Homeguard

by Jason Cordova

  “As do I.” Collyn nodded. Suddenly a voice came over the ship-wide comms.

  “Attention guests and passengers, this is your captain speaking,” he said. “We’re about to translate into the jump gate in five minutes. All Wraiths, please return to your suits at this time, since what I’m planning to do when we come out in Anvil might be a little dangerous.”

  “C’mon,” Collyn told her, and they walked back to the cargo hold. Along the way, the six other women joined them. Aurelia looked around and realized the so-called “Shiva squad” had all made it off Solomon.

  “What happened to everyone else?” she asked Collyn. The commander’s eyes narrowed and darkened.

  “I’m hoping they found somewhere to hide, or got lucky, like we did,” Collyn replied. “But honestly, I’m not sure. They were good men and women.”

  “I liked them,” Aurelia proclaimed as the women slid into their suits. Once their breathing apparatuses were on their faces and goggles over their eyes, they slid on their helmets. It became silent as the suits powered up. She patiently waited until Sfyri informed her all of them were online. “Sfyri, put my helmet up, please.”

  “Affirmative,” the AI acknowledged, and Aurelia’s helmet slid easily over her head. The HUD appeared and fed information to the young girl, causing her eyes to strain as they struggled with the brightness. Her headache grew steadily worse.

  “Sfyri, is there anything you can do for my headache?” she asked.

  “I can dim the lights in your HUD by forty percent,” Sfyri offered. “I can also apply a topical ointment within the suit to try to relieve the muscles in your neck and jaw, both of which are exhibiting signs of stress.”

  “Do that,” Aurelia told the AI. Something cool brushed against the back of her neck and behind her ear. Almost instantly she began to feel much better. “Thank you, Sfyri. That’s much better.”

  “Tension is the number one source of all headaches in human beings,” Sfyri informed her. “You are far more likely to develop a tension headache than any other type, unless medically prone to other imperfections in your genetic code.”

  “That’s…good to know,” Aurelia said.

  “Attention, lovely passengers, this is your captain once again,” the captain’s voice cut in over the ship’s comms. “Prepare for translation.”

  Aurelia grew dizzy as everything around her seemed to blur. Sfyri, sensing a problem, immediately took control of the suit’s balance to help Aurelia stay upright. It was a strange combination of sensations for the young girl. Nausea, hunger, a general achiness, and the urge to blink rapidly to clear her eyes all hit her at the same time. Confused, she tried to reach out to grab something to support herself.

  “You’re feeling what each of us feels when we enter a jump gate,” Collyn told her over a private comm. “I feel dizzy. Wren feels hunger, the weirdo. Bunny gets all achy and bitchy, which is amusing as heck.”

  “This stinks,” Aurelia muttered as she tried to force all the imposing sensations out of her mind. It took some effort, but after few moments, it cleared. Breathing a deep sigh of relief, it suddenly dawned on her that, with her headache gone, she could sense what everyone else was feeling and thinking again. It was strange. Unused to the silence without background noise from people’s everyday thoughts, having it all rush back in on her once again was overwhelming. That, or the women of Shiva Squad really were suffering enough to break through her headache-induced barrier.

  “Attention glorious passengers, this is your captain speaking,” the captain’s voice came over the ship’s comms again. Aurelia was beginning to get annoyed by his constant cheerfulness. “We’ve transitioned through the gate. Our estimated time of arrival at Anvil is thirty minutes. Be warned: we’ll be re-entering the gate almost immediately, so stay in your Wraith suits until you receive the all-clear. That’s all.”

  “All right ladies, since we have the time, let’s run a combat sim in our suits,” Collyn announced over the unit’s comm. This was met with a chorus of groans from the other women. Aurelia, who’d never experienced or participated in a sim, was excited, though.

  “Can I watch?” she asked.

  “Watch?” Collyn chuckled. “Girl, you’re participating.”

  “How?” Aurelia wondered, slightly confused. “I don’t have an implant nodule.”

  “Don’t need one,” Collyn stated. “Sfyri, Commander Loftis. Find the VR simulation I’m feeding to your suit and put it up on her HUD. Lock the suit in place, and transmit her actions and responses into the VR setup for instantaneous transmission.”

