She grinned. “So not like a databud, Del. Really, truly not. A direct neural interface allows you to incorporate genten processing and memory storage into your own mind. The ultimate boost.”
“I could do with being smarter.”
A section of the wall irised open and Fintox walked in, accompanied by Ellici. Dellian knew it was Fintox because the identity icon was right there in his optik, but he liked to think he could tell the metavayans apart anyway. There were tiny physical differences—or maybe he was just convincing himself for virtue’s sake. He still couldn’t decide if they counted as real living entities or not; after all, they had been manufactured. Yirella argued there was no difference between human conception and gestation and being formed in a biologic initiator. The end result was all that counted, she said: living tissue containing a sentient mind.
Fintox began his high-pitched warbling, fast even for him. Dellian interpreted that as excitement, or as close as a metavayan could get. Yirella and her lure committee hadn’t assigned Vayans the same emotional range as humans, and the insertion ship had copied that faithfully. But maybe the metavayans were now absorbing and utilizing human traits.
“We have finished,” Dellian’s databud translated. “I believe this version of the interface will be successful.”
“Congratulations,” Yirella said.
“The initial bugs have been solved. I believe I can achieve a direct link to an arkship onemind.”
“Do the Olyix upgrade the design of their ships much?” Dellian asked. That earned him an accusatory glance from both Yirella and Ellici.
“I do not believe so,” Fintox said. “Some of the arkship hardware may have changed and improved since my cluster left our home star, but the cellular composition of an Olyix neural network remains the same. I studied the report on the ship humans found at Nkya. There was no variance.”
“That was ten thousand years ago,” Dellian said.
Yirella put her hands on her hips to stare warningly at him.
“Ten thousand standard space-time years,” Fintox said. “In the Olyix enclave, little time will have passed. Modification to their primary biology will be slow in appearing. They claimed to have reached their physical peak eons ago. Nor do their minds change.”
“Good to know.”
The metavayan stepped up to his armor and took a small mushroom-shaped device out of a case. It was delicately inserted into the iris on top of the suit.
“The suit systems are incorporating the interface into their architecture…” Yirella said. “There we go. It’s functional.”
“I am pleased,” Fintox said.
“Me too,” Dellian told him. “And thank you again for agreeing to do this.”
“You are welcome. We came here to help thwart the Olyix. None of us ever expected to have an opportunity at this level.”
A whole range of smartass replies played across Dellian’s thoughts, but he resisted. After all, Fintox hadn’t hesitated when Yirella asked, and he knew just how risky the mission was going to be.
“Del will get you safely into the arkship,” Yirella said. “You can rely on him.”
“I have reviewed your insertion tactical plan and agree with it,” Fintox said.
“So glad to hear that,” Dellian replied.
Yirella gave him that warning glance. “Do you think you’ll be able to extract the information from the onemind? Saint Jessika always maintained that interfacing with a onemind was difficult.”
“Attempting to use our neurovirus to take over an entire arkship onemind would be a foolish venture,” Fintox said. “It would invariably detect such an attempt and move to block it. I will simply endeavor to ease my consciousness into the flow of the onemind’s cortical impulses. That way I will be able to read its memories. Once there I will introduce an association pattern that will summon up its memory of the gateway location. My intervention will be so small it will not even be aware it is reviewing the stellar coordinates.”
“Sounds easy,” Dellian said.
“It is not,” Fintox said. “You must be prepared to accept failure at this point.”
“Thanks, I’ll remember that.”
“Once I have extracted the location, and if conditions are right, I will then target the neurovirus into the onemind’s nexuses, which should disrupt and confuse the impulse flows. The equivalent of throwing sand in its eyes. Which should make your assault easier.”
“Thank you,” Yirella said. “But don’t endanger yourself. The gateway location is the goal here.”
“Yeah,” Dellian said. “So once we’re inside the arkship, all I have to do is get you to a nexus in the neural strata. Another easy.”
“That is irony?” Fintox said.
“That is irony,” Dellian confirmed. “About as big as it gets.”
“I have confidence in your squad’s ability, Dellian. You will deliver me to a suitable nexus, I am sure of it.”
“We’ll know a lot more about the arkship’s internal layout once the assault starts and we get our sensors in close,” Ellici said. “When we have that, Motaxan can advise us on the location Del needs to get you to.”
Dellian found that part even more surprising than Fintox volunteering to load the neurovirus. Of course, it made perfect sense. Once sensors and drones had built up a reasonable knowledge of the approaching arkship, Motaxan, the female metavayan, could determine the probable location of the neural seams woven through the massive vessel, and from that where the nexuses would be positioned.
But having a metavayan in the squad’s tactical center along with Tilliana and Ellici didn’t just sit well with Dellian. Of course, Yirella had told him not to be so silly. “She’s essential to make this work. And, anyway, you’re the one who offered to escort Fintox. You started this.”
There was nothing he could say to that.
“You have two hours until the Strike begins,” Yirella said. “Fintox, I’d like to get you in the suit and give it a final test run.”
“That is a good idea,” Fintox replied. “I am sure you have done an excellent job.”
