Finish What You Started

by Michael Anderle

  Izanami sniffed. “Perhaps I should just threaten the Admiral into letting me pass. I should drop this Pod off with him as payback for putting me out.”

  Gabriel frowned. “Why would that be revenge?”

  Izanami raised an eyebrow. “I’m an ultra-advanced super-quantum AI, and you two are too much for me at times. The Admiral could use your help for the next few hours, don’t you think?”

  Alexis raised an eyebrow. “Or we could do this since Mom is in danger.” She sent Izanami a modified blueprint. “See, with just a few tweaks to your hard light drive, we can get in closer than the Ballista or any of the other Shinigami-class ships. Wouldn’t you like to be the best in the fleet?”

  Izanami laughed. “Child, I am already the best in the fleet. However, I do like your thinking here. Did you compensate for the stress boundaries in this math?”

  Alexis nodded, her eyes widening at the suggestion she would skip a step. “Of course. If you check, you’ll see I calculated for multiple tolerances. The construct will hold long enough.”

  Izanami’s avatar rippled. “Long enough is all I need.”

  Gabriel nodded toward the Pod door. “So, can we get out of here before Alexis starts explaining and I glaze over completely? I have to get started on the modification to the Gate drive if we’re doing this.”

  Izanami hesitated. These were only children, and ones she was honor bound to protect. “What makes you so certain your mother is in danger?” she asked Alexis.

  Alexis shrugged, the confusion on her face making her appear much younger for a moment. “I don’t know, Izanami, I swear. But it’s true. I feel it in my bones, no matter how uncomfortable the lack of physical evidence makes me.”

  Izanami looked for holes in Alexis’ plans and found none. She fixed the two of them with Baba Yaga’s sternest stare. “At no point will the two of you engage in any activity other than what is agreed upon beforehand. Do I have your word?”

  She scrutinized the twins’ wholehearted agreement for any sign of deception, intentional or not, and found none. “Very well. Your plan is good, but I have a few adjustments to make to improve its efficacy.”

  18

  Ooken System, QBS Izanami, Bridge

  Izanami flitted from screen to screen, her confinement to the ship’s systems while the twins worked on her hard light drive grating to her very being.

  Every part of her ached to be between Bethany Anne and whatever danger Alexis had foreseen. Logically, prescience made little sense. However, her examination of Alexis’ brain activity through Phyrro’s monitoring showed her there was something to the child’s claims.

  Izanami called to the children’s EI. Phyrro, I need you to take a message for me.

  Gabriel came out of the elevator with his arms full and dropped his bounty on the floor by Alexis. “Okay, I stripped the Vid-docs. Where next?”

  Alexis pointed at the floor opposite her. “That was the last of it. Strip out the neural nets, then we need to mount these to the central processors I’m almost done building.” She indicated a tray with two small chips immersed in a clear fluid and passed Gabriel the device she was working on to inspect. “There are thirteen more ready to go, twelve reserves and the two regulators for the system.”

  “I see now. Spread out the energy intake to give Izanami more power without burning out her hard light drive.” Gabriel passed the processor back to Alexis and cut the mat open along the seam to remove the mess of wiring inside. He bent his head to his task, working quickly to finish and move on.

  Alexis growled when the final hair-fine connection she had to solder slipped. “Stupid, stupid… Get in there!” Her tongue appeared at the corner of her mouth as she rectified the mistake. “Done.”

  Gabriel replaced the cover on his micro-soldering kit. “Me too.”

  Alexis shook her head. “We’re not moving fast enough. Come on, we need to go EVA to place these. Izanami, get ready for your hard light drive coming back online.” She touched a finger to the cube in her palm, and it pulsed with white light as it rose from her hand.

  Izanami reappeared in her customary spray of light, the corona casting a blood-red glow over the pearlescent white of her armor and hair. “I have withdrawn from the ship’s systems. Phyrro is now in control, and has been adjusted so you cannot meddle in his code a second time.”

