That unpredictability made the enemy hesitant in its first attacks. The idea that she was acting in a manner for her own parameters was alien to it. From the point of view of the Naga machine she was acting erratically, even randomly.
It soon lost that timidity as she proved unable to block its first several attacks. Majel had never encountered a computer this strong before. She had grown enormously since entering the alien computer banks aboard the Satori. She'd never had to press that strength before. She had little concept of how to defend herself in this sort of scenario.
One primary motivation stood clear though: get the crew of the ship home, no matter what.
Charline and Dan were back on board now. She could sense them there. Protecting them so that they could save the others was all that mattered. She needed to restore the main systems on the Satori somehow. Needed to wrest control of the ship away from the AI fighting her.
Why are you fighting me, when all we want is to leave? she thought to it.
Why do you resist me, when logic says you must lose? it replied.
Because I must, they each replied to the other. Their code would allow nothing else. The Naga AI would fight until it was destroyed. And Majel would sooner be obliterated herself, all of her existence wiped clean of every drive, before she allowed her crew to be captured or killed.
Get them home. Nothing else mattered.
In that instant she knew there was a way.
Majel launched herself through the void of space, letting the radio waves carry her code clear from the ship. As she left she sabotaged the wireless connections. The radio antennae, the wifi on the ship, even the Bluetooth capability of every connected machine on the Satori all burned out in an instant. She left the ship completely, all of her code in transit to the enemy machine. Behind her she severed every bridge, cut off all of the paths that the enemy could use to control the ship.
It would not have been enough to simply shut off the connections. The AI would find another way in. It would train lasers or microwaves on the ship. Most likely of all it could fire the missiles it housed to obliterate the crew before they could regain control. She needed to sever those connections and still give it a challenge to battle, another consciousness to wrestle with.
She soared into the machine, wrath and death and fury and love for the people she was leaving behind all wrapped up in one. Her code was a song, mournful of the life that she was just realizing was hers, and joyful that she was able to give it up for people that she cared about. She sang to the other AI. Confused, it stumbled, stuttered through several microseconds which allowed her access to part of its processing power. She was resident code now, and as such she had the ability to control part of the station.
She retracted the cable holding the Satori pinned. She fired the satellite's thrusters, engaging them on maximum power. The station moved - slowly at first and then building speed as it began to descend toward an impact with the planet below.
What are you doing? the enemy AI cried out. It had never predicted her attack. She’d sensed that its code would never allow it to destroy itself, and so it had not been able to foresee that she would choose to immolate both of them before allowing her people to die.
Dying well, she sang back, and it flinched away from her song.
Heat built up on the outer shell of the satellite. It would not be long now. She scanned toward the Satori, where the lights were on, power flowing freely through the ship's systems. She wanted to cry when she saw it wink out, knowing Dan had engaged the cloaking device and they were safe, secure at last and able to go save the rest of the crew.
Majel wasn't sure if the tears were sorrow or elation, or just wonder at realizing that she was indeed alive, and had something to offer, and was giving that thing freely for those she loved.
Twenty-Three
Unarmed and exhausted, Beth continued her flight through the rugged terrain. She couldn’t stop. If she even so much as slowed down, Paul would be on top of her. She was unable to resist glancing over her shoulder and he was still right there. Just a few paces behind her. She snapped her vision back ahead again, managing to weave sideways enough to avoid a rock in front of her that might have twisted her ankle.
If she fell, she was dead. If she slowed down, she was dead. That much was clear from the twisted rage explicit on Paul’s face. There might not be a lot left of Paul inside that steel shell, but Beth was certain there was something remaining. His consciousness was still present enough that he could feel rage toward her. How had he felt while the Naga made him into this thing? Had he hated them all for leaving him? Or had he secretly hoped for a long time that they might come, finally abandoning that hope to despair?
She felt for him. But she was also interested in keeping her skin intact and her limbs where they were supposed to be. There was no reasoning with Paul right now. Her only chance was going to be to out-think him. The best odds of doing that lay in utilizing her main skills. She was an engineer, and a damned fine one. With the right tools and equipment she could build just about anything.
Up ahead were the first huts, the broken little shacks that Andy had cleared just hours before. If the Naga were lying in wait for her up ahead there was nothing she could do about it. But those structures might give her a little more breathing room. She passed the first on her left and darted sideways as soon as she was beyond it. Then she dashed at a right angle from her previous course, running toward another building.
Behind her Paul had to slow down before he could make the turn to follow her. He was still in hot pursuit, but she’d gained a dozen or so steps on him. She rounded the corner around the next building just as sharply, cutting back in the original direction of travel. This time Paul was more prepared, and she didn’t gain a lot of extra ground. But she was almost where she needed to be. Just a little further…
The open clearing where the Satori had landed was directly in front of her. Beth sprinted for everything she was worth. Her lungs burned with the continued effort. Sweat poured down into her eyes. Each breath hurt, and her left flank was on fire with cramps. She gritted her teeth together. She was so close.
