by Lee Bond
The response came in the emotive variety, a simple yet easy to understand pulse of interested curiosity. Which one?
Yertzi, loyal as any God soldier was to the Founding Fathers, was also loyal to Saint Candall the Glorious, but as with any good Goddie, one outweighed the other, if only by the smallest of margins. She understood the driving need for the Fathers to locate the mysteriously elevated Candall within the depths of Harmony and was perhaps one of three hundred thousand or so soldiers that were willing to assist.
It was a hard path to follow, and the irony of it was that both camps –those loyal to The Glorious and The Vengeful- were well aware that the dual nature of Saint Candall allowed them the freedom to do so. No judgments were made, no aspersions were cast, none of the Goddies not assisting the Fathers were aware of their complicity and, given the nature of their hearts, it was entirely likely that they too, would never judge should the truth be discovered.
Still, it was hard. Saint Candall the Glorious had given her new purpose in life, shown her a righteous path to the Falling Dark and Rising Light that she’d never even considered before. If Nalanata and the other Fathers were successful in locating the nebulous place within Harmony where the Saints hid and were successful in rooting them out, there was every possibility that a deep rift would be torn into each God soldier.
To the Fathers, any fallout was acceptable. They’d rather have soldiers with aching hearts and emptied out souls than soldiers holding a not-so-secret allegiance to an ordinary Latelian mortal that'd somehow accessed Harmony.
Yertzi let out a deep sigh, wishing that her loyalty to the Fathers wasn’t so strong.
The pulsing query of interest came from Nalanata once more, this time, a little more forceful.
“Neither.” Yertzi responded. “Neither Glorious nor Vengeful made an appearance on this vessel. This was … something different. The Codemaster Tremax claims he and Specialist Yeva worked on some advanced avatars that allowed them to utilize their sensor arrays to the fullest, but this is a lie. There is or was something else here, something working through the ‘LINKs. I … I just don't know what or who."
This time, Nalanata spoke directly to Yertzi through their connection into Harmony, his voice echoing with power.
“Interesting.” Nalanata paused. “There have been several thousand reports of ‘LINKed systems behaving slightly differently, of late, and the Codemaster Guild has been notoriously silent on the matter. They’re refusing to comment or speculate, but information has reached our ears that they are quietly investigating these matters on their own. It could be nothing more than systems finally evolving into artificial intelligence. The new computer arrays developed to run the black hole engines and the gravnetic shielding are certainly more advanced than anything they’ve ever developed, and could quite possibly be responsible for this … hmm … renaissance of processing capabilities.”
“They should be stopped!” Yertzi felt foolish, but couldn’t help herself. The dogma had been ingrained in her thousands of years ago.
“Nonsense. If their ‘LINKed systems are finally developing sentience, it will be of a type very different from the one employed by Trinity Itself. More importantly, it will be of extreme tactical advantage to us if this is what’s happening. But that’s neither here nor there.” Nalanata brought the conversation around to something more salient. “The data from your vessel indicates you may have located the Tunnel. Report to me immediately upon arrival at those coordinates. If it is the Tunnel, we will need a major presence there very quickly. If it is feasible, discover what you can about the code variations, but don’t tip your hand. If the Codemaster’s Guild learns of our interest, they could unfortunately make things difficult for us.”
Yertzi nodded. “By your command.”
Nalanata’s presence dissipated, leaving God soldier Yertzi to resume contemplating the choices she’d made in life.
I’m Not Saying You’re Wrong, You’re Just An Asshole
“Well, why don’t you tell me how long it’s going take to decrypt these messages?” Captain Zerr resisted the urge to boot the system array he was currently arguing with; he’d already done it once –he was, in his opinion, understandably distraught and the outburst was within his bounds as captain- and the fucking thing had given him a good zap to remind him that violence against AI minds wasn’t something that was really tolerated.
“It is impossible to say, Captain Zerr.” This, from one of the monitors, was pretty much the only thing their primary ship AI, Alonso, was saying these days.
