thrusters shift right 3.02889
acquire target track fire
increase shield strength 31.6168 at β102-233—
“Admiral Rychen, could you tell the Cantigny not to blow me up, please?”
“I’ll get on that.”
“Appreciated.”
Had she been breathing? She sucked in air. That was bracing. Okay, we understand the language. Now to fuck it up.
It is all one program—solely the variables and the systems they affect change. I believe we can introduce a flaw at the root level which will propagate out to every system.
Only one little flaw? Surely we should introduce a few more to be safe.
Alex, safe is introducing a single flaw. This will give us time to depart and is less apt to be noticed by the governing program while it can still be corrected.
Where?
The code flowed past her in her mind as a sea of pulsing, twisting strings of light. Deeper and deeper she fell, until an intricate shape comprising six dimensions—wait, she could perceive six dimensions now?—appeared at the center. All paths led to the object.
Here.
She reached into the paradoxically dense shape, grasped onto a single string and let the corruption flow out of her fingertip, through the adaptively porous material of her glove and into the code.
The simplest of distortions to the most basic of calculations, but 2 plus 2 now equaled 4.2.
Did it accept the alteration?
Watch.
A tiny black filament rushed along the string with the rest of the code. Then it split to travel down two strings, then eight, then twenty-four.
She yanked her hand out of the hub and stumbled backward, landing on her ass on the hard and decidedly nonpliable floor.
“Alex, are you all right?”
She blinked repeatedly, trying to clear the artifacts of code flashing across her eyes. Valkyrie? Are you good?
One moment…yes. I have reoriented my processes.
She climbed to her feet. “I’m fine. We’ve sabotaged the ship’s programming and are getting out of here.”
Well that was fun.
Indeed.
Stepping out of the alien chamber into the midst of the battle was like….
Emerging from a mother’s womb?
Can’t say as I remember. We’ll go with a jarring sensory assault.
“The recon vessel has acquired your locator beacon and is en route. Set a trajectory S 46° 6°z W.”
“Understood.” She steeled herself, stepped into space and fired the thrusters—
—a damaged swarmer hurtled out of control from above the superdreadnought to skim the hull less than ten meters beneath her. Her arms flailed in a fruitless but instinctual attempt to get out of the way.
Then it was gone.
The swarmer had passed so close her spacesuit burned warm from the heat of the scorching metal. She fought to wrestle her pulse under control with the help of her eVi and Valkyrie.
Let’s try not to be sideswiped by any more large, careening objects on fire….
A wise course of action. Valkyrie sounded a bit shaken herself.
She accelerated in the provided direction, trying to give a wide berth to any dogfights, and exhaled in relief when she saw the approaching recon vessel, temporarily uncloaked so she’d be able to find it. She angled to meet it.
Once she was latched on and gave the all-clear to the pilot, she again rolled onto her back to gaze out at the warfare, albeit with greater respect for its perilous savagery and her own fragile vulnerability. Hell of a sight, isn’t it, Valkyrie?
I have never understood why humans engaged in battle against one another, taking lives for goals of lesser value—accepted it logically but did not understand it. This, however? This I understand. This willingness to sacrifice one’s individual life so others’ lives may continue, this determination to fight with every measure of one’s being and every facility of one’s mind and body and tools to defend humanity? It is…beautiful.
Valkyrie wasn’t seeing the beauty of the sunlight reflecting off gleaming starship hulls, or the shimmering laser beams crisscrossing space in vibrant colors, or the brilliant, fiery glow of exploding vessels. She wasn’t even seeing the beauty of man and machine at their apex, performing upon a tableau of a sea of stars and the powerful silhouette of a planet which had lain untouched by humans a century ago yet now was home to a billion people.
No, she was seeing the beauty of each act by each individual human soul—courage, heroism, determination, intellect, sacrifice—replicated tens of thousands of times over to forge a defiant stand against this grave challenge to their existence.