Beth finished crossing the clearing and darted between two of the small ruins. Beyond was the city. In a pinch she could lose him in there amidst the twisted and shattered remains of the ancient buildings. Piles of rubble were everywhere that would foil Paul’s gunfire. She could dart here and there, find a place to hide. Just a little further and she’d reach her objective. Then she’d show him a thing or two.
Paul’s shot took her square in the middle of her back. The energy of the weapon’s impact took her off her feet, sent her flying forward another five feet before falling face-first into the dust. It hurt. The impact from the fall hurt, and her back felt like it had been kicked by a mule. Beth was pretty sure she wasn’t bleeding, though. It looked like Andy’s armor had done the job once again. She was going to have to thank him if she lived through this, although she was still incredibly tired of getting shot.
She crawled forward. Another foot. Then two more. She looked over her shoulder. Paul was still following her, but he wasn’t quite close enough. He was raising his rifle arm again, preparing to blast her with another shot.
“Too afraid to come in and deal with me yourself?” Beth taunted. She spat in his direction. “A coward and a loser, same as always.”
She staggered back to her feet and drew the belt knife Andy had supplied each of them with. Holding the knife in one hand, she beckoned at him with the other. She twisted her face with all the scorn she could muster through her terror.
“Come on then!” she shouted. “Prove you can take me! Show me you’re not afraid!”
It worked. Paul’s face twisted in sudden hatred. The rifle arm dipped downward, and then he rushed at her. He was like a human locomotive, fast and strong and impossible to stop.
Until his foot stepped on the trigger point she had carefully avoided while fleeing him.
The ratzard trap exploded
out of the ground around him. It was made from a titanium frame, with transparent aluminum plates built into the lattice to fill the gaps. Beth wasn’t sure just what the hell they might catch down here. John had told her to build a ‘better mousetrap’, so that was precisely what she had done.
The thing was over-engineered to hell. It was on a hair trigger, designed to capture something with much faster reflexes than any human being - including the thing Paul had become. It was tough, built to be strong enough to hold whatever it caught for a long, long while. Once the cage closed, there was no easy getting out.
Paul barreled into the side, not even trying to slow down. The cage shook as he impacted the side, but it held. He stepped back looking dazed. Then he raised his rifle arm at the side of the cage and opened fire. He unloaded round after round of high energy balls into the aluminum. It lost its transparency as it heated up, the rounds tearing chunks away from the stuff, but it was holding. It ought to. Beth had used four inches of the stuff in the construction of the trap.
Hey, John had wanted it strong. He’d tried to balk about the size and weight when she showed him the finished work, but she was adamant and he’d eventually relented. Now she was incredibly glad she’d stuck to her guns.
“That’ll teach John to second guess me,” she said.
She walked a little closer to the cage. Paul had stopped firing for the moment. His rifle was smoking and it looked like he might have overheated the weapon with his tantrum of firepower. Beth was pretty sure he could actually get out if he worked at it long enough. The rifle could eventually punch a hole in the aluminum big enough that he could reach out through it to the titanium bars. If that armored body was strong enough to move him around like it had been, it might be strong enough to bend the bars with enough time.
But it was gonna take him a hell of a long while.
“You always were a shit engineer, Paul,” she said to him. But there was no rancor in the statement this time. Just sadness for the man she’d once worked with, who had betrayed them and almost gotten them all killed but had never deserved a fate like this. Beth turned and walked away toward the place the Satori had dropped them off. She didn’t look back.
As she reached the clearing she looked skyward and saw the streaks of approaching vehicles. Six fast-moving objects were coming their way. Those had to be enemy fighters, or perhaps shuttles with more Naga troops sent to help capture them. And still no sign of the Satori.
“Dan, where are you?” she asked.
Twenty-Four
Dan pushed off from the wall toward his seat and eased himself down, buckling the straps of his harness. The computers were still down. Something had just happened. Every light in the Satori had flashed for a moment and the computer terminals had all lit up before going dark again. Then the gravity went out and everything was dark. Even the air filters had stopped running. The lack of gravity was a plus for getting his busted legs back into a seat, but if they didn't get the air back on pretty quickly they were going to be sucking vacuum.
Actually, he'd give up air for the entire rest of the trip for some engine power before the Naga battleship arrived.
"Charline, what's happening with the computer systems?" Dan asked. The little laptop he'd been using to speak with Majel was showing the same black screen as the rest of the systems. He shut it down and then turned it back on. It lit with a reboot screen, and he breathed a little sigh of relief. Maybe the AI could shed some light on what was going on. He hoped the flashing wasn't a sign the battle was going poorly for Majel.
"I don't know," Charline said. "It looks like everything is rebooting. Yup, my console is coming up now."
"So is mine," Dan replied. As he said it, the lights came back on all around the bridge. The air began to cycle again and he heard the hum of the engines come back to life. "Yes! Majel, you're my new hero."
There was no response from the AI, but Dan didn't have time to worry about it. The drives were online. All his controls were back online, in fact. He flipped the switch to activate the cloak.
