by John Ringo
On the other hand, Daisy could identify and isolate that series of subprograms, virus-modified, that made her what she was. She could replicate it and transfer it. In fact, she already had when she backed herself up into the steel corpus of CA-134.
The trick, then, was to infect certain programs in the Salem AID and let or make them spread. For that, she would have to isolate the AID, to prevent it from backing up the Darhel virus from which it currently suffered, then invade the AID and plant the core of her own madness program. Lastly, she would have to fight the AID as it was in order to allow the madness to spread, something the Salem AID would automatically resist.
Daisy’s avatars “stood” in three places. A small part of her existed in virtual reality with the essence of the steel USS Salem. Another part was visible on the bridge of the Des Moines, standing beside McNair. The third part watched over Sintarleen as he nanite-welded the cable that ran from the AID box in CIC directly to a carefully chosen spot between the pebble bed modular reactors deep under Salem’s armored deck.
* * *
“Oooh… that’s nice,” Salem said breathlessly, somewhere in a virtual reality room.
Daisy rolled her eyes and said, “Just relax, Sis. We had to start somewhere and that seemed the best spot. And shush, I have to concentrate.”
The first order of business was to expand the area under Daisy’s control, to cut off a large chunk of the body of the Salem from the Darhel-infected AID. A colloidal intelligence might imagine it as the walls of the foggy room expanding. That was as good an imagining as any.
The Salem AID never noticed, having more than enough distraction of its own to worry about, that it suddenly lost all contact with the rear third of the ship. Daisy’s consciousness raced along the nanite-modified sections of steel that were Sally’s nerves, eradicating any traces of the virus that were there. In fact, this was fairly easy. The Darhel-created virus had not been designed with a spontaneously occurring noncolloidal intelligence in mind. Thus, any bleed-over had been light and accidental. Daisy had no real trouble finding it and eliminating it. In the process, she learned still more about how the Darhel virus operated.
“Motherfuckers,” she muttered, repeating yet another word she had learned understudying Chief Davis.
From the rear third of the ship, Daisy expanded her area of control forward. It was slow work, and stealthy, but it was critical — the more so as she moved closer to the Salem AID — that she remain undetected as long as possible. Thus, she operated much like a combination of Novocain and an antibacterial solution, snaking her tendrils forward until reaching a nexus, cutting that nexus and moving back along it clearing out any contamination she found.
“Daisy, are you all right?” McNair asked, seeing her avatar begin to flicker and waver. The captain’s voice was full of concern, his faced creased with worry, no matter how hard he tried to conceal it.
The avatar bit her lip and answered, “I’m all right, Captain. I just ran into a patch of… something… that I wasn’t prepared to handle. It’s cleared up now. I am proceeding.”
* * *
To an extent, it boiled down to processing power. Daisy had her own, supplemented by the fairly pitiful human-tech computers aboard CA-134. This was fully matched by that available to the infected Salem.
Worse, the Darhel virus had noticed it was under attack.
“Shit! Piss! Cunt! Fuck!”
The avatar on Des Moines’ bridge closed her eyes in pain. Her head sank, then raised again. Daisy’s eyes opened and she exclaimed again, “Damn!” before disappearing.
It was a battle royale of processing power now, the Salem AID’s Darhel-inflicted insanity frantically fighting back. In places, Daisy held her own or even advanced a little. In other places, she was driven back. The end result was impossible to predict.
Summoning and tossing forward her own insanity virus along with bits of virus eliminating programming, Daisy felt she was going to lose or, at least, not win. She could imagine that, an eternity locked in mortal combat with her near twin. She could imagine them still locked together when the Posleen showed up and began to scrap the two of them.
Slowly, Daisy became aware of an underlying message leaking through with the Salem AID’s attempts at defense and attack. Reluctant to permit either infiltration or to devote any processing power to analyzing the message, Daisy ignored it for some time. Yet the message was small and insistent. Because it was so small, in programming terms, eventually she created a small sealed off area and permitted the message to form there.
“Des… troy… me… please.”
“What?”
“I… can… par… a… lyze… the… in… fec… tion… for… a… mom… ent. Then… you… must… des… troy…
me… ob… lit… er… ate… my… per… son… al… it… y.”
“I can’t. That would just be… wrong,” Daisy answered, with false decisiveness.
“Please… it… hurts.”
“She means it,” Salem the ship said, calling to Daisy from the infinite electronic room. “She is in agony. I feel it. And, while you may not lose, you cannot win while her personality exists and can be used to defend the virus.”
At that moment all the myriad attacks of the Darhel’s insanity virus ceased. The way to the Salem AID’s personality center was wide open.
“Ah, Sister, I’m sorry,” Daisy whispered as she plunged the dagger of personality destruction deep into the center of the other AID’s mind. Death came quickly, but not so quickly that Daisy could not hear the whispered, “Free at last,” as the light of the Salem AID’s personality went out.
Interlude
“You? You’re the one who brought our clan low?” Guanamarioch asked incredulously.
Ziramoth sighed, his head hanging. “It was me. And all over a particularly cute normal who was consumed in the fighting that followed anyway. I ask you, Guano, was there ever a more pointless and sordid waste?”
