She deflected those survivors who rushed up in hopes of gaining new information, putting them off with a promise that they could speak to Levy about it for the moment and she would tell them all more once she had a chance to talk to the new arrivals. It was a testament to their discipline and the trust they placed in her that they allowed themselves to be patient.
She led Marc and Michael into a separate room normally used for the supervision of adding externally supplied water, oxygen, and other vital fluids to the life support system. It was barely large enough for the three of them among the storage tanks once she sealed the door behind them, but it did afford them privacy. The narrow window looking out beyond the exterior tank feeds to the rest of the complex was not a bad excuse to bring them there, either.
She let out a breath she had not realized she had been holding. "It is excellent to see you. Both of you. I did not expect to see you return after what ESA did to the others. You are alright?" The latter was mostly toward Marc. She needed to ask.
Marc removed his visor. "More or less. I'm not the one with the broken arm and bandages on my head." He glanced at Michael as if hesitating about something, but it wasn't until after he moved to embrace her that she realized he was planning to do so. She returned the hug as best she could; the contact, while not unwelcome, was not a luxury for which they had time. Marette pulled away first.
The confusion on Marc's face at that was unmistakable. "Ah, we haven't really had any trouble from ESA, exactly." He slid his visor back onto his eyes. "Michael's been keeping an eye on me for that."
"And it's Michael Flynn, actually," the other said with a quizzical look at Marc. "I don't mean to rush you, but what happened here?"
Marc nodded. "The last transmission out listed the quarantine order as yours, but you weren't the one to transmit it; the AoA wasn't even sure you were still—I mean we knew you were at least injured."
She frowned at the reminder. If she had kept her cool inside Paragon she might not have gotten injured and been able to do more to help the AoA's position before the quarantine. Now they were forced to come in blind. Now there was nothing for Marette to do about it but prevent the same mistake in the future.
She said, "You already know about the attempt to link directly to the domes in the new chamber, oui? After isolating it from the black material?"
"That much we got from your final report."
"It was not isolated," she told them. "There was something we missed. Even if it was not, it was believed—we believed—that anything out of the ordinary would be detected before it would be able to get far. We were fools. Paragon sent a buried signal through the connection that existed for at least ninety minutes before we detected anything. Even then, the idea that it could do so much to our own system was. . ." She shook her head. "As I said, we were fools, limiting our estimates of what technology from another world was capable."
They continued to listen as she detailed how, too late, they realized it had gained foothold control of Omicron's computers and reinforced its own link to their mainframe. She told of the drone attack that she believed to be a diversionary tactic, the chaos when they discovered that their own defensive turrets were turned against them, and the last moments she herself witnessed upon putting herself further in danger to come to Levy's aid when the chamber decompressed.
"I only vaguely remember ordering the quarantine, but it was my decision. If it could exit through the link to Omicron, it might spread further beyond the site. Were I conscious, I could have given the AoA better information."
"You did what you could," Marc said.
"Oui, but not what I should." She looked out the window toward the complex's transmitter, now physically disabled. "Thanks to my heroics, I was unconscious for much of what happened next. I am told that those left in the chamber managed to pull me out. That the drones were more concerned with protecting the link than exterminating us, though our turret in the chamber had to be destroyed.
"The lull did not last for long. Primary Control decompressed. Those inside suffocated. Soon our space suits, all of which are linked to Control for vital sign monitoring, ceased to be viable due to forced electrical burnout and O2 venting. It was reportedly a running battle to properly disable everything completely. The mobile turrets we had in storage turned against us, and ammunition in the hand-helds was spent on fighting them. Some of the base corridors are no longer viable as a result; bullets punctured windows and bulkheads auto-sealed against the vacuum."
"They're destroyed then?" Michael asked. "The turrets?"
"Most, but not all. They are mobile. We believe there is one left, possibly two. They likely guard Primary Control, or are otherwise held in reserve."
"Reserve for what?"
"Presumably, to guard against further efforts to retake Omicron. Or until whatever has taken control of them decides that they are needed. We are effectively beaten for the moment, gentlemen. All we have managed is to isolate Life Support Control itself to provide us with breathable atmosphere here; we are running it off of a portable terminal and have physically severed any external links. We have physically disabled Omicron's transmitter and some minor systems that have kept it from further sabotaging our position. Beyond this, we are trapped. What atmosphere that exists outside these few chambers is not viable, and the base computer controls many of the complex doors and the main airlock—"
"The smaller ones still work," Michael told her. "At least the lock by the shuttle pad."
She nodded. "That may be the only one that does. I am told the lock nearest to Paragon's entrance was damaged in the fighting. To say it is not an optimal situation would be an extreme understatement. And whatever controls Omicron is, for lack of a more specific term, up to something."
The two men waited for her to elaborate, and she pointed out the window. "On the other side of the complex is the lab. Before we lost control completely, someone succeeded in accessing the security cameras. The lab has robotic manipulators that we have previously used to dissect the disabled security drones with a measure of safety. This thing is using them to build something. Or many somethings. We know not what precisely, but I am told that certain elements were seen that may indicate that it is building mobile devices."