‘It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.’
Alex smiled. Let me guess—William James?
Indeed.
A voice which she now so easily recognized reverberated in her head, stronger than before. I’ll do you one better: ‘We are face to face with our destiny and we must meet it with high and resolute courage. For us is the life of action, of strenuous performance of duty; let us live in the harness, striving mightily; let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out.’ Theodore Roosevelt, who among other accomplishments did happen to be a student of William James for a time.
Silence hung for an endless, frozen instant. She dared not breathe.
Is that you, Dad?
Not truly, milaya. It is a fragment, a whisper, a shadow left behind. But perhaps that is enough, yes?
Yes. It is so much more than enough.
50
ROMANE
INDEPENDENT COLONY
* * *
THE ORION EMERGED FROM SUPERLUMINAL to find a planet under siege and a sky at war.
Malcolm had known what awaited him, for contrary to what they had hoped the Metigens had not held off until all their brethren arrived before initiating their assault on Romane. Instead, on reaching the planet they had taken advantage of the fact not all the Alliance ships dispatched to defend the colony were in place yet either and launched their attack.
Now the defenders found themselves knocked back on their heels, on the defensive and scrambling to play catch-up. Nevertheless, at first glance they appeared to be doing a moderately good job of it. At least ten superdreadnoughts were limping badly and debris of several more littered the scene. But this still left—Malcolm blinked and double-checked the number—fifty-one fully operational. Slightly fewer than expected unless many had already been destroyed, but…damn.
Colonel Jenner: Admiral Fullerton, EAS Orion reporting for duty and requesting instructions.
Admiral Fullerton (EAS Jefferson): Welcome, Orion. Hook up with the 26th Squadron on the left flank.
Colonel Jenner: Understood. It seems as if the enemy fleet is smaller than we were expecting.
Admiral Fullerton: Nope. The rest of them are planet-side.
He frowned; perhaps matters weren’t so well in hand. Are we engaging them below as well?
Admiral Fullerton: I sent the 21st Regiment down to bite at their flanks.
Colonel Jenner: Sir, shouldn’t we be working to protect the infrastructure and lives on the ground?
Admiral Fullerton: Which we’ll do by wiping out these bastards up here. Now get over to the left flank.
Colonel Jenner: Is Mia Requelme onboard the Jefferson?
Admiral Fullerton: That freak of nature they sent here to ‘assist’? Hell, no. I pawned her off to the governor.
Malcolm cringed, physically bit his tongue, then opened his mouth anyway. Sir, I’m taking the Orion in-atmosphere. I request the 7th Platoon to accompany me.
Admiral Fullerton: Son, are you under the impression I take orders from Colonels? Because I assure you, I do not.
Colonel Jenner: Of course you don’t, sir. However, Admiral Rychen ordered me to assess the situation when I arrived and, i
f I felt it necessary to defend Romane on the ground, to do so. I feel it is necessary to defend Romane on the ground, and I need the 7th Platoon to do so.
A period of silence preceded the response.
Admiral Fullerton: Rychen said that, did he? The tone suggested Fullerton harbored a healthy fear of the man.
Colonel Jenner: Yes, sir. Right before I departed the Churchill.
Admiral Fullerton: Well, hell. Fine, take your ships and get down there, but don’t come begging for help when things go south.
Colonel Jenner: Acknowledged.
He let go of the breath he’d been psychologically holding. “Comms, contact the vessels in the 7th Platoon and instruct them to rendezvous E 20° of Corridor #5 for atmospheric entry.”
Smoke and raging fires rose from multiple locations as they neared Romane’s largest metropolitan region. Two superdreadnoughts cruised above it, and the swarmers made the sky look as though a plague of locusts had invaded.
Malcolm turned to his XO. “You have command of the Orion. Work together with the other ships to implement the strategies we’ve discussed. Have the tactical assault detachment meet me on the flight deck.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll do my best to take care of her for you. Godspeed.”