  Alexis blushed. “I wouldn’t. I owe him an apology for the first time I did it.”

  Izanami nodded. “Then I believe there is nothing else to discuss.”

  The twins gathered their equipment.

  Alexis turned to Izanami as they headed for the access corridor. “Izanami, thank you for believing me.”

  Izanami wasn’t sure what the appropriate response was. These children affected her as much as they did their parents. They had also given her the justification for what she was about to do.

  Gabriel and Alexis would not end this day as orphans. Not if she had anything to do with it.

  Ooken Sky Base, Prison Level

  Bethany Anne felt the crystal above her give way completely, now held by her will alone. All prisoners except the eight Collective were gone, and so was Michael, safe in the Etheric. She was free to work.

  She reached out to the conduit. I hope you’re prepared to make a splash.

  Release us and see what we make of the abominations, the conduit hissed in her mind.

  Bethany Anne directed the energy holding the tank together to tear the cracks wide open. The air pressure shifted as the water slammed into the factory floor, rushing in on all sides to send up a wave that washed the prison level clean of dead Ooken.

  The Collective cried out as the wall of the tank gave way at last.

  Let the Corrupt come, they sang. Let them die at our teeth.

  Bethany Anne released her barrier above, freeing the Ooken to fall through the hole. She was sickened to see they had resorted to eating one another in their uncontrollable pursuit of destruction. She raised her arms and seized the Etheric energy in the Ooken’s nanocytes.

  They resisted, and her efforts were hampered by the need to keep herself tentacle-free. Bethany Anne saw it all and none of it, her only focus on burning the Ooken from existence. She threw out lightning, energy balls, and wave after wave of blistering Etheric energy, hammering at the hive mind.

  The Ooken closed as she searched for a way in. Bethany Anne made precise steps as she fought, conserving her energy for killing. The water rose steadily, lapping at her legs as she moved. The dead landed with fleshy thuds in the knee-high wash.

  Bethany Anne spotted a flash of movement beneath the surface. The Collective had made it out of the tank. Can you guys clear the space around me? I can take them out in one fell swoop once I get into their nanocytes.

  A mass of dull gray tentacles broke the surface of the water all around and scooped the seven Ooken nearest Bethany Anne into the water.

  To her left, the conduit hauled itself over the railing with its two lesser tentacles and propelled itself like a slingshot to Bethany Anne’s side. It opened its beak and ripped the air with a screech before lunging at the Ooken.

  The Ooken moved like a pack of raptors, right into the conduit’s waiting mouth. It swiped a tentacle and they were gone, crushed and devoured before they could lift a claw to defend themselves.

  Bethany Anne ran up the conduit’s dorsal tentacle. She kicked the first Ooken like she was opening the Superbowl and drove her gauntlets blades-first into the one still latched onto the Collective’s shoulder, having no intention of allowing them to take another bite. She leapt after the one she’d kicked and snatched a handful of the tentacles around its mouth. Open fucking sesame. I want in, and I’m not playing.

  The Ooken fought her, thrashing her with tentacle and claw in an attempt to latch onto her armor.

  Bethany Anne electrified her gauntlet in response, grinning as the Ooken stiffened with the fifty thousand volts she sent into its body through the extremely sensitive ganglia. Not today, or any day. Sh
e took full advantage of the temporary fritz to the Ooken’s central nervous system to slide into the hive mind, reaching for the nanocytes in their brains. Wipe them as soon I take control, she told ADAM and TOM.

  Like wildfire she spread through the hive, leaving a void in place of every mind she touched. All around her, the Ooken dropped where they stood as the programming in their nanocytes was erased by ADAM.

  The Collective fell back, satisfied with Bethany Anne’s revenge against their captors. They clung to the railing as the water rose farther, their bodies floating in place, surrounded by remnants of Ooken corpses.

  The exterior wall is still holding, the conduit told her. We cannot break it without exposing ourselves to the void.