  “You can do that?” Aurelia questioned Sfyri.

  “I can,” the AI said. There was the barest hint of thoughtfulness and wonder in the program’s voice. “I am surprised Commander Loftis knows this.”

  For the next half hour, Aurelia experienced a simulation unlike anything she’d ever imagined. Sfyri’s processing capabilities were far beyond the Wraith suits and their cortexes, and thus were able to provide the young girl a virtual reality experience which felt as real as those with implant nodes. Watching the Wraiths work as a unit was a sight to behold, and eventually Collyn incorporated Aurelia and her suit into the complex maneuvers.

  It quickly became apparent to everyone involved that Aurelia’s ability to sense them while using the HUD overlays for situational awareness gave her an advantage in the simulated battle. Time and time again, the hordes of Abassi threatened to break through Shiva squad’s lines, only for the hole to be plugged by Aurelia and her suit. There was no need to call for support. She was simply there when needed.

  Collyn bumped the difficulty up multiple times, and, every time, Aurelia and the rest of Shiva squad easily managed to repel the Abassi. Collyn, frustrated, finally brought up an opposing squad of Wraiths to take them on.

  That had the effect she’d been looking for. Aurelia’s suit, not armored for the typical head-to-head combat Wraiths were built for, couldn’t do much when the Shivas attacked. Aurelia began to grow frustrated at her inability to do much, and it quickly began to show, as Shiva squad was soundly defeated by the opposing Wraith unit.

  “Aurelia,” Collyn called out over the private comm as soon as the scenario ended. “You need to control your temper.”

  “I am!” the young girl snapped irritably. Collyn coughed slightly and sighed.

  “No, you’re not,” she admonished her in a gentle tone. “You’re getting frustrated and losing control.”

  “Why’d you make it so hard?” Aurelia whined.

  “Because your suit allows you to do things we can’t,” Collyn explained as clearly and concisely as possible to the young girl. “Against the Abassi, who have practically no armor but are faster than we are, you’re absolutely lethal, even more so than a Darksuit. But when you confront a Wraith, you can’t go at them head-on. Your armor is worthless in that situation. Sometimes you need to attack sideways. Do you remember when I tagged you when we were out in the field?”

  “You mean the time you cheated?”

  “Exactly that time, yes.” Collyn was amused at what Aurelia had taken away from that particular lesson. “I did the unexpected. I came at you sideways. If you have a problem you can’t take head-on, look for a new angle. Not every solution requires a hammer. If you think every problem requires a hammer, you’ll never realize a sponge can clean the glass better than a hammer ever will.”

  Aurelia was silent for a long time before she spoke again.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I lost my temper, and I shouldn’t have.”

  “It’s okay, Aurelia,” Collyn told her. “It’s how you deal with it that makes you who you are.”

  “Attention, passengers,” the captain’s voice interrupted their discussion. “Prepare for translation into Anvil space, then an immediate departure for parts unknown.”

  “Parts unknown?” Aurelia asked, giggling softly.

  “I hope he means Argus,” Collyn commented.

  Once more Aurelia felt t
he emotions of every Shiva member as they passed through the jump gate and into real space, only this time she was better prepared for it. Managing to push most of the intruding emotions aside, she instead focused on what she was feeling. Unsure precisely what that was, she decided to talk to Sfyri.

  “Why does the jump gate affect people like that?” she asked the AI.

  “Studies suggest humans are not designed for travel through the space that constitutes the link between two gates,” Sfyri explained. “However, there are some who are physiologically capable doing so without adverse effects. It has been put forth these individuals hold an evolutionary gene not all of mankind has developed yet. The resulting debates have been contentious, and the issue is currently unresolved.”

  “I have no clue what you mean,” Aurelia muttered.

  Suddenly the ship lurched to the side. Unprepared, Aurelia flailed her arms as the Wraiths gathered around her were thrown violently against the bulkhead of the cargo hold. Alarms began to whoop throughout the freighter. Sfyri, ever helpful, had already anticipated the maneuver the moment the internal gyro sensed the ship had been impacted by an outside force. The AI had been able to predict which way to maneuver so, when the jarring motion caught up to Aurelia, Sfyri was able to handle the footwork to keep her upright.