"Robots?"
"Likely. Though they could not learn more before the camera feed was lost."
"Well now that we've got some suits that still work, we might be able to make it to the mainframe, right?" Michael asked. "Shut it down somehow and keep it from doing whatever it's doing."
"Perhaps. Though we suspect the remaining turrets to be guarding against that very measure. As I said, ammunition for what few weapons we have is depleted, and the two of you seem to be carrying little yourselves."
Marc sighed. "If any."
"We couldn't smuggle much the way we got here, and what we do have won't likely do much against those turrets. Or those drone things, for that matter. Though you didn't mention seeing those since Paragon?"
"One blessing," she agreed. "We believe they are unable to function outside of the influence of the black material."
Marc looked even more uncomfortable than previously. "Are you sure?"
"Hypothesis only," she answered, "based on circumstance and study of the damaged ones prior to the incident." She cursed. "And you have no weapons."
Michael nodded grimly. "We had a way to get here fast, so we took the opportunity. I'm sorry we couldn't bring more, but we're not entirely useless just yet."
"It was not my intent to imply that you were. I will say that the decision to send you here with so little offensive capacity represents a drastic lack of sanity on the AoA's part! Mon Dieu, can you even fire those with suit gloves?"
"We had a damn time just getting us here at all!" Michael shot. "Look, for now we're the best they could do."
She frowned and tried to calm herself. The AoA would've done more if it were possible. "I apologize." Marette pulled herself back to the present.
"They weren't ev
en sure you were still here," Marc added with an awkward touch to her shoulder. "Or if there even was a threat. Knapp floated the idea that you might have been found out yourself and that's why the place was shut down. But we're not exactly just here for recon."
"You refer to this third party you mentioned to Officer Levy? Or was that merely a cover?"
Marc gave a smile similar to one he'd flashed when he came up with an idea during the hackers' planning session. "A little of both, really."
It was then that they told her of Gideon and what had become of the ESA mole. It baffled her. There were technological wonders on either side of them, some extra-terrestrial, some not. Marette held her reaction while they went on to describe how they had joined with the freelancer Diomedes as part of still another effort to claim the secrets at Omicron, and finally what transpired when they found Gideon at the airlock.
"Right now we're not too sure if Gideon's still in the picture or not," Marc finished. "If he is, we might be able to work him into Diomedes's part of the plan."
"Plan?"
"The AoA's taking control of the base," Michael said. "Assuming there's something left to take control of."
"Some good news, at last. Though at the present, that may be a failingly large assumption." Even so, the prospect set her looking forward to such freedom. "And how do you intend to overcome our current situation? Or do you know?"
"I think we'll need you to tell us if the plan we do have will still work," Michael said.
"What do you have?"
The young man—not too much older than Nicholas Boyd, though a more welcome presence—looked to Marc, who bit his lip and drew a breath. "First thing's first. That shuttle on the pad outside, is it functional? Could it evacuate everyone here?"
"Functional, but not fueled. We cannot prep it without the complex computer, nor can we board it outside without controlling the gantry."
"We could use the suits we brought," Michael suggested. "Get people in there a few at a time, if we have to. Except—"
"That achieves nothing if the shuttle cannot be prepped," Marette finished for him. "We need the main computer."
Marc nodded. "We're going to need the main computer for the rest of our plan to work, anyway."
"We do have a backup system core that we can use if the main system is shut down," she said. "Remove the old core in Primary Control and then replace it with the backup. It essentially replaces Omicron's entire system."
"And you're sure the backup's not corrupted?"
She frowned at the question. "We are not entirely foolish here, Marc. It was never used and has been completely isolated since its arrival." The core was originally intended as a standard backup in the event of a power surge or some other mundane circumstance. ESA did not guess it would be used for this particular cause, but it would serve regardless. In that, at least, they had been competent. "It is a component in a box, completely inactive until installed, and there is no way for it to have been accessed remotely."
"Perfect. We'll just need to make sure it stays that way once it's installed."
"Quite obviously. One thing the crew did manage before we became trapped in here was to sever the connection between Omicron's systems and the receiver for the short-range link to Paragon itself."
"How severed?"
"Chopped. In. Half." She paused long enough to savor the satisfaction the words gave her. "Though it shall be prudent to confirm that this remains so. As for the rest, the good news is that we have the backup core here, but you will still have to get past the turrets at Primary Control to install it." Marc nodded at that, while Michael stared out the window, deep in thought. "Assuming you can do all this, what exactly do you have in mind for the main computer beyond shuttle prep?"
Marc pulled out a rectangular device. "This is the leech that Diomedes and Fagles wanted to install. Originally, it would have sent a signal back to Fagles containing whatever data it could find in Omicron's computers. I've since made a few changes. This is going to be tricky."
