The AI War bw-3

by Stephen Ames Berry

  "Why are none of the smaller batteries firing, Egg?" asked L'Wrona. He pointed in front, 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. It sat in the pilot's chair, safety harness buckled across it, light tendrils tying it into the shuttle controls.

  L'Wrona tapped a telltale. "Tacscan clearly shows…"

  "Scan-chimera," said Egg. "An instrument-sensitive hologram. Only the sally portal lies inside our shield point.''

  "But…" protested L'Wrona.

  "Mark to penetration: twenty," said Egg, silencing the captain. "Captain K'Tran, 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 is not a very forgiving surface, Egg," said D'Trelna, teeth gritted. Serial numbers were now visible on the hull instruments.

  A continuous shrill warbling sounded-the shuttle's crash warning. Instinctively, D'Trelna grabbed the copilot's control stick and pulled. Nothing. Locked.

  "What if the disintegrator cubes are already on?" shouted L'Wrona above the alarm.

  "Then we are ended," 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. D'Trelna blanched as they began to oscillate, glowing brighter with each cycle. "Egg…"he called.

  "Disintegration sequence has begun," confirmed the machine.

  There was a loud snap! from behind. Something big, foiled of its prey, thought D'Trelna, punching up rear scan. A fierce white light glowed where they'd just been-a burning shaft that filled the tunnel's width, gaining on them with each snap! of ravening energy.

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

  "More speed!" called K'Tran urgently.

  D'Trelna switched rear scan angle. The corsair shuttle was almost touching their own, with A'Tir and K'Tran clearly visible through their armorglass.

  "No," said the slaver machine. "We must turn immediately after exiting. We cannot make the turn at speed- we'd crash into the bulkhead."

  "You're not making it without us, D'Trelna," said the corsair. Watching the comm screen, D'Trelna saw K'Tran reach up and touch the weapons panel.

  "Thought you were going to watch our rear, K'Tran," said the commodore. Thick fingers sent their blaster turret swinging 180 degrees. Through the remote gunnery interface, D'Trelna could see that flawlessly destructive shaft of white almost touching K'Tran's tail. The commodore tapped Arm where it showed red on his screen.

  "Belay, both of you!" snapped L'Wrona. "We're through."

  The shuttles shot through the blasted 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 into the corridor behind them, then winked off.

  D'Trelna leaned back in his chair, sighing. "Hell is alive and well, H'Nar," he said.

  "Sorry?" blinked the captain, turning.

  "Nothing," said D'Trelna, waving a hand. He glanced at the rear scan. "Ease off, K'Tran," he said. "You're almost up our tubes."

  "My pleasure," said the corsair, putting three shuttle lengths between the two craft.

  "And disarm those Mark forty-fours," added the commodore. The corsair's cannon pointed straight at the Fleet shuttle.

  D'Trelna was too far away to see K'Tran grin. "Right," said the corsair.

  "Where's your counterattack, Egg?" asked L'Wrona, staring down the seemingly endless stretch of corridor. Intersections and equipment banks flashed by.

  "Before we reach the bridge, Captain," said Egg. It sent them spiraling up a ramp that would have accommodated ten or more shuttles flying abreast. "It will be swift and deadly."

  K'Raoda stood, unfastening his survival jacket and tossing it over the back of the captain's chair. Others on the bridge were doing the same. "First we freeze," he muttered, "now we bake." He sat and punched into the commnet. "N'Trol. Life systems' status?"

  K'Raoda waited impatiently, watching as the 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 and stood again, sniffing the hot, dry air. "This is absurd," he said. He turned to T'Ral. "I'm going down to engineering."

  The second officer shook his head. "I don't think so, T'Lei. Look." He pointed toward the doors. The two commandos on guard 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 around toward the deserted navigation console. The console's gray inspection panel lay on the floor. Multicolored light pulsed along the optics cables bunched beneath the instruments, a jungle of crystalline wire that parted beneath two hairy hands. The hands emerged, followed by gold-ringed brown sleeves and a familiar head. "Don't shoot," said N'Trol, looking up into a dozen Ml lAs. "The way things are, you might trigger the jump drive… You idiots going to help me out of here, or just stand there fondling your blasters?"

  "Get him out of there," ordered K'Raoda. T'Ral and a commando grabbed the engineer, pulling him free.

  Brushing himself off, N'Trol came over 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 K'Raoda.