You could ask it about anything else under the sun or in this godless, heathen-filled solar system full of mutated super-soldiers and hyperkinetic weirdoes, but ask Al anything about the ultra-encrypted messages that’d come screaming into their computer systems like an electronic storm, and all you got was stonewalling and bullshit.
Zerr ran a hand through damp hair, wishing to hell that Fermyk would get off his ass and fix the environmental controls already. The eighteen of them were so damp they were going to start growing gills any goddamn day now. Fermyk, the only one of them qualified enough to play engineer because he knew slightly more than everyone else, was taking just as fucking long to fix a simple panel as Alonso was in doing his thing, and all because he 'didn't mind the wet'.
“Why … why is that again?” Zerr squinted angrily as a rill of sweat cascaded down into one eye, forcing him to blink rapidly. Salty tears trickled down one side of his face.
He hated this place. All of it.
Latelyspace!
They’d been warned that the people of this solar system were tenacious as hell, that their worlds fell smack-dab into the far range of ‘ultra-technological and therefore supremely monitored’ variety of worlds, and that their God soldiers were –beyond a shadow of a doubt- the equal of the very worst that the Specter Deep Strikers had to offer.
They’d heard those warnings and dismissed them.
Even … even footage of the five gigantic men floating in space without suits, whispering horrifying things across all the radio frequencies they used … even that hadn’t done much to convince them they were going into anything more complicated than a slightly raucous beach party.
Zerr knew from talking with the rest of his crew –Fermyk, Reckless, the rest of them- that they, too, were feeling … disenfranchised. The war –such as it was- was harder than they’d imagined. The very moment they’d all lurched through the impenetrable shield, they’d arranged for long-range, coded transmissions on a rotating cycle, using the system’s sun as a calendar and the particular talents of their primary ship AI minds for the encryption. Then they’d gone their way off into the depths of Latelyspace, with the unshakeable belief that they would be home in time for supper.
Zerr squinted as sweat dropped into the other eye. Same thing, more tears.
What a mistake that’d been.
Even though they’d been playing by the Commander’s orders, breaking into singular units and shooting off in random directions had been the most foolish thing they could’ve done because … because they weren’t doing well. None of them.
The last data stream had included an update on the status of the now-vaporized traitorous Deep Strike Team that’d gone rogue –no losses there, thank you very much-, deeply encoded status updates from the astonishingly few teams lucky enough to make planetfall on any one of the smaller planets to blend in and the results of a few sorties against God soldier supply vessels.
That last update had sent a tremor of concern through Zerr's heart; Trinity forces found it easy enough to locate and attack enemy vessels everywhere in the system, but that was about as far as they got before having their asses handed to them.
“Well?” Zerr demanded loudly when he realized Alonso was still mum on the topic. “Why are you having trouble decrypting these messages? They’re just standard update packs. I need to add our status and beam it on to the next location on the map in the next …” he checked the time, “three hours, Alons
o. Three hours. If I miss my spot in the chain, they’ll imagine we’re dead and move on to the next sequence, cutting us out of the loop.”
It felt like Alonso paused before answering, but Zerr could never tell with their artificial intelligence if it was one of those ‘conversational irregularities’ they threw in every now and again to seem more human or if it was a genuine lapse in time.
And he’d certainly never been able to tell what those lapses –if they weren’t intentional- might mean.
“These are not from any Trinity military vessel deployed in this quadrant of Latelyspace.”
Alonso’s slightly mechanized voice –made that way because Zerr, like everyone else aboard the Macho Man 5000 felt one hundred percent uneasy with their AI sounding like a live human being- echoed chillingly through the enclosed space.
Zerr’s eyes tracked this way and that as his mind sorted through the possible permutations of why that might be, still having a hard time –deep down- believing that the encoded messages weren’t from any Trinity cell in this quadrant.
Couldn’t be the Latelians.
