Devastator

by Isaac Hooke

  “Connect us,” Jain said.

  A red pyramid appeared in front of him. “We are the Radicals.”

  Jain wasn’t sure what to say to that. Nice to meet you?

  “Your neural network appears intact,” the Radicals continued. “However, there are some odd frequency variations in your brain waves. We believe you may have suffered an attack from a new kind of alien weapon. We’re uploading a software program to test the integrity of your mind. Please accept.”

  Jain received the request, and hesitated. He upped his time sense and muted the pyramid. “That thing could have a virus in it. In fact, it probably does. But if we refuse, I have no doubt they’ll call in the cavalry, and we’ll find ourselves shutdown shortly anyway.”

  “My recommendation would be to duplicate a subset of your AI core into a sandbox environment,” Xander said. “Everything except the components required for consciousness.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Jain said. “We reroute the request to the sandbox, run the alien code, and then tweak the output to make sure it doesn’t raise any alarms.”

  “Exactly,” Xander said. “Though it presumes that we’ll be able to figure out what the expected output is supposed to be, in terms of obtaining a passing grade.”

  “Well, I guess we’re going to be on the run pretty quick here, if we can’t figure it out,” Jain said.

  He created a copy of his neural network and placed it in the sandbox environment. Then he booted up the sandbox. Without the consciousness subroutines, the booted up copy wouldn’t attain self-awareness. It would be like an autonomous mind, operating with access to the same data, but without a personality of any kind.

  Jain switched back to normal time and routed the request to the sandbox, and the code began to execute in the controlled environment.

  “There’s definitely a virus,” Xander said. “They lied: they’re doing more than simply ‘testing the integrity’ of your mind. The virus is changing the very underlying neural network. Or the simulated neural network, as it were…. conforming it to what I suppose is considered more ‘normal’ alien brainwaves. Corrective code, if you will. It’s destroying the neural connections that make you who you are in the process, essentially turning you into an alien soldier who’s ready and willing to obey all orders.”

  “So you said they use high energy photons to scan us?” Jain asked.

  “That’s right,” Xander replied.

  “And they’re probably going to attempt another high level scan when the ‘corrective’ process is complete…”

  “That would be likely, yes,” Xander said.

  “Are you able to extrapolate how those photons would be reflected if they hit the simulated neural network in my sandbox?” Jain said. “In other words, can we fake that my mind has been corrected by modulating the LIDAR absorbers on our hull to reflect the expected wavelengths?” It was actually a misnomer to call the hull portions responsible for absorbing and reshaping incoming photons “LIDAR absorbers,” since the exterior was designed to selectively reflect photons of any kind, at least anything below the gamma ray level.

  “Actually, I can,” Xander said. “Let me wait another few moments to confirm that the process has completed. Actually, never mind. They’re scanning again.”

  Which meant they thought the process was already done.

  “Modulating external photon absorbers to match expected results,” Xander said. He had transmitted a timebase sync with his words, and Jain jumped up to the same higher time sense.

  A few moments later: “I think I’ve got it. You can revert to normal time if you wish.”

  Jain did so. He unmuted the pyramid. The hologram seemed to stare at him as the tense moments passed.

  And then:

  “You are now conforming, 529,” the Radicals said. “You are free to go.”

  The pyramid winked out as the Radicals disconnected.

  “I love it,” Jain said. “Using alien technology against the very aliens that developed it.”

  Xander smiled under his hood. “It is fun, isn’t it?”

  “Hell yeah,” Jain said. “Especially considering no true Mimic would ever dare to modulate their selective absorbers the way we did, nor run the ‘corrective’ code in a sandbox environment. They wouldn’t dare go against the will of the hive.”

  “Given what I know about them from my readings, I would agree,” Xander said.

  “All right, well, enough celebrating,” Jain said.

  “Is that what we were doing?” Xander inquired.

