“I’m afraid so,” said Ziron.
“That’s just great. Once more, Kevin needs our help, and we’re letting him down.”
“Don’t think I’m not aware of that, I’m just as angry and frustrated as you are about this. But I’m pretty sure I can fix it once we’re on Arcadia Prime.”
“And how long will that take?”
“Another ten hours or so.”
“That’s not ideal, for sure, but what Kalliopy said isn’t wrong either.”
“What the hell do you mean what she said?” barked Boomer.
“Earlier she came to see me and ordered us back on Arcadia Prime.”
“You mean you, we’re not part of the Confederate.”
“I don’t think it’s time to bicker over such technicalities. You’re on board the ship, I’m the captain, and I’ve been ordered back home.”
Boomer growled. “And you’ve agreed to that?”
“Of course, I haven’t. I told her she could transfer ships and go home without us, but she wouldn’t have it.”
“So…let me get this straight,” said Lacuna. “You’ve refused a direct order from her, and you didn’t anticipate that she’d force the issue?”
“I thought it would buy us enough time to get to the planet.”
“And how exactly did she take your refusal?”
“I’m pretty sure I’m fired.”
Lacuna sighed. “That’s just perfect.”
4
The Osiris’ main holo-screen turned to life without Ziron even acknowledging the call. It was Admiral Corso.
“What the hell were you thinking, Ziron?”
“Hello to you too, Admiral.”
“You do realize that the princess will never trust you again, that is, if she doesn’t ask for your execution.”
“I didn’t know you cared. And as for the princess, I take it that you’ve beamed her back to your ship?”
“That’s correct, I used the emergency beam-out tech you created after we recovered her from the Kregans the first time.”
“And her sister? She wasn’t implanted.”
“I asked them to hold hands. That allowed us to gain a strong signal on both of them.”
Ziron shook his head. “You’re lucky they didn’t merge into a single life form. The tech was designed for a single person to use.”
Ziron could see his last remark briefly affected the Admiral.
“Well, they’re both on board safely. Luckily for you.”
“You mean for both of us. As for the princess, I don’t think she’s in any frame of mind to make any sort of command decisions, so if you could cancel the recall order, I’d be grateful.”
“You don’t get it, do you? Unlike you, I do follow orders. So that’s a negative on canceling the recall order.”
“Yeah, looks like you follow orders blindly, even stupid ones apparently.”
“That’s enough! I strongly suggest you don’t make your case worse than it already is, Ziron. You’re a brilliant inventor; your people need you. And you should never have disobeyed a direct order.”
“You know what, Admiral? I’m sick of this shit. Kevin and his friends have risked their lives to save both the princess and her sister, and that’s how we reward them?”
“It’s not our place to decide these things, and even if I can sympathize with your position, you should never go against your princess.”
“I’ve given her the best years of my life, and now, I wish I hadn’t.”
“Something tells me you’ll have plenty of time to think about that more once the Osiris arrives back on Arcadia Prime. I’ve been ordered to send you all to jail the moment you disembark the ship. Hope your act of rebellion was worth it. Corso out.”
* * *
“You gotta be shitting me?” said Lacuna. “Jail? Really? We can’t go to jail. If we do, nobody will be saving Kevin.”
“I know that.”
“We can’t let that happen,” said Boomer. “So what’s the plan?”
“There’s just enough time for us to try one of two plans.”
“We’re listening,” said Lacuna.
“Plan A, we disobey Kevin’s wishes and let me take a crack at that AI chip in his brain, try to rescue him from here, but that is a very dangerous option. If we’re unsuccessful, we could injure his brain, or worse.”
“I don’t like that plan,” said Boomer.
“Can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I’m with stinky here.”
“Hey!” complained Boomer.
Lacuna ignored him. “What’s plan B?”
“Plan B is we prepare to evade the Arcadian arrest force waiting for us upon landing, I disable the recall device, and we flee and complete the mission.”
“Neither of those options seems like they have a good chance of success,” said Lacuna.
“I know. And we can only afford to try one of them.”
“I can’t believe I’m going to say this,” said Lacuna. “But maybe we need to try plan A. Plan B seems almost impossible, and seeing as you defied the princess, she’ll certainly be ready for any rebellious move we do from now on.”
“I agree,” said Boomer. “Even though it’s crazy to risk Kevin’s life and it goes against his wishes, he definitely didn’t know we’d be in this position, so I think he’ll understand. We just have to make sure we don’t push that option too far. If anything seems to go awry with this plan, we abort.”
Ziron looked at both of them in turn. “We’re agreed then, we try to remove 8-3-9-6 ourselves?”
Both Lacuna and Boomer nodded.
5
“And you’re sure you can do this while Kevin is in suspended animation?” asked Boomer.
“I don’t think we have a choice,” said Ziron. “If we remove him from suspended animation, the AI will wake up and try to interfere or worse, kill Kevin on the spot.”
“And you think you can do this in a stealthy way that he won’t detect your attempt?” asked Lacuna.
