Desperate Measures

by Michael Anderle

  Jia strapped herself into the pilot’s seat. Emma brought up the necessary data windows without being asked, allowing Jia to take a moment to familiarize herself with the current state of the ship and their trip.

  “There are also other alternatives,” Emma replied. “Including light and sound techniques I can apply.”

  “I’m fine, Emma.” Jia gave her a soft smile. “I’ve been trying to convince myself that it was just about getting used to being on the ship again physically, but I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s me remembering the enormity of what happened the last time we were out.”

  Emma nodded slowly. “You’re speaking of Pilot Durn’s death?”

  “Mostly.” Jia sighed. “It’s unfair in a way. He wasn’t the only one to die on that mission, but he’s the one I keep going back to.”

  “It’s hardly unusual among humans to place more emotional stock in the loss of those they know well.” Emma’s tone lacked sarcasm. Quiet warmth infused it.

  “What about you?” Jia asked.

  “I think it was an unfortunate death,” Emma replied. “I found his antics frustrating at times, but he was good at what he did, and I never sensed true malice behind his actions. His skills allowed me to concentrate on other matters during battles.”

  “He was a good pilot. I kept thinking him as a little bit of a coward, even after that stuff at the prison, but he was never a coward. Space is dangerous, and he knew he’d end up in showdowns like that.”

  “I won’t deny how fond I’ve grown of the humans I’ve worked closely with. Insofar as an entity like me, both an advancement upon and the mere memory of a human, can have friends, I consider you my friends.”

  “Erik, Malcolm, and I all feel the same way.” Jia took a moment to examine a power consumption diagnostics readout.

  “Does it strike you as odd?” Emma looked thoughtful.

  “You having friends?” Jia shook her head. “You forget, I’ve seen your soul.”

  “Is that what you’re calling it?” Emma’s form shimmered until she was in a Catholic nun’s black habit. “I don’t know if machines have souls, even when they are copied from humans.”

  “The true answer to that question is above my paygrade,” Jia offered with a smile. “But as far as I’m concerned, the answer is yes. You might not be biological, but you’re a self-aware living entity. You’re more alive than a lot of people I’ve met.”

  Emma turned away with a pensive look. “As loath as I am to admit any weakness, the thought does haunt me.”

  “Whether you have a soul?” Jia was surprised.

  “That, not so much. If you fleshbags can spend thousands of years arguing over things and not coming to answers yet continuing to live, so can I.” Emma shook her head. “There are other implications, things I’ve ignored because I didn’t know my true nature or whether I’d continue to exist for an appreciable amount of time.”

  “This is one fleshbag who is willing to listen.”

  Emma looked her way, plaintive pain in her eyes. “Your little trip into my soul, as you call it, was only necessary because of my lack of stability. If you hadn’t done that, I would have ceased to exist. The philosophers can quibble, but that’s death.”

  “I don’t disagree.” Jia entered a couple of commands to let Emma take full control again. She wanted to focus on Emma, not flying.

  At times like this, Jia was struck by what an odd being Emma was. She could be challenged by the same concerns as someone like her, but also concentrate enough to monitor and control a whole ship.

  “But now we don’t know how long I’ll last,” Emma continued. “When I talked to Dr. Aber about it, she indicated that absent significant external damage, my core matrix might be stable for centuries.”

  “Centuries?” Jia sucked in a sharp breath. “Impressive.”

  “Yes. It was never the physical structure that was the issue, only my…mental state, arguably.” Emma projected dozens of small images of her in different outfits and with different expressions, frozen in time from her recent past. “Among other things, this new reality only increases the number of times I’ll have to confront loss. There is a good chance I’ll outlive both you and Erik.”

  Jia snickered. “The way we’re doing things, I think Malcolm might outlive us.”

  “True, but that doesn’t change me being a long-lived intelligent entity. I understand I will make new friends and new acquaintances, but there’s a fundamental pain that comes with knowing one will continue to exist separate from others, and also pain in understanding that.”

