The AI War

by Stephen Ames Berry

  John frowned. “Until the commwand’s secure?”

  “That certainly,” nodded the Scotar. “But if the Ractolians die, Harrison, we may all die. We need this dreadnought—and its secrets. It’s the only ship in this universe that can stand against an AI battleglobe.”

  Four hundred and nine light-years away, Lifepod 38 prepared to make planet fall.

  Chapter 8

  Kronar had no God. Ten thousand years of high technology had left the concept a desiccated anthropological husk.

  Hell, though, thought Detrelna, gripping his chair, hell is alive, well and dead ahead.

  The commodore sat to Egg’s right, with Lawrona buckled into the navigator’s station, just behind him. An endless expanse of battlesteel, weapons turrets and instrument pods filled the armorglass windscreen: Alpha Prime.

  Must have raped ten worlds to get all that metal, thought Detrelna. He looked up to his right. The corsair shuttle was holding station next to them, forward fuselage just visible.

  “Why aren’t their smaller batteries firing, Egg?” asked Lawrona. He pointed to the small circle of the mindslaver’s hull now inside the subdued blue shimmer of the shield’s apex. “Weapons scan shows several hundred small fusion cannon down there. We’re not shielded—they should have wiped us the moment we came within range.”

  “There are no weapons batteries, Captain,” said the slaver machine. “Nor unbroken hull surface. It sat in the pilot’s chair, safety harness buckled across it, light tendrils tying it into the shuttle controls.

  Lawrona tapped a telltale. “Tacscan clearly shows—”

  “Scan-chimera,” said Egg. “An instrument-deceiving hologram. All that’s inside our shield point is the sally port and we’re heading straight into it. ”

  “But…” protested Lawrona.

  “Mark to penetration: Twenty,” said Egg, silencing the captain. “Captain Kotran, please assume position directly behind us.”

  “Acknowledged,” came the corsair’s voice over the commnet.

  “Mark fifteen,” said Egg. The hull rushed up to meet them, looking very real and hard.

  “Battlesteel’s not a forgiving surface, Egg,” said Detrelna. ID numbers were now visible on the hull instrument pods.

  A continuous shrill warbling sounded—the shuttle’s crash alert. Instinctively, Detrelna grabbed the copilot’s control stick and pulled. Nothing. Locked.

  “What if the disintegrator cubes are already on?” shouted Lawrona above the alarm.

  “Then good-bye,” said Egg as they knifed into the slaver’s hull—and through it, shooting down a wide, brightly lit tunnel.

  Egg fired the shuttle’s turret cannon, sending a double stream of red fusion bolts ahead of them. A brief tongue of orange-blue flame shot out, marking the portal’s far end.

  Large hexagonal cubes along walls and ceiling provided the tunnel’s light. Detrelna blanched as they began to oscillate, glowing brighter with each cycle. “Egg…” he called.

  “Disintegration sequence has begun,” confirmed the machine.

  From behind came a loud snap! Something big, foiled of its prey, thought Detrelna, punching up rear scan. A fierce white light glowed where they’d just been—a burning shaft filling the tunnel, gaining on them with each snap! of ravening energy.

  “Pathetically obsolete,” sneered Egg. “It can only activate by sections.”

  “Faster!” called Kotran.

  Detrelna switched rear scan angle. The corsair shuttle was almost touching their own, with Atir and Kotran clearly visible through their armorglass.

  “No,” said the slaver machine. “We must turn as soon as we exit. We can’t make the turn at speed—we’d crash into the bulkhead.”

  “You’re not making it without us, Detrelna,” said the corsair. Watching the comm screen, Detrelna saw Kotran reach up and touch the weapons panel.

  “Not what I meant by watching our rear, Kotran,” said the commodore. Thick fingers sent their blaster turret swinging 180 degrees. Through the remote gunnery interface, Detrelna could see that flawlessly destructive shaft of white almost touching Kotran’s tail.

  “Belay that,” said Lawrona. “We’re through.”

  The shuttles shot past the twisted ruins of a great slab of battlesteel, then banked right, accelerating down a broad gray corridor. From behind them came a final snap! Light flared behind them, then winked off.

  Detrelna leaned back in his chair, sighing. “Hell is alive and well, Hanar,” he said.

