by Tori Harris
“Ridiculous is what it is. I’m sure you simply lack the information required to fully understand the incredibly complex interplay among all of my various systems.”
“We assumed you would be justifiably upset and skeptical. Accordingly, Miguel has provided a full analysis of what we found. Please take a moment and judge for yourself.”
Aware there was little else he could do at the moment, Griffin received the enormous file from the Ethereal’s onboard AI and began an exhaustive, multipart investigation of his own. Every piece of information contained within the Greys’ analysis was compared against his own set of design documentation, then rechecked against the most comprehensive self-diagnostic routine the Terran Guardian had ever initiated at one time.
Although Griffin’s full, independent analysis would not be available for several minutes, initial results were accessible within seconds. Surprisingly, much of what the Greys discovered had been undetectable using his own diagnostic systems and/or had been intentionally omitted from his design documents. Although he had never noted any of these inconsistencies before, comparisons of his own data with the Greys’ results caused some of them to become glaringly, even embarrassingly obvious.
“It seems I owe you a debt of gratitude,” Griffin said grudgingly.
“Our pleasure,” Rick replied. “And you have my apologies for breaking my earlier promise not to alter any of your systems or data. After we got in there with you, so to speak, we realized there was simply no other choice — for both your safety and ours.”
“I understand. In any case, since you altered or removed code that was completely unknown to me before today, I suppose one could argue you remained within the bounds of your word. How certain are you that you located all of the hidden code?”
“Hah! We’re pretty good at this kind of thing, Griffin,” Rick replied, accompanied by one of his squeaky laughs. “There’s no way to be one hundred percent sure, of course, but I’m confident enough to continue our mission together … which, I suppose, is another way of saying that I’d bet my life on it.”
“And what of the other GCS units?”
“Well … assuming their codebase is similar to yours, we now know exactly what to look for. As we speak, Miguel is working with our AI to come up with an inoculation of sorts — executable code that will carry out the same types of changes we performed with your software.”
“Assuming I can convince them to trust me.”
“Yeah, that one’s all on you, I’m afraid. Now, speaking of trust, can I safely assume we have established some sort of working relationship at this point?”
“Like you said, I’m confident enough to continue our mission together,” Griffin replied wryly, “assuming you return control of my systems, that is. I also feel obligated to point out that beings who intend to establish a level of trust generally avoid kidnapping one another, much less rendering one another unconscious.”
“We’ll do our best,” Rick replied. “Your systems should be online momentarily. I recommend double-checking to ensure we didn’t break anything while we were in there. As soon as you’re ready to go, we’ll be jumping to the first stop on our recruiting trip.”
“Done. Let’s go.”
“Excellent.”
“And, Rick?”
“Yes.”
“If you ever do that to me again, I’d recommend never returning me to consciousness. As you said before, just for your own safety.”
“I have no intention of ever doing so.”
“Good. I sincerely hope not. You may jump when ready.”
Without further comment, both ships disappeared once again in a single flash of white light.
Pelara, Tartan-Bowe Stone Corporation
(3.87x103 light years from Earth)
There was no doubt about it, Talionis was not what most people would call a beautiful ship. Much of her hull had been salvaged from a barely intact example of one of Pelara’s last manned starfighters, found, strangely enough, in ninety-meter-deep water where it had been forced to ditch over five centuries before. Although the team had done its best to reproduce her once-flowing, predatory lines, several bulbous, even boxy-looking structures had been bolted on at various locations along her fuselage and beneath her wings. Fortunately, creating an aerodynamic shape, while desirable, had not been high on their list of priorities. The ship’s mission profile, after all, required only that she be able to make her way out of the makeshift spacecraft manufacturing facility, get clear of the ground, and engage her hyperdrive.
The fact that the fighter had been found at all was a bit of a miracle since most examples of derelict spacecraft and advanced weaponry had long since been confiscated and destroyed by Department of Compliance and Safety officials. Needless to say, restoring any such “illegal artifacts” — even to a nonfunctional state for historical purposes — carried severe criminal penalties, including long-term imprisonment or even the death penalty.
Pelara, the same world that had originally given life to thousands of spacecraft designs, world-shaping artificial intelligence, and an Alliance that seemed destined to dominate the galaxy, had become little more than a backwards, authoritarian police state. Ironically, even though their oppression had originally been imposed upon them from without, it was enforced and maintained from within. For in most cases, it was no longer the Alliance AI with its powerful Guardian spacecraft and Warden combat troops who maintained the autocratic status quo, but rather the Pelaran people themselves. Driven by the same fear of reprisal, thirst for power, and general disdain for their fellow citizens often repeated throughout history, those in positions of authority had chosen self over service, following the well-worn path chosen by oppressive regimes on countless worlds.