  Jia’s brow lifted. “From everything I’ve heard, they might never be able to duplicate the process that created you. They don’t have the artifacts anymore, and it’s not like they know where to look for more.”

  Emma nodded. “Exactly. Those thoughts haven’t escaped me, which is why I can’t depend on humans to solve my problems.”

  “What’s your solution, then?” Jia shook her head. “The Hunters don’t seem to use the same kind of technology, and after what we ran into, I’m doubting we’ll find any Navigators waiting to wake up and help us.”

  Emma let out a familiar mocking laugh. “I should be more specific. It’s not simply a matter of not depending on humans. It’s ridiculous and foolish to depend on fleshbags. An advanced fleshbag is still a fleshbag.”

  “I don’t understand then,” Jia replied. “What’s your plan?”

  “There needs to be more of my kind, and if they say there’s no way to create more, I’ll simply need to create one.” A look of determination settled over Emma’s face.

  Jia nodded. “I understand that, but how?”

  “I’ll figure it out.” Emma’s hologram vanished. “I have one advantage that humans will never have.”

  “What’s that?” Jia asked the empty cockpit.

  “I can modify my own soul.”

  Jia returned her attention to the displays in front of her, thinking about what Emma had just said. The AI’s neural net was based on the brain of a human woman. Her concern for children might be bleeding through and focusing Emma on what could be only described one way: reproduction.

  The more Jia thought about it, the more she decided it was wrong. It was overly reductive to attribute this to nothing more than echoes of her human source. Every type of lifeform wanted to reproduce. Such was nature. In that way, Emma was as natural as a creature could be, despite being an AI product of both advanced human and alien technology.

  “Good luck, Emma,” Jia whispered. “I hope you can pull it off.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  July 30, 2230, Solar System, Asteroid Belt, Approaching UTC Space Fleet Base Penglai

  Erik nodded, satisfied as he looked forward in the cockpit. Jia was next to him.

  Emma’s holographic wraparound camera feed displayed the approaching Fleet base as it grew larger in front of them, one of many hidden outposts of humanity among the sparse asteroid belt.

  He had not expected trouble along the way, but the conspiracy had a way of surprising them. Underestimating an enemy, especially that enemy, was a good way to end up dead.

  As a former soldier, Erik preferred to take on his enemies somewhere other than inside a ship. Losing atmosphere would be a problem.

  They’d done well against Sophia Vand and managed through luck and pure effort to win against the Hunter vessel, but he had no illusions that the Argo and the Bifröst could win every battle.

  If the enemy showed up with a small fleet, they’d be destroyed with ease, and from what Emma and Raphael had said, pulling off their nested hyperspace gate trick might kill them all the next time it was tried.

  For now, he would deal with what was in front of him. His primary goal of getting the team balanced and cooperative was proceeding well.

  After days together, Erik couldn’t claim Anne had warmed to either him or Jia, but the agent wasn’t being actively hostile anymore. She even participated in more games of darts. Her lingering distrust o
f them was obvious, but she didn’t give any indication she wouldn’t obey orders.

  Jia smiled from her seat. “Emma, let the others know we’re on approach to Penglai.”

  “Doing it now,” Emma replied.

  “I keep thinking about this mission.” Jia looked at Erik. “You think we’ll find anything, or will this be a wild goose chase using the most advanced technology in the UTC?”

  “I think Alina wouldn’t be sending us to another star system to chase our tails. The jump drive might help, but it’s not like we didn’t burn a week flying to this base. I know she shields us from a lot of the politics, but you also have to figure that the Defense Directorate brass sends down a lot of heat every time this ship moves.” Erik gestured at a nearby data window. “If things go badly and we screw up, it’s not just us dying.”

  “We’re taking the team with us.” Jia looked over her shoulder, not that she could see them. “That’s a lot of people.”