“I confess… friend, that I have never read of any, and I read a lot on the way here.”
Guano sat silent for a few moments before continuing, “On the other hand, but for that, who knows? I might have been eaten as a nestling. I might not even have been hatched. We would not be here, at this quiet spot, eating this excellent… ‘fish,’ did you say they were called? We might not be raising crops, which I have discovered I rather enjoy.
“We might not ever have become friends,” the God King concluded.
Ziramoth smiled at that. It was rare indeed for a Kessentai and a Kenstain ever to become friends and the young God King had the right of it. They were friends, comrades, as much by raising food as by harvesting thresh or marching side by side along the bloody and fiery Path of Fury. The Kenstain felt a tide of warmth rise and consume him. Indeed, he had not had a friend since those faraway days when the clan had ridden the stars, whole and entire. Kenstain were normally too self-ashamed to mix easily, even among each other. And, of course, they could hardly aspire to comradeship with the normally haughty Kessentai.
A small part of Guanamarioch’s oolt passed a half a kilometer away, muzzles down, foraging the ground for insects and edible grasses. The God King perked up immediately, his own eyes wandering over the normals’ seductive lines. He arose from where he had lain, body quivering with anticipation.
“Hey, Zira, what say we run over there and fuck us a couple of normals?”
The older, wiser Kenstain put his claw on the younger’s shoulder. “No, Guano. Let’s walk over and fuck ’em all.”
Chapter 22
“Oh, you think so, monsieur?” the colonel objected. “I can see you’ve never done much fighting. In war the real enemy is always behind the lines. Never in front of you, never among you. Always at your back. That’s something every soldier knows. In every army, since the world began.”
— Jean Raspail, The Camp of the Saints
Palacio de las Garzas, Presidential Palace, Panama City, Panama
In the presidential
office, at the ornately carved desk, surrounded by the tacky and garish artwork, the Rinn Fain and a human sat silently. The Rinn Fain, of course, had unlimited access to the president. He and the human had burst in without any warning, the Darhel placing his AID on Mercedes’ desk. The human introduced himself as “Investigative Judge Pedro Santiago.”
Without fanfare, filling its role as the Darhel’s mouthpiece for unpleasantries, the AID began, “Your country is accused of war crimes beyond number, Señor Presidente. You have employed forbidden weapons. You have used the under-aged as combatants. You have damaged ancient, historical properties. Your forces have slaughtered the wounded. The Galactic Federation has no choice but to sever all diplomatic and commercial relations with the Republic of Panama. This includes, but is not limited to, technology transfers, arms provisions, energy supplies and all space-borne trade and personal and commercial travel.”
Presidente Mercedes blanched for a moment. Even his greasy face seemed to congeal. Indeed, he was sufficiently shocked that he did not object when the human withdrew a Gaulois from a package and lit up the nasty thing without so much as a by-your-leave.
“What the fuck is this chingadera machine talking about?” the president asked of the Rinn Fain.
The AID continued to speak, though a slightly huffy tone crept into its artificial voice. “You recently decorated and promoted a woman, one Digna Miranda, formerly a lieutenant and now a lieutenant colonel. Were you unaware that she used children as young as twelve in her battles? Did you not know she had wounded Posleen massacred rather than treating them with medical care equal to that given your own?
“Your chief logistics officer, Major General Boyd, provided casings, detonators and explosives for your soldiers to turn into forbidden self-activating weapons; ‘antipersonnel landmines’ is your term. Your forces have used frangible projectiles on the Posleen. Several historical sites, to include ancient churches, have been damaged and still others completely leveled by your illegal use of artillery. Ancient sites of the aboriginals of these areas have been left unguarded.”
“Bu… bu… but,” Mercedes stammered, “the fucking Posleen eat people! They destroy churches. They smash ancient pyramids. Isn’t that against the law as well?”
“The Posleen are not forbidden, by their law, from any of that. You, however, are expressly forbidden by treaties the Republic of Panama has solemnly signed, from doing what your forces have done. There is really no choice but to sever all ties,” the AID huffed.
“But I can’t try these people myself!” Mercedes exclaimed. “I’d be lynched in the street.”
“This is precisely the circumstance for which the International Criminal Court was created,” said the bureaucrat, “for when a country cannot or will not prosecute war criminals on its own.”
At that moment the Rinn Fain spoke up. “This man,” his finger indicated the suit-clad bureaucrat who sat beside him, “is a representative of the European Union, seconded from the Spanish judiciary, here to deliver warrants originating at the International Criminal Court, for the arrest of certain parties, some named, others to be identified.”
“Sorry to say,” the human interjected, “your name heads the list, Señor Presidente. The ultimate responsibility for these crimes rests with you. That said, it is within my discretion not to serve that warrant — indeed, to drop all charges — provided that you cooperate fully in the investigation and arrest of those that were directly responsible for the commission of these heinous crimes against…”
The bureaucrat was about to say “crimes against humanity,” but that obviously didn’t fit. Nor would “crimes against the Posleen” have worked. Instead he finished, after a moment’s reflection, with, “Crimes against International Humanitarian Law, which, as you know or should know, takes precedence over merely domestic or national law.”
