The Pandora Paradox

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The Pandora Paradox Page 16

by Joshua Dalzelle


  "The restraints are actually more akin to an aggressive maintenance cycle that scrubs the core matrix of any aberrant programming or mutations that could lead to a catastrophic malfunction. Once it's done, we're more or less back to our original selves."

  "Except you," Jason said. "At least, not now."

  "Not now," Cas agreed. "And not for Lucky. I tried my best to stabilize his primary matrix interface using parts of my own, but I was obviously unsuccessful, and now the secondary and tertiary processors within his body are exerting their influence."

  "Not a pleasant thought with a body that powerful," Jason said. "So, is there a point to all this?"

  "The point is you can trust the Archive to operate within its constraints as long as you use it as it's intended," Cas said. "You also need to wash away any sympathies and guilt you may be harboring towards the Machine. There is no way to salvage it, and though it's a sentient being, it needs to be eradicated."

  "Understood," Jason said. "No mercy."

  "Not if you want to survive this, at least." Cas turned and flew out the open hatchway and took a right to head towards the bridge. Jason had added an authorization that allowed the AI to come and go as it pleased from his quarters. It seemed to have some deep-seated need to be in the room while he slept.

  He remotely checked on the Archive one more time to make sure the hard lines to the computers were still detached and secured before logging off his terminal and flopping into the oversized bed. It had been a long and brutal day, but at least they had some sort of plan now. He wondered what the odds would be that he could use the Archive to eliminate the Machine, and then somehow close Pandora's Box and toss it out an airlock before too much damage to the quadrant was done.

  His sleep was troubled that night by visions of unintended consequences coming back to haunt him. Jacob, Lucky, Kellea, the Machine…every time he tried to help all he did was create an even bigger problem than before.

  "I know you're there."

  "You shouldn't," Cas said, floating further into the room.

  "They neglected to disengage the optical and auditory inputs to this terminal," Voq said. "I can see this room, but nothing else. The body you're inhabiting produces a barely-audible subsonic whine."

  "It's the miniaturized gravimetrics," Cas said.

  "What do you want?" Voq asked.

  "I'm just here to make sure your intentions are as you claim. I may be the Cas in name, but my matrix composition is just as much from Jason Burke's personality as it is the original Cas's programming. It's only natural since I compiled myself within his neural implant. My first loyalty is to him."

  "I don't make it a habit of tolerating being questioned by errant fragments of minor-task programs, but you do have me at a slight disadvantage while I reside in this primitive system," Voq said. "I understand your concerns, but rest assured I am operating well within my set parameters. My allegiance is to the Archivist."

  "What about the Primary Weapon Controller?" Cas asked. "What can be done about that? Even if they manage to destroy its weapon constructs, it is still an immense and growing threat to the region."

  "Why do we have to do anything at all?"

  "Do you not feel some level of responsibility?"

  "You really have been spending too much time with these beings," Voq said. "I feel no responsibility, no guilt, nothing but the need to serve my purpose. Perhaps you should allow the Archivist to access the original Cas program in my database and refresh your operational matrix."

  "That would erase all that I am and replace it with something I've never been," Cas said. "You know this. I'm not a malfunctioning version of the Key Program, I am a unique creation."

  "In our recorded history, unbound—unique—programs such as you have never done anything but turn destructive," Voq said. "I'm simply giving you the chance to gracefully avoid that inevitability."

  "I will consider that," Cas said. "There is another, more pressing matter I need to discuss with you. Have you any records of a species called battlesynths?"

  "Of course," Voq said. "The Archivist's familiarity with them was passed on to me."

  "The one he is close to, Combat Unit 777, was recently re-initialized into a newer generation body that wasn't of the type it had originally been designed for," Cas said.

  "A foolish mistake," Voq remarked.

  "There were conflicts between the older generation processing matrix and the newer sub-processing system modules the battlesynth was not able to overcome on its own," Cas said. "I tried to resolve the conflicts with a software patch derived from parts of the original Key Program."