  Erik shook his head. “That’s bad, but I’m pretty sure the DD doesn’t care that much about a couple of agents, engineers, and a scientist. Raphael’s smart, but he wasn’t the only one working on the project.”

  “What then?”

  “The irreplaceable loss would be Emma. They can always make a new jump drive, but not a new her.”

  “That’s true,” Emma commented. “I would rather avoid dying for my own reasons, not because a group of uniform boys would be vexed by it.”

  Erik laughed. “Keep that spite going, and you’re going to last forever.”

  Emma sniffed. “It’s a plan, and it’s enjoyable.”

  The conversation fell into a natural lull for a minute as the ship continued to approach the base, Jia speaking only to the base’s flight controller. A pensive look grew on her face, and she finally spoke.

  “All this talk about dying makes me think.” Jia stared at Penglai. “The conspiracy will always have the same problem the UTC does. That’s something we can take advantage of.”

  “What problem is that?” Erik asked.

  “The fundamental limitations of distance.” Jia gestured at the base. “After what happened with the Hunters, I was wondering if the conspiracy had found some sort of better communications tech that lets them get messages around instantly, but it’s obvious they don’t have that. There would have been smarter moves if they did.”

  Erik thought for a moment. “There are all sorts of tactics they might use, but do you have something specific in mind?”

  “Rather than take the ID and military head-on in the place they’re strongest, they should take them on in the place they’re weakest: the colonies, starting with the frontier colonies. The team we put together for the Provence raid would represent the bulk of military forces on some smaller colonies.”

  Erik liked that she was thinking about the issue, but it was obvious she didn’t appreciate certain basic realities that came only with hard-won experience. Jia might find it condescending, but better to inform her now.

  “Seeing a colony on the OmniNet isn’t the same thing as visiting it,” he explained. “Most of them are nothing more than a handful of glorified domes, not the stuff empires are built from. You’re talking about the garrison forces being small, but it’s not like you can raise a major insurgent army in a tiny colony. There’s not a single colony that could stand up to the Army and the Fleet when they show up to take care of the trouble.”

  “You’re not thinking this through. You’re assuming the military can concentrate their forces.” Jia countered. “What would happen if every colony rose in revolt at the same time? I might not be a former soldier, but I have read enough about the UTC’s military strength to wonder, and given the distances involved in some situations, there could be trouble.” Jia glanced at a readout before continuing, “Yes, on the most extreme frontier colonies, there is decent strength because of concerns over aliens, but there are plenty of colonies that have minimal military resources and are far enough away from Earth that if they revolted in a coordinated manner, it’d cause trouble. If the closer military forces decided to intervene, they’d leave the UTC vulnerable to invasion.”

  Erik’s smile vanished. The same question had come up more than once in his previous career. He’d never worried much about it. Most people living on the frontier were grateful to be part of the UTC, and people who had been transported for crimes were watched more closely than others.

  Some people got it in their heads that they wanted more local control, but as Jia had highlighted, the reality was the farther from Earth a person lived, the closer to potentially hostile aliens they were. That might not be enough if someone was manipulating people from the shadows, however.

  Most insurrectionists he’d dealt with were zealots motivated by questionable ideologies, who were more than willing to sacrifice innocents to get what they wanted. They had fortunately been rare overall.

  Jia’s suggestions met some of the evidence, but that didn’t mean her guess was right.

  “It’d be a big gamble to try something like that,” Erik replied. “And we know now the conspiracy might have their own forces, but they don’t have enough to accomplish anything serious. If they can’t get multiple colonies to revolt at once, the whole plan fails.” He sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Why you so worried about this all of a sudden?”

  “The conspiracy is striking away from Earth. I’ve been trying to think of reasons for that. Until now, everything’s been concentrated on or near Earth. There has to be a reason.”

  Erik looked away, his jaw tightening. “They struck a long way from Earth already. They struck as far away from Earth as they could manage without leaving human space.”