They didn’t use AI tech and would never build their own. Their irrational and profound distrust of artificial intelligence in this regard put them at a distinct disadvantage, though with every passing day, it seemed to Zerr that that line was thinning every day.
As far as Intel could gather, this dislike of AI was deeply ingrained in the Latelian psyche that they wouldn't even use a captured machine mind, not even if it proved to be of inordinate value to their war effort.
If it wasn’t Latelians, and, as Al kept claiming, it was neither Army nor Specter, then …
Who or what was responsible for this encrypted message?
A long series of clicks echoing through the control room –a room to which only the Captain could access- prompted Zerr to shut his mouth. Ears straining to follow the sound as it rattled it’s way out of the private room gave the captain the sensation that the clicks were working their way through the entire vessel. A few second later, slightly cooler air filtered in through the vents.
Zerr gave a brief prayer of thanks to his personal gods before addressing the crew. “Well, it seems Fermyk finally got the environmental controls up and running. Bear in mind, the damn thing’s only gotten working. If I find out that any of you’ve turned your air conditioning up to the freezing point in the next eighteen hours, there will be hell to pay. In the meantime, could Rezek and Tourmaline run diagnostics on the engine minds? We’ve been sat in this one location for a long time and we all know how they get when we’re not moving. Captain out.”
Zerr watched the data on the monitors for a few seconds. In a small way, watching Alonso’s efforts at decrypting the files was mesmerizing. In practical terms, the captain understood that what he was watching wasn’t anything remotely close to the truth of what was happening inside Alonso’s mind, but captain’s orders were captain’s orders, and the captain had wanted something to look at while harping on his AI’s inability to do the one thing it was supposed to be doing.
“Well, Alonso, if it’s not us and it’s not them, who is it?”
It was an important question because if they were wasting their time decrypting crap files, he was going to be super pissed. Zerr didn’t like the idea of being that angry. It prompted people who were already in a tight spot to behave in an entirely irrational manner, and Zerr liked to think that they were all doing pretty well, even if they were now officially on their second year of military rations and recycled water.
Another one of those long, maybe-pauses from Alonso. “Indeterminate. There are possibilities I am investigating alongside the decryption efforts.”
Zerr shivered as a gust of cool air flash-dried the sweat on the back of his neck. “Is this limiting your decryption speed?”
No pause this time. “It is.”
Well. There. Finally, an honest answer! “Then stop. Focus on decryption only.”
“I can’t.”
Zerr was so astonished by the answer he almost bit the tip of his tongue clean off. As it was, he did, however, bite himself pretty good and it was a solid minute before he was master of himself enough to address the suddenly rogue-like AI with anything remotely resembling patience.
“And why in the great ungodly fuck might that be?” he asked as sweet as mom’s homemade pie.
“If these messages have come from where I believe they have, I will then need to determine if you possess the proper level of authority to read them. I am in the process of working diligently to disprove my theory. This needs to occur before I can devote my full range of abilities to any other task.”
Zerr’s voice practically dripped honey. “Excuse me, you fucking robot mind, but I believe that I am the goddamn captain of this ridiculously named ship and if that doesn’t give me all the fucking authority I require, give me a few minutes and I’ll get my Zabriski Heater in here and melt you into slag.”
“Dismissing the threat of violence against myself as being the result of extreme duress and a misunderstanding of the situation that is developing is the only thing keeping you alive at this moment, Captain Zerr.” Alonso’s robotic voice sounded all the more chilling for having delivered an actual threat in perfectly neutral tones. “And in regards to the encoded files, if they come from where they most likely do, you ordinarily wouldn’t possess the proper levels of authority to view them because you’re not Army.”
“Um…” Zerr took a deep breath. “Neither are you. You’re a fucking Specter mind, Al. You’ve always been a Specter mind. Far as I recall, you and about three thousand of your best friends were legitimately purchased, programmed and designed for deployment with Special Services troops.”
