ARTIS PRIME

by Tobias Roote

  They reappeared, now out of range of the Space Station, but possibly still on the long-range scanners of the battleships. RIGA pulled up the star charts that Paris had given them, and looked at the patrol sectors. “Gossie, move us to... here,” she indicated a position well out of the patrol sector of Captain Jennings. If he followed them there, RIGA intended to find a way to neutralise him.

  Over the course of the next hour, RIGA had Gossie move the ship three times; each jump progressively deeper into Terran space and further from The Tesperadus’ patrol area. As she relaxed, RIGA spent more time preparing for their next move. They needed to be untrackable; she hoped the Tesperadus did not pass on their frequencies. If the pirates could see her, then their mission would be compromised.

  “All right Gossie,” RIGA announced after spending some time flitting through the vidscreen at high speed, while assimilating the output from the Terran logs, acquired from Paris. “Most of the thefts of weapons have been from these two sectors of space.” She ringed an area of space that held four planets. There were several major shipping lanes running through the area, and one military route, that she could see.

  They jumped to a central point to give them the highest potential interception opportunity.

  Analysing the thefts using the combined data from Paris and the Terran authorities, RIGA began to see that each time a theft occurred, the patrols were at their furthest point from the planet. She drilled down through the extensive data files that Paris had offloaded as part of the mission briefing, and began to dig. This was a job she excelled at, and in this at least, she had no equal.

  The AI was monitoring current communications, both on a military and commercial level. Encrypted data was obviously off-limits, that was conditional, but the frequencies of all unencrypted communication was available to them. This was where sector by sector reports on any intrusions would be announced. Gossie monitored ship movements within sectors, and used their newly updated long-range scanners to detect movement on non-scheduled routes.

  By moving location constantly, dropping intercept drones, as well as using Gossie’s new jump system to reach different vectors, they built up a picture of the regular movement of traffic and communications. From this, they eventually identified an asteroid where an occasional communication seemed to bounce off. As it was encrypted they were unable to read the signals, but it made RIGA curious because of its remote location. She instructed Gossie to jump to the coordinates, and remain cloaked and shielded, while they checked it out.

  RIGA suspected it might be a military relay that wasn’t on their maps. She didn’t want to attract any attention, particularly from the Terran Navy. All her instincts told her they were in the right area, she simply needed to be patient. Once a lead materialised, it would be a frantic and probably dangerous journey to track it down, and identify it.

  The asteroid was a small lump of insignificant rock that had a static orbit. It housed a pulse relay designed to pick up a directed beam and bounce it to a second location. Intentionally built as a dumb piece of equipment, it kept no memory other than the coordinates of the recipient, usually a dead-drop location.

  They had no means of knowing where the drop was. It was hidden in a non-communicative drone. You could only interrogate it with a physical connection, and the military version of these were tamper proof. They could only hope their drones were spaced sufficiently well to triangulate the signal when it came, and went.

  When it occurred, the sensors almost missed it. A burst message came into the asteroid, and bounced out towards the planets. Gossie, using the drones to triangulate, managed to intercept and follow through on its location on the second planet. From there it relayed to a third location marked on the star map as the planet Vergent, then stopped. They jumped to a position two hundred miles above the planet, and pulled up the known data on its inhabitants.

  Vergent was sparsely populated. Owned by a mining corporation who had terraformed it a hundred and twenty years ago, it was beginning to be properly colonised, With reliance on anti-grav vehicles, isolated communities had sprung up everywhere. The farming and agricultural development was slow. The abundant growth of vegetation used in the terraforming had mutated into a voracious vine like growth, that broke up the tundra so efficiently, it also tore into the habitats that were shipped in. Keeping areas clear was evidently hard work. There were many locations with little, or no evidence of activity, beyond the habitat enclosures. It was one of these that had received the bounced signal.

  The location map showed a receiving point at the edge of a large complex; with no walls, or fences they appeared to be easily accessible, with a complete absence of security. That would make RIGA’s job easier. As the building in question came onto her monitor, it was possible to zoom in and get a picture of the layout. Infra-red indicated one inhabitant plus active electronic equipment, in what appeared to be a storage depot. Possible location of stolen technology, RIGA considered. She decided it was worth following up.

  “What are you going to do?” Gossie asked. She was supposed to always know what her plans were, but RIGA tried to make Gossie ask as it encouraged two-way conversation. This helped RIGA keep in practice for her cover when on planet. Nothing worse than pretending to be a human, then zapping everything with AI non-verbal communications, to cause confusion and suspicion.

  “Can you use Osachi’s new equipment to put me in front of that utility building?” RIGA pointed at an outbuilding that was showing up red on the monitor, probably indicating some form of generator. Its signature and noise level should hide her arrival from prying and electronic eyes.

  “Affirmative,” Gossie answered.

  This would be the first time they had used the jump facility to transport her outside of the Station, and RIGA was feeling the human term they called ‘nervous’. Despite not needing to breathe, she found herself maintaining a psychological pause as she transformed from inside the cockpit, to the planet surface. The jump placed her outside a low flat-roofed unit. Her target was part of a group of buildings, all low and similar in design, and RIGA wasn’t immediately sure which one it was, until she overlaid the map that she had memorised from the ship’s survey.