“I’m hoping, but I’ve never tried this before. So until we try it, it’s only speculation. I’ll beam enough nanites into the pod, specifically modified to work in that environment, and they’ll establish a wireless link with my terminal so I can attempt a hack.”
Lacuna took a deep breath. “Alright, just no unnecessary risks, okay?”
“Yeah, you don’t need to remind me. The last thing I want is to injure Kevin.”
“Can we stay and watch?” asked Boomer.
“Yes, but please try to keep quiet, I may have to adjust my coding in real time, and I can’t be distracted.”
“Perhaps we should leave,” said Lacuna.
“No, I want to stay,” insisted Boomer.
“Look, I get it. I want to be here for him as well, but we’re a liability and our emotions might distract Ziron at a critical juncture. We wouldn’t want that, would we?”
Boomer barked.
“You can’t do that,” said Ziron. “I mean, you can’t bark while I work on him.”
“I’m not sure I can control it, some of it is instinctual.”
“Then maybe Lacuna is right. Just go watch from the bridge. I’ll transmit this room’s signal on the holo-screen.”
“Fair enough,” said Boomer before they left the med-bay.
* * *
Lacuna was pensive. With everything that had happened, she hadn’t had much time to stop and think. And her mind wandered away while they were heading toward the bridge.
Before it all went wrong, Kevin had just kissed her, and she hadn’t had time to process even that. In her heart, she knew she loved him, and that was strange for her, as she had never gotten attached to anyone like this before. She would give her life to save Kevin’s if she could.
Boomer took her out of her thoughts.
“I can’t believe we’re in this position,” he said.
“I know. It seems Kevin can’t catch a break.”
“It’s unfair is what it is.”
> Lacuna nodded. “It sure is. Look, I know we’ve not always seen eye to eye, but I care deeply about Kevin, and I hope with all my heart he’s going to make it.”
“There’s no need to go there, you were the only one who was willing to go after him, and we wouldn’t have gotten him back if it wasn’t for your help.”
“Thanks, but it didn’t do any good in the end.”
“We couldn’t have known this would happen.”
“I guess not.”
They entered the bridge, and as expected, the holo-screen was on and showing Ziron working at a terminal with a few holo-screens of his own floating around his cushion, showing Kevin’s vitals.
* * *
When Ziron finished programming the nanites to connect wirelessly to the AI chip in Kevin’s brain, he beamed them inside the suspended animation pod. That was the easy part, but it was reassuring that the first part of the plan had gone smoothly.
It took a few more commands to search for the correct wireless frequency. Eventually, a link was made. For a second, Ziron thought he saw a spike in Kevin’s vitals but it was so quick and faint he decided that it was either interference from the open wireless link or just a sensor glitch.
Ziron swallowed hard. Now the challenging part began.
This next part was crucial as it involved finding the right data pathways in search of a security hole to hack. This required patience and was delicate work.
Ziron was used to working fast and ever since meeting Kevin, mostly under pressure. But in this case, even though time was a factor, trying to get too much done too fast could trigger an adverse reaction that could cost Kevin his life.
Ziron was determined to help his friend, and so he made sure to take things one step at a time without trying dirty hacks. It was very unlikely that an artificial intelligence as complex as 8-3-9-6 would have blatant security flaws in the first place.
The scanning of the data pathways took more than half an hour, and eventually, Ziron had enough data to make a 3-D holographic map to work with. He swiped it from his holo-screen to empty space on his right and rotated his flying cushion to face the map. He rotated it around, trying to find an entry point.
After ten minutes of looking at it in every which way, Ziron started to get worried. On the surface, there was no direct entry point. But that wasn’t possible, as the AI needed to communicate one way or another with Kevin’s brain, and there were no hard-wired connections to be seen on the scans Ziron had taken from his friend’s mind.
“Mira, do you have a moment?”
There was no answer, and Ziron remembered she had been disabled the moment the recall device had been activated. And while that was part of his own programming, Mira was one of the few systems he had felt necessary to install a backdoor.
Ziron brought up another control window and used his backdoor to access Mira’s code. It was in a sleeping state, but her code was intact. All he needed to do was to reroute a simple function to start her. That took only a moment, and shortly, Mira appeared on a nearby holo-screen.
“Hey, Ziron, why am I trapped in a holo-screen?”
“I can’t access your holo-projectors at the moment.”
“And why the hell not?”
“You’ve been disabled by a recall order.”
“What have you done now?”
“Just disobeyed a direct order. But it doesn’t matter. Kevin needs our help.”
“I’m aware, I’m getting access to more functions as we speak. Looks like you’re at an impasse.”
“Yeah, hence me asking you for help.”
“I don’t know if I should feel flattered or insulted that you only thought of reactivating me because you needed me.”
“And here I was hoping you wouldn’t focus on that.”
“Fat chance.”
“Sorry, but I could use your help, while some of your systems are still accessible, that is.”