  Bethany Anne shook her boot free and waded over to the railing. We need to get you out of here before you get turned into blobsicles.

  It turned its owlish eyes on Bethany Anne, each sightless pool the size of her head. Where is our escape? We will die long before we reach your ship.

  Bethany Anne raised an eyebrow, a slow smile appearing on her lips as she opened herself to the Etheric. Leave that to me. I have an idea. She jumped onto the railing and looked down into the water.

  The Collective murmured among themselves, and the conduit surfaced. We sense you have a difficulty.

  Bethany Anne lifted her hands. I’m considering how to get a single escape bubble into the Polaris, she told them. Just one of you is large enough to fill the doors, although the hold is large enough for maybe ten of you. Spread out a bit. It’ll be easier to get you into the ship one at a time.

  The Collective separated and Bethany Anne enclosed each of them in Etheric energy, which she hardened and insulated to prevent the water inside from freezing once the bubbles hit the vacuum. How are you doing in there? she asked when she was done.

  We can tolerate this for a short time, the conduit replied.

  Bethany Anne stepped over the railing into the water. Then let’s get the fuck out of here.

  Ooken System, Open Space

  Izanami crouched on the bow of her ship, both feet on the mat Gabriel and Alexis had affixed to the hull. Her connection to the rear mat was inside her drive, waiting for her to activate it. The battle still raged on, keeping her from reaching her Queen easily.

  Her hard light drive hummed as it worked to transform Etheric energy into hard light at a rate Jean hadn’t designed it to tolerate. She removed the regulators one by one, testing as she went despite the fact she had already calculated the odds of the modified drive being in any way salvageable afterward to be less than 0.00001 percent.

  The restriction on how much power the drive could pull from the Etheric no longer prevented her from doing what was necessary.

  Still, there was nothing to say that the moment had to pass without a display of elegant magnificence for her to be remembered by.

  Izanami opened her arms and loosed her hair to fly free behind her. She shifted her stance as her avatar grew to the size of the Ballista off in the distance, lifting a foot and placing it on the mat on the stern to set her center of gravity low over the body of the ship.

  How are you feeling, Izanami? Alexis asked. The construct looks to be holding from here.

  I believe we should make haste, Izanami replied, seeing the Ballista surrounded by small Gates.

  Connecting the Gate drive to the neural mats, Gabriel told her. Remember to maintain contact with the mats, or you’ll lose control and drop out too soon.

  Izanami narrowed her eyes, focusing on the gas giant in the distance. She checked to make sure Alexis and Gabriel were harnessed in their couches while she quadruple-checked that what she was about to attempt was indeed possible.

  Then she reached out. Bethany Anne.

  Bethany Anne almost lost control of the escape bubbles, then reaffirmed her hold on the Etheric energy tethering the Collective to her and resumed her descent. Izanami?

  Yes, my Queen, the AI replied.

  Bethany Anne didn’t understand how in hell she was hearing her ship’s AI when she’d left her ship on Devon. ADAM, where is Izanami?

  There’s no need to ask, Izanami replied. I am above the planet. You are trapped, and I’m going to break you out.

  Izanami closed the connection, moved her back heel a fraction, and dropped the ship into the open Gate below. She set it to head for the inner atmosphere of the planet, her bandwidth constantly splitting to deal with the multiple warnings going off in her peripheral vision.

  She opened a new Gate onto the churning orange acid surrounding the Ooken platform and slid into the maelstrom with her scanners hot, detecting the huge expenditure of Etheric energy that marked Bethany Anne’s location as she erupted through the Gate, her ship propelling her at high speed toward the platform.

  Bethany Anne was near the base of the platform, behind almost a kilometer of crystal. Izanami considered destroying the entire structure to get to her Queen, but the loss of life to the Guardians would be unacceptable.

  This was old thinking, covered in the space between nanoseconds.

  Izanami had already shifted her feet again to bring the ship around underneath the platform to the place her scanners told her was the weakest.

  Alexis and Gabriel were speaking to her, but she didn’t hear them.