  “Impact! Brace for impact!” the captain called out as the rest of Shiva squad struggled to get back on their feet. Another shudder rippled through the ship, and Aurelia moved over to the downed Wraiths. Struggling with her own balance, she began to help the others up.

  “Sfyri!” Aurelia called, frightened. “What’s happening?” The AI took a full four seconds to respond.

  Sfyri hacked the computer systems of the freighter with frightening ease. It had known the security system of the civilian ship wasn’t proof against a high-grade military encryption system, but it should’ve at least afforded more protection than it had. Feeds from sensors, scanners, and the on-board radar immediately went into Sfyri’s processing center, and Sfyri was able to identify the problem immediately.

  The military-grade jump engines of the task force that had been pursuing them outclassed the smuggler’s engines by an order of magnitude. Thus, while the six-ship task force had entered the jump gate a full fifteen minutes after the freighter, they’d actually arrived ten minutes sooner. This had allowed the three ships that had traversed to Anvil to prepare for their arrival.

  Sfyri, if an AI could be emotional, was unhappy with this development. The Navy ships confronting them would hammer the freighter as it made its turn to run back to the jump gate. Meanwhile, the other ships would be back on site within the next hour, since they had to come all the way from Belleza Sutil. If the three Navy vessels—corvettes, Sfyri noticed—could prevent them from escaping, the other ships would have time to box the freighter in. No, Sfyri decided. That simply would not do.

  Hacking a jump gate’s navigational box on a civilian vessel was a simple procedure. Sfyri began to run numbers through it, looking for something that could help. Unwittingly, the AI found the code numbers for Argus, Kurma, Belleza Sutil, and the trip back to Solomon. None of those would work, however, since they’d catch up and continue entrapping them. No, the AI needed to be inventive, even if it went against its standard programming.

  The ship shuddered as another hit scored along the hull. A graser, Sfyri deduced from the electrical scorches that pockmarked the stern of the hull. It was clear to the AI that they didn’t want to kill them, merely disable them. That put the advantage back into the freighter’s court, and that of the AI that had taken over the ship’s computers.

  Quickly creating a new subroutine within the primary coding, Sfyri labeled it the “RNG” code, standing for random number generator. The artificial intelligence decided to leave the choice of gate number completely to chance. Since it couldn’t predict where they’d end up, perhaps that would give them better odds of escaping their pursuers.

  Four seconds passed.

  “Aurelia, we are about to jump to a random gate number,” Sfyri informed her. “I have informed the other Wraiths, and Commander Loftis as well.”

  “What?”

  “Jumping in five, four, three, two, one, mark,” Sfyri counted down.

  The ship lurched just as Sfyri called “mark,” which caused the jump engines to fluctuate momentarily, and nearly disabled them. Sfyri, uncertain what else to do, continued to allow the RNG subroutine to randomize the gate number. As the freighter entered jump space, the AI realized they were jumping to a gate that wasn’t one of the four gates Anvil was currently connected to.

  If an AI could say “oops,” Sfyri would have at that moment. However, since the artificial intelligence didn’t know it had made a mistake, it was simply jotted down in the software that a new gate had been discovered. Sfyri was an adaptive AI, designed from the human brain, and it quickly decided the ship was in trouble. The worst part was, the AI wasn’t in a position to warn anybody, because at that moment, they abruptly emerged from the jump gate at a new location, which happened to be in the middle of an asteroid field.

  “What the…brace for impact!” the captain called out. “Crash netting, crash netting!”

  Aurelia looked around in confusion for a moment before Collyn grabbed her suit and pushed her into the opposite bulkhead. Nearly panicking, Aurelia saw that Collyn had shoved her into a strange webbing of straps and ropes, which were hanging from the ceiling in the cargo hold. It took the young girl less than a second to deduce what they were for, and she quickly did her best to get behind them, into a secure position.

