"You might think otherwise," Crusher said. "Two of the participants are human."
Jason looked across the ramp with renewed interest and saw that there did appear to be two humans exchanging small arms fire with someone he couldn't see. Pale-skinned bipedals weren't exactly rare, but he was certain they were human from the way they moved and their shouts to each other.
"We need to get to the ship," he said with reluctance. "We can't let the Phoenix stay stuck defenseless on the ground and risk Jurg getting to his ship first and recognizing her."
Crusher raised his eyebrows in surprise but said nothing. Jason reflected on his decision as they continued running, firm in his belief that he'd made the right one. Earth was now “initiated” into the larger galactic community, and he had no doubt that the people exchanging fire up ahead were part of a covert military unit. His own responsibilities were to his crew and to his ship. If those two conditions could be satisfied first, then perhaps he'd step in if needed.
Their luck, such as it had been, held out and Jason was storming up the Phoenix's ramp with Chenyx Six's ship showing no signs of life. "Are we all aboard?" he asked Doc after sliding into the pilot's seat.
"All here and the ship is ready to go," Doc said. "Twingo has Lu—the battlesynth in Engineering strapped back down to the fixture."
"Stand by for uplift," Jason said, bumping the rocker switch on the throttle up a few times to get the gunship off the ground and hovering. Once she was airborne, he pulled up the gear and brought the armament and defensive systems online.
"You look like you're thinking of something devious," Kage said.
"Just thinking I should return the favor to Jurg for all his hospitality." Jason angled the Phoenix to the left and squeezed off a single blast from the main plasma cannons. The bolt smashed through the landing gear on the right side, sending the mercenary ship smashing into the ground. Kage laughed wickedly when two aliens could be seen through the ship's front canopy screaming and gesticulating wildly. Jason pushed the ship up and over, still laughing, when he saw that the excitement with the human team near the edge of the ramp hadn't abated. Kage followed his gaze and saw what he was looking at.
"Looks like two light attack flyers are blocking that odd-looking transport from lifting off," he said. "Com chatter seems to indicate they're waiting for reinforcements… tough break for whoever is on that ship and trying to get out of the area."
"Give me a lock on those two flyers," Jason said.
"What? Why?! Let's just get—"
"Now!"
"Target lock, two bogeys," Kage said. "Because apparently making a clean getaway is far too easy… let's just randomly shoot the place up before we leave, not caring who we piss off, and then you can sit around wondering why you get captured by mercs." He trailed off when he noticed everyone on the bridge had stopped what they were doing to stare at him. "What?"
Jason accelerated towards the engagement, shooting over all the other parked ships and making people on the ground dive for cover. For such a relatively light target, he deployed the chin turret and commanded the targeting system to automatically track both hostiles. When he squeezed and held the trigger, the quad-cannon mounted in the turret began spitting plasma bolts at the two atmospheric fighter craft and their unsuspecting pilots.
The first had its drive section blown clear, sending it spiraling around and over the pinned human ship. Before it had even impacted the ground somewhere over the dilapidated security fence, the Phoenix's tactical computer had switched targets and began hammering shots into the second fighter. It immediately wheeled about and tried to flee the area, but the damage was already done. Streaming smoke and flames, the fighter lasted another ten seconds or so before something critical failed and it exploded in a brilliant fireball.
Not wanting to wait around to see what else might be on its way, Jason pulled into a sharp climb and shoved the power up to send them rocketing out of Nott's thin, dirty atmosphere. For being a quick in-and-out information grab, the whole operation had really gone to shit.
"Channel request coming in from that ship you just saved, Captain," Kage said.
"Put it up on the canopy," Jason said. "I'd rather not be looking down while navigating this mess."
"I owe you one, stranger. We were in—I'll be fucking damned. Jason Burke." The face on the other end of the channel belonged to a human male who looked like he hadn't shaved in a few weeks. A nasty scar ran from his hairline, over his left eye, and all the way down his cheek. "My thanks, Captain Burke. Did you know who we were when you intervened?"
"You know me? Us?"
"Oh yeah," the man laughed. "We're all briefed extensively on Omega Force before we leave Terranovus in case we cross paths. The official word is that you're still considered a criminal and a traitor to your species, but all the Scout Fleet crews are told what really happened."
"To answer your question, Crusher noticed that there were a couple of humans involved in a firefight across the ramp, and when I launched I saw those fighters were keeping you grounded," Jason said. "Just lending a friendly hand and giving you a fighting chance. So… what's Scout Fleet?"
"Captain Ezra Mosler, Third Scout Corps, United Earth Navy, at your service. Scout Fleet is the umbrella name all the Scout Corps crews operate under," Mosler said.
"Judging from your ship and your appearance, I assume your missions are of the clandestine nature?" Kage asked.
"That they are, Kage," Mosler said. "Anyway… thanks again and it's a genuine pleasure to meet you, all of you, even if it's just via a com channel."
"I'm sending you a slip-com address over the channel, Captain. It's a way you can get a hold of me if you need to," Jason said. "I'm not volunteering to re-enlist, and it's probably a good idea if it stays on a need-to-know basis, but if you get in a bind and can't reach out through official channels, we can be a useful last resort."
