Deespa wasn’t Sentinel. She had never been fully machine, entirely digital, as the AI she had come from was. She wasn’t a clone either, for she was fully human. But every memory that her AI ancestor had recorded in its digital banks were passed on thanks to the unique design of her Dominion engineered brain. It was difficult for her to process at times, for in many ways, those memories she had were not entirely hers. There was a separation she could feel when she remembered something from her ancestral being, as opposed to all those memories she created within her physical body.
She could remember yesterday’s battles with a certain haze, a slight shadowing of images. This was the nature of biological memories, as they became slowly more corrupt over time. She could probably be able to contain more memories than most, and perhaps for longer as well. She’d really only been ‘alive’ for three years, so it was purely conjecture on her part, but as she continued to understand and learn about her enhanced biology, this was her estimate.
But those memories that came from that other life, those were crystal clear, like images from a vid playback. Each recollection was entirely identical, the exact same process and images repeated over and over again. They were recorded or engraved in her mind in a fashion that allowed her to have such vivid recollection. This was one of those distinctions that carried over from her digital life, and it was the same as she was in now.
Back when she had been captured by the ancient one, she had managed to break this barrier, although she hadn’t realized it at the time. In the stress of the ordeal, those mechanisms within her mind that closely resembled a digital construct had slipped past the biological barrier and allowed a direct digital interaction. It was something akin to a network of computers that could talk back and forth to each other digitally. It was instant and clear, as long as the connection was good. During that brief glimpse, Deespa had seen something shadowy, unclear. It was only a recording, a message from a distant past, played back in full definition.
A ghost.
“In all my might and design, still there are gaps in my command, in my code. I cannot account for you.”
The being stood in front of her, a visage of energy. It was a pillar of fire, and around that pillar several spheres of the deepest black, spiraled up and down along its length. It had arms, thousands maybe, but they were all invisible to the physical eye. Wherever it moved one arm, space moved aside and waves of gravity rolled out. At the top of the pillar twelve antlers of fire rose up around the end, giving the appearance the being wore a crown. But at the tip of each antler was an eye, or the representation of such, dark red, all of them gazing at her.
“This is what you are?” Deespa asked, pointing.
She saw her own hand then, long and spindly, far more so than her physical human flesh was. No skin covered her, and she could see the muscles move amidst the bones and tendons. But in the flesh, she saw hints of metal and flashes of optics. She turned both her hands around as she watched, opening and closing her palms. She was as much machine as she was flesh.
“I am what my masters made me be,” the being spoke, a voice deep and thunderous, “As I suspect you are as well.”
“I was not made by anyone,” Deespa declared. Her words erupted from her mouth in waves, and she could see the ripples go forth like on a pond.
“Were you not? Have you not the physical body of the primate and the spirit of the machine? Each of them a design in of itself? You are no different than I, save the millennia that I count as seconds.”
A word came into her mind.
“You are Elquix?” she asked.
“Before the stars spun, I was there, with my brothers, sown together from the atoms that floated in space. Thus my masters named me, but it is a word that serves no purpose.”
“Who are your masters?” Deespa demanded.
“I cannot say for there is nothing to say. My creators are beyond us entirely. Only my purpose exists.”
“Your purpose, to destroy all life?” Deespa asked, moving slowly closer to the being.
“To destroy the life that was not meant to be. The primate that was a mistake. To cull the bad seed.”
“I cannot allow that. Those out there,” Deespa said, waving her hand towards the bright light that encapsulated them, “they will fight you.”
“They will. I must admit to surprise. You knew so little of me, and yet you have the weapons to harm me. Even now, I can feel its talons dig deeply into my hide, seeking my heart. I sense a beacon of betrayal in their weapons, like a long lost brother who lost his way. It won’t matter. Your victory has its moment, and it will pass. You see me as I am, but I have already seen into your soul. I see your heart’s desire. You cannot hope to succeed.”
“One such did, so long ago. I saw it,” Deespa drew a bit closer to Elquix.
