The Link

by Isaac Hooke

  “The President probably signed off on the attack, you know,” Tara said, entering. She wore skimpy shorts and a tight tube top, all the better to reveal her lean belly. She sat cross-legged on the floor. “And he’s a Mind Refurb, at least according to the rumors on the Net.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Jason said. “They’ve wronged us, yes. But they also created us. If only for that, we owe them.”

  Tara shook her head. “I agree with Sophie. We don’t owe them a thing. I only came here because I wanted to get away from the aliens. I didn’t want to ask for an alliance. That was all you.”

  Cheyanne and Maeran entered, as did Iris and Xin. They stood against the far wall, with arms crossed.

  “Having a meeting, and you forgot to invite us?” Iris said in her Middle Eastern accent.

  “Not a meeting,” Jason said. “Well, I guess it’s become one. We’re essentially deciding our fate. And humanity’s.”

  “I want to help them,” Cheyanne said. “But I don’t know if I can make myself. They couldn’t leave us alone.”

  “You’d think no one would want that particular area of the uninhabited zone,” Maeran said.

  “It is mineral rich,” Aria said. “Versus most of the rest of the zone, which the termites picked dry during the invasion.”

  “But North America is mineral rich, too,” Maeran said. “They have no reason to bother us.”

  “If only for the fact they’re afraid of us,” Jason said. “I’m sure they think we have some alien technology that could benefit the rest of humankind, and they feel we’re hoarding it away from them. That general we faced a few years back admitted as much, when he demanded that we send over the entirety of our databases, along with complete mind dumps.”

  “Yeah, like we’d ever do that,” Tara said.

  Jason turned his chair around so that he was no longer facing the window, and the mountain lake beyond. “I’m going to go back. But I can’t ask any of you to come with me. I know that you don’t want to help the humans. I know that you’re pissed at them for their latest behavior. And you’re right, maybe some of them deserve what they had coming. Those who assaulted us certainly do. But not the rest of humanity. They don’t deserve to die out. I’m going to fight for them. Them, not for the Earth army. For the common man and woman who just want to live and let live.”

  Lori sighed. She ran her gaze across the others, who seemed unsure of what to say. And then she spoke. “Of course we have to go, if you do. Even if we don’t want to.”

  “Why do we have to?” Sophie said angrily. When she met his eyes, the defiance he saw there only increased. “If he wants to go kill himself, maybe we should let him.”

  Utter silence followed after that.

  Sophie lowered her gaze, apparently regretting her cutting words. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. You mean more to me… to us… than anything. All we have is each other, at this point. That’s why I don’t want to go. I’m afraid of losing any of you.” She looked at him, and her eyes seemed to say, “especially you.”

  “We have mind backups…” Iris said.

  Sophie gave her a sad smile. “If you die, your backup isn’t you. I hope you’ve figured that out by now.”

  “I have,” Iris said. “But to the rest of you, it will be me. And that’s a comfort.”

  “Okay, Lori is coming with me,” Jason said. “Anyone else? I won’t hold it against you if you stay. In fact, I’d almost prefer that. Because at least I’d know you were safe here.”

  “I’m going,” Maeran said.

  “As am I,” Xin said. “We love you. We love each other. We don’t abandon one another.”

  One by one, the rest of them agreed to come. Except for Sophie.

  Jason looked at her. “Stay, Sophie. You don’t have to come with us.”

  She kept her gaze on the floor. “Actually I do. For the reasons that the others gave, and for reasons of my own.” She looked up, and when her eyes met his, they were misty with unshed tears. “I’m not going to let you journey into the jaws of death on your own. I’m going to be there, fighting by your side, to the very end of time.” Her lips quivered as the final words left her mouth, and she looked away.

  Jason was touched by her words, and unsure of what to say. He simply let the silence drag on around them.

  Of all the women, Sophie was always the strongest of us. I just hope she’ll be able to withstand my death, if it comes to that.

