Devastator

by Isaac Hooke

  The six Hull Burners were escorting the Void Warriors toward the rendezvous point. Using cables and grappling hooks, the Void Warriors were dragging the damaged pyramid vessel Jain’s consciousness inhabited. They had abandoned the top section of the alien ship, leaving it behind. The Talos was among the Warriors, leading the way, and he wondered who had taken control of his former ship.

  Sheila’s Wheelbarrow remained close to the alien hull, as if she was unwilling to abandon him. Either that, or as if she was waiting for a communication request to come from him.

  Ahead, at the rendezvous point, rifts were opening up as indicated by the subtle maelstroms on the display, materializing courtesy of the waiting rift vessels.

  As for the enemy units: while most of the Mimics pursued the main body of the retreating fleet, ten of the alien vessels had changed course to intercept the Void Warriors and the alien craft they dragged.

  Jain reduced his time sense to a degree so he could watch the retreat in closer to realtime.

  “How come they’re moving so slowly?” Jain commented.

  “You mean the Void Warriors?” Xander asked, snapping Jain back into his max time sense.

  “Yeah,” Jain told him. “At this rate, the aliens are going to reach firing range with their lightning weapons before the Warriors reach the waiting rifts.”

  “I don’t know,” Xander said. “Perhaps they’ve taken engine damage.”

  “Then why don’t they let the Hull Burners take over?”

  “Again, I don’t know,” Xander said. “I almost have communications access available. You can ask.”

  Jain reduced his time sense several degrees once again, and watched as the tactical display continued to update, showing the different ships on their way toward the rifts, with the aliens pursuing them.

  Why the hell are they moving so slow?

  “Comms are up,” Xander announced. “They’ll function the same way as before, thanks to my emulation layer. Would you like me to open a channel to Sheila?”

  “Go ahead,” Jain said.

  “Actually, wait,” Xander said. “I’m receiving multiple incoming alien communication requests in the form of gamma rays.”

  “Well that’s interesting…” Jain said.

  24

  “Ignore the alien communication requests for now,” Jain decided. “Let’s talk to Sheila, first.”

  “Good,” Xander said. “Because I’m still working on the realtime translation engine to convert Mimic to English and vice versa.”

  A moment later Sheila appeared inside the virtual bridge, seated at her customary station.

  She looked up. “Jain.” He detected the timebase sync request in her header, and his system automatically adjusted to match. He realized she was communicating at her maximum time sense—about ten times slower than Jain’s new maximum.

  “I can’t tell you how good it is to see you,” Sheila continued. Her eyes glistened slightly. “We weren’t sure you’d made it… I got kicked out of the system as soon as the transfer completed, and couldn’t remote in. Did you change the keys?”

  “No.” Jain glanced at his system logs, wondering if some automated system had done that. There was nothing obvious in the initial entries. He glanced at Xander. “Any ideas?”

  The robed Accomp nodded. “I see what happened. The previous AI core still had a queue of instructions waiting to execute when the mind wipe initiated. After the shut down, that queue remained in the local cloud so that as soon as the transfer completed and you began to boot up, those instructions executed. One of them was a command to change your local key.”

  Sheila nodded. “So that’s what happened. Well, we were worried sick. Santana threatened to have the Hull Burners shoot you down when he heard what I’d done, but I convinced him that if this worked, it would unlock all of the alien technology for humanity. I just had to remind him of those inertialess drives, and his face lit up with the usual greed, though he did his best to hide it.”

  “I’ll bet he did,” Jain said. “Is Santana still insisting on court-martialing the lot of you?”

  “No,” Sheila said. “Though he was actually a bit pissed that we installed your mind into the alien ship, and not his. I had to explain to him that it wasn’t a privilege, but a necessity, in order to preserve the cloud database.”

  “So did he manage to hack into any of the other Mimic ships with the previous knowledge we sent?” Jain asked.