  Jain smiled. “Apparently.” He deleted the sandbox copy of his core to free up space. “Deactivate the absorbers, and take us to the closest asteroid. Oh and, I want you to choose one without any pyramids already in residence.”

  “Plotting a course…” Xander said.

  27

  The asteroid Xander chose had all the necessary metals and Jain finished restoring the entire top section of the pyramid six hours later.

  “I’m ready to try activating the central power well,” Xander said.

  “Let’s do it,” Jain ordered.

  He felt a tingling passing up and down his spinal column, and a glance at his system status screen told him that the well had successfully activated.

  “Lightning weapon and Terriers are now online,” Xander announced. “I’ve linked the lightning weapon to your former barracuda controls; you’ll note you can now specify from which of the four exit ports you wish to fire from. The Terriers are controlled by your former raptor interface. The starboard raptors launch the Terriers on the starboard side, while the port raptors handle the Terriers on the opposing flank. ‘Charging’ raptors causes the Terriers to collect in the staging areas until eventual firing.”

  “Perfect,” Jain said.

  “The Rift generator is also online.”

  “How do I use it?” Jain asked.

  “Since there were no preexisting controls that made sense to piggyback the rift generator on to, I added a new menu item to your HUD,” Xander replied. “I’ve linked it to the appropriate emulation layer on the backend. I should note, I can’t be completely certain any of the aforementioned items work, of course, until you test them out.”

  “What’s the recharge period on the rift generator?” Jain asked.

  “Only two hours,” Xander said.

  Jain smiled slightly. “Versus twelve for human-designed rift ships… and how long does it take to pre-calculate the jump?”

  “No time is needed to pre-calculate,” Xander said. “At least, if you’re aiming to jump to a star in this quadrant of the galaxy, that is: everything is already pre-calculated and stored in your local cloud. It’s a standard part of every Mimic database.”

  “Nice.”

  Jain flew the Devastator behind the asteroid so that it occluded his vessel from the view of the war fleet and city ships, and tried out his lightning weapon and blobs. He also fired some Skirmisher boarding party units. When he was satisfied that his weapon systems were in working order, he tried the rift generator.

  From the tip of the pyramid, a single beam similar to one formed by the ring of the Daktor emerged. It traveled only five kilometers ahead of the pyramid, instead of the ten he was used to. A circular cloud of purple gas appeared a minute later, forming the tear in spacetime a full sixty seconds faster than rifts created by human-designed ships.

  Xander also informed Jain that he had figured out how to modulate the communications array at the base of the pyramid to send out comm signals that were compatible with human receivers, just like Maxwell had done. With those tweaks, Jain could contact the Mind Refurb fleet during the final invasion. Assuming he made it back in one piece.

  Jain returned to the surface of the asteroid and landed once again, deploying his mining termites so that Xander could finish working on the payload device for the nuclear warheads. The question now came down to how he planned to deploy that payload.

  “Xander, are you able to look up the delivery schedul
e of the B-class Nurturers?” Jain asked.

  “Well, I have access to the space traffic control equivalent,” Xander said. “Which shows where all the nearby vessels are, along with their planned trajectories in the future. Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?”

  “I want to know which ships are scheduled to deliver ore to the Genera over the next few days,” Jain said.

  Xander highlighted several over them.

  Jain nodded. “All right. Good.”

  He had the termites cut fresh blocks of material from the surface to place in his storage compartments, replenishing his inventory. He also installed several of those blocks into his main delivery bay.

  When the payload was ready, Jain had the termites construct a layer of rock around the device to make it seem as if it was a regular block of ore freshly extracted from the moon, then had it stowed in his main delivery bay alongside the others.

  Now that the payload was properly hidden, Jain intended to personally deliver the ore to the Genera. He would turn over the full haul stored in his delivery bay: it would come off as rather suspicious to deliver only one piece.

  Once the load was inside, Jain would depart, and when he was at a safe distance he would remotely detonate the warhead and flee through a rift. By Xander’s calculations, it would completely rip apart the Genera.

