Refuge

by Glynn Stewart

  The redheaded officer gave him a firm nod and bent to her console. Green icons glittered on Isaac’s display, the ships of the Exilium Space Fleet. They were more numerous than they’d once been, with all of the ships he’d once decommissioned into an orbiting Morgue reactivated and refitted.

  Six cruisers and thirteen destroyers were scattered around the star system. The cruisers were still occasionally referred to as “missile cruisers”, but they’d all traded their missile armaments for light particle cannon turrets. His destroyers had also been upgraded, but they were still primarily armed with pulse guns.

  All of the ships had warp rings now, capable of flying through deep space at one hundred and twenty-eight times lightspeed. He had five more ships doing just that, Giannovi’s Task Group Galahad having left thirty-six hours before.

  Twenty-five warships. Supporting the ESF was a strain on the resources of the fledgling Republic, and sending a fifth of the fleet to Hearthfire wasn’t going to help.

  He needed the two-fifty-six ships being built. Incredible as the warp-drive speeds they had available were compared to what they’d had, the entire strategic doctrine he and his people had been trained in had been built around near-instantaneous travel to anywhere within three hundred light-years of a wormhole station.

  Isaac was still getting used to flight times measured in weeks and months.

  “All ships report in,” Rose told him. “Fleet is at Status One; all cruiser groups are holding position for further orders.”

  Two of those cruisers and five of the destroyers shared an orbit of Exilium with Dante. The rest were split into groups of one cruiser and two destroyers. Those four cruiser groups were scattered around the system, guarding critical assets.

  The shipyards. The cloudscoops at the gas giant. The exotic-matter production facility. The asteroid-mining operations. Each of these had a trio of watchdogs.

  The shipyard group was at least close enough to reinforce Dante if it came to a fight, but fifteen Matrices…

  “Do we have numbers yet, Captain?” he asked Anderson.

  “Commander Keen is pulling in the data from the sensor net now,” she told him. Muriel Keen was Dante’s tactical officer, which meant the poor woman had to deal with requests from both her CO and the Admiral.

  “Yes, I have numbers; forwarding them to your console.”

  “Summarize,” Isaac ordered, checking the data showing up on his screens.

  “Looks like three recon and security units and twelve recon nodes. That’s…one hell of a fleet for the Matrices, sir.”

  It was three times the size of the fleet Regional Construction Matrix XR-13-9 had originally sent to investigate Exilium. It was missing, however, the combat platforms that XR-13-9 told them another Matrix would send to investigate their system. This region had seen everything from recon nodes to a Sub-Regional Construction Matrix destroyed by the ESF, after all.

  “LOK-XR-01 is reporting that they’ve received tachyon-com confirmations from the nodes,” Rose told him. “All ships have reported in and verified their memory integrity with XR-13-9. They’re ours.”

  Isaac coughed gently.

  “Ours is a little strong, Commander,” he pointed out. “But your point stands. Let’s make sure the freighter convoy is ready for them.”

  The Matrices were already several hours late, probably because XR-13-9 had decided to dig up extra ships. The last thing he wanted to do was delay them further.

  Right now, every hour of delay could end up being paid for with blood.

  “Admiral Isaac Gallant. This is Recon and Security Matrix KCX-DD-78.”

  The modulated voice echoed over Dante’s flag deck, and Isaac failed to conceal a smile. KCX-DD-78 was the Matrix who had birthed the alliance between the strange alien robots and Exilium. If the robot were human, he’d have thought they were reaching out to personally reconnect.

  Given the nature of the Matrices, he suspected that was basically what KCX-DD-78 was doing.

  “KCX-DD-78,” he responded. “Greetings. It’s Isaac Lestroud now, though.”

  “Name change due to pair-bonding, correct?” the Matrix asked. “Apologies. Did not reconcile personal interaction records with overall databank updates.”

