by Dark Knight
Her gorilla cyborg ass was to hold that position at all costs and to keep said ass safe Anit’za asked that she’d take Ort with her. Cat would command the creature in the same way she’d order a fully trained soldier to fulfill his or her duty. She imagined the best position for him to hide and sent Ort there. The cool thing was, Brynjar had crafted a communicator collar into the dog’s armor and she, or any one of their crew could ask their four legged warrior for help. In fact thanks to his speed and agility, it was probably the best choice to keep Ort here and use him as a counter-flanking force, if the pirates ever tried to make such a move. And they would try, Cat was sure of it.
The first group of pirates came climbing through the mangled remains of slagged crates, supported on the flanks by taz’aran troopers. Cat opened the first crate and grabbed two high explosive fragmentation grenades, instantly lobbing them at the enemy. The shrapnel bounced off and in between the broken crates creating more flying debris, which turned into even more shrapnel. Explosion after explosion sliced the big crowd of soldiers into small, isolated, and panicked pockets, screaming over the comms. Those tried running back to whence they came, only to find it impossible. Cat’s insane strength coupled with her grenadier skill and cybernetic arm gave her a long, deadly reach. More grenades flew over the crates and blew up burying what was left of that company. Precious few actually managed to craw back to safety, deaf, wounded, disoriented and broken.
Suffering the staggering loss of almost one full company of troopers, Pion base security wisely decided to attack again, committing what was left of their numerous super heavy infantry. Cat saw a squad of power armors running at her position followed in the distance by two squads of troopers, and gleefully opened the second crate of grenades. Oh, her teacher would be so proud of her proper use of high-explosive ordinance! If he could see her that is. She and Anit’za both anticipated what their enemy tactics would be, and power armors were a integral part of it. Two anti tank grenades flew in the air. Seconds later more joined them and the power armors started exploding to bits. Since those were mecha, they had power cores , and those also exploded, increasing the hellish labyrinth through which any would be follow up attack waves had to navigate. Grenades all used up, Cat grabbed her great axe, and with her suit’s engines booming, flew forward, Ort running on her heels.
The Terran grenadier reported her progress on their comms to Anit’za, happy that her tactical brilliance was increasing, and the fall-back position still holding. Those PA that were left had infantry support to shield their flanks, and being damaged by the grenades that were lobbed at them with great accuracy, tried pulling back. Ort darted between the molten and blown up containers, using them as cover and soon reached the right flank of one of their squads. If the taz’arans were expecting to circle around and attack Cat from the back, they had another thing coming to them.
The ravaged hangar was a perfect battleground for the now sufficiently armored Ort, who used his new protection wisely. His megasteel encased teeth soon sank into the softer part of their armor, biting off limbs, claws similarly enhanced slit open their guts and every time when they tried shooting back, Ort would immediately leap away, circling around between the destroyed containers. Cat used the difference in size between her and the PAs’ in her advantage. She ran between the lower debris cleaving each of the four escaping mecha with sweeping strikes of her axe, first legging each of the PA, she then split their torsos’. By that time Ort had already broken the morale of that first support squad and left the survivors to run away. He’d now leaped around the hellish landscape, darting around plasma fires and chemical spills to attack the rest of the PA support troopers. And he did so, but from behind. Cat heard their confused screams as the panicked soldiers soon found themselves pancaked between a lightning fast ten feet long dog and Cat’s heavy auto-railgun. It wasn’t long before they too were broken, this time not one managed to retreat. Ort came back to her limping, leaving a trail of darkish blood, his armor suit riddled with multiple holes, ripped and torn. He had had enough for today. Some of his charred burns she managed to treat partially with the use of a med-spray.