  “No, though not for lack of trying,” Sheila said. “Do you remember how the admiral left behind a small contingent of ships to cover the retreat, buying the main fleet time?”

  “I remember, yes,” Jain said.

  “Well,” Sheila continued. “A few ships in that contingent got close to Mimics that had discharged their lightning weapons already, catching them during the one-minute downtime to the next attack. Most of them got shot down by the rapid barrage of blobs the pyramids released. Two got through. The first one failed to remote in—the keys didn’t match—and it was shortly destroyed. But the second got lucky, because the Mimic in question proved to be a subordinate of the Maxwell unit we had encountered, and the key worked.”

  “So that means the AI core of this particular vessel hadn’t been able to send out a warning,” Jain said. “Probably because it had been too preoccupied dealing with your hack attempt.”

  “Probably,” Sheila agreed. “But Maxwell obviously hadn’t warned them, either. Though I don’t think he wanted us to succeed in taking control of the AI core. ”

  “Neither do I,” Jain said. “He was probably afraid of being implicated in the hack attempt, and thought it best to just get the hell out of the system. So what happened after the second Mind Refurb remoted in?”

  “He managed to get up to the self-destruct stage,” Sheila said.

  “Did he inject his consciousness to prevent the neural network from collapsing?” Jain asked.

  “Actually, no, he didn’t get that far,” Sheila said. “He wasn’t able to stop the self-destruct sequence like I was: he didn’t have you and Medeia to help him. The ship exploded, and because of his proximity, the Mind Refurb was lost in the blast.”

  “That’s too bad,” Jain said. “So no other Mind Refurbs tried to seize control of other alien vessels?”

  “No,” Sheila said. “Santana asked me if I’d be willing to lead a team to capture another pyramid, but I told him there was no use. The window of opportunity has passed: all of the Mimics will have changed their access keys by now, especially after the failed second attack. They’ve probably caught on to the fact that only Maxwell’s subordinates were affected. He might have to answer a few questions when he gets back.”

  “I wonder if they know the vessel I inhabit has been compromised…” Jain said.

  “I’d say no,” Sheila told him. “They strike me as arrogant. Like we would be, if we had superior technology. Especially considering how Maxwell behaved around us. Like he’d already written us off, and assumed we were all going to die, save for a handful that the Mimics planned to benevolently spare.”

  “So because of their superiority complex, they think it’s impossible that we’d have successfully hacked this ship…” Jain said. “Because otherwise it would have self-destructed already.”

  “That would be my guess,” Sheila agreed. “It helps that we’re dragging you, making it look like you’re being forced to follow, rather than doing so of your own free will.”

  “Yeah, too bad they don’t know I can’t, yet,” Jain said. “Considering all the placeholder code Xander and I found in the emulation layer you wrote.”

  “Sorry about that,” Sheila said. “I focused on getting the code for your main consciousness operational first. That seemed the most important part.”

  “It was,” Jain said. “And I’m mostly teasing you. Engines are still offline anyway, as far as I know, so even if I could interface, it wouldn’t matter.”

  “Yes,” Sheila said. “I should mention… although we both agree
it’s likely they don’t know you’ve taken over the AI, there’s no guarantee that’s true,” Sheila said. “Who knows, maybe they’re making their way here to destroy you, rather than to liberate you.”

  “That’s a good point,” Jain said. “Question: who’s in control of the Talos?”

  “I am,” Sheila said. “I installed a temporary autonomous AI into the ship. If you plan to stay inside the alien core for a long time, maybe you should consider letting me restore one of your backups into the Talos.”

  “No,” he decided. “The universe only really needs one me at the moment. Continue to treat the ship as one of your Direct Reports for now.”

  He glanced at the tactical display. He had momentarily forgotten the dire situation the Void Warriors were in, because none of the dots representing the ships were moving at the moment, thanks to the heightened time sense. But he recalled their precarious predicament readily now.

  “So I have a question,” Jain said. “Why are we moving so slowly?”