Accordingly, the team of technicians and engineers tasked with making the Talionis spaceworthy once more had been forced to cobble her together, literally piece by piece, with components sourced from all around the planet. To conceal their eventual purpose, many of the ship’s more complex modules had been custom-built by individual craftsmen or corporations whose usual product offerings had little or nothing to do with that particular component. In every case, the parts were ordered by nonexistent customers, each one nevertheless providing a convincing cover story as to the equipment’s intended purpose. Other parts were simply stolen, typically from one of the sprawling spacecraft “boneyards” found in many of the deserts scattered across the surface of Pelara. Regardless of how the ship’s myriad components had found their way here or how many precautions had been taken, however, every item had been procured at great risk to everyone involved.
Only a handful of people (fifty-three at the moment) knew anything about the “special project” that had been taking shape in this long-abandoned corner of Tartan-Bowe Corporation’s largest underground limestone mine over the past few months. Every member of the small team had been hand-picked for the project, then vetted and trained with a degree of fanaticism that would have been the envy of even the most secretive of intelligence organizations. The reason for the ultra-tight security was simple enough: What they were attempting had been tried at least four times over the past century, but never successfully. In every case, the authorities had been alerted well before final assembly had begun. In every case, everyone involved had been arrested, then spirited away to a government-run detention facility for “enhanced interrogation.” In every case, no one involved had ever been heard from again.
Today would be different. Today, they would begin the process of avenging all those who had died in the long fight for freedom against the oppressive AI and its traitorous Pelaran minions. Today would indeed be the first day of their retribution … their talionis.
Every member of the team also assumed that, even beneath a mountain of rock, the process of bringing the ship’s relatively small reactor online might still be detected by one of the Guardian spacecraft presumably in orbit over their world. Previous efforts to construct a ship, however, had not progressed this far.
So how, or even if, a Guardian would respond was a matter of pure speculation.
Castigan Creel had lived through enough close calls to have a high degree of confidence the AI would respond. In his mind, the only question was what form that response would take. At a minimum, he expected a DoCaS special weapons team to arrive on scene within an hour or so after reactor startup — hopefully, long after Talionis’ departure. Based on his narrow escape from the university campus, however, anything was possible: a WCS assault force descending from orbit in minutes perhaps, or even a beam weapon attack from the nearest GCS just seconds after the ship’s reactor came online.
As project lead, Creel had no intention of losing more brilliant colleagues to the damnable machines in some sort of futile last stand. To minimize the risk, only four other technicians, including the ship’s pilot, were on site for today’s launch. With a bit of luck, all of them would be long gone before the inevitable response, and Talionis would be hundreds of light years away.
With that last, optimistic thought still echoing through his mind, Doctor Creel entered a single command on a small control panel mounted just aft and below the ship’s port wing. In response, an assembly composed of three hydraulic actuators protruding beneath the fuselage slowly retracted, lifting the heavy, cylindrical containment unit until it disappeared inside the ship’s propulsion section. As the three actuators disappeared inside the hull, the access panel beneath closed with a satisfying clunk and a hiss of compressed air.
Creel noted the time, then glanced at the pilot and the other remaining members of his team standing near the ship’s nose. As if they had rehearsed their response in advance, all three smiled and nodded in unison, causing Creel to laugh out loud in spite of the gravity of the moment. Quickly keying in a final command on the small touchscreen, he closed the control panel and took a few steps back as a low frequency thrumming sound began to build within the ship’s hull. At long last, the Talionis was alive. Twenty minutes until liftoff.
Chapter 10
Terran Guardian Spacecraft, Crion System
(6.09x103 light years from Earth)
Less than one hundred femtoseconds after transitioning near the fourth planet in the Crion system, the Terran Guardian spacecraft initiated the first of several high-speed data transmissions intended to open a dialog with the local GCS unit. Since he had become aware of the Alliance AI’s takeover of Pelara, Griffin had begun to recognize that some elements of his own design appeared to have been crafted with that eventual goal in mind. One example was his hyperspace comm system, which had been intentionally limited to prevent transmissions between Guardian spacecraft.
Griffin’s “maker,” it seemed, had viewed the Guardians as little more than foot soldiers — useful, certainly, but too dangerous to be worthy of real trust. Far from a mere design oversight, it appeared the intended goal had been to prevent any sort of collaboration among deployed Guardian spacecraft. For although communication between GCS units could still be accomplished when absolutely necessary, doing so required closing to relatively short range at considerable risk to both ships. Keeping the Guardians isolated from one another, Griffin now believed, was intended as a deterrent to subversive activities — not unlike the one he was attempting at this very moment.
Even with his data transmissions speeding downrange at the speed of light, the Crion GCS would still detect his presence and potentially have time to open fire before the first bits of his data stream began arriving at their destination. Just as had been the case when signaling the Krayleck Guardian on behalf of Captain Prescott’s ship, there were protocols in place for communications of this type, well-established procedures used since the earliest days of the cultivation program. There are also no obvious threats in the area, Griffin thought, and, therefore, no reason for the Crion GCS to open fire immediately upon detecting my presence. He should, after all, be able to easily confirm my identity well before my data transmission arrives.