  The others followed her example, except for Collyn, who ensured all the women under her command were safely in position before she got into the crash netting. A vicious jolt shook the entire ship, and the power suddenly went out. With the artificial gravity gone, the netting started to drift off the deck.

  “Hang on,” Collyn told her as she began to float away from the rest of the Wraiths. Another impact on the outer hull sent Collyn flying through the cargo hold. She glanced off the ceiling, then slammed into the bulkhead with a sickening crunch. However, the Imperfect was saved by her Wraith suit; instead of being killed, she was merely knocked unconscious.

  Sfyri, aware of the ship’s maneuvers, detected a massive gravity well nearby. There were no active systems the AI could use to determine what they were headed for, only that it was roughly planet-sized. It also knew an unconscious person was far more likely to survive a crash than someone who was expecting it, since the body reacted differently when anticipating an event. The AI was a little troubled about doing something without Aurelia’s permission but, as Collyn had instructed it earlier, Sfyri’s job was to keep the little girl safe, no matter what.

  “I’m sorry, Aurelia,” Sfyri announced as she added pressure to the movement pads inside Aurelia’s suit.

  “Huh?” Aurelia asked, confused.

  Sfyri ignored the sound and braced the girl’s neck so she couldn’t struggle. Aurelia, unsure what was going on, began to resist. The AI knew there wasn’t much time before she began to call for help, so it quickly injected a small dose of propofol into Aurelia’s carotid artery. The little girl started to protest the sharp pain, but drifted off instead. Sfyri, monitoring her vital signs, saw the injection had been just enough to make the girl fall asleep, though not deeply.

  The ship buckled sharply, and Sfyri estimated there was a 46.3% chance they’d entered the atmosphere of the planet. A moment later, her sensors confirmed it, which led the AI to briefly calculate the flight time between their reentry into real space and the planet’s location. Sfyri quickly determined the jump gate was too close to the planet for some unknown reason. The asteroid belt, the AI presumed—based on limited information—had once been a moon before accidently entering the field between the jump gate generators. Why the gate was so close to the planet wasn’t something the AI cared to speculate upon. The survival of the girl inside the suit was Sfyri’s primary focus.

  The ship�
��s backup generators came online and, while the active sensors were still out, this at least gave the AI something to monitor besides Aurelia’s vitals. The passive scanners were up and running, which told the AI far more than it had known moments before. However, the information Sfyri received didn’t comfort the AI one bit.

  The ship was damaged, though not enough to break apart upon violent atmospheric entry. If the rate of descent continued, however, Sfyri knew the likelihood of everyone surviving was low. Oddly enough, if the Wraiths and Aurelia had been outside the ship, their odds would have been much higher, so much so, that it was almost a certainty they would live. Being trapped inside the 25,000-metric-ton cargo freighter would kill each and every one of them should it hit the ground at its current velocity. This was unacceptable to the AI.

  Sfyri quickly rewrote the internal coding of the passive sensors. In less than 0.23 seconds, the AI had discovered two flaws in the coding and made notes for later corrections. It also determined that restarting the engines and providing enough power to offer what pilots called a “controlled crash” was sitting at a 63% chance. It was an acceptable risk, given that if the AI didn’t try, the absolute and total destruction of the freighter was a near certainty.

  Rerouting power through the passive sensors to try to kickstart the engines was only a theoretical possibility for the designers of the system. There was a theory that it could be done, given the advancements of computer software over the previous decades. Sfyri took this possibility and made it a reality as the AI wrote a new coding routine into the system to bypass the typical engine boot program. It was rudimentary, but considering Sfyri wrote 13,271 blocks of coding in 2.54 seconds, the AI was satisfied.

  The ship’s violent convulsions changed in pitch as the atmospheric engines, having used the resistance of the air to kickstart themselves, began to slow the freighter. Sfyri checked the ship’s descent, and would have winced had it been able to. The ship would land, hard, in an icy region to the far north. The AI quickly scanned the surface of the world, noting that over 70% of the surface was covered with ice. There was a thin band of dark green between paler strips of tundra-like environment, which appeared to create a natural border between the ice and the lush forest at the equator.