  N'Trol nodded. "Central core's locked tight. Eight decks up, then a third the length of the ship." He slumped into the empty XO's chair and dialed for t'ata. A cold cup of brackish-looking liquid appeared. Warily, N'Trol sipped, shuddered and crammed the cup into a 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 for now.

  If only D'Trelna could see this, thought K'Raoda-he'd send N'Trol through there every watch. "I doubt anyone's been down there since the Fall," said K'Raoda. "Imperial boots last walked those conduits. Fleet just pulled this ship out of stasis, did some minor modifications and sent her off to fight the S'Cotar."

  "Anything, from the commodore?" asked N'Trol, looking at the circle of faces. Several shook their heads.

  "We can't even get off the bridge," said K'Raoda, nodding toward the doors. "Never mind contacting the shuttles."

  "I came to tell you," said N'Trol after glancing at the doors, "life systems…"

  "We know they're gone," said T'Ral.

  N'Trol shook his head. "Worse than gone. Transformed. The stasis algorithm freezes key systems, then reprograms them. Life systems was the first to fall. Its new mission is evidently to kill us."

  There was a stunned silence. "How?" asked K'Raoda.

  "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 K'Lana.

  "If the computer's serious, why doesn't it just turn the oxygen scrubbers off?" asked T'Ral. "We'd be dead by watchend."

  "Or hit us with some hard vacuum?" said K'Raoda. "Or power surges, or any number of deadly tricks the computer could use?''

  "The Empire, my children," said N'Trol, 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 K'Raoda. The first officer bowed slightly. "But"-N'Trol held up a finger-"the computer can't hold out forever. It's just fighting a rearguard action. It's going after propulsion and jump drive now."

  "Weapons?" asked T'Ral.

  "Weapons power feed back up firmed-the fluctuations were probably a secondary effect of its tinkering with life systems. But you'll have to man the batteries-remote targeting's useless."

  "And we're helpless without the original algorithm?" said K'Raoda.

  "Or its antidote," nodded the engineer. "Which I think is with that slaver machine."

  "I won't argue with you," sighed K'Raoda. "Let's hope the commodore brings it back intact."

  "Or it the commodore," said N'Trol.

  A faint clanking came from across the bridge. Everyone turned to look. Sweating, cursing softly, 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 N'Trol as the doors grew wider. "Back where I was, in the light conduits."

  "I can't leave the bridge!" said K'Raoda.

  N'Trol laughed. "The bridge is dead, K'Raoda." He leaned close. "It's important."

  "All right," said K'Raoda after a moment. He stood. "Attention, please." Those who'd started to drift away returned. "I'm going with Mr. N'Trol down into the light conduits. Commander T'Ral 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 I'Zul Tactical Web," said T'Ral.

  "That's it," said K'Raoda. "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 eighty-eight qualified. At least we can give the commodore some cover fire if he needs it."

  T'Ral nodded curtly. "Yes, sir." He began issuing orders as N'Trol and K'Raoda left the bridge.

  "What's so damned secret, N'Trol?" asked K'Raoda 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 N'Trol as they passed an open recroom door. A steady stream of chill air flowed into the corridor. "I see you're not startled," said the engineer.

  "You haven't heard," said K'Raoda, and quickly sketched the incident of R'Gal, 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 N'Trol, entering the access code on a touchpad. "Knew his stuff, kept to himself." The panel didn't open. N'Trol shrugged. "Stasis algorithm must have reached the security protocols." Unclipping a light wand from his shirt pocket, N'Trol held it over the tiny optics transceiver to the left of the touchpad. Picking up the downtime signal from transceiver, the wand sent an override code flashing into the panel. There was a soft click.

  "Give me a hand here," said N'Trol, pocketing the wand.

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

  "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 knife all set to cut my heart out. Never saw anyone in engineering move that fast." They had the panel opened now. Light glimmered in the distance.

  "So you pegged R'Gal as CIC or maybe Fleet Security," said K'Raoda, 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 K'Raoda, kneeling over the Watcher. R'Gal lay in the center of a small four-way intersection, hands crossed over his chest, the red-green light of a billion messages washing over him. There were two neat holes in each of his temples.

  "S'Cotar transmute," said K'Raoda, rising. "Weird. Why didn't it steal his mind, kill him and flick him out into space?"

  N'Trol 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 R'GaPs legs, N'Trol led, K'Raoda 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 D'Trelna. "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 gather its strength, Commodore," said the machine. "Soon. And should we survive, the way back won't be easy."

