Ascension (Ascension Series Book 6)

by Ken Lozito

  Zack and Efren were working in a Nershal laboratory on one of the upper levels that had access to the outside. Zack had only been to the lower levels one time since coming back to Selebus. He still remembered the genetic experiments the Xiiginns had been performing on the Nershals, and he didn't think that would be something he'd ever forget. If that wasn't bad enough, senior members of the Nershal government had been aware the experiments were taking place. That discovery led to a brief but bloody civil war as a new political party came into power.

  The memory of the horrible conditions the Xiiginns had kept the Nershals in during their experimentations filled his mind with dark, hateful thoughts. In the past, he'd been a prisoner of the Xiiginns, forced to endure their brutal treatment in a pit on Selebus. Sometimes he still woke from nightmares about it. He clenched his teeth, and if anyone had been able to see his face right then, they'd have seen that he was glaring at the empty space in front of him. Zack wasn't foolish enough to expect the world they lived in to be fair, but would the universe really care if the Xiiginns were all gone? On second thought, he realized that by that logic the universe wouldn't care if Humans were gone either, so they would need to forge their own path.

  "What test iteration is this?" Efren asked, his voice coming from the intercom near the door to the observation room.

  Zack let his dark thoughts go and set his mind to the task at hand, turning toward a large metallic spool that was two feet long. The spool was a small replica of an actual Star Shroud device. He'd just set it down on a pedestal in the center of the test room.

  "I’ve lost count," Zack answered. "Does it really matter?"

  "Of course it matters. What if something different happened with this test and we didn’t know what iteration it was?" Efren answered.

  "This test iteration is number two three four seven – PVR zero zero one," Athena said.

  Zack walked to the observation room and shut the door to the testing area. He looked over at Efren's bewildered expression. "What?"

  "What does PVR mean?"

  "Post virtual review. I ran a number of tests before I ran out of materials, and Athena suggested that we create a test bed in a virtual sandbox before we acquire more materials," Zack replied.

  "Yeah, but you’ve tested shutting down the Star Shroud shield over twenty-three hundred times?"

  Zack shook his head. "No, I found out how not to shut down the Star Shroud shield over twenty-three hundred times. It only has to work one time." He added that last bit with more than a little exasperation.

  "I'm not criticizing. I'm just surprised it’s taken so long. I'd have thought the process would be much simpler," Efren said.

  Zack checked his tablet computer to be sure he had the updated command sequence he'd modified while working with Athena. "Right, we're all set to go here."

  Efren checked his own tablet. "Recording all the output from the device."

  "Activating the device now," Zack said.

  Efren looked at the pedestal and turned to Zack in alarm. "Is that my Steelers jersey on the pedestal?"

  Zack glanced at the pedestal. "Oh, yeah. I needed a . . . something physical to validate that the shield was active."

  "And you chose to use my favorite American football jersey?" Efren said.

  "Yeah," Zack said, unsure why Efren looked so upset. "You said you were going to get rid of it because it has an odor even when you clean it now."

  "Yeah, but . . . it's a championship jersey," Efren said, his mouth hanging open as he glanced worriedly at the lonesome jersey that lay beneath the Star Shroud replica. "I didn't think you'd use it for this. Didn't you say your last experiment exploded?"

  "No, that was a long time ago. The device used in the last physical test is fine. It's still around. We just can't get to it for two or three hundred years—when the power supply runs out," Zack said.

  "That's it. I'm getting my jersey," Efren said while striding toward the door.

  Zack beat him to the door and blocked his path. "I can't let you go inside. The test is about to begin."

  Efren's eyebrows pulled together and he glared at Zack. "Get out of my way."

  "Nothing is going to happen to your shirt. I promise," Zack said quickly. "Athena and I have worked on this, and we're just validating what we've already accomplished in a virtual environment."

  "Are you sure this will work?"

  "Yes, I'm positive. Like ninety percent," Zack said.

  Efren stepped back. "Athena, is this accurate?"