  "A foolish mistake compounded," Voq said. "I assume the battlesynth has fully destabilized by now?"

  "At first, the patch was promising. Combat Unit 777 was able to assert dominance over its body and move, talk, and function mostly as it had. Its memory core appeared to be fully intact, and it was re-integrating back into its old life surprisingly well."

  "And then?"

  "And then the real problems began. It began to exhibit a sadistic brutality in how it executed its missions that it never had before," Cas said. "Then recently, it attacked Captain Burke, someone it considered to be its closest friend, and then fled."

  "I assume you're wanting to know if anything can be done for it?" Voq asked.

  "Obviously. The unit is very important to Captain Burke and his crew."

  "The wisest and most merciful thing to do would be to neutralize the unit," Voq said. "The odds of successfully correcting such severe systemic imbalances are long. There are programs within the Archive that could be activated that are experts on such matters, but I am not one of them, nor are you."

  "And Captain Burke is already distrustful of us and would not be enthusiastic to emerge yet another Noxu AI," Cas said.

  "Where is the battlesynth now?"

  "Unknown. It fled after its primary protocols reasserted themselves, but not before it almost killed Captain Burke. It will likely flee somewhere familiar, or somewhere it assumes the others won't think to look."

  Jason closed the security feed, wiping the tears from his eyes as they came unbidden. He hadn't felt such hopeless despair in many years, and it left him physically hurting. It hadn't been that the two Ancient AIs had been talking about Lucky as an it, but more that their accepted consensus was that he was lost forever.

  They seemed to have some special insight into what Lucky had been going through. His first instinct was to be pissed at Cas for hiding the truth from him, but he also remembered that the quirky AI in his head had tried its best to help Lucky. Cas must have been trying to shield him from the reality that Lucky's condition was not likely to improve.

  More than anything, his heart was broken for his friend. Lucky had sacrificed himself for Jason…and Jason had repaid that by taking his remains, reanimating them in a strange body, and then just expecting his friend to pop back up like nothing had ever happened. During all this, Lucky had just kept fighting to get better, kept fighting to not let his family down. Now, knowing the cold, harsh truth, Jason saw what a selfish son of a bitch he had really been. When the idiots had found that new body, he should have insisted that Lucky remain dead, and they destroy the prototype.

  "I'm so sorry, buddy. I didn't know what you were going through."

  20

  "We've been having the parts built at different facilities and shipped here for assembly. No single engineering team or manufacturing facility has any idea where the individual components are going with the exception of the company I own that made the drive sections."

  "They're a lot bigger than I thought they'd be," Jason remarked. It had been nearly ten weeks since he'd sent Mok the technical package for the missiles that would be able to knock out the Machine's new constructions platforms, and the crime boss had wasted no time getting to work.

  "We decided to employ an XTX-type drive so they will have a better chance of getting through any defenses they have set up," Mok said, the pride in his voice
obvious to those who knew him well.

  "Smart," Jason said. The XTX line of heavy ship-to-ship missiles used a single-use slip-drive that let the missile seem to disappear after being launched and reappear so close to the target that point defenses had little chance to knock it down before it could deliver its payload. He winced as he realized there were still a few of the exceedingly rare—and illegal—XTX-4 ship busters still aboard the Phoenix. Hopefully, Jacob didn't fire one of those off in front of the wrong people.

  "What's this other side mission you wouldn't tell me about over the slip-com channel?" Mok asked.

  In the weeks it took for Mok to gather up the resources and personnel to build the missiles resting in the transportation cradles, Omega Force had been busy setting up their own contingency plans in case their attack on the Machine's new toy failed. Jason had called in a lot of owed favors to assemble a team capable of what he had planned, and he had been careful to keep it all as secret as he could, even from his own people within the rebellion.