  “Sorry?” said the captain.

  “Nothing,” said Detrelna, waving a hand. He glanced at the rear scan. “Ease off, Kotran,” he said. “You’re coming up our tubes.”

  “My pleasure,” said the corsair, dropping back.

  “And disarm those Mark 44s,” added the commodore. The corsair’s cannon pointed straight at the Fleet shuttle.

  “Sure,” said the corsair.

  “Where’s your counterattack, Egg?” asked Lawrona, staring down the seemingly endless stretch of corridor. Intersections and equipment banks flashed by.

  “Before we reach the bridge, Captain,” said Egg. “It will be swift and deadly.”

  Kiroda unfastened his survival jacket and tossed it over the back of the captain’s chair. Others on the bridge were doing the same. “First we freeze, now we bake.” He punched into the commnet. “Natrol. Life systems’ status?”

  Kiroda waited impatiently, watching as comm screen slipped from the ship-shield-and-sun into a distortion-flecked horizontal roll, then back to the Fleet emblem. Disgusted, he snapped off the commkey. “This is absurd,” he said, running his sleeve across his brow. “I’m going down to Engineering,” he told Tolei.

  The second officer shook his head. “I don’t think so, Tolei. Look.” He pointed to the bridge doors. Two commandos had the cover off the entrance control panel and were pushing the red override again and again. The thick armored doors didn’t move.

  The crash and clang of falling metal sent everyone spinning toward the deserted navigation console. The console’s gray inspection panel lay on the floor. Multicolored light pulsed along the optics cables laced beneath the instruments, a jungle of crystalline wire that parted beneath two hairy hands. Then hands emerged, followed by gold-ringed brown sleeves and a familiar head. “Well?” said Natrol, looking up into a dozen M11As. “Don’t just stand there fondling your blasters, help me.”

  “Get him out of there,” ordered Kiroda. Toral and a commando grabbed the engineer, pulling him free. Brushing himself off, Natrol went to the captain’s station, the bridge crew following. Most of their instruments were now useless, all the screens blank.

  “You climbed the light conduits from Engineering?” guessed Kiroda.

  Natrol nodded. “Central core’s locked tight. Eight decks up, then a long walk the length of the ship.” He slumped into the empty XO’s chair and dialed for t’ata. A cup of brackish-looking glob appeared. Natrol stuffed the cup into the unresponsive disposer. “At best,” continued the engineer, “you walk stooped over, or pick your way up ladder rungs, wondering if they’re going to give—some of them are half out of their sockets. There’s a warm, dry breeze blowing, and the only illumination comes from the light pulses.” He seemed strangely subdued, much of his old arrogance gone. “It’s eerie.”

  “I doubt anyone’s been down there since the Fall,” said Kiroda. “Imperial boots last walked those conduits. Fleet just pulled this ship out of stasis, did some minor mods, and sent her off to fight the Scotar.”

  “Anything from the Commodore?” asked Natrol, looking at the circle of faces. Several heads shook.

  “We can’t even get off the bridge,” said Kiroda, nodding toward the doors. “Never mind contacting the shuttles.”

  “I came to tell you,” said Natrol after glancing at the doors, “life systems are—”

  “We know they’re gone,” said Toral.

  Natrol shook his head. “Not gone—transformed. The stasis algorithm freezes key system
s, then reprograms them. Life systems were the first to fall. Its new mission is to kill us.”

  “How?” asked Kiroda.

  “Wilder and wilder peaks and valleys in our environment,” said the engineer. “I had a report of a blizzard on hangar deck, just before we lost the commnet.”

  “So did we,” said Lakan.

  “If the computer’s serious, why doesn’t it just turn the oxygen scrubbers off?” asked Toral. “We’d be dead soon enough.”

  “Or hit us with some hard vacuum?” said Kiroda. “Or power surges, or any number of deadly tricks the computer could use?”

  “The Empire, my children,” said Natrol, eyes sweeping their worried faces. “No proof, but I think those long-dead Fleet engineers hardened their cybernetics against nonexistent stasis algorithms.” He glanced at Kiroda. The first officer bowed slightly. “But,” Natrol held up a finger, “the computer can’t hold out forever. It’s fighting a rearguard action. The algorithm’s going after propulsion and jump drive now.”