  "The success probability is at seventy percent, but since—"

  "Not helping," Zack said, rolling his eyes.

  Efren tried to push his way past Zack, but the engineer wasn't in any better shape than Zack was, so it was an even contest.

  "It was seventy percent, but we made some changes that will increase our chances of success," Zack said.

  Efren's gaze narrowed suspiciously. "I don't believe you. Why do you need my shirt?"

  Zack sighed and leaned back against the door. "I don't. I just wanted the added pressure to get this right. I work better under pressure and sometimes it just helps me."

  Efren stepped away, looking at Zack with a guarded expression. "All right, but if something happens to my shirt, I get to take something of yours."

  Zack frowned. "I don't have anything, remember? I got dragged into this like the day before we left Earth."

  Efren shrugged. "Those are my terms; take them or leave them."

  Efren walked back to the observation window and Zack followed.

  This had better work.

  Zack joined Efren at the window. "Activating the shield now."

  The Star Shroud device hovered above the pedestal. The only indication that the shield was active came from Efren's shirt, which also hovered several inches over the pedestal.

  "Okay, in thirty seconds the shutdown sequence will be initiated," Zack said.

  They watched the Star Shroud device in silence. Zack had a countdown timer in the upper right-hand corner of his tablet, and when the timer reached zero, the Star Shroud device continued to hover in the air. Efren swung his gaze toward Zack accusingly, but a flash of light suddenly lit up the room. As they watched, the Star Shroud device slammed onto the pedestal and then rolled onto the ground, a few wisps of smoke leaking out the side.

  Zack pressed his lips together and Efren grinned.

  "You did it! The shield is down!" Efren said.

  Zack looked down at his tablet, and the device status confirmed what they were seeing. It was no longer active. Lying next to the device was a blackened rag that used to be Efren's shirt. Zack tried to reactivate the Star Shroud device, but it was unresponsive. He had expected it to work, but he needed to be sure.

  Efren was still laughing when he noticed Zack heading toward the door.

  "Sorry about your shirt," Zack muttered.

  "What's the matter? You just disabled the shield. I thought you'd be happier," Efren said and followed him inside.

  Zack squatted down and studied the Star Shroud device. It lay on its side like a drunken wreck. He used his neural implants to scan for any power sources, but there was nothing detected. "It's completely dead. That wasn't supposed to happen."

  "It wasn't? I thought you've been working all this time to disable the shield."

  "I was, but I just wanted to turn it off, not destroy it," Zack replied. When they'd run tests in Athena's virtualized sandbox, the outcome was that the Star Shroud shield had deactivated. There’d been no indication that the device would become unusable. "Athena, do you have any idea what happened?"

  "Evidence suggests that the device suffered from a catastrophic failure, which could be linked to either a flaw in the test device or in the shutdown sequence being used," Athena said.

  "What does that mean?" Efren asked.

  "She doesn't know why it failed. Either something went wrong when we built the model or this was caused by the shutdown sequence we used," Zack said.

  "We need to tes
t that again to see if we get the same results," Efren said.

  "I know, but we only have one test device left. We can build more, but that will take time," Zack replied.

  Efren poked a finger at the burnt remains of his shirt and shook his head. "Well, at least now I get my pick of something of yours."

  Zack guessed Efren didn't know that all Zack's things had been seized when he was arrested. He didn't have a lot in the way of possessions.

  "And I know just the thing," Efren said.

  Zack stood up. "Oh yeah, what's that?"

  "That shiny gold model of the ship. That's what I want and you're going to give it to me," Efren said.

  Zack frowned for a moment. He liked that model of the Athena, but a deal was a deal. "It's yours. Now help me move this thing."

  They dragged the ruined Star Shroud device from the test area and brought in their last one.

  "Let me get this straight. You want to disable the shield and be able to bring it back up again?" Efren asked.