  He would have to ask his clones if they wanted to stay or return. No doubt they’d have similar discussions with their own teams.

  “Risilan is requesting entry once more,” Z said in her sensual voice, breaking Jason out of his thoughts.

  Jason straightened. “Let her in.” He glanced at the others. “The rest of you stay.”

  Garbed in her intricate red and gold gown, Risilan appeared in the center of the room. She glanced at the other War Forgers uncertainly. “Am I disturbing you?”

  “Have a seat,” Jason said, pointing out a free chair.

  “No, I’ll keep this quick,” Risilan said. “I will lend you twenty ships.”

  10

  Jain steered the Devastator, and the Void Warriors with him, into the thick tangle of enemy warships. The Minelayers had returned, along with the Battlestars, and they offered covering fire for the Trees and Teleporters.

  He unleashed blobs at the Minelayer in front of him, and fired his lightning weapon at the fighters from the Battlestars. He dodged the energy whip of one of the Trees, and fired several skirmishers that latched onto that particular vessel. He passed by a Teleporter, zig-zagging to avoid having its bombs find their targets inside of him, and then in moments he was moving well away from the vessels, having successfully completed yet another attack run.

  He glanced at his rear view camera feed. The Banthar, led by Eric of the Bolt Eaters followed just behind him, and they unleashed their gamma ray and black hole weapons. The former weapons easily disabled the fighters, while the latter were useful in guiding the enemy craft closer to the Banthar ships so that said vessels could utilize the micro machines coating their hulls in profusion. Those termites raked across the enemy hulls, cutting wide, breaching gashes; when Teleporter ships materialized close to them, the Banthar simply redirected some of their micro machine coating to tear into the fresh hulls.

  The Mind Refurb vessels of Earth Defense Force I and Task Force 88 came last, and they launched energy cannons, black holes, missiles, and raptors. They targeted the Trees mostly, which were the easiest for their lasers to damage. They trimmed away the roots, which caused multiple Tree vessels to drop out of the fight with their inertialess drives disabled.

  After that third pass, the defending fleets regrouped.

  “There are too many of them,” Eric said over the voice line. “We’re going to need a different strategy. I’m losing too many ships on each flyby.”

  “We all are,” Tanis said over the same line. “But if we don’t keep them occupied, they’ll turn their fire on Earth.”

  Jain studied the tactical display. The situation indeed seemed grim. Already, Link ships were turning away from the defending fleet, and heading toward Earth.

  He glanced at Sheila on his virtual bridge. “I don’t suppose you’ve had any luck hacking into their comm protocols?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. These guys have their systems locked down solid. Even with the network protocol data you shared with me from the Mimic cloud database, without the necessary access keys, there’s no way I can get inside. It was a nice pipe dream.”

  “Pipe dream…” Gavin said. “Ever smoked an opium pipe?”

  “Every day,” Sheila said. “Look around you.”

  Gavin nodded. “We’re definitely on drugs.”

  Jain felt a pain in his back and he realized a Teleporter had appeared directly behind him. He swung around, and began zig-zagging as he unleashed several blobs at the ship. It was rapidly heading away from the defending fleet, which was concentra
ting its fire on the unit.

  “Brave,” Cranston said.

  “And lucky,” Jain said. He watched the ship narrowly dodge all the incoming projectiles to move out of firing range. It couldn’t teleport again right away, not before recharging.

  “Let’s try the flanking maneuver again,” Tanis said. “Jain, you and your Void Warriors will come at them from the starboard side. Eric, your Banthars will attack from the opposite flank. The rest of us will come in from the front.”

  Jain smiled inside, very slightly. To him, it was an honor for the Void Warriors to be considered a separate fighting unit, when mostly they were little different from other Mind Refurb vessels. Well, the Void Warriors did have him at their head, he reminded himself. An alien vessel.

  But I’m only one small part of that team. If an effective part.

  “I’m detecting a rift opening,” Xander said.

  “Where?” Jain glanced at the tactical display.

