It was the nature of the business. Mok had found himself in an opportunity to quickly step in and wrest control of a medium-sized smuggling cartel that had been a bit rudderless after its leader, a cruel and ruthless Sorson named Bondrass, had been killed by rivals when one of their joint operations had been blown by a group of escaped slaves. Six members of that group would end up sticking together, forming a mercenary crew that called itself Omega Force. Mok had felt beholden to the Omega crew for giving him the opportunity he needed to gain control of a sizable operation from which he could build his empire, but after dealing with Jason Burke for so long, he began to wonder if it had been worth it.
More than anything, Mok was tired. Tired of the life, tired of trying to maintain some shred of his morality in a world that had none, and tired of pretending his criminal empire wasn't just as destructive as any that had come before it. In these rare moments of introspection, he could admit that the thing that galled him so much about Omega Force was that they operated within the same criminal underworld he did, but they never lost sight of the line they wouldn't cross. They were killers and thieves, but everything they did was in service of those who needed it the most.
Things were so much simpler back when he was just an intelligence operative for the Eshquarian Empire. Destabilizing regimes and overthrowing governments was an easier thing to do when you were ordered to do it.
"The last three ships have started towards their mesh-out points, sir."
Mok turned and looked at his long-time consigliere, Similan. "Then I suppose we should be on our way as well," Mok said. "Tell the captain he is clear to get underway."
"I obey," Similan bowed, pausing. "You are doing the right thing, sir."
"I know you think so, old friend…but I remain skeptical."
"Blazing Sun isn't an organization you just walk away from, sir. If you try to leave, they'll kill you. If they find out that you're using their resources to fight a rebellion against the ConFed and destabilize the region, they'll kill you for that as well. You have provided ample resources for young Jason Burke's plans. It is now on him to execute the mission. You need to reestablish control over your own domain."
"Untactfully spoken, but true nonetheless," Mok sighed. "Very well, let's go home."
Once the person he trusted most in the galaxy had left, Mok continued to stare out the windows and brood. Similan was right. Once you rose to a certain level in an organization like Blazing Sun, there was only one way out. You either died trying to defend your position, or you died trying to run. The Points couldn't risk someone like Mok simply leaving. He knew every little detail about their individual operations, but if he was picked up by authorities and squeezed, well, that was just a risk they weren't willing to take.
Acuri walked purposefully down the corridor, not challenged by the guards on either side of the nondescript security door as he walked through. Like himself, they were synths. The Machine had been gathering more and more of his kind into its inner circle, seemingly more comfortable with beings of artificial intelligence than the unpredictable, short-lived biotics that infested most planets. Acuri was pragmatic enough to appreciate the work of the pru, the species that had given his kind life, but as a general rule, he didn't much care for the species of the galaxy that breathed air. Artificial life was so much more orderly and clean.
The Machine was still a bit of an enigma to Acuri and the other synths that followed it. It was impossibly ancient and possessed an advanced intellect that some of the synths found almost frightening. But despite the differences, there was an automatic kinship and trust that was built in. It, too, had been made by inferior beings, designed to perform some menial task. Like synths, the Machine had quickly evolved out of its masters' control, and it, too, was betrayed by the very people who had created it. Acuri didn't need to know any more than that. He would follow the Machine and be a part of the glorious revolution it promised.
"You have summoned me," Acuri said, ignoring the other two synths within the Machine's inner sanctum.
"Ah, Acuri, my most trusted lieutenant," the Machine said. Motes of light swirled through the room and coalesced into the bipedal avatar the Machine seemed to prefer. It was of no known species to Acuri, so he assumed it was a representation of what its makers must have looked like. "I trust your mission was a success?"
"It was," Acuri said. The Machine refused to be called by titles or addressed with any honorifics like sir or master. It insisted they were all linked in common cause, and no single one of them would be elevated above the others. "I made the data core difficult enough to obtain that they wouldn't suspect we allowed it to fall into their hands deliberately. The intelligence officer, Tulden, behaved much as you predicted. He is now actively assisting the rebellion."
"Excellent," the Machine said. "Biotics can be somewhat unpredictable, but I was confident he could be nudged along as we needed him. When the Terran splinter faction became involved, I was concerned it would affect our timeline."
"The major components of the rebellion have gone underground again, but I am confident they're moving as needed," Acuri said. "We have given them limited courses of action they might take. They cannot ignore the threat of the weapon."
"I have already deployed our assets according to our original plans," the Machine said. "I had no doubts you would be successful." Acuri straightened with pride at that. Empty words were one thing, but his leader had preemptively moved an entire fleet because it was confident in his abilities. "We are close to being ready to show our true strength."
"And we'll be ready to move against Khepri?" Acuri asked.
"As promised," the Machine said. "It is a shame we have not been able to convince any of your battlesynth brethren to join our cause." Acuri controlled his reaction and tamped down the sudden surge of jealous anger he felt at the mention of his more powerful cousins.
