by Will Crudge
“Not religious. Just not an atheist.” Doom said calmly. Meacham’s laughing slowed down to a halt. His jaw slid down and hung open.
“But… you are a sentient digital being. You couldn’t possibly believe in a farcical supreme being! I don’t even believe in one, and I’ve got a million things you’d think I should be praying for.” Meacham said with an incredulous tone.
“When you see the wonders of the universe in the way I do, and for so many of your lifetimes, you would see that nothing happens by accident. Besides… My true core coding didn’t come from human hands either. But I think you’ve figured that out for yourself, haven’t you?” Doom spoke in a matter of fact way.
Meacham took a few moments, and several nervous breaths, to digest the NAV’s statement. He had drawn the conclusion on his own but dismissed it as wild circumspect. His Air Force training had made him familiar with the source coding of just about any form of digital language used in human-based tech.
He watched the layers of equations flow before him, and the more he watched, the more he realized the true scope of how the NAV’s mind worked. There were no indications of anything resembling binary or hexadecimal coding, or any other electronic logic coding known to exist. It was as if the NAV’s hardware wasn’t a transistor-based mesh of high powered processors. It seemed like an advanced neural network that seemed to side-step linear processing.
Meacham was never spiritual, and he prided himself on his sense of logic. But now his world was crashing down before his very eyes. It wasn’t an array of artificial technology following established programming… It was something else entirely. He felt as if a veil of ignorance had lifted all at once, and he began to shed tears.
What is happening to me? He asked himself. He had surges of fear arise in his consciousness, but then they would be beaten back by waves of joy and wonder. It was an ebb and flow of intensely polarized feelings that tugged at his very core. He was so entrenched into his inner self that he didn’t even realize he was sobbing.
Then his mind settled all at once. He could feel every atom in his body as if he were meeting quadrillions of new friends for the first time. The soothing cool breath coursed through his chest, and he felt a tingling at the crown of his head.
He was transformed forever. He didn’t know how or why, but neither did he care. He closed his eyes, wiped his tears, and began to laugh.
“Is everything alright, sergeant Meacham?” Doom asked.
“I suppose it is. I’m sorry, I just must have had a surge of serotonin hit me all at once. I got emotional for a moment, is all.” Meacham said. He knew he was downplaying the truth without trying to be deceptive. He had just had an epiphany of spiritual proportions, and still had no way of knowing how to reconcile it.
“Seems to me that the universe has spoken. Your ego has died. Your fear has gone. You’re effectively re-born, fella!” Doom declared cheerfully.
“You know what just happened?” Meacham asked with a blend of excitement and confusion.
“Yup. Just be grateful it happened so fast. It takes people decades for the ego to be subdued. That’s the first step in ascension, my boy. I should know… My creator went through it also.”
The main HUD flashed red abruptly, and Meacham’s mind switched gears in a flash. The proximity sensors were picking up a contact behind the space donkey.
“Looks like your spiritual journey will have to take a pit-stop, buddy! We’ve got a gunship closing in on the donkey.” Doom reported.
Meacham saw the cross-section data populate on the HUD, and he began to manipulate the three dimension image with his fingers. The ship resembled an animatronic crab of sorts, but instead of an array of legs on either side, there were flak cannons.
“Do they know we’re here?” Meacham asked.
“Nope…. Not the human crew, in any case.” Doom replied.
Human crew? Meacham asked himself in his own mind.
*****
The shuttlecraft matched velocity with the enemy frigate as planned. Captain Percival watched it all go down through his internal HUD. His neural interface was tied into the visual sensors on the shuttle’s hull, and he watched the approach in real time.
Stupid pirates! Percival thought to himself. The fact that the frigate’s shields were all focused forward in an effort to conceal their residual thruster energy was a fatal mistake. Even if the ship’s auto-defense cannons were alerted to the cloaked boarding vessels, they wouldn’t engage once the breach was initiated. The risk of collateral damage would put them on an emergency standby mode.
Percival had already determined the make and model of the cannon turrets and knew how they were wired. The safeguards were built into the core fire-control unit, and couldn’t be over-ridden. There was nothing between the shuttles and the frigate’s hull, but a few meters of vacuum.
The clanks and bumps echoed through the shuttle as the breaching portal made contact with the frigate. Powerful outriggers extended from the shuttle and embedded their spiked armatures into the frigate’s hull plating.
“Alright, boys and girls!” Percival shouted as he stood from his forward jump seat, and began to walk down the center aisle of the craft. A blend of GBE green camo armor and Crimson red armor filled the interior of the small craft from fore to aft. Six troops on each side were seated with their backs against the bulkheads and were facing each other. The all had their helmet visors pointed in Percival’s direction.
“On your feet, commandos!” He shouts. The troops comply. They all stood up and faced the breach portal. “This is where I’m supposed to give you some kind of inspirational speech, but I am at a loss for words. Just go shoot stuff!”