  “Behind us,” Xander said. “Twenty thousand kilometers away.”

  Jain swung the Devastator about. Five ships he’d never seen before entered. They looked vaguely like hang gliders, with claws hanging down. He didn’t have a match for the ships in his database.

  The Hang Gliders shone brightly, so that soon the signal out punched his sensors, and he read only solid white out there.

  “Where did they go?” Jain asked.

  “They’re still out there,” Sheila said. “We just can’t detect them, not with all that interference!” Her avatar blinked in and out, threatening to vanish entirely.

  Jain felt multiple stings in his chest, and then he was tugged against his volition.

  “Xander, tell me what’s going on?” Jain said.

  “They’ve latched on to us, I think,” Xander said. “With grapplers.” The robed man was the only one who was still solid there on the bridge, besides Jain himself.

  “Well reverse course, and break free!” Jain said.

  “Can’t,” his Accomp replied.

  The map still showed the position of the fleet, thanks to the positional broadcasts that were getting through; according to that map, Jain was being dragged directly toward Sheila.

  “Get out of the way!” he told her.

  “I’m trying,” Sheila said.

  “Xander, unleash blobs, random spread pattern,” Jain said. “Also, I want termites flooding the hull regions surrounding the grappling hook impact sites. Have the micro machines chew away the chains as quickly as possible.”

  “On it,” Xander said.

  He was still attempting to accelerate in the reverse direction when suddenly he broke free.

  “We hit three of the chains with our blobs,” Xander said. “The rest weren’t strong enough to hold us in place.”

  Jain glanced at his tactical display. He’d only just avoided hitting Sheila.

  “Are you still blind?” Cranston asked.

  “Yes!” Jain replied.

  “The rest of us can detect them via our gravity wave add-ons,” Gavin said. “I’m transmitting the positional data your way.”

  As an alien vessel, Jain’s Nurturer didn’t have those particular sensor add-ons.

  I’m going to have to think about installing them sometime!

  The positions of the enemy vessels appeared on his tactical display. He realized several Tree vessels had used the distraction to close with him, and they were just about to unleash their energy whip attacks at him.

  He accelerated away, heading toward the closest Hang Glider. He targeted it with his blob weapon, and the intense field of brightness around him reduced slightly. The other Void Warriors managed to take down the remaining ships using a combination of black holes and raptors, and space returned to normal out there.

  The rift was still open, he realized.

  “The only one they really attacked was Jain, did you notice?” Sheila said. “They didn’t fire their grappling hooks or weapons at the rest of us.”

  “Trying to blind us with their hulls counts as an attack in my book.” Gavin said.

  Jain was still staring at that rift when more ships entered.

  He quickly dove out of the way.

  “I’m detecting a compatible connection request,” Xander said. He glanced at Jain. “Should I accept?”

  Getting curious, Jain said: “Go ahead.” He was prepared to fire at any second.

  “It’s voice only,” Xander said.

  The connection light turned green on his HUD, indicating a successful link.

  “Uh, hi,” a male voice cracked over the comm. “My name is Jason. I’m a Mind Refurb. I’ve secured an alliance with an alien race known as the Tyrnari. We’re here to help.”

  Jain frowned, muting the line. He accelerated his time sense and glanced at Sheila. “Who the hell is this? Jason? The Tyrnari?”

  “I have no idea,” Sheila said. “I’m searching my database now, but there’s no mention of a Jason together with a Tyrnari... there are fifty Jason entries on their own, however.”

  Jain checked his own Mimic database. There was no mention of a Tyrnari anywhere, though it was possible the Mimics used a different name to describe the alien race in question.

  “Wait,” Sheila said.

  “Got something?” he asked.

  “Sort of,” Sheila said. “There was an incident in the uninhabited zone about fifty years back. A few Mind Refurb machines revolted, according to the log, and refused to return to base.”

  “Sounds a little bit like us…” Mark said.

  “Anyway, one of the Mind Refurbs involved was named Jason,” Sheila said. “The voice prints on transmissions he sent match up with the voice prints of this Jason. They were part of a once secret project involving combining mechs.”