“And to you.” With a salute he departed and headed below.
His requisition of the 7th Platoon had not been random. Not all cruisers carried a tactical assault detachment, but like the Orion the two cruisers belonging to the 7th did. Given thirty-six men behind him, perhaps he could make a difference on the ground.
The shuttles dropped the squads as close as safety allowed to the governor’s bunker in the heart of downtown. He didn’t intend to strike out across the city blindly; he needed to know what defenses were in play and at their disposal.
They navigated the intervening two blocks swiftly and without incident. He set the others to assisting survivors in the vicinity while he and the three detachment commanders entered the bunker.
What he found twenty meters below ground was a working command center as state-of-the-art as any the Alliance enjoyed. Three-dimensional dynamic maps of the city and the planet dominated the far wall. Hyper-crisp screens lit multiple workstations, and two dozen or so people conferred with one another or scurried between the stations.
It took several seconds for their presence to be noticed, but after multiple gestures in their direction a striking woman in a taupe pantsuit looked over. “Gentlemen, you are a welcome sight.”
“Governor Ledesme?” At her curt nod he strode forward and extended a hand. “Alliance Colonel Malcolm Jenner. We’ve got a hundred ships in-atmosphere engaging the enemy and thirty-six Marines here on the ground—not to mention the considerable force keeping the rest of the alien vessels occupied in space—but we need to know what our options are.”
“Our Defense Chief is otherwise engaged at the moment. I’ll have him give you an overview as soon as he’s done. We have a couple of tricks available to us, but using them from the bunker has proved problematic since the Metigens took out most of our relay stations and half the power grid.”
“We’ll work around those difficulties, ma’am. Is Mia Requelme here?”
The governor jerked her head toward the rear left corner of the bunker. “If I understand the current state of affairs, you may be exactly what she needs.”
A woman in black pants and a matching turtleneck leaned over the shoulder of a disheveled-looking older man working at a large data screen. Two additional men huddled at the edges of the screen as the woman pointed in restrained agitation at it, then crowded in on the first man. “No, it has to be—would you just let me do it? It’ll be far faster and it might actually work.”
“I am not giving you control of our defense arrays. That authority belongs in human hands.”
“Oh, for the love of—”
He cleared his throat. “Ms. Requelme?”
She pivoted as she straightened up, sending long, sleek black hair whipping past her shoulder. Like Alex, her irises shone a luminous silver to create a dramatic contrast against her olive skin. She arched an eyebrow. “A Marine? Interesting.”
He offered his hand once more. “Colonel Malcolm Jenner. Alex told me to help you if I could, so how can I do that?”
Mia: Alex, nanosecond scoop on Colonel Jenner?
Alex: Honorable and trustworthy to an occasionally annoying fault. Prefers to be on top—thinks he’s being a gentleman.
Mia: Got it.
She eyed the Colonel with a hopeful expression. “I don’t suppose you brought any programmable shoulder-fired SALs with you?”
His head cocked to the side; it was apparently not the response he’d expected. “Uh, yes, as a matter of fact—three of them.”
“Fantastic. Will you let me touch them? Because nobody here will let me touch anything.”
He gave her a casual shrug, a motion starkly out of sync with the grinding tension of the bunker. “If you can present a convincing argument as to why you need to touch them, yes.”
Modifying the signal pattern for single, directed use. Should we burn a disk?
Nah, we’ll just hotwire it. It’ll be fun. It’s been over a decade since I hotwired hardware.
She placed a hand on Jenner’s arm and guided him to the quietest corner of the room, relatively speaking. “I’ve worked out a signal beam I believe will completely nullify an alien vessel’s shield for so long as it is continuously directed at the vessel. They won’t let me reprogram the defense arrays—what’s left of them. Either they don’t believe it will work or they think I’ll use the access to take over the arrays and do who knows what.”