  11. Secrets in Space

  It was night on Vergent. Illumination from the buildings provided enough background to enable RIGA to check her location. She was out in the open, leaving her plainly visible to anyone looking through windows. She used the heel of her hand to send an electrical charge through her Armillo leather suit. It phased out, and her image became transparent as it blended in with the locality. She would be constantly moving, so it wouldn’t be 100%, but it would take much of the attention off her, if anyone was looking her way.

  RIGA ran for the nearest wall. She had a hood which would cover her head, but she left it off, needing to hear every sound. It would be a strange sight if anyone saw her; a corpse-less head running along. She didn’t dare use her sensors yet either, in case they were picked up by the target.

  Reaching the entrance, RIGA noted the door technology in use. Doors tended to be pretty standard across the human and AI worlds, either genetically coded, manual with handles, or electronic with code. This was the latter, it would be easy.

  RIGA placed her hand against the controls. The tiny wires sought their way through and between the seals to make contact with the inside of the door. A few minutes passed while the tendrils connected to the right data channels in the boxed electronics, then having made a connection with the software, she went to work. It took longer than she would have liked, but it was the quietest way to access a building. RIGA was just starting to wonder if she was going to have to blow the doors, when the software accepted her connection and allowed her access to the mechanism. Within moments she heard the door click quietly, as the multiple bolt action slid back with a well oiled motion.

  Removing her fring, she pressed the jewelled bezel. Unravelling, the wire buzzed and sparked as the end danced on the ground, earthing it. Activating her neck a
mulet, she felt the shield vibrate as it enveloped her. Osachi’s upgrade had made a minor difference, so that her sensitivity could now pick up the shield’s activation.

  RIGA now slipped into the building using the narrowest opening, allowing the door to click closed, but remain unlocked. She made her way slowly in the darkness, benefiting from the overlaid plans from the ship and her low light optics, which allowed her to move freely as though daylight. The single individual in the building showed as being in the room ahead; the light from the door overly bright as she looked in its immediate direction.

  Her optics shrank back to normal as she approached. Entering through the part open door, they had already readjusted to the new light. She silently approached her target, a male human in grey coveralls. He looked like a factory worker, and was stooped over something, a transmitter, she deduced from the leaked signals emanating from it.

  He turned towards her, possibly having caught something moving out of the corner of his eye. RIGA lunged and caught hold of his right hand as it went to press a button on the table next to him. She had no idea what would have happened if he managed it, but she suspected an explosive device, or an alarm. She wanted neither, yet. Her scanners were now free to trace the connection from the button to an area beneath the building. Not good, she decided.

  She needed information, and fast.

  He again tried to stab at the button, this time with his other hand, but using her bionic hand against his human one, RIGA easily pulled him away from the table to the centre of the room. Then pressed a nerve, putting him down without a fight.

  As RIGA stood over him she could see that he wasn’t completely out, only temporarily incapacitated. She kneeled, one knee on his chest. Switching it to passive, RIGA wrapped the fring whip around his neck. If he tried to get up or resist, she could activate it; and he would lose his head - literally. In the meantime, it gave off an electronic pulse which would serve to block any electrical signals from, or to his brain.

  Many agents that operated on a clandestine basis, if captured, could tell you nothing. They had a neural implant that would scramble and fry their brain if the conditions implied the operative was under extreme duress. RIGA needed to know if this person had one. If he did, then it would confirm she was on the right track. By neutralising any possible electrical signals she was ensuring that any implant he had, wouldn’t be able to transmit to any local receiver.

  Placing the heel contacts of her palm over one eye where she knew the human skull would be thinner, she used a series of ultrasound pulses to scan his skull from front to back.

  The scan built up a quick layout of the internal biological matter, but she wasn’t interested in any of that. She kept scanning, then, yes, there it was, at the back of the brain, near the spinal cortex. Moving to the left side of his head, RIGA used a fingernail, razor sharp, to cut along the base of the skull, inserting a single tendril into the wound where she could access the implant without drilling.

  Not the nicest of operations to carry out, but essential, and RIGA had learned how to leave the human undamaged in the process. Weaving delicately through human matter, she reached the implant, tracing its neural interface to specific areas of the brain. Sending additional commands down her electronic wires, she spoofed a neural connection to the implant and let her powerful interrogation tools go to work.

  He was a drone. His job was to receive drops from agents who arrived in small shuttles, probably from orbiting pirate vessels, store them until they were of sufficient sized order for a larger vessel to collect, then send the information to a dead drop using the transmitter. He had been in the act of doing just that, as RIGA had arrived. There was a considerable sized haul of tech beneath the building. The list of contents made RIGA aware there was much more going on here. The equipment stored below was sufficient to start a small war.