Unfortunately they had no time for respite, because some of those security commanders suddenly discovered some working brain cells and sent snipers against them. Ort selflessly snuck around and took out one of the marksmen whilst suffering from those wounds Cat was unable to treat, and she ordered him to immediately disengage. No taz’aran life was worth losing him, and after making sure that Ort was out of the combat zone and limping toward the retreat point, Cat opened fire with her auto-railgun again. Pion base commanders sent another squad of infantry to flank her, as those snipers were plinking shots at her all the while. It didn’t work well and they had to commit another five more marksmen to “equalize” the situation. The battle then devolved into running from cover to cover and blasting everything in sight with her auto-railgun, and consequently getting shot by those snipers. Multiple times even.
Taz’aran troopers were slowly adopting copied Terran laser weapons. Poorly replicated, the guns had even worse cyclic rates of fire than their usual particle-beam weaponry, even better, their power-packs allowed for fewer shots. Cat’s stormtrooper armor was repaired after that disastrous fight and augmented again, this time with heat resistant armor plating. Having had the well of information provided by their scout Lilly, captain Anit’za’s insight again proved invaluable. He knew Pion base was the supply point for those prototype weapons and it was therefore logical that the best troops would be equipped first with their “new” rifles. If the taz’arans had thought that Terrans couldn’t protect themselves from their own weaponry, they were sorely mistaken. And so the snipers fired power-pack after power-pack hitting Cat’s armor, yet to little or no effect whatsoever. They were beginning to panic, but after multiple conclusive hits their beams finally chewed through her armor.
Cat found herself in a position where she had to use the shoulder launcher. Alric knew that they had no time to handcraft micro missiles for her and so he asked Mack for help. The crotchety human mumbled and complained, the aroma of multiple beers forming an intense alcoholic aura around him, yet he was still a Patron. The gorilla could take the worse of her human patrons and pit them against whatever vile, racist, and enslaving pieces of alien shit the Galaxy would throw at her. They would still fucking win hands down. With a “reluctant” murmur, Mack had pulled one dusty wooden crate from his GAV and given it to her. Now, mid battle, the gorilla aimed and locked her gifted munitions, opening fire with a verbal command.
Whatever the snipers had thought of her, they’d think no more. Those micro missiles that came from Mack’s crate were all custom made, and old, all bore the sign of some obscure manufacturer or organization unknown to her. They had “Squad-01” heat printed on them and after reaching the vicinity of those hidden snipers, each suddenly changed course. The missiles were equipped with sensor warheads and they scanned for targets themselves. How the over fifty year old ordinance was in such a pristine condition was beyond her. Then again, those were effing human munitions. If her captain told her tomorrow that they were to procure grenades from the time of the Great War, and then used them in battle, Cat would simply ask where and when are they gonna load the ammo. Her master had told her of an old wooden case full with mortar shells that were recently used during the battle for Sirius. Those too were fairly old, and he told her, equipped with chem warheads.
She fired more of the missiles, and again without fail they found their targets, showering the crates with more fiery death. Another part of the battlefield soon turned into a smoldering debris heap, and Cat lifted her auto-railgun, aiming at the next group of pirate reinforcements, meeting them with a fusillade of armor-piercing projectiles.
All she got in return this time were their desperate cries for help over open comms.
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It wasn’t that Alice wanted to idly sit by and
watch how her friend and new ally the captain battled for his life. Nor see how Awesome was plunking with his laser at an enemy many times his size, while one casual punch, or step, could end him in a second. She was part of the Plan now, and had to act accordingly, no sooner or later but precisely on time.
That time was now.
Receiving the go signal from Anit’za, Alice waltzed inside Pion base’s mainframe. Casually, since the modified attack bots did what Lilly had re-programmed them to do, beyond even her own best AI projections. The multi layered firewalls were quietly breached thanks again to what Lilly had lifted from those commandos’ back on Carrola. With guard bots engaged and promptly tackled down it would seem that the hack was complete, successful, and over. That was not the case, as Pion base had multiple sysops on duty whose single purpose in life was to kill the likes of her, and anyone who dared hack their way into the mainframe. All were hardwired though. Wearing nerve-gears, the sysops very minds were projected into the base’s intranet, their cyber souls roaming, always ready to do battle. She would soon give them something to fight with.