“Correct, Captain Zerr, as always. I am a Specter mind.” Alonso paused. “But these directives are non-negotiable add-ons to any AI sphere, placed there directly by Trinity Itself. I cannot violate the terms of those orders under any circumstances. Once I’ve determined with absolute certainty where these files came from, I will then begin a thorough background check of your time in Special Services. In this way, I will be able to assign you an Army-based rank.”
“If you’re right about where they come from, what rank is required to view these files?” Zerr couldn't even muster irritation over these surprise, Omega-level commands buried deep in Alonso’s mind. That was one of the wonderful things about Specter training; a surprise bomb drops into your lap, one you can’t do anything about because that’s how life goes sometimes, you shrug your shoulders and move on to the next problem, the one you can deal with.
And if there was one thing you just didn't fuck with, it was anything coming from Trinity. Life expectancy dwindled to negative numbers very quickly.
“Comparison between Trinity’s Combined Military Service, often referred to as ‘Army’ for simplicity’s sake and Special Services, the lowest equal rank you would need to achieve through your tours of duty in Specter is Major.”
Fucking Army and their love affair with actual rank and file titles. They didn’t make any sense and were way too fucking rigid for their own good, and now that rigidness was for sure going to jam him up. “And what happens if you decide I’m not the equal of a Major?”
“The files will be stored in a secure portion of myself and broadcast alongside the regularly scheduled communiques until they are in the possession of someone who does meet the requirements. No copies will be kept locally.”
Zerr nodded and smiled. “How long will all this take, Alonso?”
“Two hours, forty-six minutes until absolute verification is complete. Perhaps another ten or fifteen minutes to go over your records for rank privileges.”
“Copy that. I’ll be back here in two hours, forty-four minutes to hear your decision.” Zerr nodded, then backed out of the room. Ten or fifteen minutes. To go over thirty years in Specter. To see if he was a filthy Major.
He was better than a Major. He was a Specter.
And Specters always got what they wa
nted.
***
Zerr didn’t much like the new engine rooms. They were too … quiet, and with all those extra AI spheres sitting just the other side of protective shielding, it was even more like they were waiting for the right moment to … do whatever they wanted, really; in direct and incredibly foolish contravention of primary construction laws in place since the proper Dawn of Humanity and their first big venture into space, AI controlling both the black hole engines and the shields were directly connected.
The first time Captain Zerr’d learned that, well, he’d nearly shat himself and had then spent the next three hours trying to convince both Rezek and Tourmaline that it was a far better idea to have no FTL-like travel at all than to risk one more second of their lives to minds you couldn't get at, couldn't break, couldn't disconnect.
In the end, he’d learned a thing, and that thing was why he was walking towards the secondary engine room right that second, running a loving hand across the standard engine tubes.
Wait for it … wait for it …
Ping!
Zerr smiled. Just as always. Macho Man 5000’s ancient and rebuilt and modified Zierisky 3 Proton-Hadron Suffuser-Type engines were as noisy as whores paid to make their man feel like King God himself, and by damn, they could be counted on to make those strange noises at the drop of a hat.
Zerr wondered if, should the Zierisky engines become sentient, they’d be jealous of the power and output of the new engines.
The grizzled captain snorted and slapped another of the engine exhaust tubes. Probably not. They, like himself, had been around the block more than a few times and it took an awful lot of impressive shit to get him hot under the collar.
Palming his way through the high-tech security lock that Trinity Itself insisted be a part of the new engine room with the quick slap of the hand, Zerr wondered when -if at all- Alonso would figure out that the engine room's palm scanner had been cracked wide ages ago.
Anyone on the ship could palm their way in. It was one of those things. Specters didn’t like being told they couldn’t go somewhere, especially on their own ship. Didn’t mean they were stupid enough to go somewhere they knew they shouldn't, it was just … 'no' wasn't something that sat well in a Specter's craw. Or thorax. Or throat. Or … breathing hole.
