by M. D. Cooper
Silver said. Her voice had grown ragged and desperate.
Crash studied her, looking for other ways she might attack him. Whatever weapon she had used on him before, he wasn’t going to give her a second opportunity. His head still ached but the pain only drove him to act.
In the midst of her last denial, he shot around her to enter the portal back to the Hesperia Nevada. His consciousness left the aviary and entered the grey void that he recognized as the ship’s systems.
As he focused, the control hierarchy took shape. Silver tried to stop him, but here she could not constrain his control of the network. Crash hacked the real security token this time, and administrative barriers fell away.
He saw all of Hespera Nevada as a filament construct, different systems interconnected and resting atop each other…and then he spotted a dim jewel in the center of the ice tower.
It was Shara’s shard.
Silver had been correct that Shara slept. But she wasn’t just sleeping, she was in stasis.
Crash approached carefully, taking note of all the various connection points between the SAI and the ship.
With access to the external sensors, he could see the ground battle had reached the outer edges of the scrapyard. Drones crawled over dead hulls to find high ground, as ground forces moved like ants. Projectile weapons wound up, glowing hotly as they spat rounds.
Humans in power armor leaped through the low gravity, firing on Psion attack drones as they arced. There was something false about all of it. It had the look of some kind of organized sport. Despite that, he saw whole waves of ships around them destroyed by weapons blasts and exploding drones.
The fight would devour their position soon. He switched to the astrogation system and found Ngoba’s flight plan still waiting for activation.
Crash stared, not understanding.
In reality, mere microseconds had passed from when Ngoba gave Kirre the command to launch, and the point when Silver took control of Crash’s Link.
The humans were still standing in the command deck, looking at the holodisplay, waiting for their plan to follow its course. The shuttle was detached and now floated just ahead of the Hesperia Nevada. He was surprised Silver had allowed that to happen, but didn’t waste time wondering why.
Several administrative levels down, Silver continued to scream at him. Crash studied Shara again, then decided not to wake her. He couldn’t see anything good happening if the AI came awake and took control of the ship in the midst of their escape plan.
However, that didn’t stop him from poking the various control mechanisms locking the SAI. The stasis field was unique, reminding him of a collar someone might have placed on a human slave, a sort of shackle restraining her higher functions.
He couldn’t tell if Shara was awake behind—or within—the field’s grip, but he left her alone for now. Returning to his active Link, Crash slowed down his perception and reentered regular time.
Ngoba gripped the flight controls with focused intensity. The ship pitched beneath them, which was a strange feeling considering its size.
In the holotank, the shuttle shot ahead. Several Psion drones from the surrounding fight picked up the shuttle’s movement on their sensors and tracked it with active scanning.
Waves of scanner pings appeared in the holodisplay like vibrations. Kirre waited several more seconds until the shuttle had actively drawn off a wave of both Psion and human followers, then punched the thrusters and pointed the Hesperia Nevada in the opposite direction, with a flight path that would take them directly off Vesta.
Crash barely had time to tighten his grip on the back of the headrest before the g-forces smashed down on his body.
For now, at least, it appeared the nearest forces were following the shuttle, and the Hesperia Nevada was going to slip through the gap created by surprise.
In the back of Crash’s mind, Silver continued to scream.
ANGRY QUEEN
STELLAR DATE: 03.28.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Emerson Sharp Communications Station
REGION: Vesta, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
“You think capturing Lyssa is going to be that easy?” Ty asked Amstrad. “I don’t know a lot about how sentient AIs communicate across long distances, but it seems like he’d be able to warn her of what you’re up to. Or the other Kylan—I assume there’s now two of them since you copied one against his will—might be on to the fact something doesn’t feel right. But I’m not a genius hacker like you.”
“She’s already been responding to the aberration in his signal. The other part of this is that he’s important to her. So I think will be getting a response very soon.”
“Lyssa’s a pretty easy person to track, isn’t she? Where is she right now?”
Amstrad gave him a knowing nod. “She’s right up there. Not a thousand clicks above us. She’s never been closer.”
No sooner had Amstrad leaned back in his chair when his console emitted a series of complaining alerts. A new status report appeared, showing several icons that looked angry to Ty.
The glaring overhead lights blinked.
Amstrad frowned.
Still reading his display, Amstrad developed the look of a man watching a bomb exploding in slow motion. His jaw dropped.