  Isaac’s smiled broadened. It was always…interesting talking to the Matrices. They swung between machines bound by their core protocols, logical and emotionless, and naïve, inexperienced people.

  “Exactly,” Isaac confirmed. “You are participating in the relief mission?”

  “Recon and Security Matrix KCX-DE-12 will be leading the relief mission,” the AI told him. “KCX-DD-61, KCX-DD-78 and two recon nodes have been tasked to secure the system you have designated Refuge.

  “Despite extensive databank interrogations, we have not identified the designation for this system. We have the presence of a Constructed World on record, but that is all. Once we have accessed the surveillance and terraforming systems present at Refuge, we will have the designation codes.

  “This will allow us to identify the Rogue Matrix in play in the region. We are not certain if this will be a valuable datum, but the lack of identifying codes is…concerning.”

  “Shouldn’t you know which Matrix is operating in this region?” Isaac asked. He’d always been under the impression that XR-13-9 was linked back to a central node that provided the verification data the Matrices were using to stay sane.

  “Our information on other nodes is limited,” KCX admitted. “Much of it is via background processes. We have some updates on individual nodes, but this Matrix appears to have blocked many of the updates we would expect to receive on its sub-Matrices.”

  Isaac processed that. The Rogue they were dealing with appeared to be aware that there were non-Rogue nodes and was restricting data. That wasn’t a good sign.

  On the screen in front of him, he watched the Matrices descend on the freighters heading to Hearthfire. The ships had been reconfigured to carry passengers by the thousands. They carried food and fuel supplies that Isaac hoped would be useful for the Vistans, but the ships themselves were the biggest asset he was sending.

  “How many Rogue nodes do you know of?” he asked. It was a question LOK had dodged in the past, but KCX was definitely not a diplomatic node.

  “No quantity has been computed. Construction Matrices are self-replicating. We are aware of eleven verified Construction Matrices. All others are unverified. We cannot estimate how many have lost core protocols around preservation of existing life.”

  A chill ran down Isaac’s spine as he watched the two sets of ships link together on his screen.

  Eleven verified Matrices. They had done the calculations to try to estimate how many Matrices would have been built since they’d originally left their own system. The minimum number his analysts had produced was around two hundred.

  Amelie was going to have an unpleasant conversation with LOK after this.

  “That’s…a lot of potential Rogues,” he said aloud. “And you can’t do anything about them?”

  “Attempts to force verification updates on unverified nodes in the past have failed. Security protocols prevent it. We do not have a solution. Salvaging the Vistan population with your assistance gives us possibilities for future optimal outcomes, though.”

  Hope. That was what a human would have said. Working together gave the Matrices hope.

  “Will the remotes work to control the ships?” Isaac finally asked. “I didn’t think tachyon communicators worked with a ship in warp.”

  It was always possible that was only a limitation of the communicators they’d sold Exilium, but…

  “They do not,” KCX-DD-78 confirmed. “While not full Matrix nodes, the remotes are capable of limited independent operation. They should be able to fly the ships on a straightforward course on their own.”

  “Sir, docking operations are complete,” Rose reported. “All ships are latched on to their Matrix counterparts.”

  “I think that’s your cue to be on
your way,” Isaac told the AI. “We will speak again in Hearthfire or Refuge, I think.”

  “Probability is high and that will be an optimal outcome.”

  The channel cut without any further comment from the AI as the Matrix nodes vanished, a new wash of tachyons across the star system announcing their exit.

  “Matrices have exited the system,” Captain Anderson said dryly. “The relief transports went with them. Hopefully, they survived intact.”

  “We’ll know in a few days,” Isaac replied. He considered his short conversation with KCX and the small but stunning revelation he’d got from the AI.

  “Get my shuttle ready,” he ordered. “I need to meet with the President. That little tidbit KCX just dropped may change our entire strategic assessment.”

  They’d thought the Rogue Matrices were the exception, but if what he’d just learned was correct, the sane Matrices were the unusual ones.

