The Trilisk AI (Parker Interstellar Travels #2)

by Michael McCloskey

  “What are you doing?” Magnus asked.

  “This is too heavy. It slowed me down before. I need to figure something else out. If we’re getting out of here, we have to be fast. Besides, how many shots like that could it have left?”

  “Too bad. I was hoping for a powerful weapon. We might be able to reverse engineer it. Or maybe Shiny could.”

  “Any of these could be weapons. They all could be weapons.”

  “We need a new plan—”

  “I agree. Just give me a minute.”

  Magnus tolerated her delay. He paced.

  Her eye caught a smaller, more complicated object in the back on the left side. She leaned down and retrieved it from the end. The response was immediate. The remaining artifacts started to slide down their shelves, moving smoothly toward the center.

  “Oh no,” she said. She watched in alarm.

  “What’s happening! Where are they going?” Magnus demanded.

  “No idea. Wait.”

  The objects slid smoothly into the central shelf, which folded up from the top and the bottom. The shelf further transformed itself until it compressed into a container of less than half a cubic meter of volume. The container floated up to Telisa’s side.

  “Five Entities!” she said. “Can you believe it? They all pack up. All of them. Just like that. I guess Shiny wanted them ready to move, too!”

  Telisa couldn’t contain her excitement. Magnus smiled.

  “Just think, we almost left most of them sitting here,” she said. “Now we have all of them! Do you know what this means?”

  “If we can get out alive, this mother lode is ours,” Magnus said.

  Telisa beamed back at him.

  “We should figure out how to open the vault first,” Magnus said. “According to Shiny’s probe network, the destroyers are gone.”

  The probe that had followed them into the house had resumed its normal shape. It sat in one corner, waiting.

  “Okay. Let’s try the obvious.”

  Telisa shrugged and walked over to the door. She lay across the cold, smooth metal and pressed the buttons. The door started to open.

  “If only all our problems were that easy,” Magnus said.

  A gory Vovokan scrambled through the doorway in an instant. Telisa screamed, but her jiu-jitsu training took over. She automatically spun onto her back and presented the attacker with her booted feet, kicking it back. Several of its tiny pincer hands grasped her legs as it reared up over her. For a second it seemed like a stalemate, but then its mouth-end curled underneath the body like an upside down scorpion, allowing the beak to snap at her.

  Magnus’s rifle sounded again in the tight space. The round had been well aimed. It went into the front of the trunk and traveled down its length, blowing shrapnel and gore out the far side of the alien body.

  The creature spasmed but didn’t let go. Telisa fought harder with her legs.

  I should use my hands. Oh shit, my knife.

  Telisa grabbed for her knife but discovered it wasn’t in its sheath. Magnus appeared over her, stabbing the Vovokan thing several times. It kept thrashing, so Magnus started to cleave the legs holding Telisa.

  The alien finally slowed and weakened as Magnus carved away at it. Telisa freed a leg and kicked the trunk away from her. Then she rolled to her feet and kicked the Vovokan savagely several times, breaking off more legs on its left side. Magnus stopped before she did. He stood back while she kicked the corpse several more times.

  “Are you injured?” he said.

  Telisa was breathing heavily. “I’m just pissed,” she said, ignoring her adrenal tremors. “Damn! How could that catch me by surprise? We should have had all our weapons out and ready.”

  “Yes. It was sloppy. I was only thinking of the destroyers. We should gather our stuff.”

  “I don’t know why my knife isn’t back where it should be. Damn those creepy things!”

  They unloaded Scout and organized the equipment. They each had a big meal; in all the excitement they’d neglected the food. Telisa opened the carrier and loaded all the artifacts back on the shelves before allowing the device to repack them. Now she felt relatively light: no new artifacts and less food and water to carry. She found her knife and slipped it back into its sheath. Yet I can’t outrun the destroyers.

  Telisa took out the rifle she had found and checked its load. “Meer. That would be funny if it weren’t so creepy. And if we hadn’t seen those crappy copies of stuff before.”

  Still, the weapon made her feel better, especially after the close call. She leveled the rifle and walked down the ramp out of the vault. The floating case followed in her wake. “We could just leave the seed here and go back without it,” Telisa said.

  “I think that would be dangerous. I think that would give Shiny an excuse to decide we weren’t useful anymore,” Magnus said.

  “So what? You think he’s just going to kill us just like that? Out of the blue and with no warning?”

  “I think that’s how his race operates...operated.”

  “They would have destroyed each other long ago. The whole race would have become extinct.”

  “Well they are now, right?”

  Telisa made a frustrated noise. “Okay, it’s time to think things through again,” she said.

  “Okay. We killed a few, but they can still see the seed. And it’s hard to hide,” Magnus said.

  “We’ve been doing it backwards. It’s hard to hide stuff, as you say. The machines are focused on finding any survivors. They’ve been in that mode a long time.”

  “You say backwards—so instead of hiding stuff, we’re going to find it?”

  “Find it for them,” she said. “Shiny has shown us how. We can fake the signatures.”

  “Yes, but they just come in and blow stuff up.”

  “Then we fake the other destroyer machines as being Vovokan. They’ll shoot at each other.”