“When you say ‘I,’ you mean you and…” his hand gestured awkwardly toward her head “…the Artificial in your brain?”
“Yes. I mean ‘we.’ Is that a problem?”
“No. But I got the impression Admiral Fullerton wasn’t happy to have you around. You’re not getting much support in here, either?”
“Ledesme trusts me a little—or she did before I became a cyborg. Now, the verdict’s still out. Fullerton is a four-star ass, however. So are you in? Will you help me test this signal on a live target?”
“I will. Grab a ballistic jacket and helmet. It’s ugly out there.”
“Oh my.” Mia froze at the exit to the street, stunned by the scope of the destruction to what hours ago had been a vibrant, shining city center, one many claimed represented the pinnacle of civilization itself. Meno, our home….
We will rebuild. Humans always rebuild, and the result is invariably better than what came before.
Jenner was on his comm, issuing orders in the clipped growl military always seemed to use; they must teach a class on it in officer training.
Morgan: No, only a couple of ‘you’ll die in ten seconds unless you spew out these fifty words as the timer ticks down to zero’ scenarios for practice. That and the constricting body armor—flexible my ass.
A minute later a group of twelve soldiers rounded the corner a block away. He ordered them into the alcove of the bunker entrance and out of the direct line of fire, then relieved one of the soldiers of a bulky SAL and turned to her.
“Okay, Ms. Requelme, what now?”
She ignored the suspicious stares of the soldiers to run her hand along the length of the weapon until she found the removable panel then yank it open to reveal a tiny control board. She jiggered it out of its slot so she could reach the fibers connecting to it.
“Sir, what is she doing?”
“Stand down, Lieutenant.”
Then she ripped off one of the fibers and replaced it with her index finger.
“Sir!”
As the new code flowed into the circuit through her finger, she idly wondered if it was the violence committed upon the board or the head-to-toe scarlet glyphs blazing along her exposed skin which elicited the reaction.
Jenner leaned in close to her ear. “Ms. Requelme?”
“You’ve never seen anybody hotwi
re a control board before?”
“Yes, I have. They generally use tools.”
“Right, well.” We’re done.
Satisfied the ware had been reprogrammed to meet her needs, she returned the board to its slot with exaggerated care and closed the panel over it. “We’ll need another SAL, because this one isn’t going to shoot worth shit now. Once we have it, let’s go find ourselves a swarmer.”
They clung to the façade of an office building and the meager protection the shadow of its profile provided. Jenner peeked around the corner and summoned the soldier he had entrusted with the additional shoulder-fired weapon up beside him.
Mia strained to see past him, but Jenner was tall and well-muscled and she was neither. She settled for aiming a stage whisper at his ear. “Remember, paint the target as you normally would—the signal’s embedded in the targeting ware.”
He indicated he heard her and counted down using his fingers, then he and the other soldier stepped into the open. She gave it a second’s consideration then crept out behind them. She had to see.
The swarmer accelerated above the broad promenade toward their location. The targeting laser was invisible, but the beam from the active SAL streaked through the air to impact the core of the strange ship.
The explosion rocked the buildings on either side as metal shot in every direction to lance through windows and ricochet off the road. An instant later the engine erupted into a hot plasma fireball that sent them all rushing back around the corner lest they be melted by the expanding flames.
She laughed and sank against the wall. “It worked.”
Of course it worked, Mia. I told you it would work.
Yes, you did, Meno.
“Maybe we caught it when its shield was down. I mean, it was getting ready to fire on us, right?”
Jenner shook his head at the skeptical Marine. “Nope. I’ve seen our fighters blow those things up, and it requires at least four seconds using a far stronger laser even when the shield is down at the oculus. This was instantaneous and total.”
He gave Mia a respectful smile. “Let’s get this code of yours replicated and out to the fleets. Then we’ll talk to the governor about reprogramming the defense arrays.”
Transcendence: Aurora Rising Book Three Page 34