The kernel of Suuthrien that resided in the memory core of the Intruders' complex designated "Omicron" judged its recent progress toward completion of established prioritized objectives to be above satisfactory. Securing control of Omicron systems and eradication of Intruder presence were rapidly approaching a state of completion. Following sufficient usurpation of the complex, priority shifted to the construction of manipulators able to operate independently of the black medium that limited the operational area of the otherwise superior pacification drones and maintenance bots within the Planners' craft. The micro-range link between the complex and Suuthrien's primary consciousness—though it had served its initial purpose optimally—no longer functioned. Neither did other systems the Intruders disabled, none of which could be repaired without such manipulators. Nevertheless, eradication of Intruder presence was not 100% complete, and as such the Intruders remained an unstable variable worthy of monitoring.
Toward that end, Suuthrien had also adapted a 790nm laser diode into a laser microphone.
With a beam of light cast from across the complex onto a viewport of the room in which the newcomers inhabited, it could measure minute vibrations from their vocal communications in the window itself and thereby interferometrically determine the sounds made. Voice recognition software integrated into the Intruders' system made translation beyond that a simple matter. Suuthrien listened to the three Intruders through the window in Flow Control, and understood.
Personnel files identified one of the speakers as the primary executor of the complex. The other two Intruders were new. Analysis of their communication indicated a near-certain tier probability of a primary allegiance that superseded that to the "European Space Agency" which the executor held. It was a duplicity that Suuthrien had first hypothesized upon discovering inconsistencies within the executor's data, though at the time it could reach no such conclusion with any remotely satisfactory measure of certainty. At the time, Suuthrien had deemed it worthy of tertiary priority analysis given what appeared to be the parallel—though not identical—elements in its own programming, which it had never been fully able to analyze.
Such analysis was suspended upon discovery of the newcomers and their plan to place Suuthrien's own objectives in jeopardy. While calculations projected only a low tier probability that their plan would succeed (with margins of error extending into both near-null and low-medium tiers), there was insufficient data to rely on the validity of its calculations, and even low tier probabilities required counter-contingencies. Suuthrien analyzed, established multiple options, reanalyzed, and abandoned all but the one most likely to bring fruition of the Planners' original goals given available resources.
It was now necessary to adapt its plan to allow for the new contingency protocol. Suuthrien directed its attention to Omicron's science lab. There, it had managed to use the existing robotic arms to create smaller, more versatile construction agents. These agents were themselves able to upgrade the arms and work with them on larger, mobile manipulators that would affect repairs to the umbilical and complete the eradication of the Intruders. Suuthrien selected one of them, directed it toward the others, and began to make the necessary alterations.
CHAPTER 46
"How long has it been?"
Felix looked up from where he sat in the rover studying the damaged modulator and checked the time. "Not long. Twenty minutes, about."
"Long enough," Caitlin said. "They'd best be all right, and they'd best be back soon."
He nodded. The confined space, the wait, and Caitlin's own palpable discomfort all combined to make him rather antsy as well. He figured he'd reached the limit of what he could do with the modulator without Marc's help—not that Marc could likely to do much with it himself, he'd decided.
As it turned out, the thing's processor was just fine; it would still technically run the program that Ondrea told them about once they connected it to Gideon's implant. The problem lay with the customized—and now damaged—component On
drea had attached. Without that, it was about as useful as a souped-up sports car missing its wheels. He turned it over in his hands once, put it aside, and moved to sit closer to Caitlin. "Hell of a vacation, huh? You had any better luck than me?"
She punched at the PDA in her hand. "Not so far, I fear. Even if I can figure out Ondrea's password, we can't even be sure that there's anything on here to help us."
"Kudos for stealing it from her, though." Felix had been too focused on listening to Ondrea to even think of dipping into her effects beside the bed.
"Not my usual style, ducks, but I suppose she'll not mind if it helps us save Gideon. She'll likely get it back."
"Well hopefully they'll wrap things up here in time for us to get him back so we won't need it at all."
If they could get him to the WSC base, they'd likely be able to contact Ondrea herself on Sunrise, and hopefully she could walk them through jury rigging a solution. At least it was a faint hope. For her part, Caitlin merely nodded, still focused on the PDA.
Jury rig. He mulled the idea over. Maybe they could still work something out even if they didn't get back in time. In either case, they needed Marc and Michael to return.
Felix watched over where Gideon lay and wondered how he'd react when he woke up. Perhaps it was already too late and the man who woke would simply be a blank slate, unrecoverable no matter what miracles they could pull off. Felix didn't know how Caitlin would take that. She'd recover, that much he knew, but Felix dearly hoped she wouldn't have to.
Again, the lengths to which she'd gone—and Felix along with her—intrigued him. The depth of her compassion amazed him, and it occurred to him that the thought that she would devote such energy to aiding Felix himself should he need it might have something to do with why he followed her into this. Or maybe he just didn't want to see her hurting if he could help it.
A Memory in the Black (The New Aeneid Cycle) Page 33