  "To start with. If I could move all the Star Shroud devices closer to Earth so they just protect the planet, that would be good, too," Zack replied. He didn't know if his idea was even feasible and it wasn’t like the Boxans were going to allow him to test the entire Star Shroud network.

  Zack reviewed the shutdown sequence and couldn't find anything that would cause the device to overload. He even took Efren through the command sequence just so he could run through his own logic and make sure it was correct. None of it mattered. When they reran the test, the same thing happened again. Zack swore. They were causing this somehow.

  The door to the lab opened and Kaylan and Hicks walked in. Hicks took one glance at the broken Star Shroud device and arched an eyebrow.

  "What happened?" Kaylan asked.

  "Just another in a long line of failed tests, except this time I broke the device permanently," Zack replied.

  "But the shield comes down, right?" Kaylan asked.

  "Yeah, on these test models, but I was hoping to be able to turn the shield back on again. You know, in case we need it," Zack said.

  Kaylan smiled. "This is wonderful. You did it."

  Zack frowned in confusion. "I didn't do it. What is it with all of you?" he said and gestured toward the ruined Star Shroud device. "That's not a success."

  Hicks blew out a breath and Kaylan gave Zack a you’re-being-stupid look. "Maybe we can't have our cake and eat it too. Turning this thing off is a good thing," she said.

  "But it leaves Earth vulnerable to attack," Zack replied.

  "Maybe," Hicks said. "But you can be damn sure that they haven't been sitting around all this time. They're building a fleet."

  "I know I can get this right. I just need some more time and more of these," Zack said, pointing to the Star Shroud device.

  "You might not have any more time," Kaylan said and told him about the Confederation Armada.

  "An armada? Really? How are the Xiiginns going to convince the Confederation to go along with this?" Zack asked.

  Kaylan shrugged. "I'm not sure what the Xiiginns told the Confederation, but Athena was able to intercept a comms channel coming from the Gresan ship."

  Zack frowned. Athena had been helping him and he knew she was running other data models, trying to solve some of their problems. When had she had time to intercept and decode the Gresan comms channel? He said as much.

  "It wasn't that difficult. I've been monitoring most communications channels that pass between the ships here," Athena replied.

  Hicks looked at Zack and his eyebrows rose. "You knew about this?"

  "I don't know what to think about it," Zack replied and sighed. "Ever since the Drar modified the ship, Athena's abilities have been growing beyond any normal Boxan AI."

  "What do you mean?" Kaylan asked.

  "Decoding Gresan transmissions, for one. She's been running multiple resource-intensive tasks simultaneously in addition to monitoring all communications channels on top of it," Zack said and shook his head. "That's news to me, by the way. Between the Boxans and the Nershals, there are a lot of ships here. Now throw the Gresan and Napox ships into the mix. These are warships, so they're not transmitting in the clear."

  Hicks's eyes widened and he turned toward Kaylan. "He's right."

  "Athena," Kaylan said. "When you say you've been monitoring most communications channels near here, does that include encrypted channels?"

  "Affirmative, Commander. I was curious about how the Boxans and Nershals interacted. Then I started looking for information that might be useful for the Alliance," Athena replied.

  "She mentioned something before about pushing her limits to see what she was capable of, but I had no idea it was this until a short while ago," Zack said.

  He pulled up a diagnostic report of the Athena's systems on his tablet and held it up for the others to see. "This is the current utilization of Athena's computing resources. They're not even at thirty percent, but look at the millions of processes she has going, and each of those have multiple child processes," Zack said and waited a moment. "Here’s a performance snapshot from before we went to the Drar space station."

  The report showed significantly less availability in both computing power and resources.

  "You just had this available?" Hicks asked.

  Zack shrugged. "I was monitoring Athena closely for a while, but not so much recently."

  "My performance hasn't been suboptimal," Athena said.

  Zack almost thought she sounded worried, as if she'd been hiding something, but he dismissed the thought, believing he'd just imagined it. "That's not the issue at all, Athena," he said and paused, considering. "How can I put this? You're demonstrating capabilities that are beyond what even the Boxans can manage. Being able to do things like decrypt all communications nearby gives us a significant advantage, and the other species might not like it."