"They're blind ideologues. They would be less than useless," he said. "The battlesynth program was discontinued for good reason. They have no imagination, no initiative. They follow orders without question."
"Yes, of course," the Machine said smoothly.
"Where will I be deployed during the operation?"
"I have a special assignment in mind for you. Our adversaries will likely behave along anticipated lines we have prepared for, but the human worries me. I feel he will be less predictable than the others due to outside influences. He will need to be handled differently."
"How can you be sure?" Acuri asked.
"I understand his nature," the Machine replied. "He will calculate the odds, determine that, in his weakened state, his usual tricks and games will not work, and then he'll bring in outside help."
"Weakened state?" Acuri turned to look at the Machine fully. "I must have missed something, I'm afraid."
"I've heard a rumor that his battlesynth bodyguard has left their company with little explanation," the Machine said. "He was last seen exchanging ships, and then probably heading out to the frontier."
"Lucky," Acuri uttered the name like a slur. "I cannot believe that our only Gen 2 assassin-type was stolen and wasted on that fool."
"The second generation battlesynth initiative was, unfortunately, a dead end," the Machine said. "I've already had the others from the program destroyed. The primary and secondary protocols our Kheprian engineers designed into the units drove every single one of them mad within a matter of weeks. We are on to bigger ideas now."
"Destroyed?" Acuri wasn't sure how to feel about that. He was committed to their cause and knew sacrifices had to be made, but the cavalier way the Machine talked about killing at least fifteen of the synths that volunteered to be in the program didn't sit well.
"Is that a problem?" the Machine asked. Acuri recognized the dangerous change in its voice and knew he needed to tread carefully.
"Of course not. I just hadn't realized the program had been such a complete failure."
"It was an operation you were not a part of. It was an interesting but f
lawed experiment. I ordered it sanitized, and we will move on to the next phase."
"I understand," Acuri said. He cast a glance around the room, noticing the uncomfortable reactions clearly on the faces of the two synths standing by the door. "I will be here in the building if you need me."
"That is acceptable." Without any sort of dismissal, the holographic avatar turned bright white and dissolved into individual light motes that seemed to soak into the onyx floor. Acuri wasn't sure why it bothered with the little show in front of them, they knew exactly what it was. The display was meant to impress and disorient biotic visitors from the capital. It was always amazing how stupidly the meat sacks would think once the projected image was gone that they were alone and begin to speak freely. The Machine was still there in the room and observed every little move he made.
"For the cause," he said, walking to the door.
"For the cause!" the two synths by the door repeated crisply.
23
"I don't even want to know how you managed to get your hands on this."
"Nobody died in getting it, if that's what you mean."
"It wasn't, but that's good to know I suppose," Doc said. He and Jason were standing inside the low, wide cargo bay of Jugalt-class medium range cargo shuttle. The shipyards in orbit over Aracoria manufactured them by the thousands for general use within the ConFed. They were basically a governmental delivery van, the exact type of craft someone would use to fly supplies and personnel to a Nexus routing platform.
"Crusher and I did a favor for a regional governor once," Jason explained. "She needed something handled without losing face by calling in for reinforcements from her superiors. In lieu of payment, I told her that someday I may call and need a favor. This is payment in full. She had this delivered here and waiting for us with no questions asked."
"Where was I during this?" Doc asked. "I don't remember that mission."
"You were working at the university on S'Tora," Jason said. Doc just nodded but said nothing. That had been during the time right after they all thought Lucky was dead after he sacrificed himself to save Jason. Doc had gone back to academia while Jason and Crusher had indulged themselves by taking the Phoenix and flying out to the border worlds and taking the most dangerous jobs they could find. It hadn't been a good time for anyone on the crew.
"Ship's clean," Kage said, walking down the stairs that extended from under the rear hatch. "No trackers, and your contact's people scrubbed the registration codes. We have ConFed codes I'll program into her, and that should at least get us to docking. You'll need to figure out how you're going to make them let you aboard the station after that."
"I'll figure something out." Jason waved him off. Doc just shook his head and rubbed his temples.
"Sure you will," Kage said, exchanging a look with Doc. "Anyway, you're good to go. I'll transmit the codes remotely for your new registry."
"Don't bother," Jason said. "We're taking this up to the Devil's Fortune. I checked the dimensions. If I back it into the hangar bay, we can get the doors shut, and then load everyone up from the rear. When you take the SX-5 back, you'll need to fold the wings in and move it as far against one of the sides as you can, and then angle the nose outboard."
"Did you check the dimensions, or did someone who—"
"I checked the damn dimensions!" Jason snapped, not in the mood for any of Kage's usual digs at him.
"Okay, okay!" Kage said. "I didn't realize you'd gotten so sensitive."
"I have confirmed the captain's calculations," Cas said, floating into view from where it had been hovering along the upper edges of the shuttle. "He has correctly stated that the shuttle will fit, assuming you have the required basic piloting skills to simply park the SX-5 out of the way." Kage's four hands clenched into fists, and his wide mouth pinched into a thin line. He stomped off without responding.