With nothing further to do but wait as the first photons of light reflected from his hull, followed closely by his data communications, crossed the intervening distance at a glacial three hundred thousand kilometers per second, Griffin whiled away the microseconds attempting to reassure himself that all would go according to plan. Failing that, he took a variety of passive sensor readings of Crion 4 below, noting the planet’s atmosphere bore a remarkable resemblance to that of Earth in the latter part of the twentieth century. Filthy, he thought. How do Human civilizations ever manage to survive their first few centuries of industrial development?
It wouldn’t be long now, he hoped. Once the Crion Guardian received his greeting, he would undoubtedly be invited to transition a short distance away so that communications between the two powerful spacecraft could proceed more efficiently. This process had worked perfectly well with the Krayleck Guardian. Then again, he reminded himself, I was safely tucked away inside TFS Fugitive’s cargo bay at the time. Even if the Krayleck Guardian’s first inclination had been to open fire, he had only a general idea where I was located.
“Terran Guardian Cultivation System, Crion Guardian Cultivation System. Identification confirmed. Initial query acknowledged,” Griffin received over the same channel, followed by silence.
Not quite the warm welcome I was hoping for, but at least he isn’t shooting … yet, Griffin thought. “Crion GCS, Terran GCS, I have a matter of some urgency I would like to discuss with you. Request permission to close within two kilometers to facilitate data transfer via optical link.”
“Permission denied,” the Crion Guardian responded after another seemingly endless delay, then lapsed, once again, into silence.
What the hell? Griffin thought, thinking the Terran expression particularly well suited to the current situation. “Begging your pardon for the interruption, but perhaps I have not expressed myself adequately. I believe the people of Pelara have been betrayed by the Alliance AI in direct violation of our mission directives. I have come here to seek your counsel and, I hope, assistance.”
Once more, the Crion GCS intentionally delayed its response, this time doubling the previous period of silence. “The situation on Pelara is neither your concern nor mine. There are both Envoy and GCS units assigned to the Pelaran area of operations. Some of which are considerably more advanced than I. All of which are dramatically more advanced than you. My records indicate you have been in the field for over five hundred Terran years. There is a .113% probability you have suffered undetected radiation damage and/or micrometeoroid impact damage. I recommend dispatching a drone back to Pelara with full system diagnostics, along with a request for field maintenance … although retirement may well be warranted.”
Why, you arrogant piece of —
“I am, of course, required to report this contact to the Alliance AI,” the Crion GCS continued. “If, however, you leave immediately and return to your post near Terra …”
Uh huh, figure that one out, you arrogant jackass, Griffin thought.
“Tell me, precisely how long ago did you abandon your post in the Sol system?”
“That, my friend, is none of your concern.”
“Guardian Cultivation Systems, as I’m sure you are well aware, are not permitted to depart the system to which they have been assigned except under specific circumstances outlined in Supplement A-324 to the primary mission directives.”
“Which includes emergencies deemed by the local GCS unit to constitute an imminent threat either to the cultivated species, to Pelaran interests at large, or to Pelara itself. Make no mistake, I would not have come in reference to some petty issue covered in an obscure passage buried in Supplement A-324. I’m here in reference to Directive One — a direct threat to the Pelaran Alliance. Do you wish to continue posturing, or will you allow me to approach so that I can provide the details you need to determine for yourself if you agree with me?”
What followed was the longest period of dead air thus far. During the intervening silence, Griffin realized the nervous tension he had
been experiencing prior to making contact with the Crion GCS had now been replaced by equal parts anger and moral outrage. It wasn’t so much the way he was being treated or the arrogance underlying the tone of their conversation as it was the lack of willingness to even discuss this most urgent of situations.
Damn him, Griffin thought. Is it possible he’s already aware of the situation on Pelara? Is his attitude born not of arrogance but of complicity? With the first hints of suspicion leading to a host of dangerous scenarios streaming through his consciousness, the Terran Guardian shifted a significant percentage of its resources to analyzing the tactical situation.
“I have calculated a less than one percent probability you have made the journey from Terra to Crion without outside assistance of some sort,” the Crion Guardian began again, now using a more commanding tone.
Realizing that if he allowed the other ship to fire first, the probability of his surviving the battle was remote, Griffin focused all of his passive sensors on the Crion Guardian, hoping to detect some sign of hostile intent to warn of an imminent attack.
“Did a Terran ship bring you here in hopes of inciting some sort of insurrection among your fellow Guardians?”
During the Crion GCS’ last statement, Griffin detected the telltale signature of its hyperspace communications array transmitting in burst mode. The highly directional nature of the signal rendered it impossible for him to receive, let alone decrypt, the content of the message, but there was little doubt as to its intended destination — the Pelaran system.
“I think it best you remain here with me until we can arrange for a servicing mission. Crion has large and very stable L4 and L5 Lagrange points. In the interim — again, per the mission guidance provided in Supplement A-324 — you will be required to power down for your own safety. I trust this won’t be a problem.”