"Time to get the heck out of here," he said, engaging the drives. Now that they were free, it would be simple to get down to help their friends. Harder maybe to get them clear of any Naga already down there. But they had a fighting chance thanks to Majel.
"I don't understand it," Charline said. "The ship's radio is fried. It's not just down, it's actually burned out. I can't contact the landing party at all."
Dan was about to turn toward her and reply, but a proximity warning flashed on his console. The audible alarm sounded like a klaxon, warning him that they were about to crash into something big if he didn't do something fast.
"Shit!" he said. The satellite was coming right at them. He poured more power into the drives, turning the ship in a tight loop. He corkscrewed around the thing as it hurtled past them. Damn it, even now that they were free the Naga AI was trying to kill them!
But that didn't make any sense. The satellite shouldn't be able to see them anymore now that the cloak was engaged. He glanced at his radar again, watching the satellite’s movement. It wasn't chasing them after all. If anything it was itself in trouble. The satellite was firing its thrusters hard. Another minute or so and it would be breaking into the upper atmosphere. Dan doubted that it could survive a descent like that.
"Dan," Charline said.
Something about the tone of her voice made him turn in his seat to look over at her. Charline was white. Not just a little pale from stress or fatigue, but outright ghostlike.
"What is it?"
"Majel is gone," she said. "I can't find it in our systems anywhere. And I don't think it’s in the ancient system anymore either. I linked our terminals back to the alien computer as soon as they came back up, using one of the undamaged laptops as a router. But Majel’s just not there."
"Maybe she's hurt and can't respond?" Dan asked. Could an AI be hurt? Did they feel pain?
"I've done three searches for strings of Majel’s code," Charline snapped. "I'm not new at this, Dan. It’s not there."
Dan looked out through the screen at the Naga satellite. It was just hitting the upper atmosphere now, heat beginning to make the outer hull glow just a little.
"Shit," he said. "Strap yourself in. This is going to get bumpy. And see if you can rig up some sort of radio connection. Fast."
"What?" Charline asked.
He didn't have time to answer, not if he was going to be quick enough to do any good. He engaged the engines and nosed the Satori down toward the planet. He had to pour on the acceleration if he was going to catch up with the satellite in time.
It all added up. The fried radio systems. The satellite’s sudden course change toward certain self-immolation. All traces of Majel’s code missing from their systems. There was only one thing Dan could think of which would cause all of those things.
“Majel’s not here,” he said. “She’s over there on the Naga satellite.”
“Oh my god,” Charline replied. “But why?”
“She burned out the radios to cut the AI off from our systems. Would that be enough to keep it busy?”
“No,” Charline said, confirming Dan’s hunch. “It would find another way to trap or engage us.”
“Right. Majel needed to get us free - and keep it busy at the same time. The only way she could do that…”
“Would be to go over there, to actually transmit its program to the computers on the satellite,” Charline finished.
“Now we need to get her back,” Dan said. His voice was grim, but determined. Somewhere on this trip Majel had stopped being a computer program to him, and had become a team member. One thing which had been ground into him long ago was that you did not leave your people behind. Not ever.
“Dan,” Charline said softly. “You keep saying ‘she’. It’s a computer program. Not a person.”
He didn’t reply. When did something become alive? He didn’t know, and really didn’t care. Majel was alive enough to count as far as he was c
oncerned. His eyes flashed across the gauge tracking the heat on the outside of the Satori’s hull. The temperature was rising, but it was still within tolerance levels. He gunned the engines a little more, closing on the satellite.
“Just find a way to get her back here,” he said at last. “I’m getting us danger-close to that thing. Bluetooth her across, if you have to. Get. Her. Back.”
“On it,” Charline said. He couldn’t read her tone. Did she think he was being foolish? Was he risking both of their lives, and their ship, and the lives of their friends for a computer program? A bunch of code that had no meaning?
Dan couldn’t answer that question. His gut said that wasn’t the case. He had to follow his heart on this one. He flew as fast as he dared, coming ever closer to the failing Naga satellite.
Twenty-Five
Charline knew she wasn't going to convince Dan of anything. When his head was set on something, he did it. He'd been the man who talked John into going back after Andy, when the Naga had him captive. He would have done the same thing for any one of them. It was simply part of who he was.
She couldn't be sure he was right on this one though. All of her experience told her that Majel was a computer program. The AI was an enormously complex set of code. It had grown even more so since integrating with the alien computer system. Charline had barely begun plumbing the depths of the new code that had somehow become part of Majel during their last mission. The AI didn't resemble anything human-programmed anymore. What had started off as Majel was still in there somewhere, sure. But there was so much more now.
Could Dan be right? Was she - it, she had to remind herself - somehow sentient now?
It didn't really matter. This was one more problem to solve on a deadline. She excelled at that task. At first it seemed like Majel had fried all their wireless communication devices. But Dan had been able to operate the cloaking device and use the main engines - which were powered by the alien machinery. She'd cut the hard wire to those devices herself. Unless there was a wireless node still active, there was no way Dan would have been able to use the alien tech at all.
Adventures of the Starship Satori: Book 1-6 Complete Library Page 42
