Emperor-for-Life: DeadShop Redux (Unreal Universe Book 6)

by Lee Bond

  Tomas could barely remember the particulars as to why the Emperor-for-Life had gone out of his way to decree that the Kamagana Clan owned a direct genetic link to His most august bloodline, save that the Emperor had done precisely that, and that those claims had been the spark to a genocidal powderkeg that’d burned brightly and bitterly across all Kamagana Clanworlds.

  Reasoning his currently resurrected hope against that fact, it made sense to Tomas that the Emperor-for-Life, perhaps learning too late what his proclamation had done to the Kamagana Clan, was now doing everything in his power to undo that damage.

  Thus, EuroJapanese vessels throughout Trinityspace, programmed to keep their digital and virtual eyes peeled for signs of anyone bearing traits particular to that damaged Line.

 

  Tomas nodded, accepting the vagary this time without complaint. Now he understood the reasons behind the AI’s behavior, it was easier to accept. “This is good. What of the man I came with? Ute Tizhen.”

 

  “Absolutely.” Tomas stepped boldly into the hallway, executing a bit of a jig to test the AI’s suggestion that he was in the free. No alarms. Not only no alarms, but no sign of people either. “I don’t know what you did, friendly AI, but I feel fifty years younger. I thank you for that.”

 

  Tomas was so preoccupied with the amazing sensations of hope and excitement at finally being on his way properly that he completely missed the AI’s second prevarication in as many minutes.

  Marveling at how quickly the tables could be turned, he began following the AI’s quietly whispered directions…

  ***

  "What is this?" Tomas gazed at the wreck floating in the blackness of space as if he were imagining things.

  His stolen ship’s AI had led him to this place, but it hardly seemed to be the sort of place where someone capable of helping him in his hunt for his daughter would be; the ship -what was left of it- was in utter shambles.

  The old man hated to imagine that, after how helpful Pratfall’s AI had been, it'd been so he could be stranded, yet it really seemed that way.

  "I don't understand the question."

  The AI for the stolen recon vessel -named Odd Savant- had nothing on the Pratfall's, which was a serious letdown because when you're on the hunt for a missing daughter in the wild and unruly Universe, you could do a great deal worse than having a level 10 artificial intelligence on your side. Odd Savant's ruling mind was a 7, which was by no means something to dismiss out of hand, yet there it was.

  Two hours of exposure to a high-functioning artificial intelligence and he was completely spoiled. All his old students and his peers would roundly mock him for this speedy betrayal, and Tomas wouldn't fault them for their derision!

  In fact, he'd join in! How awful, to sink into the warm embrace of AI assistance, so quickly, so swiftly.

  Tomas spent a few minutes working through how he wanted to phrase the question/statement so that there'd be no wiggle room for the AI to misunderstand what he expected.

  It wasn’t that he doubted the 7’s comprehension skills, it was that the 10 had been far more accommodating, leaving Tomas with the feeling that there was more to the EuroJapanese ship’s … obsequiousness than he properly understood; Pratfall’s mind –the man who captained her had refused to name the artificial intelligence, much like whoever’d programmed Odd Savant- had been far more willing to go out of it’s way to give him as much information as it could have without violating restrictions.

  It was almost as if Odd Savant didn’t like him, which was definitely a new experience for the old man. How could an AI dislike someone? It seemed antithetical to how artificial minds worked.

  “Identify the vessel before us.”

  Calling the shattered wreck floating just off the port side a ‘vessel’ was a kindness; whatever it’d been before coming to rest here, floating in the middle of nowhere, the … ‘ship’ was a mangled mass of twisted steel VII and debris that’d slammed repeatedly into the already tortured hull, to the point where there were vast, jagged rips down one side, almost as if it’d been mauled by a large animal.

  “Hull markings combined with a mostly-defunct SOS emitter indicate that this ship was Whispering Pines.”

  Tomas pulled on his beard. The same as told to him by Pratfall, so again, unless there was a growing conspiracy of artificially intelligent minds all working towards some nefarious goal –with him as the centerpiece- there was someone aboard.

  It was just that Whispering Pines was so incredibly damaged!

  “What kind of ship was she?”

  There was a brief pause. “According to TMS files, Whispering Pines was a tactical listening post deployed to the far side of the Latelian Shield. The crew were partially tasked to decode an ancient cypher being played out against the impenetrable orb surrounding the solar system, something referred to as ‘Morse Code’. Their other duties included but were not limited to determining the specific wavelengths the Shield operated within, listening and watching for signs of egress, and keeping an unofficial eye on the bulk of ships passing through the area for signs of treason.”

  Tomas realized he was rubbing his bare arm over and over again and resolutely stuck the offensive hand under his left butt cheek. He’d never felt so naked in his entire life! When he’d been a young Latelian immigrant, he’d had no idea how profound a thing a proteus could become for someone, how important a connection to the outside world it truly was; why, he remembered the very first time he and Maurna had gotten intimate, how he’d asked her to remove her prote and how that’d put an unfortunately firm, regrettably … solid ending to their first night of passion.

  Still. A listening post! That was pretty serious!