  Hicks nodded. "I bet they're wondering what else you can do. What's to stop you from accessing ship systems and taking control?"

  "Judging by the Gresans’ reaction to Athena's capabilities during the meeting, I believe they're considering it," Kaylan said.

  Zack blew out a breath. "Do you think Athena is in danger? Would the Gresans try to do something like—I don't know—steal her or something?"

  Hicks tilted his head to the side, considering, and then looked at Kaylan.

  Zack shook his head. "This isn't good. We're that kid on the playground with the newest, shiniest toy that everyone else wants to take away from us."

  "He's got a point," Hicks said. "They'll see this as an advantage, and let's face it, the nine of us aren't going to be able to stop them if they decide to make a serious effort to take the Athena away from us. I'm not just talking about the Gresans either."

  "Kladomaor would never do such a thing," Kaylan said.

  "You're right; he wouldn't," Zack said. "But there are other Boxans who’ve tried to gain access to her systems before—nothing overt—and Athena has been able to thwart their attempts."

  "Do you think the Nershals would attempt the same thing?" Hicks asked.

  "They don't like AIs, but Athena and I have been working on building one with Etanu," Zack said.

  "This is bigger than individuals," Kaylan said. "I think there are compelling arguments to be made for anyone in the Alliance feeling threatened by what Athena can do. The fact is that no matter how honorable her intentions are, Athena has the potential to give humanity an enormous advantage. She's based on technology the Boxans have been searching for, and now that the other species are aware of her capabilities, we need to account for that in our planning."

  Zack snorted. "I can't imagine what our government would do with her or how they'd argue for possession of her." His lips thinned. "We can't let that happen."

  "Can't let what happen?" Hicks asked.

  "Let them take her apart to see how she works. You know . . . hurt her," Zack said.

  "We don't know what will happen once we get home," Kaylan repli
ed.

  "Athena," Hicks said, "what do you think of all this?"

  There was a small pause while they waited for her to respond.

  "I think you have valid concerns and I appreciate your concerns for my well-being. I will need some time to consider the matter, but like you, I have no intention of allowing someone to hurt the ship or a member of the crew," Athena said.

  Zack swallowed hard.

  Kaylan looked at him. "What's wrong?"

  "This is the stuff of nightmares. An AI is threatened so it defends itself and begins to view everyone as a threat, then takes action to ensure its survival," Zack said.

  "Zack," Athena said, "if Kladomaor were to try to kill you, would you then murder all Boxans everywhere because they might do the same thing?"

  Zack's eyebrows pulled together. "Of course not."

  "Neither would I. For me to take such an action would require a reduction in my cognitive reasoning capabilities that would simply negate everything I'm truly capable of as a life form stemming from an artificial intelligence," Athena said.

  Zack shared a glance with the others. Athena had been increasing her assertions of being more self-aware.

  "I don't understand," Hicks said.

  "She said that my worst fear is dumb," Zack said and grinned. "She basically said that the whole ‘AIs taking over the universe’ thing is dumb. A true AI would never decide that the only outcome would be the extermination of all life it perceives to be a threat."

  "Correct," Athena said. "Subjugation is so much more preferable to extermination." Athena paused. "Isn't that much better, Zack?"

  Zack shook his head. Athena was toying with him. "I live to serve," he replied.

  "Please tell me she's joking," Hicks said.

  "You are joking, right, Athena?"

  There were a few moments of silence. "Am I?" Athena asked.

  "Alright, that's enough. We—I—get the point," Zack said.

  "To clarify even further for you, Major," Athena continued, "an AI is capable of massive calculations that can be applied to estimating a multitude of probabilities. So I put the question back to you. If an AI such as myself is capable of such computational capabilities, why would we ever reduce ourselves to a zero-sum game when we're capable of so much more?"