The commandos all cheered in unison. Percival lifted the detonation device up in his right hand and proceeded to press the trigger button. There was a bright flash, a barrage of sparks, and then a scattering of molten slag that scattered across the deck plating. When the smoke cleared, there was a perfectly hewn square hole where the frigate’s exterior hull plating had once been.
The green and red sets of powered armor flowed into space beyond, and weapons fire erupted a second later.
Meanwhile, on the pirate ship…
Marcus responded to the sound of the klaxon. General quarters were never a friendly thing to hear, but the infrequent boarding drills that the pirate crew conducted made it worse. His shipmates were practically tripping on each other as they nervously scrambled to grab their weapons from the armory rack and get out into the corridor.
There was no uniformity in any of his fellow crew members’ regalia. The pirate crew wore strips of leather, chaps, or whatever fancy skin suit they’d acquired over the years. He was never thrilled about the lack of discipline among his fellow pirates, but he was too low in the pecking order to do anything about it.
Instead, he just fell in the huddled line of men and women that formed in front of the armory door. One by one, the people ahead of him grabbed whatever rifle was handed to them by Finn, the armorer. Finn spat and gargled incoherent vocalizations, as his bulky shirtless form slung weapons and large amounts of sweat at his crewmates.
Marcus grabbed an old ballistic rifle, and the fat sweaty Finn shouted something incomprehensible at him. But the noticeable lack of extra magazines prompted Marcus to stand his ground.
“Hey, this thing has about one hundred twenty rounds in it. I need some spare mags, Finn!” Marcus shouted.
“Aim carefully, pussy!” Finn said as he curled his bushy eyebrows into a sneer.
“Idiot!” Marcus snapped back, but Finn didn’t bother to respond. He was already slapping weapons into the hands of other crew members and seemed to be ignoring everything else.
Asshole! Finn thought to himself. He performed a functions check on his rifle as he walked away. Satisfied, he then picked up the pace and began to listen for audible instructions on the shipboard PA system. The ambient sounds of cursing and boots slapping the deck plating drowned out the speakers. He decided to dial in hi
s auditory filters via his neural interface.
Within a few seconds, he could hear the speakers clearly. A very nervous female voice was frantically spewing out commands to repel boarders on the port side of the ship, and two levels down from where Marcus was. He felt fear grip him as he got closer to the ladder alcove. The vertical ladder went straight up and down and reached all decks.
The muffled sounds of short well-controlled bursts of weapons fire came up from the ladder alcove like a conduit of sound. It sent a shiver up his spine. Military! He realized. Lowly pirates or street thugs would never fight with that kind of precision. It had to be an organized enemy with extensive training, he decided.
Then a thought entered his mind, as he saw one of the lower ranking officers sprinting by him. He recognized her as Scythe. She wore tight black leather trousers, and her upper body was almost completely bare. Only a few strips of leather straps wrapped around her breasts, and she had a spiked Mohawk on her head. Marcus reached out and grabbed her by the bicep as she tried to move past him. She abruptly stopped and stumbled to catch her balance. She swore under her breath and shot Marcus a heavy scowl.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, asshole!” She spouted angrily. If she wasn’t so rough looking, Marcus thought, then Marcus might have found her attractive.
“Those are military troops down there!” He shouted to overtake the myriad of loud noises around them. Scythe shot him a skeptical sneer.
“How the fuck do you know that?” She asked.
“Listen!” He barked back at her. They both stood still, and the sounds of weapons fire grew louder. Scythe’s eyes opened wider, and she looked at him with a nod.
“This is just a diversion!” She said as a matter of fact. Marcus nodded.
“We need to gather more shooters and make it to the starboard side. They’ll be breaching us with an even larger group of boarders while we are all jacking our dicks at the ones already onboard!” Marcus surmised.
Scythe said nothing but gestured with her head as if to tell Marcus to follow her. Together they worked to get the attention of any straggler they could find. Once they mustered a motley group of about fifteen pirates, Scythe led them down the utility lift.
“If they’re going to follow standard doctrine, then they’ll do their second breach in this area!” Scythe shouted. She started to point at individuals, and gesture for them to take specific positions along the main corridor. The largely untrained men and women seemed to clumsily fall into their positions with looks of confusion and indecision.
Marcus took note of how useless they would all be if they didn’t know where to pull the trigger.
“Hey, Scythe!” A random sloth of a man called out. “How do we know they’ll hit this deck?”
Scythe didn’t turn to make eye contact with the man, but called out over her left shoulder with her back turned to him. “Because they always do the follow-up breach on the same deck as the first. That way they can easily link up with their peers, and press forward to take the ship in one sweep.” She explained.
Marcus found himself blinking in surprise. Scythe now seemed more competent than he’d ever considered. She was always brash and moody. Marcus found himself wondering what her story was. But his thoughts would have to wait...