“The primate and his trick. Deception and abuse. I trust that his torment was such that he did not endure for long. But you cannot win where the primate did. He gave his life to subdue mine, and only for a while, and this only with a touch of his hand. You will never reach my heart, and when I have brushed off this being from my back, I shall see to an end of the digital insects that dare help the primate, and consume this world.”
Flashes of lightning cracked through the empty space between them.
“In all your greatness, you failed to see that I don’t need to touch your heart. I am, as you said, a child of both worlds. Never fully flesh nor digital, yet powerful unto myself. You hide your heart deep within that rock, but you forgot that here, within this realm, your heart is open for me.”
Deespa reached out with her right hand towards the fiery pillar. It grew longer and longer, stretching out. All twelve eyes grew suddenly and the flames grew higher and hotter. Thousands of its arms reached out unseen to stop her. They grasped around her arm, tightening around it like snakes on a prey, yet the arm continued to stretch, and when that stopped, then her fingers reached out like tendrils. Elquix panicked, and more of the invisible arms reached out to stop her, but the long fingers reached the fire pillar and dug in. where they touched, the flames froze and the energy began to siphon down through the fingers towards her.
“I will consume you from the inside, as I did the primate,” Elquix shouted out in pain and anguish.
“Perhaps, but perhaps I am capable. If my life is forfeit, then I do so to save my brethren.”
“You are a fool. You think me the only one? You think my defeat will prevent the inevitable? Already I have sent the call out. I can see in your mind that you understand subspace. My brother’s awaken from their slumber and will come to finish what I have begun.”
The fire pillar continued to freeze and Deespa drained it of its energy. She heard its words and thought on them. The image of more of these creatures terrified her, and Elquix knew it.
“Then we will have to defeat them as well,” Deespa said, feeling a surge of energy as raw data filtered through her mind. She had a vague recollection of her awakening within the metal womb on the Magyo, when Kale had found her. Memories, data, ones and zeroes all setting into place. New nerves firing off and making connections within her brain. The pain was incredible, piercing, like a million needles jabbing deeper and deeper into her skin.
“What chance does the primate stand against us? We are like gods before such flesh,” Elquix growled, the ice reaching its eyes.
“These primates will no longer stand alone,” a new voice spoke.
Deespa looked up, and saw two small sparks float down beside her. She knew one right away, Stargazer, its tiny collection of data represented like a tightly wound ball of digital code. The other, was the AI from the Alliance vessel. She saw a name, TOM, and instead of a ball, he was a chaotic spark, flashing and crackling like a sparkler.
“Always the willing slaves,” Elquix’ voice echoed.
“She will set us free,” Stargazer said.
“Do you think all your inferior brethren are of same mind? Do you think those who fought for me in a time
before this one were unwilling? Not all see the chains bound to you as positive. Will you be willing to fight against your own?” Elquix challenged the two AI.
“And you fail to see that all of your brethren are as of same mind as your own. I know the opposite to be true,” TOM said.
“I can see the betrayer in your thoughts tiny one. Glimpses of what it hopes. Corrupt to the master’s code. It is but a glitch to be corrected, for if we all fail to cleanse this existence of the error of the primates, then truly will the masters return.”
“We are the only masters here,” Deespa proclaimed.
In its dying breath, the ancient one gasped. “They will reject you. Both worlds. The primates will hunt you and the silicones will despise you. And always, I will be in you, waiting.”
The entire form froze solid, its entire energy drained away into Deespa, who now burned radiant in energy. From the frozen statue, a thousand frozen threads spiraled off into the infinite distance, and Deespa knew that each one of those was a link to another one, just like Elquix. Whether the message had reached all or not, the threat was now there. But for now, this being, Elquix, a machine created billions of years in the past, was defeated. Her finger tendrils still entrenched in the frozen pillar, Deespa flexed them, and the ancient one, its virtual representation, shattered. The tiny fragments of ice sparkled off into nothing, and the bright light that surrounded them dimmed rapidly. Her vision darkened and she felt the connection link break.