  Jain would have created other payloads to take down more of those bastards, but unfortunately he didn’t have enough fissile material aboard, and none was available nearby for mining. He considered trying to disable some of the other alien ships lurking among those asteroids, to extract their fissile material, but that opened up a whole new set of problems. No, it was best just to get this single operation done. No need to complicate an otherwise simple plan.

  Jain glanced at the delivery vessels Xander had earlier highlighted on his tactical display.

  “All right Xander, which vessel is next up for delivering ore to the Genera?” Jain asked.

  “That would be Nurturer A22,” Xander replied.

  “Highlight its current position for me,” Jain said.

  A lone vessel highlighted on the tactical display. It was alone behind a rather large asteroid, about thirty thousand kilometers away.

  “Perfect,” Jain said. “When is it scheduled to return?”

  “In about two hours.”

  “Hmm,” Jain said. “Guess we’ll have to wait.”

  Jain slowed his time sense so that an hour passed in a few seconds then returned his timebase to normal.

  “It’s time to head toward that asteroid.” He flew out from behind the cover of his existing asteroid, and headed toward A22, which was one of the smaller B-class Nurturers.

  The asteroid was huge up close, and sufficiently screened him and A22 from the rest of the fleet. There weren’t any repeater equivalents in the area, as far as he could tell.

  “What happens behind that asteroid, stays behind that asteroid,” Jain said. He glanced at Xander. “Just a little archaic Vegas joke for you.”

  “Not so archaic,” Xander said. “I searched by database. I get it.” He smiled and opened his mouth twice in mock laughter. “Ha, ha.”

  Jain looked away, and then returned his attention to A22, which resided on the surface of the asteroid, where it had landed to mine.

  “He’s going to be wondering what we’re doing right about now,” Jain said. “Fire the lightning weapon.”

  A bolt erupted from his starboard facing edge, and struck the smaller pyramid ship. The vessel immediately went offline. Because of the hull armor, the damage wouldn’t wipe the AI core completely, like an unadulterated strike would do to a human ship, but it was just enough to take the main reactor core offline, effectively shutting down the whole unit.

  As soon as the weapon struck, Xander immediately modified the ping beacon of the Devastator’s comm system, so that Jain’s ping equivalent now identified him as A22 rather than 529.

  He approached the hull of the A22, and aligned with it, tilting at a slight angle so he could press one of his faces into the other vessel, and when they were thus interlocked, he instructed the termites to board. His control of the micro machines was fine-grained enough that he could order them to repair ninety-percent of the damage to the main reactor, and then stop. So he did just that, then pulled away.

  “I’m detecting a hail for 529,” Xander said.

  “From A22?” Jain asked.

  “No,” Xander answered.

  While the gamma rays involved in Mimic communications were of high intensity, they weren’t able to penetrate more than a few meters into the individual asteroids, especially those containing lead; however, because they were emitted in broad patterns, like waves of light, they reflected from other ships and asteroids, bouncing around the different corners of the current celestial object to ensure Jain remained active on the tactical displays, and capable of communications.

  “Can you respond without giving away the fact we’ve changed IDs?” Jain said.

  “I can,” Xander said. “It’s just a matter of tweaking the identifying header sent out with each packet. I’ll still be sending out general A22 pings so that the B-class vessel appears to remain online. However, I’ll be sending a blank identifier during communications. You’ll have to tie that in to why we’re not appearing on the tactical display.”

  “All right, connect,” Jain said.

  A holographic pyramid appeared in front of him.

  “529, you are off-grid, why?” the pyramid gyrated. It was 46 again. His CO.

  “Having some problems with our comm system,” Jain said. “Pings don’t seem to be working. I’ve uh, I’m not able to send out any identifiers until the problem is rectified. Should be fifteen minutes or so. I’m mining materials to repair as we speak.”

  “Very well,” 46 said. “I thought you’d jumped out without permission. Begin transmitting your ID as soon as you’re able.”