The suit split open, and Ellici started to help the metavayan into it. Yirella came over to Dellian. She bent down so that her face was level with his, hands resting on his shoulders. “I love you,” she said. “Come back.”
He closed his eyes and rubbed his nose against hers, that brief fond contact providing him the perfect memory to carry with him. “The Saints themselves couldn’t stop me from coming back to you.”
* * *
—
Two hours later, Yirella was in the subtropical heat of the Bennu habitat torus, looking up through the massive transparent roof. The sunstrip had been turned off, allowing her to see out into the cryoplanet’s central cavity—a sight that her optik was supplementing with a virtual enhancement. So now the soft indigo candle flames in the distance were clearly maneuvering thrusters, and dark ships slid through the interior like sharks in an aquarium.
There were only a dozen humans left in Bennu, and she was the sole binary among them. The joke was they were all support staff to the support staff. They were the ones who kept a watchful eye on the sensors scattered across the Vayan star system, alert for anything, from an ambush to a doomsday machine materializing out of stealth mode. They also made sure Vayan itself kept running smoothly, maintaining the radio and TV signals right to the bitter end. The other half were in charge of Strike portal placement, including the flood operation. It could have been handled from the Morgan, but Kenelm preferred to keep control of the flood systems closer to home. And then there was Yirella, who had nothing to do whatsoever. The lure she’d invested so much of herself in was complete, the trap sprung…
Team mascot, the squad called her, until she threatened to brain the next one who said it.
Outside, an electric-blue dawn began to rise in
the almighty cavern. The first batch of variable portals was opening and enlarging, two hundred of them, their annular nest of glowing exotic strands expanding smoothly to produce a fifty-meter aperture. Flood mine portals flashed through, half of them flung out into space ahead of the approaching arkship while their twins dropped into the upper atmosphere of Sasras, the star’s lone gas giant. Then the genten-controlled attack cruisers lined up in front of their own variable portals. The big warships eased through quickly and easily, emerging several AUs away from the flood mines. Finally it was the Morgan’s turn. Yirella focused on the starship’s fifth globe, where the troop carriers were clinging to their support struts. Dellian was in one of them, snug and safe in his armor, probably cracking dumb jokes with the squad, hiding his concern at having Fintox along. His combat core cohort would be arrayed around him, bound by the vestiges of the love that had grown between a boy and his muncs, outweighing any coded loyalty routine.
“I remember,” she sang.
“I remember dancing in the starlit dark
the day before you stole my heart
I remember our golden Earth
the home we will regain
I remember our dreams forlorn
before the Saints brought us hope reborn
I remember the stars gone cold
and still our love will hold.”
She smiled at the memory of those wonderful devoted muncs, dimmed now by time like the childhood they filled. “Look after him,” she whispered to them as moisture filled her eyes.
The Morgan’s portal yawned open, an azure reality-defying halo two kilometers across. It swallowed the starship whole.
Alik was not pleased to be back at Kruse station. He’d spent the last three exhausting days in DC, chugging agnophet like beer at a frat party and shifting between executive staff briefings, private globalPAC meetings, and the Pentagon’s SituationOne Bunker deep below the capital. The level of sabotage against America’s city shields had delivered a massive blow to the credibility of every Washington security agency. They’d spent the last century successfully suppressing urban dissent and foreign insurgency until their arrogant assumption of invincibility had led to a toxic complacency. So now when it came down to it, they’d been caught with their asses hanging in the breeze, seriously unknowing and unprepared.
Police and state bureau offices had been mobilized within hours, but they’d soon needed to call in heavy-duty backup from every special ops team on the Pentagon register. The National Guard had also been mobilized, but not to help beat the hell out of the saboteurs. Rural voters spread out across what used to be the farm belt didn’t appreciate government telling them to get into the nearest city, where the newly deployed and seriously underprepared National Guard regiments would issue them with some crappy camp bed in a commandeered building. Plenty told government to go screw itself—until the Deliverance ships began breaking through habitat shields. Then the surge came. By that time, Connexion had shut down a good eighty-five percent of the North American hub network. The holdouts had a long journey to working interstate hubs in an age when ground vehicles were mainly found in museums. And the sabotage that had clearly been years in the planning kept ramping up. He still wasn’t sure if Portland, Dallas, Chicago, and Atlanta were going to have their shields operational by the time the Deliverance ships arrived.
That was something Alik just couldn’t get his head around. Why, when it was utterly obvious the attacks were part of an alien invasion, did the douchebags who’d been recruited carry on with them? Didn’t they get they were helping the enemy of humanity? Thankfully the people he was dealing with on the Hill held the same opinion. The security teams were ordered to use maximum force to stop any further sabotage. They applied it eagerly.
To start with, the good news was that New Washington and the Eta Cassiopeiae habitats were largely unaffected by sabotage. But pretty soon that raised the prospect of refugees, and the allcomments was up its own ass as usual, talking about resettling the entire United States population there. After all, our taxes paid for the terraforming. It’s ours.