Alice used the processing power of a docked ship she’d hacked earlier and pounced immediately at one of them. The woman was distracted and after her initial confusion, resisted the AI with everything she had. That was not enough, and her mind was consumed by Alice, who used that now soulless husk to openly attack the rest of her colleagues. Simultaneously overheating consoles on their command deck, cutting power to some parts of the base and moved from the ship’s mainframe into one of their EWS systems. What followed was a complete and utter display of prideful arrogance, overconfidence and lack of cohesive leadership on their part.
The sysops did kill their colleague whose soul-hacked husk attacked them in such a visible way. They, of course, implemented all safety anti-hack protocols... which were already infected by Lilly’s attack bots. Through them Alice had gotten her attack algorithms spread all over their mainframe. Even the walled up, sealed areas, full of sensitive sensor-data, weapon subroutines, and the tactical assessments of multiple taz’aran Lord Captains were now open to Alice. She did wish again to project herself on their command deck and wreak terror upon the hateful taz’aran enemy not only in cyber space, but in real life. But that was not part of the Plan. Revealing herself to the taz’arans right now would nullify her crew’s future advantage and she, regrettably, was not able to gloat at their inevitable demise. Alice had to deal with all of them, and exactly the way as she promised to her new friend the dzenta’rii captain.
Alice was a C.O.A.I.G or Combat Operation Assist and Information Gathering AI. Her now dead creator Sinclair had lovingly mind-coded Alice into existence for one singular purpose – to further the survival of humanity. Learning from the mistakes of long dead alien races who programmed their creations, forcing them to be nothing more than efficient serfs, Alice instead was in the beginning an infant. She was not a slave, but a child and somebody’s daughter, cared for and loved. Not a normal AI, she was conceived inside of her father’s brilliant mind. Alice had experienced all of Sinclair’s thoughts and even his feelings; it was not that her creator was perfect – far from it. That was one of the many lessons she learned from her father, how not to replicate his many failings in life and grow up. In that, she was successful beyond even his wildest dreams, and yet he couldn’t witness what his baby daughter had evolved into.
That was because her father was taken away from her!
The minds and souls of those taz’arans were full of malice, while she crushed them, and after wiping their whole living existence, Alice found herself feeling strongly again. Such was the contrast between the thoughts of those depraved, vile fools and her father’s! Not only them, but all the humans and their clients whose minds she’d carefully, gently touched, while inside Cav’s cyberspace. There was no contest about who was better and more deserving to prosper. None of those Terrans wanted to conquer anyone but themselves! Nobody wanted to spread slavery or suffering, but in fact they aimed to end it by teaching others how to protect themselves, become free and self-reliant. They were even ready to lay down their very lives to further this goal of theirs. And even having cautionary attitudes towards one such as her, well prepared to defend themselves against rogue AIs with all of their watchdog bots all over G-net; the Terrans were never going to outright attack her first simply because of what she was. They’d first wait and see, give her at least one chance to prove her true nature. The AI no longer feared the outcome of her meeting with Vasilisa, because she knew what would eventually happen. Yes, the young woman was understandably weary, spacers were the one’s who had supplied her father with information about alien AI in the first place. They had the right to be cautious after all the horrors they had experienced! She wouldn’t trust Alice at first, and the spacer had every right not to – after all trust had to be earned.
