G-five,” the AI’s voice said. “Dispatching fire-fighting drones. Remain clear of passageways three-B-one and three-D-one.”
She smiled. It was time.
Lyra stood up and walked to the hatch. When it opened, since it was an emergency, her control chip allowed her to step from the compartment and into the passageway outside.
Almost there.
Lyra sat inside the cabin of the Volur war shuttle, dressed in a military-grade spacesuit. Beside her was her sister, also suited up. There were others with them, some wearing glowing armored robes with Enclosure Mode active, their hoods fronted by glass panes. There were warmancers among them, both ranged and hand-to-hand, as well as healers, shapists, and distorters.
All of them resided within one of the ten Volur war shuttles that flew toward the Hammerglorung, pride of the dweller fleet. An hour earlier, Theolus had sensed the arrival of that flagship and quickly determined the source of the galactic disturbance. The waiting Volur mothership had jumped to the pinpointed system; the vessel had arrived rather far away from the dweller flagship, but the shuttles were launched anyway—the hulls of each were made of Chrysalium, and the distorters aboard were able to make line-of-sight jumps to convey them more rapidly toward their shared target.
The mission of these Volur shock troops was to board the inter-dimensional flagship and destroy it by any means necessary.
The distorters in each shuttle eventually ceased jumping, saving their stamina for the final planned jump. The shuttles continued forward under standard propulsion.
They closed within firing range of the enemy flagship’s point defenses.
On the tactical display overlaying her vision, Lyra saw one of the ten shuttles wink out, struck by said point defenses. Another shuttle vanished.
Lyra reached out and wrapped her fingers around Gwenyth’s gloved hand. Her sister squeezed back, tightly.
Gwenyth forced a smile behind her faceplate and spoke on a private line. “I’m so glad you’re at my side. I don’t think I could do this, otherwise.”
Lyra smiled sadly. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone, then. Maybe I shouldn’t have become a warmonger…
No. Her sister would have gone anyway, despite her words.
“We’ll get through this,” Lyra said. But she didn’t know how. They all knew the chances of surviving the mission were essentially zero. Which was why it had broken Lyra’s heart when Gwenyth had volunteered. And when her sister had done that, signed on for this hopeless mission, Lyra knew she would have to go, too.
I will protect her, somehow. If anyone survives this, it must be her.
When another shuttle disappeared from the tactical display, Lyra began to wonder if any of them would even reach the flagship.
But then Mac, their distorter, made the final jump, and carried the shuttle through all of the incoming point-defense bolts.
The cabin floor shook violently. At first Lyra thought they were hit, but when none of the occupants were sucked into the void, she realized they had survived the first part of the mission.
“Attachment to enemy hull is complete,” the shuttle’s AI announced. “Prepare for boarding.”
Chase stumbled through the passageways, returning from his visit to t
he illegal distillery. Nothing like a few good glasses of rotgut to start one’s day. He glanced at the time, wondering how long had he been gone.
Whoa. Two hours.
“Chancery Smith, your bloodstream is showing elevated blood alcohol levels,” the ship’s AI said. Officially, it was named Bunt. But most of the crew called it Brownnose because of its obsequious behavior toward the senior officers.
“I love how you make it seem each of us is getting your complete and undivided attention, Brownnose,” Chase said. “When in fact, you’re probably talking to ten other people aboard, as well as micromanaging hundreds of your own subsystems at this very moment.”
“Don’t change the subject,” the AI said.
“Yeah, okay, blood alcohol levels,” Chase said. “My chip’s obviously malfunctioning. I’ll have it looked at later today.”
“If your chip is malfunctioning, why are you walking so oddly?” the ship’s AI asked.
Chase made an effort to walk more evenly. “Looks like I’m walking normally to me.” He hiccuped.
“Your commanding officer wishes to speak with you at oh nine hundred,” the AI said.
He’s not my commanding officer, Chase wanted to say. Instead: “Great. Thanks for that.”
The AI didn’t answer.
Chase continued on his way, doing his best to walk in a straight line. The sudden anger he felt helped.
Yes, he was fuming inside. He blamed the CO, and the entire military in general, for the loss of the Darkslayers at Sigma 231. Major Gregory Mason was the name of that CO. He’d ordered the brave men and women of Second Platoon ahead of the high value target, to a particular area of Durahepte City where intel suggested said target might flee during the attempted capture.
But the target never came, choosing a different route in his flight from the TSN.