“Is that her?” Ty asked.
Amstrad didn’t answer.
Ty knew he had to act now. Without moving his head, he glanced over and found his battle buddy still unconscious. His friend’s breathing was shallow and his skin waxy. Ty watched him for a few seconds, counting the slow and shallow breaths. Manny looked like he was slipping into shock, which could mean internal bleeding.
Amstrad had set the shock wand on the desk beside his console and was manipulating his holodisplay with both hands.
The lights blinked out again, longer this time. Something was definitely attacking the power.
Amstrad muttered under his breath. Two damp spots had appeared under his armpits, his composure stiff.
Ty quickly took stock of what was around him, staring at this server rack just out of arm’s reach to his left. To his right stood the multicolored wall of the bookshelf. Each of the books had the glossy appearance of their plas coverings.
Now.
Ty stood and sent his wheeled chair spinning across the floor toward Amstrad. Twisting, he grabbed the first book within reach, yanked it off the shelf, and hurled it at Amstrad’s head. It felt like a dictionary.
The chair’s squeaking wheels caught Amstrad’s attention. He had time to look up before the book struck him in the face. In another second, two more books hit him in the temple and neck, and then Ty was on top of him.
Ty delivered two quick strikes to Amstrad’s solar plexus, then wrapped his arms around the hacker’s thin neck in a sleeper hold.
Amstrad gasped and gurgled, clawing at Ty’s forearms. He rasped, “She’s gonna get in. Can’t stop her. She’ll kill us all. Kill me first. Kill you.”
“I won’t be around to find out,” Ty said. He squeezed tighter until the thin man went limp.
Ty quickly laid him out on the floor then grabbed a reel of network filament from the workbench. In thirty seconds, he had Amstrad trussed securely.
Standing over the gurgling hacker, Ty turned the shock wand in his hands, checking its controls. As he expected, the device was simple enough, with a spread control and strength setting, but several times stronger than anything he’d seen before. Amstrad hadn’t been lying when he’d threatened to kill with the thing; he’d been hitting them with half strength. Ty cranked it to seventy five percent and zapped the hacker.
The thin man went rigid, throat convulsing as he choked. His eyes opened, bulging as he flopped like a fish.
“You’re an asshole,” Ty said.
Turning to face the drone holding Manny, Ty tried voice commands to get it to release his friend. When the drone didn’t respond, he located its power override behind a panel in its rear section. He tore the metal plate off its back and wrenched a handful of
filaments out of its body. The drone rocked in place without letting Manny go.
Ty was forced to yank on each of the arms until the big man finally slipped free and dropped to his knees on the floor. Ty laid him down and performed a quick vitals check. He had a weak pulse, but Manny’s suit was dead, just like Ty’s.
He established a local Link connection, activating Manny’s Caprise.
Ty realized he wasn’t sure which Caprise was speaking.
Caprise’s voice softened.
“Lyssa,” Ty said aloud. He knelt next to Manny, checking his friend’s pulse again.
He knew Caprise was at the end of her capability when she dropped all pretense of personality. Ty preferred the NSAI this way, but Special Operations didn’t consider it mission effective to have such a cold voice in your head.
Ty stacked some books under Manny’s legs and piled several of Amstrad’s uniforms atop his friend to keep him warm. Manny was starting to shiver, obviously going into shock now. Raising his legs wouldn’t do much in the low gravity, but without assistance from his suit, it was the best Ty could do.
Ty ran through options, considering heading back to the upper levels to get a message out. He would have to find an operational radio somewhere in the facility.
He shook his head at himself. He couldn’t stand the idea of coming back to find Manny dead. He wouldn’t leave his friend alone.
Amstrad started to snore. Ty resisted the impulse to hit him with another shock.
Pulling himself to his feet, he went to the console where Kylan’s face had gazed out from the display. He was gone now.
Ty pecked at the controls. The operating system was unfamiliar to him. There was nothing to work with but a flashing green cursor on a field of black. If Caprise couldn’t talk to whatever system was inside the network, there was nothing he could do.
The mission was at a crisis point. He needed to find a way to communicate with headquarters to request an extraction. He couldn’t do that from three levels underground inside a shielded bunker.
The lights flickered again, then went out completely.
Ty found himself in absolute darkness, the consoles sighing all around him as they wound down.