  “Weapons?” asked Toral.

  “Weapons power feedback firmed up—the fluctuations were probably a secondary effect of its tinkering with life systems. But you’ll have to man the batteries—it trashed remote targeting.”

  “And we’re helpless without the original algorithm?” said Kiroda.

  “Or its antidote,” nodded the engineer. “Which I think that slaver machine has.”

  “Probably,” said Kiroda. “Let’s hope the commodore brings it back intact.”

  “And it the commodore,” said Natrol.

  A faint clanking came from across the bridge. Everyone turned to look. Sweating and, cursing, the two commandos were cranking open the doors, using a hand winch installed centuries before by a meticulous Imperial Fleet.

  “There’s something you should see,” said Natrol as the doors grew wider. “Back where I was, in the light conduits.”

  “I can’t leave the bridge!” said Kiroda.

  Natrol laughed. “The bridge is dead, Kiroda.” He leaned close. “It’s important.”

  “All right,” said Kiroda after a moment. He stood. “Attention, please.” Those who’d started to drift away returned. “I’m going with Mr. Natrol down into the light conduits. Commander Toral will be in command.” He turned to his friend. “Secure the bridge and relocate to Gunnery Control. Break out a tactical commweb—the sort we’d use for ground operations…”

  “An Izul Tactical Web,” said Toral.

  “Of course,” said Kiroda. “Put the nexus in Gunnery Control and a unit in every fusion battery facing Alpha Prime. Then man those batteries with everyone who’s Mark-88 qualified. At least we can give the commodore some cover fire if he needs it.”

  Toral nodded curtly and began issuing orders as Natrol and Kiroda left the bridge.

  “What’s so dammed secret, Natrol?” asked Kiroda as they hurried down an empty stretch of corridor.

  “I didn’t think you want the rest of them knowing there’s a transmute running around on board,” said Natrol as they passed an open recroom door. A steady stream of chill air flowed into the corridor. “You’re not surprised,” said the engineer.

  “You haven’t heard,” said Kiroda, and quickly sketched the incident of Ragal, the transmute and the blasted command chair. He finished as they stopped before a wall panel. “So, what did you find?” he added.

  “I had this engineering tech foisted on me, off Terra,” said Natrol, entering the access code on a touchpad. “Knew his stuff, kept to himself.” The panel didn’t open. Natrol shrugged. “Stasis algorithm must have reached the security protocols.” Unclipping a lightwand from his shirt pocket, Natrol held it over the tiny optics transceiver to the left of the touchpad. Picking up the downtime signal from the transceiver, the wand sent an override code flashing into the panel. There was a soft click.

  “Give me a hand here,” said Natrol, pocketing the wand.

  The two men each seized one of the two handles and pulled to the right. The panel yielded slowly.

  “Anyway,” said the engineer, “I went into this tech’s quarters unannounced during his sleep period—a question about something he’d done but hadn’t logged. This tech came up with a blade all set to slit my throat. Never saw anyone in Engineering move that fast.” They had the panel opened now. Light glimmered in the distance.

  “So you pegged Ragal as CIC or maybe Fleet Security,” said Kiroda, following the older man into the crawl space. “So what?”

  “So imagine how I felt, finding him lying in the conduit, more dead than alive.”

  “More dead than alive is right,” said Kiroda, kneeling over the Watcher. Ragal lay in the center of a small four-way intersection, hands crossed over his chest, the red-green light of the commpulses washing over him. There were two neat holes in each of his temples.

  “Scotar transmute,” said Kiroda, rising. “Weird. Why didn’t it steal his mind, kill him and flick him out into space?”

  Natrol shrugged. "I’m not a PsychOps analyst.”

  “Let’s get him to Sick Bay.”

  The conduit was just wide enough for one man, walking stooped over. Taking Ragal’s legs, Natrol led, Kiroda taking the arms, the Watcher slung between them as they moved slowly back through a narrow world of light and silence.

  “This is the bridge level, Egg,” said Detrelna. “Where’s the fierce opposition you promised us?” Glancing in the rear scan, he saw the corsair shuttle was maintaining speed and interval.