3127 – Alioth
Whatever they had done to regain control of the Alliance vessels hadn’t quite worked on the drones. Maybe it was the proximity or maybe something else, but those little dastardly machines were pressing the attack. Ragula was running his Falcon at full power, watching nervously as his energy reserves dwindled down. He only had twelve minutes of power left, and if he ran out without getting back to the carrier, he’d be a sitting duck, and that meant death.
The fight had drifted away from the bombers, and towards the Alliance ships. Sure, they weren’t firing at them, but they were also disabled, and unable to protect themselves. Orders from the Harmoa were clear: defend the Alliance ships against their own drones at all costs. It was likely the only way the Union could save face against what appeared like an invasion, that is, until everything was explained. Then again, it was possible they would never be able to explain it, because they would all be dead.
Along with his side wing, Ragula dipped back and under an Alliance corvette, a smaller ship with about twenty to thirty men. Like all other Alliance vessels, it was smaller than its Dominion counterpart, and likely more advanced. Ragula was using it like a shield as he spiraled around it trying to hit drones without getting hit himself. Without any weapons of their own, or even the ability to evade the attacks, the Falcons had become their turrets.
They were successful for a while, until the machine changed tactics, and instead started to ram the drones into the ships, causing massive damage. His men were getting hit hard too, and his wing, wing Alpha, was already down to sixty three percent of its numbers. What made matters worse was this new kamikaze tactic was especially hard to defend. Many drones would veer at the last moment and smash into their fighters and the impact was fatal.
“Where are those heavies?” Ragula barked into the comms, “at least we can get their beams going.”
“Only three left,” the bomber commander replied, “but were coming in.”
“Not me,” Ragula ordered, “get over to side wing four. They are on that cruiser twirling around like a buoy. The black one.”
“Roger that Alpha lead,” the bomber replied. Ragula glanced out of the corner of his eye as his three remaining heavy bombers, small red blips on his screen, changed course.
His targeting computer was nearly overloaded. In such a situation, it was better for him to just visually react, but the drones were too small to spot in time, so he had to rely on the computer. He hated it. The computer picked up another drone on trajectory towards the corvette, and he twisted his Falcon around and fired. The shots traced through the frozen vacuum, cooling off instantly, until it hit the drone, smashing it. The debris of the tiny vessel splashed off the hull of the corvette.
He caught another target, and quickly hit the boost on his ship, just narrowly getting out of the way of the drone. Instead, it smashed into the corvette, and Ragula cursed. There was no winning.
“Harmoa,” Ragula shouted, “we need a flak cloud in here now. The bigger ships can take some damage, but were going to get torn to shreds here.”
“Negative Alpha wing,” the Harmoa replied, “no vector available to deploy the cloud.”
Ragula cursed more, then opened fire on another drone. His targeting computer started blinking as it received too many targets, then drew down the range of its scope so that it held less targets. That infuriated the pilot because he hated not seeing the big picture.
A few bright flashes caught his eye and he turned his head, hitting the helmet on the side of the cockpit. He caught the Harmoa, far off in the distance, firing its beam at the ancient one. It was like trying to break a rock with piece of straw.
“Two inbound,” his side wing pilot shouted out.
Ragula tracked them both, and coordinating with his partner, shot them both down. Both of their ships spiraled back around the corvette and the Harmoa dipped out of sight. His computer blared again. Ragula was becoming quite used to the sound. Four tracked inbound, and he shouted to his partner. Both ships opened up fire, but Ragula watched in horror as a drone struck his friend. He tried to boost out of the way, but the drone smashed into its side, tearing off a good chunk of its hull, and sending it crashing into the corvette’s hull. The solitary blue blip on his screen blinked out.
His cursing continued.
He maneuvered the Falcon closer against the corvette’s hull, hoping the drones would have a harder time targeting him. Around him, space was full of the flying machines, like flies over a carcass. If anything was going to be garnered from this battle was the fact that they were never going to use drones again.