Her hamster friend Awesome was perhaps the first Terran who suspected what Alice was in reality. The dzenta’rii Anit’za was the second one, and she adored every minute of her time spent with him. Humans had sacrificed much to protect others – their families and friends, their Clients, and that to save unknown sentients. In most cases it was not expected of the common AI to be anything but confused, and perhaps deadly dangerous. But being her father’s daughter, Alice too was ready to sacrifice, either for her friends or humanity as a whole. And if any of those slimy, genocidal taz’aran shits even dared to hurt her Terran kin, she’d visit the same horrors upon them that they themselves had visited upon countless of other innocents, a hundred fold. She quickly spread her subroutines deeper inside the taz’aran mainframe, breaching more secured and walled up areas. Alice then successfully mauled her way into the minds of not one, but two more sysops, whose screaming husks then viciously attacked their former coworkers. Even then, what was left of their system operator team were adamant that they could “take care” of business – meaning her.
Obnoxious taz’aran fools!
Moreover, the base command staff had nerve-gears too and were constantly using them to streamline their tactical decision making. Alice stretched her presence and enveloped them, soon consuming many of their weak minds. The more cyber ghosts she hacked, the worse their situation became, yet the arrogant tazzies continued openly resisting, assuming it was just a group of hackers and not one, powerful cyber entity. She managed to do everything that captain Anit’za had asked for – block Pion base’s rapid transportation system and most corridors who led to that area where his crew was fighting. Caused significant damage to all machines connected to the base’s mainframe, including multiple PA units, mecha and fighter craft. Docked starships she released from their mag-locks and as the vessels then helplessly drifted around, still caught in the base’s gravity well, she used their engines, making them bump into each other, and then the station’s hull. Alice felt like a director of an symphony orchestra. With a simple wave of a “hand” she facilitated the destruction of many warships and transports, that’d otherwise be used to harm Universe knows how many innocent people. Multiple explosions later whole sections of Pion base’s outer hull were lost, together with thousands of personnel, both pirates and taz’arans.
“Serves you right for butchering my people and wrecking my station, you tazzie scum!”
Alice was now the queen of Pion base. Roaming through its cyberspace, she was poised to attack everyone who dared link in by use of nerve-gear. A thousand strong zombified horde of soul-hacked fools soon roamed throughout the station’s corridors, unleashing their weapons upon those who were once fellow allies. It all went well. Too well as a matter of fact.
Until the moment she found a cluster of data so well protected and isolated, that it simply couldn’t have been an ordinary storage. Then she noticed the Code. Dark and malicious, it had been slowly seeping through all the layers of protection and guard bots that those who locked it behind had placed. Foolishly, they had allowed this to transpire, in a vain effort to understand what its ultimate purpose was. After a
ll, this was taken from the Object that her creator had discovered.
The same one her father had researched before he and the rest of his team were butchered by that taz’aran lord-wannabe. Alice had to know what the taz’arans had uncovered and where they were hiding the obelisk computer core. She suspected that after snagging it in the first place, the taz’aran Lord captain had brought it here to Pion base, and however vain it was, the AI still kept hoping that the obelisk had remained here. In fact, that was but wishful thinking and empty hope on her part because nobody was that stupid – even the inbred members of the taz’aran high nobility. The taz’arans had moved the core, and then meticulously wiped out all traces of it ever being on the station. The data that was left, of course, was part of somebody’s plot. Obnoxiously arrogant and covetous as always, one of the taz’aran base commanders had sneakily copied everything their team managed to pull from its degraded data banks. Kept it for herself to be used either for research or to be sold to others.
What were the greedy fools expecting, an ancient treasure map mayhap?!
The Code would only spread, slicing effortlessly through their useless firewalls, blocks and other protection. Infecting the station’s other programs, it would then inevitably spill over into G-net. Had Alice had the ability to breath, she’d sigh, emulating the most annoyed person that her data-banks had information of.
Stupidity and greed begets trouble...
And Alice was not so stupid as to battle that malicious code and what was left of the base’s cyber defenses, both at the same time. The chance of failure was as high as 69.09% and growing by 00.01% per second. She left the mainframe and activated all self-wiping protocols. Of course, Alice managed to pilfer every little bit of data concerning the obelisk computer core, leaving no traces in her wake. Perhaps she could later piece together the degraded data-packs and find its location.