  “I was wondering when you’d ask,” Sheila said. “You mentioned your engines were still offline? I think you’re wrong about that. You see, your inertialess drives are exerting drag of some kind. It only kicks in when we apply acceleration. Are you certain you can’t shut them down entirely?”

  Jain glanced at Xander. “When are you going to have the drive interface up and running?”

  “I’ve been spending all of my time working on the Mimic-English translation engine, as requested,” Xander said. “I can switch to the drives if you like, but according to the alien manual, they’re already offline, at least from an interface perspective. So even if I get engine access ready for you, there isn’t anything further you can do. I think the ‘drag’ Sheila is referring to is an artifact of the damage to the drives themselves.”

  “So we should get the interface to the repair drones online, then?” Jain said.

  “I’ll work on that after the translation engine is in better shape,” Xander said. “Unless you wish me to switch priorities immediately? I won’t have the drives repaired by the time the aliens arrive.”

  “Okay, forget it,” Jain said. “Get that translation engine going.”

  “It’s nearly done,” his Accomp said.

  Sheila’s hologram flickered slightly.

  “What was that?” Jain asked.

  “Nothing,” Sheila said. “I’ve been fending off the usual alien boarding parties.”

  Jain returned his attention to his tactical display, and looked at Xander. “How come I’m not seeing any of those indicated on my display? Or the blobs?”

  “You have to turn on minute details,” Xander said. “It’s a new feature I added to reduce display clutter.”

  “Now you tell me,” Jain grumbled. He activated that feature, and a swarm of red dots appeared around his ship. Most were boarding party units. Beyond them, were the blobs the alien vessels had launched.

  “I had no idea how bad it was out there,” Jain said.

  “It’s bad,” Sheila agreed. “We’ve exhausted the charges on our raptors by defending against those blobs. Both the Void Warriors, and the Hull Burners with us.”

  “You have to let me go,” Jain said. “Position my ship between yourselves and those blobs. They won’t be able to swerve past in time… I’m too big. And my hull can take the impacts. We’ve all seen how resilient these vessels are.”

  “Concentrated energy blasts can penetrate,” Sheila said. “We’ve all seen what your barracuda can do.”

  “According to the weapons manual,” Xander said. “The launching aliens can disperse those blobs, which they call Terriers, at will.”

  “Terriers, like the dog?” Jain asked.

  “That’s what Maxwell referred to them as in one of his translated documents,” Xander replied.

  “Weird,” Jain said. “But anyway, my point is, we can communicate with these dudes once you put me in the path of those weapons. And then we’ll let them know that I’m A-okay, and still on their side, and they’ll disperse them. Clearing the way for your escape.”

  “What if they destroy you?” Sheila said. “Because like I told you, there’s no guarantee they don’t know you’ve replaced the AI core.”

  Jain glanced at Xander. “Do we still have incoming gamma ray communication requests?”

  “We do,” Xander told him.

  Jain regarded the Accomp uncertainly. “How’s it going on that Mimic to English translation engine?”

  “I have an alpha version ready to try out,” Xander said. “It’s a bit rough around the edges: there are still some issues surrounding their idiosyncratic past participle and future tenses, and some minor problems with noun and verb ordering.”

  “It will have to do,” Jain said. “Initiate a hail, and run it through that translation engine of yours. Let’s hear what they have to say.” He glanced at Sheila. “I’m routing the comm request through to you.”

  “I suggest we drop our time sense slightly,” Xander said. “Otherwise, there will be a slight lag involved, due to our distance.”

  Jain accepted the recommended value. The icons on his tactical display were still relatively frozen.

  A hologram appeared in front of him on the bridge. It was a pyramid colored red. Jain would presumably be appearing as a similar pyramid to the alien, thanks to Xander’s emulation layer.

  “529, report,” came a deep, slightly robotic voice. The hologram changed shape and color, stretching out to mimic the sound waves of each syllable, returning to the original red pyramid form at the end. “Are you all right?”