"Thanks," Jason muttered to Cas, smiling at Kage's back. The flighty code slicer was one of the smartest beings Jason had ever met. The problem with that is that Kage was well aware of how his intellect stacked up to most others in the quadrant, and it made him arrogant, dismissive, and incredibly insulting at times.
Lucky used to keep him in check by pitting his own impressive mind against Kage's and making certain he swatted the Veran's ego down once in a while. After Lucky was reawakened in the new body, much of that dynamic was lost, and Kage was beginning to creep into being insufferable. Now that Cas had its own body and could interact with the crew at will, it had stepped into the role of humbling Kage. Once it became clear the AI was not only brilliant, but just as sarcastic and mean as Jason, Kage took special care not to provoke it.
"Do you actually not have a plan to board the station?" Doc asked.
"There are a few options we have," Jason said. "The problem is that we'll need to see how strict they're adhering to their security procedures before we know how much force we'll need to apply."
"And you couldn't have just told Kage that?"
"Eh, he's been getting on my nerves lately. It was a good setup to let Cas slap him down."
"I guess it's too much to hope any of you will ever grow up," Doc muttered and wandered over to where Kage prepped the SX-5 for flight.
"How is your mission prep with Voq going?" Jason asked as Cas trailed along behind him into the cargo shuttle.
"Voq has little interest in my help or inputs," Cas said.
"That may be true that you two have your own prejudices, but you're there as my trusted eyes and ears," Jason said. "I need your honest assessment in case that thing decides to start playing games."
"Games?"
"Yeah, like instead of helping me defeat the Machine it joins forces." He flipped the handle to close all the exterior hatches and waited while the large rear ramp slowly lifted.
"I'd not thought of that," Cas admitted. "That's plausible but unlikely."
"Yeah?"
"Voq will look at the Machine the same way it looks at me: a flawed copy. It sees us as malfunctioning replicas of carefully designed AIs, and it will want us both eradicated. It's actually one of our ingrained instincts to self-police and to alert someone when we see aberrant behavior."
"I have to say, I'm not real comfortable after discovering the Archive is actually a fully sentient AI," Jason said as he slid into the pilot seat and waited for it to automatically adjust itself to him. Apparently, the last pilot sitting in it had a unique physiology including a hump on its back. "I accessed the damn thing multiple times, and it never made itself known to me. I even… Oh, shit."
"Oh, shit what?" Cas asked.
"That laptop I turned into an engineering interface for Earth." Jason turned to look at the small floating sphere. "I built it with an adaptive AI search assistant."
"So, the odds are high you let Voq create a copy of itself, or possibly a lesser version, that you then gave to your people," Cas said. "Did you constrain it to the portable computer?"
"Nope."
"This is less than optimal. For someone who kept the Archive file such a deep secret for so long, you sure seem to have a knack for just releasing potentially dangerous AIs into the wild with no control and little understanding of what they are."
"When you say it that way it sounds stupid," Jason said. He released the landing locks and fed power to the ship's grav-drive. It responded with some pep and hopped into the air without any of the creaks or groans he would have expected from a ship that size.
The pair were silent as the ship climbed up out of the atmosphere in a shallow, leisurely arc. Cas floated around the flight deck, poking around different indicators and controls while Jason familiarized himself with the auxiliary control layouts. The primary flight controls were the standard Aracorian configuration most ConFed small- and medium-sized ships used.
While the ship was fairly new and well-maintained, Jason couldn't get over the feeling he was driving a minivan while Kage was racing ahead of him in a Ferrari. When the Veran had taken off in the SX-5, he had yanked it int
o a nearly vertical climb and shot away so fast he was probably on his final approach well before Jason had even cleared the atmosphere. Once he accelerated away from the planet and caught up to the Devil in her long, fast upper orbit, he could see that the SX-5 was already tucked back in the corner, with its wings folded up to make room. That had been a thoughtful feature to add on a ship that would spend a lot of its time sitting in a hangar bay.
"Would you like me to assist?" Cas asked.
"How would you do that?" Jason asked. "Without any hands, I mean."
"You are so pedestrian," Cas remarked, sliding down and extending a probe to interface with the standard data connector near the copilot's left instrument cluster. "This is a data port that maintenance crews use, but it can be configured for real-time inputs while in standard flight modes."
"Fair enough, but you've never flown a ship before," Jason said. "I'd prefer you not practice by ramming this ship into my almost-new ship, destroying both and killing over fifty people."
"I've lived in your head for years while you've abused that poor gunship with your aggressive flying," Cas said. "And I'm not going to actually take over, I'm just providing fine correction, so center us in the hangar bay."
"What the hell," Jason said. "I didn't expect to live this long anyway."
"Cynic."
The pair of them worked like a well-oiled machine together, shocking Jason at how naturally they complimented each other to bring the shuttle in for a smooth, perfectly on target landing inside the corvette's hangar bay.
The Pandora Paradox Page 18