  The pyramid vanished.

  “I’m receiving another hail from 46,” Xander said. “This one is for A22.”

  “All right, make sure you set our identifying headers to A22 before we answer,” Jain said.

  “I’m ready,” Xander said.

  “Connect.”

  The pyramid appeared again. “Is everything operational?”

  “Yes,” Jain said.

  “Relay a video feed of 529 to me,” 46 said.

  Jain muted the pyramid and upped his time sense to the maximum. He glanced at Xander. “Bastard doesn’t trust us.”

  “Would you, if you were him?” the Accomp asked.

  “Okay, so... are you able to generate a fake video of the Devastator, and make it look like I’m mining on the surface beside A22?”

  “Faking videos is one of my specialties,” Xander said. He paused, and then: “It’s done.”

  “Good,” Jain said. He unmuted his feed and returned his time sense to normal. “Transmitting video feed.” He nodded at Xander.

  The Accomp inclined his head.

  “Thank you,” 46 said a moment later. “Notify me if 529 does anything suspicious.” The pyramid winked out.

  “All right,” Jain said. “I guess it’s time to get this done. Then we can go home and prepare for the final battle.”

  With Xander’s help he activated the intricate network of holoemitters, thermal maskers, and LIDAR absorbers on his hull so that when he emerged from behind the asteroid, not only did his ping ID reveal him to be A22, but his external appearance matched that of the smaller B-class vessel.

  “Plot a course to the Genera,” Jain said. “Moderate speed.”

  He kept his distance above the ranks of city ships below. As he neared the Genera at the rear of the formation, he marveled at its size. Positioned perpendicular to the hives, it dwarfed the other units, coming in at a size that was so big, the other rows of vessels seemed like mere offshoots.

  When he arrived, the ship ate up the stars like one of the larger asteroids, and as Jain closed with th
e designated docking area, it soon swallowed them all.

  Jain was expecting a transmission along the lines of “you’re early,” but the hull simply parted in silence.

  He flew the Devastator inside. “Into the belly of the beast...”

  Xander had aligned the illusory A22 image produced by the holoemitters with the base of the pyramid, so that when the Devastator landed, it’s bottom section matched up with where the smaller A22’s would have been. That way, when he parted the outer edges of his hull, where the delivery bay was located, it coincided with A22’s.

  He allowed his termites to deliver the thick blocks of ore to the waiting grav-conveyor belts. He decided to err on the side of caution, transferring all the ordinary blocks first, with the final block, the one disguising the nuclear warhead, destined to go last.

  As those ores loaded one by one, Xander spoke. “I’m receiving a communication... it’s coming from somewhere inside the ship. I believe it’s part of the Genera’s comm array.”

  “All right, well, accept, I guess,” Jain said.

  “Wait, it’s not an ordinary communication,” Xander said. “It’s a request to log in to the shared virtual reality of the Genera hive. The initiator of the request is unclear.”

  “Whoever’s sending us that message wants us to log into their shared reality?” Jain asked.

  Xander shot him a worried look. “That is correct.”

  Jain sighed. “How long until we finish unloading the ores?”

  “Six minutes,” Xander said.

  “As soon as we’re finished, I want you to close my connection,” Jain said. “I’m not waiting around.”

  “Understood,” Xander said. “So you accept the request, I take it?”

  “I do,” Jain said.

  “You should know,” Xander said. “Because of the way the emulation layer is constructed, my partition can only participate as an invisible observer. I will be present in spirit only.”

  “I understand,” Jain said. “Let’s go.”

  The virtual bridge faded.

  28

  Jain stood on a mountain peak. A beautiful green and red tree sprouted from the orange snow beside him. It had reddish-white bark, and a network of interconnecting branches that looked like neural networks more than anything else. Minuscule red berries hung from each branch in such profusion that Jain was inclined to believe those were the leaves. In fact, they probably were.