“Mind clarifying that?”
“I’ve managed to access you now as the recall sub-routine is working on blocking access to the ship’s system one by one. Yours is the last. But, eventually, we’ll lose you too.”
“Charming.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll do my best to bring you back, I promise.”
“We should focus on the task at hand. And since we’re working on a way to disable the AI inside Kevin’s brain, I would be remiss if I didn’t remind you he asked us not to do this.”
“And if that were an option, I would have respected his wishes.”
“Okay, but if I do help you, I’ll take control over the hack and disconnect the moment I feel it puts his life in danger.”
“That’s what we’ve agreed to do as well.”
“Yes, but even with your fast reflexes, you can’t possibly act as fast as my AI matrix. And a millionth of a second might be all that separates Kevin from life and death.”
“Alright, but first we must find a way in.”
“I already did.”
6
“What do you mean you already did?” asked Ziron.
“I found a way to hack in,” said Mira. “The only way I might add. But I don’t like it.”
“Why’s that? And please show me that way.”
The holographic representation of the brain chip turned around, then changed color from green to blue and became denser with more connection paths. A single red dot began blinking on one edge of the chip.
“Why did the color change?”
“I’ve increased resolution by five hundred percent, your scan was not detailed enough to find an entry point.”
“And how exactly did you enhance the resolution of my nanite probe?”
“I don’t think we should focus on that, I just did, and we have an entry point.”
“Alright,” said Ziron as he zoomed around the entry point. “That can’t be possible.”
“I’m afraid it is. I never saw that many firewalls protecting a single data point.”
“Should we split the work between us?”
“Yes, I’m sending you firewalls one to three, and I’ll take care of four to one hundred.”
“That’s what you call splitting up the work?”
“Unless you think you can crack fifty alien firewalls on your own within twenty minutes?”
Ziron made a throat noise. “Never mind, three firewalls are good.”
* * *
“What’s taking them so long?” asked Boomer.
“Well,” said Lacuna, “I don’t know for you, but it looks like that rotating glowing holographic thing hovering around Ziron is a representation of the chip that is inside Kevin’s brain.”
“Ok, if you say so, but you don’t know for me about what?”
“Well, it looks very complex. This may take a long time.”
“I’m sure Mira will help speed things up. We can’t take our time, and unless we get Kevin up and running before reaching Arcadia Prime, we may have a problem.”
“Don’t worry, if it comes to that, I’ll get us out of trouble.”
“I appreciate your enthusiasm, Lacuna, but the palace on Arcadia Prime is a real fortress.”
“How would you know?”
“Ziron showed it to us once. I think he was bragging about it because he designed most of the security system. You know how he is.”
“Well, right now he’s Kevin’s only chance, so hopefully that genius mind of his will get us out of this.”
Boomer barked.
“What did I say to upset you?”
“No, it’s not you,” said Boomer pointing his paw toward the holo-screen. “But why did everything turn red on their control screen?”
“Oh shit, that doesn’t look good.”
* * *
“What the hell just happened?” Ziron asked.
“I don’t understand,” said Mira. “I’m sure I didn’t trigger any booby traps on my firewalls. You?”
“I don’t think s—oh crap.”
“What?”
&nb
sp; “I think 8-3-9-6 knows we’re trying to hack it.”
“Why makes you think that?”
“Well, for one, take a look at Kevin’s vitals.”
On a nearby holo-screen, Kevin’s vitals were all over the place.
“That’s not good.”
“Indeed. And there’s something worse. I’m receiving an audio signal. Patching it through to the speakers.”
“I thought I told you what would happen if you attempted to hack my matrix?” said a synthesized voice. “Say goodbye to your friend.”
“No! Wait!” implored Ziron.
“You have five seconds to shut down your nanite probe, or I give Kevin a fatal stroke.”
Ziron entered a series of quick commands on his holo-screen. “Done.”
“Now, get the hell out of this room. If you ever attempt this again, there will be no warning, and your friend dies. Is that clear?”
Ziron swallowed hard. “Like Arcadian crystal.”
* * *
As Ziron left the med-bay, Lacuna and Boomer were already running toward the room.
“What happened?” Lacuna asked.
“We failed is what happened.”
“What?” shouted Boomer. “How?”
“We never passed through the first defenses. 8-3-9-6 put too much stress on Kevin’s body. I dared not continue.”
Lacuna discreetly wiped away a forming tear. “Well, thanks for trying. I guess we go to plan B then?”
“We barely have any time left for that,” said Boomer.
“That’s not gonna stop us from trying, though, right?” she asked.
“No, I guess not. But we’ll need a tight plan.”
“The one Kevin would think about,” added Ziron. “But we do have his brain patterns in storage, so perhaps we can ask him.”
“I’m not sure I follow?” said Boomer.
“Well,” said Ziron, “give me ten minutes and join me in holo-room one.”
Across the Galactic Pond - Box Set: The Complete FAR BEYOND Space Opera Series Page 38