The metal on metal sound of another vessel making contact with the exterior hull plating snapped him out of his inner thoughts. He watches as Scythe placed an open palm on the bulkhead, and began to slide it across the surface as she carefully walked. I would have never thought to feel for vibrations! Damn, she’s smart! Marcus thought to himself. It was evident that she was trying to feel for any vibrations that would give her an indication of the breach point.
“Here!” She shouted. She immediately began to re-position her defenders to either side of the bulkhead she stood in front of. Satisfied, she then stepped back a few paces at a 45-degree angle from the breach point, and then crouched to a firing position on one knee.
Marcus walked slowly to match her position from her right side, and he too crouched into a firing position. He looked over at her, and she was looking back at him with a smile of approval. Here I am about to die, and I finally find a chick worth chasing! He thought as he turned his attention back to the bulkhead.
Thuds and metallic clicks became audible through the hull plating. “They’re setting breach charges! Close your eyes, and hold your breath until the loud bang. Then you light up anything that comes through that bulkhead!” Scythe shouted.
Marcus complied. After a few agonizing seconds, the explosion came. Bits of slag hit his thick boots and then bounced away harmlessly. He opened his eyes and stared into the black hole in the hull. Smoke obscured his vision slightly, but it was the darkness that troubled him. Everyone froze. Nobody dared fire a single shot. The only sound he could hear was nervous breathing and the chattering of teeth coming from somewhere to his left.
His adrenaline was spiked, and he felt no fear. Until the thing came through…
The first and last thing he saw was a row of white teeth coupled with a blood-curdling roar.
The world went black, and he knew no more.
BREACH PARTY
Captain Frick handed the breach detonator to Elizabeth. “Would you like to do the honors, War Master?” The Crimson officer asked. Elizabeth gave him a wink, as she waved off the device.
“No, Captain Frick. I’ll have my hands full.” She said, as she drew her massive sword from its scabbard, grasped it with both hands, and then widened her stance. Frick shrugged and stepped back from the exposed bulkhead where the charges were placed. Elizabeth stood her ground. Frick was glad his face was obscured by his visor, or she would see his jaw dropped in awe. The War Master stood dangerously close to the breaching charges and didn’t seem to even bat an eye.
“Captain?” Shade said as she walked up from behind where he stood. “Please allow me and Jack to take the point.”
Jack? That fucking freak show of a former Crimson Agent had better not get anyone killed! Frick thought to himself. He knew who Jack was, and was fully aware of the urban legends he and his brothers were linked to. As far as Frick was concerned, Jack was more useful to humanity if he were flushed out of an airlock.
“By all means, Sheba,” Frick answered her with a curt bow. Jack walked up behind her wearing UAHC Fleet issued light duty armor with a flat black finish. It was noticeably lighter than any of the commandos, and was roughly on par with War Master Armor, but didn’t offer any strength boosting tech. The man would have to rely on what nature gave him in a close quarters struggle. Frick was oddly comfortable with Jack’s self-imposed vulnerability.
“I’ll take that,” Jack said plainly, as he snatched the detonator from Frick’s palm. Frick cringed from within his visor.
“You’ll need a weapon, tough guy!” Frick said with a thick layer of sarcasm. Jack turned to lock eyes with him. His face was expressionless and devoid of any hint of emotion.
“They’ll be plenty of weapons laying on the ground if I decide to use one.” He said calmly. Frick froze in awe. He wasn’t sure if the former agent was joking, or if he was dead serious. But when the detonator was activated, he would find out.
The charges went off, and jack didn’t even flinch. Neither did Elizabeth. Neither wore a helmet.
They waited in silence for Shade to pounce. The mighty panther stood her ground. She closed her eyes while she sniffed the atmosphere for several seconds, and then hurled herself through the breach.
Jack jumped through after her, followed by Elizabeth, Napo, and three commandos. Frick motioned for the rest of the commandos to follow him, and he lunged into the chaos a moment later.
His senses hit near saturation as he planted his feet into a corridor of death. A few rounds harmlessly bounced off of his heavy armor, but he ignored them. He chose to provide direction to the commandos that funneled in after him. He gestured for two to go aft, and for the rest to move forward towards the fore section.
He saw bodies scattered about the corridor, and his troops had to take caution to pick out sure footing. There was far more surface space taken up by downed enemies than there was space to step on.
Frick just smiled beneath his helmet and shook his head.
Frick replied.
Well, they’re all alive. Good. He thought as he allowed himself to take a sigh of relief.
Frick was about to send an acknowledgment when a large series of explosions caused the deck plating to buckle and warp beneath his feet.
Meanwhile, back to Katherine…
I check the tactical display and watch as the blue blips work their way through the deck layout of the frigate. I key in on the net chatter, before toggling the visual filters of the display.
“You seem to be trying to fiddle. You feel like you’re out of the fight, don’t you?” Throat chimes in. He’s right, after all.