  “Combining mechs?” Medeia asked.

  “That’s right,” Sheila said. “They could combine to become a bigger mech known as a Cataphract. Apparently, he and the other Mind Refurbs with him made quite the base for themselves out in the badlands after they revolted. Turns out the military wasn’t too happy about that, and they’ve been trying to terminate their program for the past fifty years.”

  “Well, that’s something at least,” Jain said. “Though how one goes from commanding a rogue base of combining mechs in the uninhabited zone, to securing an alliance with an alien race, is another story.” He returned his time sense to normal and unmuted the line. “You’re the Jason from the uninhabited zone? Hunted by the military? Leader of a rogue band of combining mechs?”

  “That would be me,” Jason said.

  “Anyone hunted by the human military is my friend,” Jain said. “My name is Jain. I was hunted by them, too. The space navy equivalent, anyway.”

  “Uh, glad we have something in common,” Jason said.

  “How many ships do you have?” Jain said. He glanced at the map and counted fifteen, but wasn’t sure if more were coming. But then the rift closed.

  “Twenty ships,” Jason said. “Er, I guess fifteen, now.”

  “Those glow bugs were yours?” Medeia said.

  “Yes,” Jason said.

  “Whoops, we just destroyed them,” Medeia said. “Sorry.”

  “Actually, they’re not mine,” Jason said. “They’re Queen Risilan’s. Her advisor, Jhagan, is sitting right beside me, and he’s not impressed.”

  “Risilan?” Jain said.

  “She rules the Tyrnari,” Jason said. “All you really need to know is she hates the Link.”

  “Okay, well, tell this advisor of yours that we destroyed his ships because they attacked us,” Jain said.

  “They were only attacking you,” Jason said. “Jhagan tells me he didn’t realize you were with the Mind Refurb vessels at first, at least not until he detected the human-compatible radio waves emanating from your hull. The Mimics were Link races, the last he checked.”

  “Yeah well, things have changed recently,” Jain said. “If you really want to help, feel free to dive in whenever you’re ready. I can’t real
ly talk now, seeing as we’re in the middle of a space battle.”

  “I see that,” Jason said. “We’ll talk after. Jason out.”

  The line went dead.

  “Well, that was interesting,” Cranston commented.

  “Don’t you hate that when you fire at approaching ships,” Mark said. “And they turn out to be friendly!”

  “Not if it saves my life,” Jain said. “Xander, send a transmission to the admiral. Let him know we have some new friends who’ve come on the scene.”

  Jain watched as the fifteen Tyrnari ships flew ahead of the main party and attacked the enemy. From the Hang Gliders’ claws launched plasma beams, and strange, bubble-like projectiles that reminded him of his own blobs—they had the same effect upon impact, causing large sections of hulls to disintegrate. The plasma beams inflicted good damage, too.

  The Tyrnari vessels also utilized their blinding hulls and grappling hooks to drag enemy ships into one another in spectacular collisions.

  Jain rejoined the battle, taking care not to get too close to the newcomers, lest their bright hulls blind him again. The addition of the Tyrnari was enough to tip the battle in their favor, and in short order the defenders won. All that remained of the Link fleet were drifting ships and debris.

  “Xander, connect me to this Jason again,” he said. “Also link in Eric of the Void Warriors, and Admirals Tanis and Jacobs. Give me holographic mode, if possible.”

  “Jason accepted, holographic mode,” Xander told him.

  An instant later a young man who looked barely out of his teens appeared before him.

  “Interesting choice of avatar,” Jain said.

  Jason glanced down at himself self-consciously. “Oh. Yeah, I never really updated it. This is how I looked when I originally had my mind scanned. I suppose I should at least age myself, but this just feels like the most authentic me.”

  Jain hoped the relative age of this one’s avatar didn’t indicate his maturity level. As a Mind Refurb, Jason could be hundreds of years old, after all.