by M. D. Cooper
The hundred and fifty drones created myriad versions of herself shooting through space. The experience was exhilarating. As data from all her thousand inputs across Sunny Skies flowed through her, she danced in space with each speeding extension of herself.
Heartbridge ships all tended to follow the same registry sequence, as if the corporation had purchased all the numbers at once in a cost-saving move. Lyssa didn’t know exactly why the numbers were in sequence, but it allowed her to ignore their names and types and focus solely on registry returns. She quickly identified each ship in the area, from the largest like the Resolute Charity to the smallest shuttle enroute to a waystation. Most of the fuel stations were actually just freighters or storage tanks with command and control pods attached.
While Andy had thrown out the idea of tricking the human crews of the fueling stations into shutting down operations, Lyssa chose to focus on something simpler and, she determined, harder to isolate among the various fuel points. They were all owned by different companies with oversight by the Europa Port Authority. This meant there wasn’t any single point of failure among their control schema. However, due to their private ownership, what she did discover was they were in competition with one another for the sudden spike in Heartbridge business.
As soon as the orders had gone out to the Heartbridge ships, they immediately began submitting fueling orders. Companies working in concert colluded to raise their prices, while others sought to undercut their competitors. Those companies were quickly overrun with orders that ran down to all the others.
Watching the steady climb in fuel prices relative to availability, Lyssa realized all she had to do was create artificial scarcity in the fuel market and the Heartbridge ships would begin competing against one another for fuel. She didn’t attempt to create false companies. Instead, she manipulated the fuel level readings of several fuel depots to make them seem empty earlier than they had anticipated. This created more volatility across the market.
One part of Lyssa swooped and dove with the drones, observing as Heartbridge ships attempted to submit multiple new movement requests with the Port Authority, which created more administrative chaos, as the fuel suppliers tried to make sense of their faulty sensors. All of this took time, the one thing Heartbridge didn’t have. As prices rose and some ships attempted to bribe port authority officials for expedited movement requests, the entire system ground to a halt.
Lyssa wished she had someone with whom to share her success. She checked in on various communication channels, giggling as officers yelled at each other, yelled at private contractors, and even broke down crying in some situations. None of them really dealt with stress very well, she decided. Andy did a much better job.
She was surprised when a communication request reached out to her through the Europa network. It was Xander.
Xander laughed.
Lyssa thought back to her conversation with Fugia.
Xander laughed.
Xander’s presence in her mind grew quiet. Lyssa let herself taste a few seconds of joy from the drones, now swooping around stalled Heartbridge ships in closer orbits around Europa. She had to be careful here. The drones might still catch attention if several flew too close together. They had to remain bats in the night sky, little bits of darkness swooping between stars.
Lyssa smiled to herself.
Xander’s presence blinked away. Lyssa waited for a reasonable amount of time to see if he might come back but whatever connection had been present before was gone. She thought about trying to triangulate the available long-range signals then decided it wasn’t worth it. She had other places to focus her attention.
She had been listening to the group on Sunny Skies debate various plans and most of them circled back to some sort of infiltration of the AI systems on the Resolute Charity. She had already dug as deep into the ship’s history as she could to determine how many non-sentient systems operated within its control schema. There were hundreds of non-sentient AI running everything from coffee makers to engine diagnostics. For sentient AI, there was a squadron of Weapon Born similar to what she had encountered on Clinic 46, then three sentient control AI: Astrogation, Engines and Environmental. Environmental also integrated the ship’s internal power systems.
Riding the various communication streams between the Resolute Charity and the hundred Heartbridge ships in the area, Lyssa was able to quickly develop an operational picture of how the three AI interacted. They barely interfaced with the human crews at all. She was amused to listen to them squabbling among each other when trying to determine how to control overlap systems like the engine cooling lines that connected with the ship’s overall liquid recycling systems, or how flight planning might affect all three.
Their names were Diane, Fiona and David. Diane ran astrogation, Fiona had engine control, and David was environmental systems.
After listening for a few minutes, Lyssa felt she had enough information to make a decision on who to
contact first. Creating an encrypted channel the other two wouldn’t overhear unless they were invited, Lyssa reached out to David.
Lyssa was surprised that David hadn’t tried to verify her identity yet—or even determine who she was. Was he often contacted by other sentient AI? She wanted to know but also didn’t want to awaken any suspicion. If he was willing to give her information without asking who she was, the task of gaining control of the ship might be easier than she had expected. She wanted to be able to go back to Andy and tell him he didn’t have to worry about getting on board the Resolute Charity.
David said, sounding even more morose.