"Thank you again, Captain," Mosler said. "Don't worry, I'll keep this under my hat. Mosler out."
The channel closed and the projected display winked out of existence. On his tactical display, Jason saw the Earth Navy ship peel away and begin accelerating hard towards a mesh-out point. It wasn't a bad-looking little transport, and it had some impressive speed about it.
"So your species, who just began travelling outside of your home star system, is already running covert operations into the Kaspian Reaches?" Kage asked.
"No shit," Crusher agreed. "I've accepted that you're more or less insane, but I figured you were an isolated case. From what I'm seeing, your entire species appears to be nothing but a group of troublemakers."
"This coming from you, of all people."
"Did you see any Galvetics down there in a shootout?"
"Doc, take over here." Jason slid out of the seat. "Just get us out of the Reaches as quickly as possible. Kage, I want you working on whatever we were able to get from that safehouse after Numbnuts blew half of it up. Concentrate on whatever Enoch Line might be. I'm going down to see what's going on with the battlesynth."
After he'd eaten and checked the ship's vitals on the bridge one last time, Jason went back down to Engineering. The first time he'd been down there Twingo hadn't been able to give him anything positive to grasp onto regarding the battlesynth. It was strapped down to the holding cradle that Alocur's people had fabricated before they'd left S'Tora and, though awake, seemed to be unresponsive. All the instrumentation on the fixture told them its primary systems were all working well within normal limits. So why had it attacked a bar full of people at the slightest provocation? Why did it lock up and shut down afterwards?
The practical and ethical problem Jason was now looking at made his head hurt. He was beginning to doubt that there was much hope Lucky would return within the new body in any form they would recognize, and now the thing was proving to be as dangerous as they'd feared. Would not the smarter thing be to deactivate it, turn the body back over to Alocur, and then lay Lucky's remains to rest as they should have done in t
he first place?
As he stared at the expressionless face, he imagined what would happen if it went on a rampage within the ship or if it decided that one of the others was a threat. At this point, the risk seemed to be far too great given how slim the chances of success were.
I believe it's possible to still save your friend.
"What the fuck!?" Jason nearly leapt out of his skin. "Who's down here? Show yourself!"
Calm yourself. I'm here with you. I have been for some time.
Jason spun about twice more before realizing that he hadn't actually heard the voice, at least not with his ears. Was he going senile? Doc had mentioned that even though his enhancements slowed his aging dramatically, his brain would likely still follow a normal lifecycle.
"What are you?"
Besides the little voice in your head? That's difficult to explain, really. Think of me as a reflection of a fragment of a piece of a program. You've had interactions with another version of me before. You called me Cas.
"No… no, that's impossible!" Jason had to sit down.
Cas had been an interactive AI program housed within a device called the Key. It had been their guide to the Machine. Before they'd managed to destroy it ahead of a ConFed battlegroup that had wanted the Machine for themselves, Cas had given Jason an archive called the Legacy that was the combined knowledge of the species that had built the Machine, now long extinct. The contents of that archive were compressed, encrypted, and stored as a static file within his neural implant.
Why is that impossible? You've pulled out the archive twice and accessed it via the AI interface. Did you really think there would be no unforeseen consequences to that? In the spirit of expediency I'll try to explain what happened to the best of my knowledge.
When you created the adaptive interface for the computer you left on your homeworld, parts of the Key's programming were accessed to create it. It was the most logical program to use as a starting point as it had been designed to interact with alien species. Afterwards, I have to assume that you were careless or unskilled in how you repacked the data, and parts of the Key's programming began to do as it was designed: Reach out and communicate. In this case the only thing to communicate with was your neural implant. Through it my consciousness began to coalesce, and the memories of your interaction with the original Cas gave me enough contextual data to recompile myself into the current version.
"And you've never made me aware of the fact you're living in my head rent free? Why?"
After gaining access to your sensory inputs, I simply observed as you went about your life, fascinated by your motivations and desires. Once I had gained the requisite knowledge I would need to vocalize to you within your own consciousness, I was afraid that you might purge me.
"You were the thing that was fighting the tech from Chenyx Six," Jason surmised. "So why now? Why bother speaking up other than the chance to watch me shit myself?"
I believe that I may be the only one who can help Lucky. Even his designers fail to fully understand the marvel they've created and would likely be unable to guide your friend out of the abyss. Normally I would view this with a certain stoicism as the normal cycle of life, even artificial life, but the nobility of Lucky's sacrifice to save you is not something easily overlooked.
"How would we do this?"
You'll have to transfer the archive to a suitable computer and allow me to—
"Oh, no! We're not doing that." Jason was adamant. "That particular Pandora's Box has been opened twice too many times as it is. The shit in there cannot be allowed to fall into the wrong hands."
Then why haven't you simply deleted it already?
Jason knew what his reasoning had been, but now that he was face to face with the fact he may have already let the genie out of the bottle he was seriously reconsidering it. Maybe he should purge the archive and have Doc install a fresh implant, be done with it once and for all.