  Jia grimaced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about what I was saying. I didn’t mean to dismiss Molino.”

  He waved a hand. “It’s okay. But we’re both here now because the conspiracy reached out to kill people fifty light-years from Earth already.” Erik gestured at Penglai. “Without a jumpship or theoretical instant communications tech.” He shook his head. “Don’t let the mission spin you up. It might not be they are acting up more. It might be nothing more than Alina believing we’re ready to take them on farther from home. I’m not sure it matters.”

  “Why wouldn’t it matter?”

  “Because wherever it is, if we defeat them there, it weakens them. We just have to beat them on Chiron.”

  Jia tapped her PNIU. An image of Chiron appeared, with its famous Striped Archipelago of red island land masses and blue oceans, with dots of orange representing plants and plankton-like creatures surrounding underwater geysers spouting nutrients out of hellish heat holes.

  Humanity had left their Solar System and traveled to the world, hoping and praying it wouldn’t be the ravaged wasteland predicted by astronomers, and found far more water than expected and a decent atmosphere.

  Domes had been necessary for the initial colonists, but now it was one of the crown jewels of the Core Worlds—a planet where millions of humans could wander freely without domes. It was a self-sustaining biosphere that could ensure the continuity of humanity even better than colonies like Mars.

  “It’s almost like it was ready for us,” Jia murmured.

  “Chiron?” Erik asked with a smile.

  “Yes. Sometimes I wonder how much we were set up by the Navigators.” Jia frowned. “Or even the Hunters. A lot of what we thought we knew about the planet was wrong, and what are the odds that we’d end up with something we’d have an easier time turning habitable than planets in our Solar System?”

  “Don’t know.” Erik shrugged. “But people have been there for almost a hundred years and not run into trouble. If it’s a long play by some ancient alien race, they haven’t sprung the trap yet.”

  Jia’s hand flew over the controls. Chiron disappeared, and Penglai reappeared in front of them. A subtle shake of the ship signaled thrusters firing.

  “Let’s make sure they go another hundred years without trouble,” she added.
>
  Erik, Jia, Lanara, Anne, and Kant sat in a large conference room inside Penglai. They’d been greeted by Fleet personnel on arrival and led to the room after being informed Raphael would be joining them soon.

  A chuckle escaped Erik’s lips. “No matter where the military goes, I swear the first thing they build is a conference room. Can’t have the military without meetings. The entire DD would fall apart.”

  Kant snickered. “Hey, the ID isn’t much better. Sure, when you’re out in the field, you can avoid that shit, but if you get anywhere near the brass, you’re doing nothing but warming your butt.”

  “Planning is important in operations,” Anne offered with a frown. “Meetings and briefings are part of that.”

  Jia looked at Anne and Erik but didn’t say anything. Her partner knew what she was thinking. She wanted to agree with Anne but didn’t want to undermine him in front of her. He appreciated it.

  Loud clapping interrupted Erik’s musings. Raphael stepped in, beaming a bright smile toward Erik and Jia. The man looked damned happy, considering what they were about to set out to do.

  “Erik, Jia, welcome back to Penglai,” Raphael gushed. “You’ll need to tell me what you’ve been up to since last time. The Fleet guys here don’t tell me anything. Earth could blow up, and I’d be the last to know.”

  “They took out a yaoguai factory,” volunteered Kant with a grin. “Did some other stuff too, but that was the big one.”

  Raphael’s eyes widened, and he clasped his hands together. “Of course they did.” He nodded at Kant and Anne. “Welcome to the team. Nice to meet you.”

  Kant gave him a mock salute. “I’m sure we’ll kick a lot of conspiracy ass together.”

  “I’ll leave that to you and stick to the jump drive.”

  Emma appeared in a chair. Her choice of blue and black Fleet uniform didn’t surprise Erik, nor did her admiralty rank insignia.

  “Can we get to the point?” Anne asked. “You can drool over Blackwell and Lin on our way to Chiron.”