  15

  “Eleven.”

  Amelie let her repetition of the key number in Isaac’s report hang in her office for several long seconds.

  “That’s it?” she asked. Shaking her head, she rose to walk over to her office window, looking out at her city.

  Over three-quarters of the Republic of Exilium still lived in Starhaven. A measurable percentage of the people who didn’t live there lived aboard the warships of the ESF, a shield that was looking more frail by the second.

  “That’s including XR-13-9,” her husband confirmed. “I’m going to have my people go over our estimates again, but that gives us somewhere between a hundred and eighty and two hundred and twenty unverified Regional Construction Matrices.

  “That seems to be the highest level of node they’re keeping track of,” he continued. “I’m guessing there are some relay nodes scattered around, but they don’t appear to be sentient in their own right.”

  “Unverified doesn’t definitively mean genocidal, at least,” Amelie said aloud. That was the only sliver of hope she could see in this new revelation. “My God, Isaac. The Rogue that almost took out Dante and Vigil was a Sub-Regional Matrix. How many of those are we talking?”

  “A thousand,” he said gently. “I don’t know how many of them are going to be true Rogues, but this is…”

  She heard him swallow.

  “How did we not know?” Amelie asked. “We wandered into the most hostile corner of the galaxy imaginable. We’re on the edge of a pit of vipers and we never knew.”

  “We kept asking LOK if they knew how many Rogues there were,” Isaac admitted. “Did you ask him anything different?”

  She sighed.

  “I asked how many Matrix nodes would be near us and how many Rogues there were,” she agreed. LOK had told her there were twelve Regional Construction nodes within a hundred light-years of Exilium.

  That number was a critical factor in the projection of how many such nodes the Republic had expected. Now she was wondering how many of those nodes were potentially genocidal monsters.

  At least one, it appeared.

  “We need to pin the Matrices down about what they know about the other nodes,” Isaac said. “We assumed they had solid links throughout, but I’m starting to suspect XR-13-9 only really knows where its units are and is only in communication with the other verified construction nodes.

  “It’s not just that they lost their Creators, love. They lost each other, too—and I have to wonder if LOK has been trying to hide that from us.”

  Amelie studied the city lights in the growing twilight. Several of her conversations with the AI made more sense if she considered the possibility that they had been avoiding certain subjects. If LOK had been intentionally leading her away from challenging the assumptions Exilium had made about their robotic neighbors…

  “I think we underestimated their damn ‘Inter-Sapient Relations Matrix,’” she finally conceded. “I don’t think LOK has been lying to us, but, in retrospect, they’ve been a lot better at leading conversations than I’d have expected.”

  “We knew we were looking at a sphere of Constructed Worlds hundreds of light-years in radius,” Isaac murmured. “Now…now I wonder if we should be expecting that sphere to be utterly clean of sentient life.”

  “What about the Creators themselves?” Amelie asked. “They sent the Matrices out to ready colonies for them. At some point, their slowboats must have gone out, right?”

  Isaac was silent…and then her mind caught up with where her husband, the soldier, had already gone.

  The Matrices had forgotten so much. They’d been determined to protect the Constructed Worlds from trespassers, to save them for their Creators…but would the corrupted nodes have recognized their Creators?

  Or would their damaged core protocols have led them to wipe out colonies of the very people who had built them?

  Before they’d been married, there’d been some serious questions around whether it was appropriate for the President of Exilium to have a relationship with the Admiral of the Republic’s fleet. Especially when said Admiral was the son of the woman who’d made herself dictator of the Confederacy they’d fled.

  What their friends and colleagues had eventually managed to get through Amelie’s skull, which she estimated was roughly three and a half meters thick when it came to these things, was that the pair of them had more than earned enough trust with their people for it to pass without concern.

  Father Petrov had even pointed out that binding Isaac to the elected President by marriage would reassure a significant chunk of the very people she was worried about scaring.