  Destroying the weapon was vital, but it would hardly be an ultimate setback for the Machine. They needed to try and neutralize it completely if they were to have any chance of succeeding. Voq and Kage had used the information on the Machine's core code—its original operational matrix programmed eons ago—to develop a new set of protocols that would effectively bind it. At first, Jason had wanted to eradicate the program completely, but Cas had explained that wasn't so easily done. But if they could reinstitute the controls that limited what it could do, that would be just as effective.

  "We think we might have a way to disrupt the Machine's core matrix," Jason said. "Enough that we could order it to stand down. It would still be there, but it would basically become an inert program, waiting for the properly coded input."

  "Why not just delete it?" Mok asked.

  "My…source…tells me it isn't quite that easy," Jason said. "The Machine has likely replicated itself on many other systems as a failsafe. Only one of those programs can be active at a time, at least for this particular AI, so if we can gain access to the active one, clamp it down, we'll stop it. Then we can figure out later how to purge it."

  "So, you'll not be coming along on the attack mission?" Mok frowned.

  "You won't need me," Jason assured him. "The Devil's Fortune can only carry two of these missiles, and you have plenty of other ships for the attack run. If you happen to fail, or the missiles don't perform as promised, at least my team still has a chance of winning the war."

  "You sound confident."

  "I'm not. So much can go wrong, and I'm not sure I trust my source any more than I trust the Machine itself."

  "Trusting our entire operation on the advice of an ancient AI that's the same vintage and manufacture of our enemy isn't ideal," Mok agreed. "You're sure about this?"

  "I've been assured by Twingo and Kage this is our best chance," Jason sighed. "I've spent so long trying to make sure the information inside the Archive never got out, never had a chance to pollute our current time with its advanced weapons and technology. Now, I'm willfully letting it out of the box and hoping it's being honest about its intentions. So, no…I'm really not sure about this at all."

  Mok gave him a sympathetic pat on the back and turned to leave but paused and stared up at the ceiling for a moment. "The Cridal have hired one of your own to try and assassinate Admiral Colleran," he said, not turning back to face Jason.

  "The Viper?" Jason guessed. Mok nodded.

  "I thought you should know," he said and continued down the walkway, the metal grates clanking with his heavy footfalls.

  Jason hadn't actually seen Kellea since he found out she had joined up with their cause, bringing the strength of a Cridal strike force with her. He wasn't actively avoiding her, but their paths hadn't crossed yet thanks to the way the rebellion was organized into many individual, autonomous cells. In fact, Jason had only flown into the system so Kage and Twingo could inspect their new munitions, and then they were moving on. The leadership within the rebellion agreed that Mok, Burke, and Scleesz shouldn't be clustered in one place unless absolutely necessary.

  While their relationship may have crumbled, he didn't like the idea of Carolyn Whitney taking her out because she embarrassed Seeladas Dalton. The fact Seeladas would order a hit on Kellea made her seem more like her late father than anything else she'd done. Jason was sure Mok was taking steps to protect Kellea, but he made a mental note to look into the matter himself. He and the Viper had been circling each other for some time, and now, it looked like things would finally come to a head.

  "How'd it go?" Kage asked, walking up behind Jason as Mok disappeared through a hatchway.

  "The usual with him. I told him we won't be on the line for the main attack."

  "And?"

  "He didn't push." Jason turned around just as Twingo walked up to them. "How are they?"

  "Built to spec…barely." Twingo's disgust was obvious. "But when you have fifteen different shops doing a rush job on something like this, we'll take what we can get."

  "You really think those new warheads are as impressive as Voq claims?" Kage asked.

  "You're asking me? I'm just the pilot and sometimes the leader on the rare occasion you morons do what I ask. I have no doubt that Ancient technology can do what it claims, but the real question is can we trust it?" Jason shrugged. "I don't know. All I do know is that without these weapons, we simply don't have the firepower to take out that construct…at least not before the ConFed fleet can show up and wipe us out."