  Tomas’ knowledge of warfare and the kinds of things everyone got up to while being involved in war was pretty much relegated to all things God soldier, leaving his understanding of counterintelligence lacking; the only time a God soldier ‘listened’ to anything was in the first few minutes of the briefing before they headed out to kick peoples’ heads off. They’d never go out of their way to prepare for something by spying on enemy communications.

  That took away too much of the fun.

  For all that his knowledge base was empty under ‘spying’, Tomas was more than capable of reasoning out the how and why this Whispering Pines was here, almost completely ravaged, and not floating somewhere near Huey’s Shield, attempting to pry; if there was someone alive aboard the wreck, that person was loyal to the Emperor-for-Life Etienne Marseilles.

  Why else would the Pratfall’s AI even care?

  From there, it took no time at all to accept that the EuroJapanese monarch would naturally want to be appraised of the strangest, one-sided war in all of Trinityspace.

  Though their Emperor was Emperor for EuroJapanese worlds and systems, the doings in Latelyspace had the potential to affect the entire Universe.

  “Is there a duty roster?” Tomas asked the question half-heartedly, not really caring one way or the other. It wasn’t as if he was going to recognize any of the names.

  “Affirmative.” The AI paused on
ce more, then started with the roster. “Coree Townshend. Martine Selentantine. Mayin Chis… are you feeling okay, Tomas Kamagana?”

  Tomas wasn’t entirely certain he was capable of answering the artificial intelligence or not, so he did his best to gesture that even though he was holding onto his chest and that he’d no doubt paled to the point of looking like a piece of parchment, he was going to be just fine.

  Only … was he really? From the very moment he’d heard the first syllable of Mayin’s name, the light bulbs in his brain –which, from the moment he’d climbed aboard Odd Savant, had been delightfully subdued- had suddenly burst into frenzied activity, literally lighting up the insides of his mind to the point where no shadows remained anywhere at all.

  Mayin Chisolm.

  The AI had been about to say Mayin Chisolm, and somehow, some way, he, Tomas Kamagana, knew her. If that was merely of her, he couldn’t say. For all the old man knew, this woman was someone who’d had dealings with the Yellow Dog Elders in the past, some time when he’d been a boy, sitting at his father’s feet, playing with toys, while the great Elder Kamagana dispatched his orders.

  He might’ve looked right into Mayin Chisolm’s eyes as a five year old boy, never once suspecting he’d meet her again.

  “Small Universe.” Tomas muttered.

  Ever since breaking free from Latelyspace, he’d had feelings of incomparable familiarity, with a kind of … languidness following him everywhere, and it was an unwelcome feeling. Combined with the far-too convenient offer of aid from an AI mind willing to risk destruction by Trinity Itself and the presence of a woman who may or may not be someone from his past … Tomas couldn’t help but distrust all these different things clamoring for his attention.

  “Is this what it’s like to be Garth Nickels?” Tomas mused, debating internally with himself whether he wanted to throw himself off the particular precipice that waited for him. “He is no ordinary man, our Engineer, but … was it the same? When he first decided to cast himself in the role of hero? Unbeatable odds, slowly whittled down to something manageable, all through seemingly unconnected, random events? If this is true, no wonder he does his absolute best to keep everyone at arm’s length.”

  “I don’t understand the questions, or your statements.”

  “Of course you don’t.” Tomas doubted the ship’s spec-sheets entirely. There was just no way this recon ship had a level 7 AI aboard. It was stupider than a three-line code avatar and infinitely less flexible. “Do you detect any life signs aboard?”

  “I do. One. Very weak. Heart rate is diminishing as we speak. If you are going to rescue the survivor, I would suggest it be soon. I am connecting myself fully to the remnants of the computer structure aboard Whispering Pines. Atmosphere, detected, though there are thin spots. Lights are on. Internal security cameras … disabled. Docking bay … activated. AI mind … defunct. Whatever happened to bring this vessel here will remain a mystery until you get information from whoever lives.”

  Mayin Chisolm. The survivor could be no other person.

  “Very well, let’s do this thing.” Tomas settled back into the chair and waited.

  ***

  He was walking through dimly lit corridors once more. Tomas didn’t appreciate the thematic elements that plagued him of late, and resolved from that moment onward to always carry several dozen flashlights of different luminosity. He of course realized that the lack of lighting was because Whispering Pines had launched itself away from enemy vessels, and that –in the process- it'd been necessary to court total destruction.

  “I still don’t like it.” Tomas grumped. The air was full of odd smells. Probably spoiled food and, now that he turned his mind to it, rotting corpses. The old man’s face soured at the realization he might encounter a corpse or two on his journey to the center of Whispering Pines. “I’ll promise to be a very good old man for at least three weeks if I can avoid that.”

  “Sir?”

  Against his own personal wishes, Odd Savant had all but extorted an agreement from him mere seconds after gearing for this stage of rescuing his daughter; he could either wear an open comm-line to the ship, or he could sit in the docking bay, listening to the sounds of the sole survivor’s heart rate monitor slowly devolving into a monotonous, chilling tone.