  “Sounds too easy,” he said.

  “These are only battle machines. They were designed for one swift, crushing campaign against this planet. They aren’t actually very smart. Probably on purpose. Who wants a huge army of machines that can think really well on their own?”

  “It’s worth a try.”

  Magnus sat on the ramp to concentrate. Telisa looked around at the recent battle damage. As far as she could tell, all the defenses had been crushed. The outside of the vault was scorched in several places.

  I’m lucky the destroyer machines didn’t kill me after that weapon destroyed the small ones. I think they didn’t have a clear view of what hit them. They might learn next time; then I’d be stuck in here forever.

  Telisa pocketed another of the tiny spheres that had led them down to the vault. Too bad you guys died off, we’re getting quite an entourage going here.

  She thought about going to look for more stuff but decided it wouldn’t be wise to leave Magnus far behind.

  “Okay. This is what I’ve set up,” Magnus said. “I’m going to add a bunch of fake signatures near where we activated a lot of the machines last time with the broadcast power. But this time, once they’ve engaged I’m going to add signatures to a third of the destroyer machines themselves. Let’s see if we can start a party.”

  Telisa took a last scan around the chamber, then sat next to Magnus. Scout moved around the vault in lazy circles. She accessed the probe network data in her PV.

  She watched Magnus activate several robots in the house. Predictably, the red dots of the destroyers came from above to hunt the Vovokan targets down. Magnus waited for the right moment. He allowed one Vovokan machine to be killed. But then when two destroyers came at another machine from two directions, he put down fake Vovokan signatures on both machines. The destroyers both altered course immediately, spiraling closer in the tight corridors, hunting each other.

  “Look at that! They’re going for it!”

  Telisa watched as two destroyer heavies closed on each other. A bright exchange of energies played across
the spy network.

  “I think two of those larger machines just destroyed each other! This is great!”

  More machines were scrambled from the capital ship above the surface. The number of destroyers in the house doubled. Magnus activated another set of signatures over a couple of them, causing their fellow machines to turn and attack.

  “Hurry. Make more, before they figure it out,” Telisa said.

  Magnus put false signatures on half the destroyers. More combat broke out in several sections of the house. Telisa watched several of the destroyers die in friendly fire.

  “This is going to be easy. I never thought it would work so well!”

  “They’re catching on now, actually,” he noted. “They’re firing more slowly. And getting closer before shooting.”

  “That’s good for us. Some of them are dead and the others are less effective.”

  “Yeah, yeah, it is a step in the right direction.” Magnus’s voice wasn’t overly cheerful.

  “See what else you can do,” Telisa said. She stood up. The artifacts were all packed away, so she decided to check on the seed. Telisa walked over and examined it again.

  The blue sphere part was made quite differently than the rest of it. The components of the square that embraced it were obviously Vovokan. They looked just like the silver rods and bulbs on Shiny’s personal gear. Telisa took out a passive scanner and gave the seed a run-over as she had with many of the artifacts on the shelves.

  “Wait a minute,” Telisa said aloud.

  She took out a field mapper and pointed the sensor at the device. She saw the mapper interface open in her PV. The electromagnetic fields around the device were immensely complex. Impossibly so. The EM fields pulsing in thin air before her looked like the inside of a computation block.

  She fumbled through her pack for her spectrometer. She took a reading from the surface of the sphere. Her tool showed her the exterior had a known absorption signature: a Trilisk compound no civilian human knew how to replicate.

  Her excitement rose to the point where she couldn’t contain herself. “Five Holy Entities!” she sent over her link. “Magnus. This center part isn’t Vovokan. It’s Trilisk.”

  He walked into the vault to join her. “How? You sure?”

  “Sure. It has a known absorption pattern. Trilisk only. The fields are amazing!” Telisa was still watching through her mapper. She moved her hand close to the seed. Her hand created a safe zone wherever she moved it.

  “Magnus, these fields surrounding it are as complex as the inside of a processor. But when I move my hand here, they all dynamically clear for me. Wherever I move it—just like that.”

  “What’s inside? A power source? All its computational power is in the fields?”

  “I can’t scan into it. There are no controls. This outer part is nothing but a glorified holder. Actually, maybe it interfaces with it somehow. Could Vovokans actually know how to interface with Trilisk technology?”

  “Once again our companion proves to be less than forthcoming. To the edge of betrayal, really.”

  “Shiny? Yes. He has to know what this really is.”

  “He has to know all about the Trilisks. He has this artifact in his house, and it’s important enough to come back for. Or to send us back for. And don’t forget where we first found him—trapped in a Trilisk ruin.”

  Telisa shook her head. “Damn him. All I asked for was a bunch of ruin locations. But he knows a lot more than that.”

  “Why did Shiny send us down to his house to get a Trilisk artifact?”

  “It must be valuable. It must be the most valuable thing on the planet!”

  “Maybe. Maybe it’s just the most valuable thing left after the destruction,” Magnus said.

  “I do wonder about what you said.”

  “What?”