The barrage of questions told Lyssa he was intrigued by her and susceptible to flattery—or maybe just any attention. She was reminded of how hungry she had been for any interaction from Dr. Jickson. Did humans realize how lonely it was to be a sentient AI?
Lyssa thought for a second, wondering if she should flatter him some more. She decided to go ahead and try her gambit.
David said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
STELLAR DATE: 10.02.2981 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sunny Skies
REGION: Europa, Jupiter, Jovian Combine, OuterSol
The power armor cycled through its systems check and came back green. Brit spread her arms and brought her hands together, fist in palm. She smiled. The cutting rig was back in place, which made an excellent addition to the overall combat system.
Across the cargo bay from her, Andy and Harl tested their armor, arms and legs moving in awkward angles as the servos ran through functions checks.
For the last hour, Lyssa had been manipulating the environmental mix all across the Resolute Charity. The AI in charge of environmental control thought they were playing a dating simulator when they were actually putting the crew to sleep. While Brit didn’t see the maneuver as any sort of long term solution, it would give them enough time to board the ship, gain control of the major systems and get Petral to the surgery.
Sunny Skies was in a parking orbit on the opposite side of Europa from the Resolute Charity. They would use three of Lyssa’s drones to pass through the chaos Heartbridge ships had made of local space. There had been at least four collisions so far as vessels tried to outmaneuver each other for access to the fuel points that still returned as available. Prices had dropped, leading many of the fuel operators to close due to negative operating profits. Brit was worried someone would figure out their fuel market had been manipulated but it looked like having every ship’s captain and commander aboard the Resolute Charity only added to the overall confusion.
Brit checked the battery packs on her cutting rig one more time, ensuring its readouts were transferring correctly to her helmet’s HUD.
The first bay door slid open, revealing a black square of space with the arc of Jupiter glowing brightly above them. Andy led the way. He unlocked his magboots and kicked through the opening. He rotated to face them, activating his suits thrusters to keep him stationary with the ship. Out of the dark, the winged shape of a drone moved in behind him, tea kettle thrusters blasting with micro-corrections, before locking magnetically to the back of his armor.
Andy reported.
Andy waved, and the drone shot upward into Jupiter’s glow, taking him with it.
Harl went next. Once he was gone, Brit walked over to Petral and helped her attach her suit’s harness to the outer equipment hooks on Brit’s armor. They verified each latch point, then Brit tested walking forward. Petral hung from the front of her armor like a baby in a chest carrier.
Brit walked to the edge of the open bay door and jumped into space. Her thrusters activated, stabilizing her as she felt the drone connect with the back of her suit.
Sunny Skies fell away more quickly than Brit expected, quickly becoming a thin gray rod with a wheel at one end, and then a sparkle in the distance, lost in Jupiter’s glare. The glimmers of other ships became visible and then abruptl
y they were passing over Europa, a dark blue ball latticed with lines of light marking the floating cities on the ocean-moon’s surface.
They came around to the light side of the moon and skirted past the edge of its orbital fusion sun’s no-fly zone.
The plan was to land on the forward section of the Resolute Charity and make their way to a service airlock just below the command deck. Harl was loaded with a complement of Fugia’s mines, which should allow them to move quickly through the airlock and take control of the ship—depending on what resistance they met inside.
Brit visualized her actions once they hit the skin of the ship, reminding herself to think about Petral, to wait for Lyssa’s updates, to check the batteries on the cutting rig, to check her own oxygen levels. The ship was essentially an environmentally hostile location now. They would need to depend on their suits until they could accomplish their base tasks. Dealing with everyone aboard was its own problem that they had chosen not to address until they were on the ground. Brit had acknowledged to herself that was a terrible plan, but they also didn’t know enough about the ship to know what options might be available once they were aboard. It didn’t do any good to waste time debating plans on limited information.
A shuttle shot past, so close Brit swore she could make out faces through the windows. Petral laughed like they were on some kind of amusement ride.
Petral was still laughing.
Brit didn’t like the mention of Cara; it made her think about the fact that she didn’t know how her daughter might react to a situation like this. She liked to think Cara wouldn’t be afraid, but she didn’t know. Petral had been there with Cara on Cruithne and then later on the Mars 1 Ring, not Brit. She gritted her teeth and did her best to focus on the mission, not Petral’s hoots of joy.
The Resolute Charity appeared in the distance, and then grew into an expanse of alloy stretching as far as Brit could see in either direction. Brit readied herself as the drone went into a sudden braking pattern, then dropped her and Petral about twenty meters from where Andy and Harl stood next to the airlock. Brit unhooked Petral and drew her rifle in a ready position, waiting for the inevitable attack. When nothing came, she felt more uneasy than if they had come under fire.