  It seemed that there were limits to which these oddly rogue AIs were capable of assisting him. Escorting him safely to a ship bay? Not a problem. Assisting him in the theft of a reconnaissance-class black hole engine-equipped TMS space craft? Don’t even mention it. Fly him out into the middle of nowhere to rescue a woman who was almost certainly a double agent directly in the employ of the Emperor-for-Life Etienne Marseilles? Not even worth bringing up.

  Enter a nearly dead, almost entirely powerless wreck without having a direct means of communicating with an AI that wasn’t even capable of culling important facts from an old man’s random jibber-jabber? So completely and utterly impossible that we’re just going to let the survivor keel over and die, thank you very much.

  He wasn't this important. Well, that was to say he had a hard time imagining one old man that'd once belonged to the Kamagana Clan was still this important. Not with so much time having passed.

  “I thought I told you to refer to me as ‘sa’. If,” Tomas nudged a loose can of something with his cane out of the way as he walked around a corner, “if you need to address me at all.”

  No avatar of his would’ve ever worked up the gumption to threaten his end goal.

  No sa.

  That was why avatars were so much better than anything artificially intelligent; they had all the intelligence of their sphere-trapped counterparts with absolutely none of the absolutely ridiculous emotive, intuitive and otherwise stupid overlays. They did what they were told, and would remind you that you might be taking a risk with your life only if you’d first gone out of your way to code that particular bit in.

  And that was just plain stupid.

  “Sa is a Latelian term.” The AI reminded Tomas pedantically. “And is therefore currently not something I am permitted to use. I can recite to you the particular sections of Trinity Military Law, if you’d like.”

  Tomas smacked another can of food with his cane, this time sending it spiralling down the mostly dim hallway. It flew to the far end, hit a wall with a satisfying clank, then rolled away. “No. I would rather eat my cane. Are we near the survivor yet? Yes or no.”

  “One more left, one more right, then it’ll be the only door at the end of the hall.”

  “Good.” Tomas hefted his cane and strode boldly down the passageway, banging the wooden knocker against a wall or whatever struck his fancy every few seconds. It was so invigorating, being involved directly in your own adventure, wasn’t it?

  ***

  “Clever girl.” Tomas eyed the stasis chamber array with fascination, though he didn’t go straight to it to release Mayin from her slumber; the bright lights inside his mind and the hungering insistence he knew her, and quite well, insisted he rush over this very second, which was, perversely, why he stood right where he was, rebuilding her final moments before boldly leaping into uncertainty.

  “Sir?”

  Tomas clumped his way over to the command consoles, keen eyes peeled for signs for any usable modules.

  “Wherever she was before coming here, she needed to get away as quick as possible and without anyone piloting. She clustered all the stasis pods around the one she planned on using. As part of their safety features, each one of these Military issue pods is outfitted with a substance called Filler. If something goes wrong with the primary energy stasis beams or if it encounters dangerous levels of turbulence, Filler pops loose and fills the pod with goop that transforms into a nearly unbreakable substance. This, combined with last minute injections to slow a person’s bodily systems down to the point where they’d seem dead, even to sensitive equipment, will allow them to remain revivable for a considerable period of time.”

  Nothing. None of the consoles or acces
s modules were functional. Tomas couldn’t put a finger on it, but there was a … a tang in the room, subtle aromatic hints that whatever else Mayin had been doing prior to climbing into her chamber, she’d been doing so under a great deal of duress.

  This escape plan of hers … hinted at danger, and of a kind not easily escapable.

  When his stupid AI didn’t respond, Tomas continued. “Three of four stasis chambers were piled against the single, sealed one. The moment Whispering Pines was launched from wherever it was towards this direction, the open chambers belched their Filler all over Mayin’s. Instantly sealing her in, instantly protecting herself from very nearly everything excluding the actual detonation of this ship. So, as I said, clever girl.”

  “Indeed, Tomas Kamagana.”

  Tomas stood in the middle of the room, hand over his mouth. “Still, I would dearly like to know why she had to undertake such desperate measures. To my way of thinking, there are very few reasons. Since the other pods were used by her to ensure her own survival, I’d hazard that none of her team survived. What I wouldn’t give…”

  “Sir, if I may remind you? Regardless of the ingenuity and creativity by which Mayin Chisolm afforded her survival, said survival is not entirely guaranteed. The life sign module of her stasis pod suggests quite clearly that she is on her last legs, figuratively speaking. I’ve located functions labeled ‘Fill_Clear’. Shall I do this?”

  “Oh yes.” Tomas nodded enthusiastically. “I should very much like to meet a woman crafty enough to design this kind of escape, and to find out why it was necessary in the first place. By all means, clear the Filler and resuscitate her.”

  Excited, Tomas found a chair, righted it, then sat down.

  And then, because he was no longer in jeopardy, he pulled out his pipe, patted various pockets until he located his lighter, then lit up.

  “Oh, that’s the stuff.”

  ***

  The first full breath she’d managed on her own since before climbing into the stasis pods was a ragged, nasty thing, full of razor blades and many-pointed burrs that stripped the insides of her lungs clean and left her wishing for the soft, numbing embrace of stasis.