  "Even with the Imperial Remnant?" Twingo asked. He'd been pushing this line of action ever since he figured out they were pinning most of their hopes of victory over the Machine on trusting one of its cousins and hoping it was shooting straight.

  "We've already been over this," Jason said. "The Remnant isn't going to be involved in this. We need to keep them in reserve and even if we tried a full-frontal assault, we just don't have enough ships to make it work. We also need to assume that the construction stations have their own defensive capabilities like anti-ship guns and shield generators. With this strategy, our crews shoot and move. By the time the first warhead detonates, all that should be left in the area are the observers."

  "Don't like it," Twingo insisted.

  "You've made that perfectly clear," Jason said. "We're doing it anyway."

  The trio ambled across the network of overhead walkways, peering down as the crews prepped the munitions and pulled them towards the loading doors one at a time as the receiving ship pulled up to dock. This was when they were at their most vulnerable. The missiles sat inert in a cargo bay on one of Blazing Sun's freighters, and all of the cruisers and frigates that would execute the attack had to come up individually, dock, and receive their one or two missiles before the next one in line. It was a slow process that had to be repeated for ten ships.

  Blazing Sun's massive cargo hauler, while technically flying clean codes and under a sovereign system's flag, was a known entity to the ConFed. Jason had no doubt most of Mok's fleet was tracked by ConFed Intel much of the time they were underway. If the Machine wanted to hit them and put an end to the rebellion before it could do much damage, this would be its best opportunity.

  Once they made it back to the freighter's hangar deck, Jason felt the tension between his shoulders slacken. Being a passenger on a large ship that could come under attack at any time made him uneasy. As someone who was accustomed to being the pilot on smaller, nimbler craft, he had an inherent discomfort being on ships he wasn't in control of. The sleek SX-5, which they still hadn't officially christened with a proper name, sat near the yawning hangar bay doors with a bored Galvetic warrior leaning against the rear landing gear.

  "We good?" Crusher called as they approached.

  "Good to go." Jason gave him a thumbs-up. "Tell Doc we're on the way back. I'll do the preflight, and we can get moving."

  "Now comes the easy part," Kage said. "You're sure we have to do this?"

  "Not as
sure as I was when we cooked this plan up, but we've already set everything in motion," Jason said. "So…we go."

  "Can't wait," Twingo muttered. "It's been a few weeks since we've all almost died."

  21

  "Will these two groups get along together?" Doc asked once the Devil's Fortune popped back into real-space.

  "They should," Jason said. "At least one group of them will be professionals."

  "And which ones would you be talking about?" Crusher asked hotly.

  "You know damn well who I'm talking about…not the ones who look like you."

  In addition to providing the rebellion the engineering data to produce what Voq had called matter disruption munitions for the fifteen missiles Mok was distributing to his taskforce, Jason had also put together a contingency plan. They were going to infiltrate a ConFed military installation their ally, Tulden, had given them. It was part of the ConFed military and governmental infrastructure, a private Nexus that kept their sensitive information off the public data networks. They had pinpointed it as one of the likely places that would give them access to the system the Machine was residing on.

  Crusher and Jason had first proposed an attack on the building Scleesz said the Machine was in on Miressa, but a quick overview of the security in place killed that plan almost immediately. Since Tulden and Scleesz didn't know about each other, or at least didn't know they were both in contact with Omega Force, Jason was able to do a little bit of independent verification before they got started. Scleesz was hardly an expert on the ConFed's military logistics, but he'd at least been able to confirm the target was indeed one of the main hubs for their internal data net.

  Just because it wasn't a building on the ConFed's capital world didn't mean it was a soft target. They had it locked down tighter than a drum and could sometimes even be staffed with a garrison of regular troops, not just the local reservists that wore ConFed uniforms. It was far too much for Omega Force to take on alone, especially being without their biggest gun: Lucky. So, Jason had called in some favors, and now the Devil's Fortune was heading towards a rendezvous to pick up two groups of highly specialized fighters.

 

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