  As the man began to regain consciousness, the traffic to and from the implant became more active as he tried to communicate with something, or someone. RIGA knew about these from the research they had been doing while waiting for a break in the mission; NTs, neural transmitters, were inserted to control mules and operatives. They could track and monitor agents to ensure they were being loyal and monitored their whereabouts on a regular basis. They were able to deliver burst data to a local relay. She suspected there would be one somewhere near the building; these things didn’t have much of a range.

  ‘Gossie, look for a neural implant relay in the vicinity of this building and see if you can remotely interrogate it,’ RIGA commanded through her interface.

  ‘Searching now,’ the AI responded.

  Returning her attention to the male she was pinning down, she increased the pressure on the whip as he began to try and get her to remove the hand that was pressing hard on his skull. He had to know she was interrogating his chip, but was powerless to do anything to stop her. RIGA may have looked like a small framed female, but the weight of her teutranium inner frame made her as heavy as a full sized man.

  Much of the information was not in a readable format, so she uploaded and stored it ‘as was’ and hope they could decrypt it later. There were some interesting snippets in there though. He was part of a cell on this planet, some of whom were factory workers. Interestingly, there were secret factories manufacturing state of the art components here, posing as agri-stores, where foods and grains were stored in preparation for off-planet export. As she pursued their identities and a possible handler, RIGA sensed something was beginning to interfere with her efforts to extract the information she needed.

  ‘Gossie, are you pushing anything at my prisoner?’ She was getting inbound message warnings, her senses were picking up something strange.

  ‘Negative, RIGA, but I’m tracing a series of two-way relays that lead to a point in space not far from our current location.’

  ‘I think someone or something is aware I am interrogating this prisoner, and is attempting to stop me.’ RIGA withdrew her probes and unwound her lasso. Standing up, she moved back from the man she had disabled. He was now looking at her with an evil smile on his face.

  ‘RIGA, I am sensing increased electrical activity coming from the base of the building,’ her friend warned.

  RIGA turned to run, but it was too late. She saw the door to the room had sealed, locking her and her prisoner inside. Part of the site lock-down in a security breach, she guessed. She had seconds, literally. Then she realised that escape from here was quite simple.

  ‘Jump me from here, I think I have outstayed my welcome,’ RIGA requested, as a harsh rumbling noise began to build from below.

  As she re-materialised in the cockpit, the AI relayed the sensor feedback from the building she had vacated. It was in the process of exploding in a heatwave that had all the hallmarks of a small thermic device. Had RIGA still been there she would have been turned to ash, even her skeleton would probably have been mutilated in that heat.

  She thought about that for a moment. This was a sophisticated operation, with ruthless fail-safes. Pirates and smugglers didn’t go to this level of security to protect their operations. It was seriously worrying; she was continually missing something vitally important, but was beginning to form a worrying theory.

  “We have a new lead from the last transmission. Jumping us to a new location,” Gossie advised over the intercom.

  Before RIGA had reached her chair, the ship had jumped leaving her disoriented again as her sensors tried to assimilate new data. They were still cloaked, but now in the vicinity of another asteroid, larger than the first relay point.

  This one had multiple relays disguised as used mining equipment. As RIGA readjusted her sensors again, she thought that she would have to do something about these jumps putting her into turmoil every time. She set her subroutines to carry out a search through the Terran databases for some way to reset them quicker, then gave her attention over to their current situation.

  “Is it manned?” RIGA asked, not bothering to repeat the sensor sweep that Gos
sie would have already completed multiple times already.

  “Yes, there is an entity inside, but it’s not human. I suspect it to be a RORI. It is probably equipped with neutralisers to remove itself and evidence in the event of discovery,” Gossie surmised, based on past experience as well as the previous location on Vergent which was now just dust in the wind.

  “I am currently tracking communications from the asteroid on all available relays,” the AI advised.

  Stranger and stranger, RIGA thought. They had only just begun their investigation but the level of paranoia of this group implies they expected to be discovered, and had taken excessive steps to ensure their paths were swept clean behind them.

  “Hmm! How do we get into the asteroid to gain the information we need without activating the RORI’s defences?” RIGA thought to herself out loud.

  “Gossie, can we lock onto the RORI and jump it out of range of the asteroid so it cannot activate the neutralisers. I want to get in there and download the cores before they get wiped.”

  “We can try, give me a minute to calibrate. I suspect there are fail-safes Still, you have your shield, and I can jump you out if I keep you locked into the array. That way either you, or I can initiate the jump on demand,” she offered.

  “This Terran jump technology is quite amazing!” RIGA commented admiringly.

  “Yes, although it is not strictly Terran technology,” the AI informed her. “It was retrieved from an alien ship and copied, according to the data-files that were downloaded to my data-banks by Paris.”

  “Really? I wonder what else they managed to get access to. I’m sure our scientists wouldn’t have minded an opportunity like that landing in their midst,” said RIGA.

  Gossie expanded on the knowledge it had gained already. “It's a fascinating history of their explosive technological growth. Three hundred years ago they were barely into space rockets. Now, they are colonising their part of space and have technology that, in many ways, is in advance of ours.”