  "D'Trelna," came K'Tran's voice, "we've passed enough hidden fusion batteries to stop a cruiser. Why haven't they fired?"

  D'Trelna 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, K'Tran, as the power and maneuverability it draws from the human minds it's enslaved."

  "You think they want to harvest us?" said A'Tir, a slight tremor to her voice.

  "Count on it," said D'Trelna.

  "I'd rather die," she said.

  "You'll have the chance," said L'Wrona.

  Suddenly the control panel and cabin lights winked off, as did the corridor lights. With a whine of dying n-gravs, the shuttle plunged toward the deck.

  "Brakes!" shouted L'Wrona, throwing his arms across his face as they slammed into the deck.

  "Negative!" cried D'Trelna, pulling back on the useless control stick.

  Metal screaming, sparks flying, the shuttle spun down the corridor, angling toward the left wall. Egg's tendrils snapped back out, touching the 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 D'Trelna weakly. Wiping his sweaty palms on his pants, he unbuckled and stood, peering into the utter darkness of the corridor. "What happened to K'Tran?"

  "Alternate course plotted and set," said A'Tir, looking up from the shuttle's complink.

  "Time to lose Fats and friends," said K'Tran, glancing at the course plot. "Next main 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 K'Tran.

  "Think they've had it?" asked A'Tir.

  K'Tran shrugged, eyes on the corridor. "Two very capable officers, D'Trelna and L'Wrona. And backed by ten of their best commandos. Don't count them out, Number One. But with luck, they and the R'Actolians will occupy each other till it's too late."

  "Anyone hurt?" asked L'Wrona. He stood beside D'Trelna in the shuttle's passenger section.

  "No," said S'Til. The commandos were out of their seats, taking the battlelamps S'Til was distributing from the aft storage area. The dim glow of six battery-powered lights provided a faint light. "Damper field?" she asked, handing each of the two senior officers a lamp.

  "Probably," said D'Trelna, clipping the lamp to his belt.

  Drawing her Mil A, S'Til set the beam low, pointed the muzzle at the roof and pulled the trigger. There was a faint click. "Damper field," she nodded. "Defense perimeter?" she asked L'Wrona.

  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 D'Trelna. "Surely not bare-handed," he said.

  The arms locker was set into the bulkhead to the right of the airlock. Going to it, D'Trelna entere
d the combination on its keypad. Nothing happened. "Get that open," he ordered S'Til, 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. S'Til slid the door back, then stepped back with a delighted cry. Behind her, a commando whistled appreciatively as lamp beams washed across the arms racks.

  "Your commodore provides," said D'Trelna, sweeping his own light over the rows of stacked M16's and Uzis. "You do know how to use them?" he asked S'Til.

  "We didn't waste our time on Terra," she said, passing out the weapons. "Plenty of ammunition," she added, nodding at the crates stacked beneath the racks.

  "Indeed," said D'Trelna. Glancing at the boxes, he fleetingly wondered what 5.56MM NATO meant.

  "You sly swamp d'astig, D'Trelna," said L'Wrona, handing the commodore an Uzi. "How'd you know?"

  "I didn't," said D'Trelna. "Contingency planning."

  "Keep your M11A's," ordered S'Til. 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, S'Til leaped out into the darkness of the mindslaver.

  Egg had landed them at the intersection of four main corridors, a space half the size of a sports field. The area looked even wider than it was, there in the light from the battle torches.

  Walking in a slow circle around the shuttle, D'Trelna looked down each of the great passageways, straining to see beyond the cone of yellow light. L'Wrona walked silently beside him, machine pistol at the ready.

  "Do you know the tale of the four corners of hell, H'Nar?" asked the commodore as they walked around the front of the shuttle.

  D'Trelna was surprised to see the captain smile. "One of my father's favorites. The merchant prince A'Lan rescues some tedious woman…"

  "T'Sar…"

  "Rescues T'Sar from the demon P'Kul, in the very heart of hell. Pursued, A'Lan and T'Sar lose their way and come to the four corners of hell. P'Kul and his pack are at their heels. Before them, three dark, uncertain roads. Two, they know, lead back to hell. The third, to life, but only for the living."

  "And A'Lan chooses the one least traveled on," said D'Trelna, "and of course they emerge into the land of life. A parable on the road-least-traveled."