  “The Vovokans. Their planet has been destroyed. Maybe they deserved it. Maybe the destroyers are the good guys. Shiny’s people might have switched into competitive mode. Maybe they even attacked the destroyers first.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me,” Magnus said. “Let’s just make sure we don’t piss off either of them at us. Because no matter what, humanity can’t fight either one of these races.”

  “Did we kill enough destroyers to give us a chance at making it out?”

  “I don’t think so. Not yet. They’re becoming less responsive as this goes on.”

  “Then our basic situation hasn’t changed much. We’re still stuck down here with the seed hidden in the vault.”

  “We could try and rip it apart. We could take back the Trilisk part, if the destroyer machines aren’t scanning for Trilisk stuff. I wonder if Shiny would consider that good enough or if he needs all of it. What else?” asked Magnus.

  “Back to the drawing board. Figure something out.”

  Chapter 20

  The Vandivier shot through interstellar space. The crew waited inside the tiny shell as it traveled farther and farther from home. For the thousandth time, Relachik’s patience was tested.

  “Is there some chance this is a deception?” he asked Cilreth.

  “Yes,” Cilreth said. “Do you want to turn back?”

  Relachik almost screamed at her. No, I don’t want to turn back!

  “I think we have them,” Arlin transmitted from his quarters.

  Relachik checked the ship’s sensors yet again. There was something at the edge of their range. He closed his eyes and initiated several actions. The ship slowed relative to the target. A probe launched and began to move between the Vandivier and the contact. It began to screen out all traces of the approach of their ship.

  “I doubt they saw us, unless they’ve significantly upgraded their ship since the war,” Arlin said.

  “They may easily have done so, given their mission and also their success at Thespera,” Relachik said. But he believed Arlin was probably right. We can do this. Finally.

  The Vandivier began its stealth approach. Relachik handled everything smoothly due to all his practice. He wasn’t nervous; he’d always been rock solid under pressure. If anything, his focus improved when it really counted. He felt the approach of the Vandivier was a good one.

  Relachik took a moment during the process and called up his document. He’d been working on it steadily. He looked at the last entry.

  If you can forgive me, I think we could work together. I’ve figured out our goals are no longer at odds. You want to learn about the aliens. Especially the Trilisks. It’s no longer my duty to uphold the law, but I’m still a human and I have a duty to help protect humans. The Seeker was destroyed by aliens. We have to give the Space Force all the help we can to help protect humanity. But that doesn’t stand in the way of what you want. You can learn about the aliens. I can pass along what we learn to the Space Force anonymously. Cilreth says it’s possible.

  Relachik set his link to transmit it directly to Telisa if she ever came into range. Just in case. He hadn’t dared send it to her earlier using the key, for fear of interception by the government, the F-clave, or her fellow smugglers. He still wondered if Telisa was free to do what she wanted, or if she’d fallen in with a crowd that had trapped her. It was also possible her captors had brainwashed her into joining them.

  “Shouldn’t we attempt communication?” Cilreth asked.

  “Yes, if we want them to fire on us, or ambush us once we board. Don’t worry, once we’re on the ship, I intend to announce us and our intentions. Until then, we’re not going to give them any chance to slip away. We’ll use the grenades, just as we practiced.”

  “Very well. And what of the pirate’s option?”

  “Unlikely,” Relachik said.

  “What’s that?” Cilreth asked.

  Arlin and Relachik gave her a look, then Relachik said, “I’ll explain it to her. You get ready.”

  Arlin nodded and left them.

  Relachik took a deep breath. “When two powered-up gravity spinners near each other, they have to cancel each other out more
the closer they get to each other,” he said.

  “That sounds familiar. But what’s the pirate’s option?”

  “It usually doesn’t come up in combat, because our weapons are useful at longer ranges. But this effect starts about a third of a light second out and becomes more pronounced as you get closer. By the time you’re close enough to board, the spinners have to be in perfect balance, or else both ships are torn apart. The pirate’s option is to choose mutual destruction over capture. You can violently misalign your spinner and destroy both ships.”

  “Oh,” Cilreth said.

  “This has been a problem for the Space Force from time to time, which is why we use robotic capture devices that shut the spinner down in the target. The pirate’s option remains there, but it’s more of a death-instead-of-capture rather than a mutual-destruction thing.”

  “So we’re risking all our lives to do this. Maybe we’d better just follow them to a planet.”

  “If they spot us, then it’ll get more dangerous. I doubt they’ll even consider the option. It’s to our advantage that this is obviously not a Space Force cruiser.”

  “Not the way I see it. At least they know the Space Force would treat them according to rules. If they think we’re another group of pirates, then they may fear death.”

  “But they’d have a fighting chance against us, which is better than certain death.”

  “Okay, there is that.”

  “If I do the approach right, and you know I can, they’ll have minimal time to react before the gas takes effect. And the remora Arlin will deploy will eventually power down their spinner. Ours will come down with it, then back up. There might be a few seconds of weightlessness.”

  “Yes. Okay, let’s just get this over with. I hope we get your daughter back safe and sound.”

  “So do I.”

  As they approached, maintaining stealth got trickier, so Arlin moved in on the other ship while Relachik managed the probes. The target remained quiescent.

  If we can make it the next few seconds, then it should be disabled, Relachik thought.