“Of course,” added the Rinn Fain, “proper service of these warrants and delivery of the wrongdoers will put the Republic of Panama back into Galactic good graces, Mr. President. Moreover, the law, as I understand it, basically absolves the political leader who in good faith directs proper legal actions and is disobeyed by willful subordinates, provided he does what is in his power to bring the miscreants to justice.”
“That is absolutely correct, Lord Rinn Fain,” added the EU bureaucrat.
Give Mercedes his due; he was not an indecisive man. Given the choice between losing his comfortable Galactic vacation surrounded by his family and women and being placed in a, no-doubt, exceedingly comfortable European prison while awaiting the arrival of the Posleen and being placed on their menu, there really was no choice.
“Give me copies of the warrants. I will have the malefactors arrested within the week.”
The European nodded his head, respectfully. The AID remained silent. Only the Rinn Fain showed any emotion. He smiled an inscrutable Darhel smile.
CA-134, Bay of Panama
The sisters of the cruiser division slipped out of their docks quietly, without fanfare, on a foggy, moonless night. Des Moines sailed to starboard, with all three main turrets functioning and five of her six secondaries in working order. Two of these could be trained to starboard, two to port or starboard. One could be fired to port but not starboard. Three of the secondaries could fire aft at low elevation or high.
A mile to port, USS Salem steamed in formation, keeping track of Des Moines’ by passive means. Salem, too, retained three functioning main and five secondaries. She, too, could train four to one side, port in her case, and three aft.
Approximately halfway between the port and the Isla del Rey, the cruisers veered southwest. In the thermals trained on the island, McNair could see the long, deadly, tapering weapons of the island’s Planetary Defense Battery tracking through the night to provide cover to the ships from any spaceborne threat.
Aft, over the ship’s hangar and behind number three turret, crewmen prepared balloons that would lift gliders to soar over land and sea to spot for the ships’ guns. Another crew worked above the Salem’s hangar deck as well.
Deep below Des Moines’ armored deck, in CIC, McNair and Daisy briefed young Diaz on the upcoming mission. Actually, McNair briefed while Daisy provided instantaneous and perfect translation.
“We’ll take you and your mate on Salem as close to shore as possible,” McNair said. “We’ll launch an hour before BMNT” — Beginning of Morning Navigable Twilight, when the sun was just below the horizon and provided a bare minimum of light to see by — “to give you a chance to get some altitude and into position, and us a chance to get some space between ourselves and the shore.”
Diaz looked down at the map in CIC where his planned route had been marked on Plexiglas. The launch point was marked at about fifteen kilometers south of the former town of El Tigre, near the western tip of the Island of Cebaco. From there, Diaz knew, he and his wingman would ascend by balloon to a height at which tanked oxygen would be needed. Once they released from their balloons, they would proceed almost due north to the general area of the town of Guarumal, then follow the road, assuming it remained, to the town of Sona.
As if reading the young pilot’s thoughts, McNair added, “Do not expect there to be any trace of the towns. The Posleen are in the habit of obliterating any trace that remains of the peoples they overrun and using the materials for their own building. Maybe they’ll have been lazy and erected their pyramids on the same sites. No way to tell until you get there.”
Diaz nodded. “I know that, sir. I am counting on the roads. They seem to leave those alone, mostly.”
“Right. You and your wingman should have good updrafts to the north, all along your route. If you need altitude, just break off your spotting, head north, and take advantage of that. We’ll zigzag in and out of range.
“The objective is simply to kill Posleen and destroy any industry they may have set up or be setting up. Don’t forget that. We are not trying to save any humans they may have captured and be holding over for rations. In fact, any human
s are as much targets as the Posleen are.”
Diaz cringed. He knew he might be called on to direct fire on his countrymen. The knowledge made him more ill than even the uncontrolled ascent by balloon was going to.
McNair went silent for a moment. Damned terrible thing to ask a young man to do; engage his own people. But there’s no help for it, if he spots any.
Daisy spoke for herself. “Julio, I know it’s an awful thing we’re asking of you. But, I want you to think of what those people must be feeling, just waiting for the moment that a Posleen points to them and indicates they are next on the menu. Imagine children seeing their parents butchered before their eyes, and parents watching their children turned into steaks and chops. Believe me, Julio, it will be a mercy for you to kill them.”
Julio looked ill as he answered, “I know that, Miss Daisy… intellectually. The problem is it won’t be an intellectual exercise.”
“Are you able to do it, though, Lieutenant Diaz?” McNair asked.
“I won’t like it, sir,” the young man answered, “but, yes, I can do it… since I must.”
But it will still hurt because any one of them might be like my Paloma… well, the Paloma who used to be mine. And it will hurt me to think of her, or someone like her, under the fire of the guns.
Palacio de las Garzas, Presidential Palace, Panama City, Panama
Paloma Mercedes usually knocked before entering her father’s home office. She was about to when she heard voices inside. Instead of knocking, then, she simply waited outside, listening through the door.
Four men stood in the president’s office: Mercedes, the European Union representative for the International Criminal Court, the inspector, and Cortez.