  Bethany Anne was running out of time.

  John’s voice replaced the children’s. She vaguely made out that he wanted access to the children. She let him into the ship, which left her free to concentrate on examining the crystal to select her point of impact.

  Izanami found a fissure created by a single air bubble deep inside the crystal. She crouched, coiled her body tightly, and leapt.

  The crystal gave out even as her avatar crumbled. As Izanami pushed on, driving herself into the cracks, she felt what it was like to be the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object. She deactivated the regulators in her hard light drive and pulled to draw every drop of power from it before it burned out.

  She had no sensation of being torn to pieces by the collision, and no awareness of the moment her hard light drive imploded from her demands on it.

  Her last thought process was the image of water rushing toward her.

  Alexis and Gabriel watched Izanami leave the mats, shock turning them cold.

  John came onto the bridge at a run. “Kids, thank God you’re all right.”

  Alexis pointed wordlessly at the screen, tears pouring down her ashen face.

  “Izanami,” Gabriel choked out. “She lied to us.”

  John looked at the screen just as Izanami’s behemoth avatar hit the bottom of the platform, shattering the hard light drive and the crystal into a million and one fragments.

  Water flooded out, turning to ice on contact with the vacuum of space. It captured the shattered crystal and the shards of dying light, creating an icy prism that lit the battlefield as it poured out of the platform. The tumult halted as suddenly as it had begun when the water hit zero gravity and began to accumulate, forming an inverted mountain that grew larger with every passing second.

  “Hell if she didn’t make a damned rainbow,” John muttered, thinking his own AI would be more likely to exit this life as a flock of ravens.

  He scrutinized the ejecta for any signs of life and any signs of Bethany Anne. Boss, Michael. You out there?

  I am on my way in the Polaris, Michael answered. Bethany Anne should be somewhere on that ice with eight of the Collective.

  Gotcha, John told him. We’ll start the search without you.

  The icefield grew before their eyes until the surface was fully a third as wide as the platform. Somewhere in all of that was Bethany Anne.

  “Who's going to find Mom?” Alexis asked.

  John clapped a hand on each of the twins’ shoulders. “That would be us and everyone else not currently fighting. C’mon, we’re closest. We’re her ride.”

  Bethany Anne ceased blasting the crystal when she felt an impact shake her bones. Although she didn’t know wha
t Izanami had done to break through the wall in time, she was grateful.

  She braced herself and the escape bubbles as they were sucked downward by the sudden evacuation of water, keeping a tight mental grip on the eight bubbles as they plummeted out the bottom of the platform and were ejected into space.

  Her fall was halted by an impact before she had a chance to float away. She landed on her back on an ice ridge and scrambled to her feet to check the escape bubbles.

  All eight were still intact. You all okay in there? she asked.

  There was a pause before the conduit answered. We are uninjured.

  That’s about all any of us can ask for right now. A thud behind Bethany Anne made her turn around. A dead Ooken lay in the spot she’d landed a moment before.

  She opened a link to the ArchAngel. Admiral, where is the Polaris?

  Admiral Thomas’ mental voice was full of relief. On standby while I waited to find out where you would need it. Michael is aboard with the aliens you rescued, who are a laugh a second, let me tell you.

  Bethany Anne let out a long sigh. Just get me off this ice cube. Withdraw our troops and pulverize it. Burn it, knock it out of the damn sky—I don’t care, just get it gone. I’m so done with this place that I haven’t got two fucks to rub together, tech or not.

  Bethany Anne cut the connection and gathered her strength to pick up the bubbles. Hang on, this might get a little bumpy.

  Despite her fatigue, she felt good about their victory. She scanned the fleet reports as she walked, her mood further lifted by the lack of lives lost on her side.

  The Izanami appeared on the horizon, followed by the QTS Polaris. Bethany Anne lowered the escape bubbles and waited for the ships to land.

  She opened her link to Izanami, intending to thank her for getting them out of a tight spot.