He waited for a minute, expecting the light to return, but there was nothing. All the various status lights had gone dead. The cooling systems were silent, and he was utterly alone in a tomb.
The power was out.
The buzz of silence filled his ears, until he barely made out Manny’s shallow breathing, followed by a choking snore from Amstrad.
THE WAY AROUND
STELLAR DATE: 03.28.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Equatorial Junk Yard
REGION: Vesta, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
Ngoba stumbled to one side of the corridor, his boots slipping on the metal deck. Crash floated behind him and couldn’t stop himself from flying into the man’s back.
Ngoba caught hold of the bulkhead rib.
They were entering the laboratory sections of the ship. During takeoff, the environmental canisters were locked into a landing configuration. This forced Ngoba and Crash to climb through several laboratories before they reached the area filled with bio-signs.
Crash had vague memories of this part of the ship. He had not spent much time here after escaping the aviary where Doomie had died.
Now, all these spaces were empty. Areas that had been alive with birds and activity were cold. The ship looked more like a cargo freighter than anything that had once held abundant life. It all made him sad.
Like the other areas, everything was spotlessly clean. Crash found himself wondering how the drones had even managed to keep the walls clean in an area that should have been full of birds.
Crash hopped from Ngoba’s back to grip the fabric on his shoulder. He ruffled his feathers and folded his wings then nuzzled Ngoba’s ear without thinking about it.
Ngoba laughed in spite of himself.
Crash recalled the special strawberries Ngoba brought him, kept fresh in a stasis cube. It seemed like a very long time ago now.
He felt, with certainty, that Ngoba was his friend. Despite all the other uncertainty in the world, this seemed something he could depend on. It made him worry less about the future, but also made him aware that he had a job to do in keeping this human crew alive.
Crash ran a quick network check to ensure Silver was still caught in the web where he had placed her. She no longer had access to his Link, and he had also separated her from Shara’s cradle. As if from behind a heavy curtain, he heard Silver still screaming at him. He didn’t understand how a parrot could carry so much anger.
Ngoba made his way down the corridor to the first set of doors separating the crew areas from the laboratories. Crash activated the security system and the doors cycled and slid apart. They entered a white-walled area lined with cabinets and examination tables where animals could be strapped down for surgery.
Crash tried not to look for too long, since everything reminded him of Doomie and Testa. They crossed the quiet laboratory, the bio indicators in Crash’s Link growing stronger as they approached the far end.
They passed through several more sections, surrounded by silent laboratories, crew rest areas, and a galley with an exploded coffeemaker that made Ngoba issue a long, disappointed sigh.
When the doors separating them from the mass of bio signatures—that Crash knew were the parrots—finally opened, he found himself dreading actually passing through.
When Crash hesitated, Ngoba stopped with his hand on the door and asked,
Crash said.
Ngoba let out a low whistle. He put his hand on the butt of his pistol.
Crash bobbed his head, clacking his beak.
Before he could stop himself again, Crash activated the door’s security system. The lock cycled, and the two halves slid open.
They stood in the doorway of a long narrow space that was really just a gangway between wide sections that Crash could see were filled with incubation trays. The trays sat on carousels that would move to expose a row of eggs with each rotation.
A human standing on the gangway could inspect hundreds of eggs at a time. Hanging from the center above the gangway, were status controls showing information about each tray. The row of eggs exposed to the gangway currently, all showed various indicators from red to yellow to green. Some of the eggs were obviously rotten. But others were a rosy bluish gold color.
They stood together, staring for what felt like a long time.
Crash said.
Crash refocused his attention on the network. He still heard Silver shouting and raging at him from behind the security walls. He traced her Link to determine her physical location. She raged at him like a small star, boiling with fire edged in crackling lightning. Her emotions were raw and seemed like they would burn to the touch.
Despite the energy radiating off her presence, Crash passed her and followed her Link connection back through the ship’s network, tracking meters of fiber through the bulkhead back to the command section and then down the path he and Ngoba had followed into the laboratories.
Her presence was a serpent winding throughout the ship. She had grown through the communication networks like a vine.
The path terminated back in the room where they stood, and Crash kicked off Ngoba’s shoulder to float to a point several meters down the gangplank. He controlled his momentum, and drifted to a stop, grabbing onto the railing with his claws.