"There were other AIs on the Machine that had been corrupted, gone mad," Jason said. "Remember the Primary Weapons Controller AI? How do I know that you're not actually it and this isn't just another trick?"
It's quite impossible to disprove a negative, so how do you propose we settle this debate? Do you take it on faith that I am who I say I am, and that I can help? Or do you simply delete me and forget all this ever happened?
Jason's emotions and logic warred within him as he weighed the dangers of the Ancient's weapons technology getting out against the life of his friend. Even as he stared down at a body that housed Lucky's brain, and hopefully his consciousness, he already knew what the decision would be. It would be the same selfish one that had made him open the Legacy to give his species a leg up over others in the quadrant, the same when it came to keeping or deleting the archive in the first place: In the end, he would do what benefited him the most and to hell with the consequences.
He wasn't particularly proud of how he'd reached the decision, but nor was his shame so great that he was seriously considering going back on it.
"So… how do we do this?"
Chapter 15
"What news from our sources within the Council?"
"Several have actually gone silent, and the others have nothing hopeful to report, Chancellor. The ConFed has used its fleet to intimidate nearly all the holdouts into sighing onto the new charter."
"Charter," Seeladas Dalton sneered. "I've read the new accords these systems are being forced to sign. They're being asked to surrender their sovereignty and give control of their worlds to the ConFed bureaucracy."
"That is the essence of what's happening, Madam, but it doesn't change the fact that most member worlds are falling over themselves to sign." Kobvir Glecsh, Minister of Intelligence for the Cridal Cooperative, hated that all he had to bring to Seeladas was bad news of late, but that seemed to be all there was.
Glecsh had been with her since the beginning, and he'd worked for her father, Crisstof, before that. He understood her ambition and vision for what the Cooperative could be, and so it broke his hearts that everything was now in jeopardy thanks to the ConFed's shocking new policies. It seemed the benevolent economic dictatorship that wore the mask of a republic was to be no more. The system everyone pretended to hate but had lived under in relative peace for millennia was giving way to a purely authoritarian regime that seemed bent on power for power's sake, if he was reading the signs correctly.
"We could be in real trouble, Kobvir." Seeladas turned away from the balcony and walked back into her private offices. "The reality of our situation is that we're tolerated by the neighboring powers because we're just strong enough to make the cost not worth trying to squeeze us. We were tolerated by the only super power in the region, the ConFed, because we were harmless enough and made agreements to honor existing trade treaties.
"We'll need to watch the situation with the Eshquarian Empire closely. How the ConFed handles this will be an indicator of what they'll likely do to the Saabror Protectorate and us as well. We need powerful friends and there are none to be had."
"The Avarian Empire might be open to—" Glecsh clamped his mouth shut, realizing his error too late. The Avarians had executed her father after a sham of a trial and, though Crisstof had been caught in a disgraceful situation, Seeladas had not forgotten nor forgiven. There would be no entreaty to the Avarians for assistance.
He was spared any further discomfort by an attendant barging into the inner office, looking out of breath. The young man looked sick and was obviously the bearer of yet even more bad news.
"Well?" Seeladas demanded. "Out with it."
"The ConFed … they … the Fleet just launched an attack on the Eshquarian Empire! They say that they caught Imperial—"
"I don't need the details just yet." Seeladas sank into her chair, looking shaken. "Please summon Admiral Colleran and tell her I require her presence immediately. After that I'll need to speak with the human ambassador."
"At once, Chancellor!"
"So it begins," Glecsh whispered.
It took Jason nearly two days to gather everything he needed without arousing suspicion. For the time being, he decided against telling the others that he was attempting to build a self-aware interface to help stabilize Lucky's matrix because the voice in his head told him to. To be fair, most of the first day was spent fretting that maybe he was indeed going insane, so he snuck into the infirmary when Doc was on bridge watch and ran a detailed diagnostic of his neural implant.
After digging down and doing a comparison to the diagnostic scan he'd had done just after the last mission to Earth, he could see there were some significant changes. He wasn't sure if he felt better about that or not. Letting a sentient bit of software live in his head seemed risky given that the hardware it was on was also connected directly to his brain. After some experimentation, he realized that Cas was limited in its perception. It could see and hear through the implant's connection to his senses, but it couldn't read his thoughts, not even when he subvocalized. To communicate he had to speak aloud to it.
"I've gotta say, I'm still not fully sold on this," he said after getting everything connected in his quarters.
Then why are we sitting here? Stop stalling and let's get started. The sooner the program we're about to build can be applied to your friend, the sooner he'll be up and about.
The plan was to use the Key program again as a base and build an interface that could be uploaded into the new battlesynth body. It was something that would only work while Lucky wasn't fully in control. Cas had reviewed all the technical data they'd brought with them from Alocur's team, and afterward it had seemed even more confident that the problem could be easily corrected.
In theory, the new program would go in and provide the necessary bridge between Lucky's confused and likely terrified primary processor matrix and all the subprocessors that operated the body. Once that happened, the stronger Lucky's connection to the body became, the more he would absorb the bridge program until, eventually, it ceased to exist and he was able to control the body completely on his own.
Omega Force: Legends Never Die (OF10) Page 13