  Jain glanced at Sheila and muted the hologram so that it turned a darker red.

  “See, they have no idea the AI core inside me has changed,” Jain said. “Why would they? As long as I’m able to interface with the outside world the same way as the previous AI, of course they’re not going to be able to tell.”

  Sheila raised an eyebrow, but otherwise remained quiet. Then: “Aren’t you going to answer them?”

  Jain nodded distractedly, and unmuted the hologram. “Uh, I am operating within normal parameters.” He cringed slightly at the formality of his words, and tone. He wasn’t sure if he should have said something more casual, like “I’m A-okay,” or if the aliens referred to themselves in the third or first person when speaking to each other. He hoped Xander’s translation engine had the smarts to substitute the correct form on both accounts.

  “If you are fully operational, why are you allowing the humans to tow your vessel?” the hovering pyramid said.

  “I meant my AI core is fully operational,” Jain said, dropping the third person to go with the first. “My weapons and engine systems are currently damaged. Repairs are ongoing.” That latter was a lie, considering that Xander hadn’t yet created the emulation layer to access the repair swarm equivalents; hopefully the incoming Mimics wouldn’t be able to detect that from their current positions.

  “Why are you relaying communication signals to the human ship underneath you?” the hologram said.

  Thinking on his feet, Jain said: “I’m trying to deceive them. They were able to hack into my remote interface, but I shut them down. I have them trapped in a honeypot environment for the time being.”

  He hoped there was a honeypot equivalent not just in the alien vocabulary, but in their systems design.

  The pyramid didn’t reply for a few moments. Then: “Continue the deceit for as long as you are able. We will tear you from their clutches shortly.”

  The pyramid winked out as they ended communications.

  “Well that’s that,” Jain said. He gave Sheila a sad look. “See, I told you they won’t destroy me. Now let me go.”

  “I won’t leave you,” Sheila said.

  “You have to,” Jain said. “There’s no other way for you to get away. Look at the tactical display. You’re going to be overwhelmed by those incoming blobs. And if you don’t let me go, next you’ll all be in range of their lightning weapons. Because of the grappl
ing hooks you’ve got attached to my hull, you’re all too close together. The weapon will arc between you, and disable you all.” Except for the escorting group of Hull Burners, who were just above six thousand kilometers from the closest Void Warrior.

  “No,” Sheila said.

  Jain shook his head. “Look, they think I’m one of them.” For now. “I can do more here if you leave me behind. Find out their final battle plans. Where their homeworld and staging areas are located.”

  Sheila frowned. “But isn’t all of that in your cloud database already?”

  “No,” Jain said. “That knowledge wasn’t stored in the cloud. It was probably in the memories of the AI core, which are now wiped. The same place we keep our own private memories.”

  “So you’re telling me I injected you into that AI core for nothing?” Sheila said. “That there is no data at all to access?”

  “That isn’t entirely true,” Xander interrupted. “There is still the local cloud, which is separate from the more volatile data of the AI core. I have found blueprints to their inertialess drives, and to the lightning weapon.”

  “Share them,” Jain instructed his Accomp.

  Xander nodded. “Transmitting now. Not that it will help them.”

  “Why not?” Jain said.

  Sheila’s eyes momentarily defocused. “I can see why already. First of all, there are elements in these components that we’ve never encountered before. Maybe they can be synthesized, maybe not. Second of all, even if we can synthesize those elements, there’s no way we’d be able to build and test a prototype in time, not before the final battle. I’m talking months at minimum, here.”

  “All right, so that’s how it is, then,” Jain said. “But anyway, you’ve drifted way off topic. Probably purposely. All you’re doing is delaying the inevitable. I have to go.”

  “But you can’t,” Sheila said. “We need you.”

  “Why?”

  “For your technology,” Sheila said, sounding desperate, as if throwing everything she could think of out there to guilt-trip him, and hoping something would stick. “We can lift the drive directly from your ship and plug it into one of ours. Along with the other weapons.”