It didn’t help that the Secret Service was keen to relocate POTUS to her designated emergency residence on New Washington—one of the first government facts to leak. She had to appear (briefly) on the White House balcony to reassure people she hadn’t turned tail and run. Senior congressional members meanwhile quietly and gratefully took up their emergency locations scattered around the Eta Cassiopeiae system.
Emilja Jurich smiled wanly at Alik over the table. “How’s it going?”
He sat down hard in a chair opposite her and scowled at the vase of bright tangerine roses blocking the full line of sight between them. “Basically, it’s a shitstorm without end. Too many of our boonie folk think they’re true survivalists and this is the glorious moment they’ve been waiting for all their lives; its going to be a heroic gunfight where their hunting lasers and grenade launchers will save the day. Then there’s all the naturevists who reject city life and aren’t going to go live under a shield no matter what. Half the evangelicals think elevation is actually the Rapture, while the other half think Salvation of Life is hell itself falling out of the sky and the devil is sitting on his throne inside. Either way, neither side is leaving the cult compound. Then there’s a whole bunch of radical assholes claiming it’s all a supremacist plot to turn the cities into concentration camps for every underclass victim of capitalism, and once the poor are inside they’ll never get out again. You know what, I have no fucking idea why the Olyix think we are worth elevating in the first place. But sure as corporate sewers always dump into drinking water reservoirs, we aren’t going to get everyone to safety in time. Not even close.”
“My sympathies.”
“Don’t waste your breath. You can’t help the terminally stupid. If people hate government so much they don’t listen to official advice, they can’t expect government to bend over backward to help them.”
“But we pay our taxes,” Ainsley said in acidic mockery. “We’re entitled to government help.”
“You pay taxes?” Emilja asked lightly.
Ainsley III’s hand came down in gentle warning on Ainsley’s arm as he bristled from the jibe. The richest man who’d ever lived gave his grandson an angry glare and sulked back into his chair.
Alik was surprised by the reaction. Ainsley might have a public persona of say it how it is, but you didn’t build something like Connexion with that antagonist attitude.
Two armed drones glided into the room, followed by Jessika, Soćko, and Kandara, who sat in a line at the conference table. Three more drones came in behind them along with Captain Tral and Lankin, who took their seats against the wall behind the alien duo.
Alik grinned as he pointed at a drone hovering just above and behind Jessika. “They protecting us from you, or you from us?”
“Well, I haven’t used my alien superpowers to take control of them yet,” she said, “so I guess they’ve still got your ass covered.”
“Kandara?” he queried.
“She’s been a good girl,” Kandara said. “So’s he.”
“Sweet. How’s your mission coming on?”
“The armor should be finished in another hour,” Jessika said.
“I hope it’s tough,” Yuri said, striding in. “Because an Olyix team in Kings Cross had a weapon that cut through our armor suits like they were made from wet cardboard.”
“Yeah, I watched the feed,” Alik said. “That was some bad shit that went down there.”
Yuri sat down, with Loi claiming the seat next to him.
“Where’s Callum?” Alik asked.
“23 Librae,” Emilja said.
Alik hadn’t a clue what that was; his altme, Shango, had to splash the file across his tarsus lenses. Reading it wasn’t exactly enlightening. “What the fuck is he doing there? It’s over eighty ligh
t-years away. How did he even get there? We’re supposed to have the interstellar hubs sealed up tighter than a goddamn Vegas vault.”
“I authorized it,” Yuri said. “You only get to 23 Librae through a portal in the Connexion Exoscience and Exploration Department. It’s secure. And even if it wasn’t, going there can’t help the Olyix.”
“He said he’s working on a new idea so nobody has to kamikaze,” Emilja said. “Wouldn’t tell me what it was, just that, if it is feasible, he’d explain when he gets back.”
“Two ideas in two days.” Ainsley chortled. “Who knew he was as smart as Hawking?”
“The people he’s outsmarted before?” Alik answered and smiled tauntingly at Yuri.
Yuri gave him the finger. “I won that one, dickhead.”
“Hey, fuck the pissing contest, you two,” Ainsley said. “Jessika, what the hell kind of weapon was that web thing in Kings Cross?”
“The spinning mesh was probably a variant on a metaviral spawn,” she said. “Which is an active molecular block that breaks mass down into its basic compounds. The Neána use them for zero-gee mining.”
“So how do we counter it?”
“Several types of artificially enhanced carbon bonds are resistant to metaviral breakdown,” Soćko said. “Our initiators can produce it.”
“They’re coating my new armor in this übercarbon stuff,” Kandara said. “I should be relatively safe—from the webs, at least.”
“You sure about this?” Alik asked her.
“A life without risks would be pretty boring,” Kandara replied.
Alik could see Captain Tral shaking hir head softly in disapproval, but sie held back on any comment.
“What about the machine they were building at Kings Cross?” Alik asked. “What was that?”
“Ah, this is where it gets interesting,” Jessika said. “We won’t be able to answer for certain until we can examine it, but from looking at the sensor images you sent me, Soćko and I believe it was a device to supplant the Connexion portal to 82 Eridani.”
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