  “This ship’s had to awaken and marshal its strength, Commodore,” said the machine. “Soon. Should we survive, the way back won’t be easy.”

  “Detrelna,” came Kotran’s voice, “we’ve passed enough hidden fusion batteries to stop a cruiser. Why haven’t they fired?”

  Detrelna looked at Egg. The slaver machine didn’t speak. “Perhaps we’re wanted alive,” said the commodore, watching the intersections warily. “This monster’s strength isn’t so much its size, Kotran, as the power and maneuverability it draws from the human minds it’s enslaved.”

  “You think they want to harvest us?” said Atir over the commnet, a slight tremor to her voice.

  “Count on it,” said Detrelna.

  “I’d rather die,” she said.

  “Good choice,” said Lawrona.

  The control panel and cabin lights winked of, as did the corridor lights. With a whine of dying n-gravs, the shuttle plunged toward the deck. Metal screaming, sparks flying, the shuttle slid down the corridor, angling toward the left wall.

  Egg’s tendrils snapped back out, touching controls. Part of the instrument panel came alive again as the shuttle rose for an instant, then settled jerkily on its landing struts.

  “My energy reserves are exhausted,” whispered the slaver machine. Its light tendrils disappeared. With them went the brief burst of power that had saved the shuttle.

  “Damper field,” said Detrelna weakly. Wiping his sweaty palms on his pants, he unbuckled and stood, peering into the utter darkness of the corridor. “What happened to Kotran?”

  “Alternate course plotted and set,” said Atir, looking up from the shuttle’s commlink.

  “Time to lose Fats and friends,” said Kotran, glancing at the course plot. “Next intersection.”

  The damper field hit just as they turned. Their shuttle’s systems failed for an instant, touched by the field’s edge, then came back on as they moved down the side corridor.

  “Now that’s timing,” grinned Kotran.

  “Think they’ve had it?” asked Atir.

  Kotran shrugged, eyes on the corridor. “Two very capable officers, Detrelna and Lawrona. And backed by their best. Don’t count them out, Number One. But with luck, they and the Ractolians will occupy each other till it’s too late. And we’re overdue for luck.”

  “Anyone hurt?” asked Lawrona. He stood beside Detrelna in the shuttle’s passenger section.

  “No,” said Satil. The commandos were up and out, taking the battle lamps Satil was di
stributing from the aft storage area. The dim glow of the six lamps gave a faint light. “Damper field?” she asked, handing each of the two senior officers a lamp.

  “Probably,” said Detrelna, clipping the lamp to his belt.

  Drawing her M11A, Satil set the beam low, pointed the muzzle high, and pulled the trigger. Nothing. “Damper field.” she nodded. “Defense perimeter?” she asked Lawrona.

  The captain nodded. “Knives against whatever’s out there. If we have to, we’ll take that bridge on foot, bare-handed.”

  And club whatever to death with our boots, thought Detrelna. “Not bare-handed,” he said.

  The arms locker was set into the bulkhead to the right of the airlock. Going to it, Detrelna entered the combination on its keypad. Nothing happened. “Get that open,” he ordered Satil, jerking a thumb at the locker.

  It only took her a moment, deftly jiggling her blade between locker panel and lock. The door gave with a snap. Satil stepped back with a delighted cry. Behind her a commando whistled appreciatively as lamp beams washed across the arms racks.

  “Your commodore provides,” said Detrelna, sweeping his own light over the rows of stacked M16s and Uzis. “You do know how to use them?” he asked Satil.

  “Partying wasn’t all we did on Terra,” she said, passing out the weapons.

  “Really?” said Detrelna—the numerous police reports and paternity complaints had all ended up on his commslate.

  “Plenty of ammunition,” said Satil, nodding at the crates stacked beneath the racked weapons.

  Glancing at the boxes, Detrelna fleetingly wondered what 5.56MM NATO meant.

  “You sly swamp dastig, Detrelna,” said Lawrona, handing the commodore an Uzi. “How’d you know?”

  “I didn’t,” said Detrelna. “Contingency planning.”

  “Keep your M11As,” ordered Satil. Chambering a round, she clicked off her M16’s safety. “And follow me,” she said, pressing the airlock override. As the double doors hissed open, Satil leaped out into the darkness of the mindslaver.