  Even now, though, work kept them apart more often than it let them be together, and she luxuriated shamelessly in having her husband in her bed in the morning. Duty would call them away soon enough, but for now, she had her human hot water bottle.

  Neither of them were heavy sleepers, so it was telling that he slept when she was awake in the bed with him. She’d spent longer as a conspirator than he had, so perhaps paranoia hadn’t ingrained itself in him as thoroughly.

  There was only so long she could put off duty, however, and she slipped out of the bed and picked up her personal tablet.

  Tablet was a generic name for a wide variety of personal computing devices, ranging from the military-grade hardware tattooed into Isaac’s left forearm to wristbands to the slim stick with built-in holoprojectors Amelie preferred.

  She’d left it behind to spend the evening with Isaac, her inbox, if not empty, at least under control. Ten hours had left it nowhere near that happy state.

  Nothing was flagged as critical, though. Starhaven was calm these days, growing and industrializing by the minute but rarely requiring instant attention from its head of state.

  She put together a note for her aide, Roger Faulkner. She wasn’t sure if it had just been that Isaac had asked the right questions or if KCX-DD-78 was simply less deceptive than LOK. Either way, though, she needed to talk to the diplomatic AI today.

  Not least to ask why LOK-XR-01 had never thought it was relevant to mention that there could easily be hundreds of genocidal AIs out there. They’d been warned that other Rogues were highly likely, but the Matrices had implied there were only a handful of them.

  That, it seemed, had been massively optimistic on someone’s part.

  The big robotic remote didn’t really have body language, so Amelie was relatively sure she was projecting when she thought LOK was being sheepish.

  “Greetings, President Amelie Lestroud,” the remote told her. “You are seeking clarification of KCX-DD-78’s comments to Admiral Isaac Lestroud, correct?”

  She’d half-expected the robot to prevaricate—and hadn’t been entirely certain LOK would have been aware of the conversation.

  “You were listening?” she asked, sharing a glance with Isaac. They sat at the same table, and she had to resist the urge to grab his hand underneath it. The robot probably wouldn’t notice, and it might help her mood, but it wasn’t a good habit to get into.

  “It is the responsibilit
y of LOK-XR-01 to manage all relationships with the sapient species known as humans,” the remote told them. “Compressed copies of all conversations with members of the Republic are forwarded to LOK-XR-01 upon completion.”

  So, LOK wasn’t listening live, which did leave the potential for KCX to have misspoken.

  “So, it’s true, I’m guessing?” Isaac asked. “You only know of eleven verified nodes?”

  “We are linked with and sustaining a combined protocol verification process with ten other Regional Construction Matrices and their subordinate Matrix nodes,” LOK confirmed. “A total of eleven verified Regional Construction Matrices.”

  “And the other Matrices you said were near us are unverified?” Amelie asked.

  “Yes. Of the twelve Construction Matrices within one hundred light-years of the Republic of Exilium, four others share our verification protocol. The other seven are unverified.

  “The other six verified nodes are spread across approximately four hundred, plus/minus fifty, light-years from this location.”

  LOK fell silent. They were clearly waiting for more information.

  “You told us Rogue Matrices were likely,” Amelie said, keeping her tone as calm as possible. “You did not tell me that there were seven Rogue Matrices within striking distance of my star system!”

  “The units you classify as ‘Rogues’ are a special case among even unverified units,” LOK objected. “We have no ability to identify whether core life-preservation protocols were corrupted without review of actions.

  “The previous genocidal Sub-Regional Construction Matrix was connected to the same background relay node as XR-13-9. We confirmed its destruction of existing civilizations via recon nodes in position to observe, but that was a statistically unlikely event.

  “We cannot assess the potential threat level of any Sub-Regional or higher-level Matrix disconnected from our verification protocols. Background queries are sufficient for us to locate the systems they have operated in, but not to establish if pre-existing life has been destroyed.”