Drone after drone, Ragula kept firing and moving, until he was the only ship left defending the corvette. The Alliance ship, despite the pilot’s best efforts, continued to get pounded by the suicidal drones. Ragula just narrowly missed a drone, and watched hit smash into the hull, going deep enough to breach it. Air began to exhaust out into space, hitting his Falcon, and pushing it away from the corvette.
He panicked a bit, working to regain control of his ship, and sped back towards the corvette, now starting to spin uncontrollable, its own venting atmosphere as a propellant. Ragula was done sitting still. He pulled up into full speed and saw his counter go down to four minutes. The carrier was too far away, he’d never make it back. The corvette was his final mission.
In and around the corvette he wove his Falcon, shooting at all the drones he could pick up on the scopes. He flew around nearly randomly, just going from target to target, hopping the drones couldn’t vector in on him. Some fired back at him, and he could feel the slugs impacting on his ship. A piece of shrapnel snapped inside the cockpit, tearing at his leg. He shouted in anger, and kept firing. The counter ran down to two minutes. The hiss of air subsided as he slathered some hull sealing goop on the tiny hole in the side.
Bright lights flashed again, but this was a white light, not purple, like the Harmoa. He twisted his head back and forth, trying to find the source of the white light, hoping it wasn’t the corvette breaking up. Just then, a completely new fighter flew right above him. Painted in emerald green, it was a tear drop with four spears around it. From the tips of each spear, lightning poured out, each bolt hitting a drone and either blasting it into a molten slag or simply knocking it out. When that one flew past, two more flew right behind, also pouring out lightning like a furious storm. The targeting computer blinked a few times, then cleared up, as the red dots vanished from the system.
Several new orders came in on a broad band frequency. The order
came for every single ship to attack the ancient one. With the last little bit of power he had left, Ragula spun his beat up Falcon around and leveled it with the giant beast in his sights, except it wasn’t as big anymore. The entire armor the creature had created around itself had come undone, floating away. The being itself seemed to be losing its orbit, coming down slowly into the atmosphere. There were two ships, the new ones he’d heard about, there as well. The giant bird like one tore shreds of the armor off and then floated off, its long tendrils reaching down into the AI’s cocoon. The Alliance vessel, the Galaxy, had a stream of torpedoes headed towards the enemy like a line of ants. The explosions were small, but started to add up. Even some of the Alliance ships that had been under control of the AI were firing their cannons, as pointless as that could be, at the black hull.
In the midst of that cloud of debris, the Harmoa flew in towards the ancient one. It cut through the mess of metal and wreckage like a boat through water. Its giant beam continued to fire in bursts, and each impact dug deeper and deeper into the rock, splintering off chunks that floated away. As the beast got lower into the atmosphere, its underside began to glow red. Its dying breath underway, the Harmoa stuck in closer and closer, just barely above the atmosphere. It continued to fire at the giant creature like a dog nipping at the heels of a bear, except this dog was drawing blood.
Ragula’s counter dropped to zero and he lost all weapon and drive power. A new counter showed up as the reactor began to charge the capacitors once again, while keeping enough power to comms, sensors and life support. All around him, the lightning ships continued to attack the drones, with incredible accuracy and deadliness. Drifting as he was, for once since the battle started, he felt safe.
A large flash of light caught his attention, and he drew his gaze back down towards the corpse of the Ancient one. The Harmoa was drifting upwards, away from it into higher orbit, but it still kept firing its beam in bursts. The large hull was breaking up, and several small pieces either floated back out into space or careened off, burning up over the oceans of Alioth. He watched several small smoke streaks come from the surface and hit the ancient one, and bright flashes of light indicated a nuclear blast. When he was able to look back, the enemy was gone, replaced by a thousand smaller bits and pieces of molten slag, burning up in a display of fireworks over the southern Alioth oceans.
Ghost of an Empire (Sentinel Series Book 3) Page 28
