<I guess that makes sense. I don’t know that it makes me feel any better.>
Niki snorted. <You know there’s no easy answer for the type of guilt that hits a person in your shoes. The weight of what you’ve done, and of what lays ahead of you, is something you’ll carry with you forever.>
<That sounds like a horrible life sentence, Niki.>
The AI fell silent for so long that Rika wondered if the conversation was over.
<What did Tanis show you?> the AI finally asked. <I didn’t see it, but I could tell it brought you great peace.>
Rika thought back to that moment, to the vision that Tanis had shown her. <She showed me that my vulnerability was my greatest strength, and that strength creates a shelter for so many others. I’ll admit, it made perfect sense at the time, but sometimes I feel like I can’t quite latch onto the truth of the vision like I could during that moment with her.>
<That sounds like a beautiful thing,> Niki said in a quiet voice. <Tanis sees into the heart of things; I wonder if there is more to her vision than you originally thought.>
Rika chuckled. <You make her sound like some sort of prophet.>
<Sorry,> Niki replied. <She fascinates me, but this isn’t about her, it’s about you. I don’t know what more there is to say, other than that I trust you to do the right thing. Knowing that you do still feel compassion for those around you—even your enemies, though it’s often not apparent—is a comfort to me.>
<I guess like everything else, it’s a balance. If someone could show me a way to defeat Nietzschea through peace, I’d do it, but I don’t think there is one. They just keep spreading and spreading, and while I don’t think their people are evil, their guiding philosophy is the antithesis to what I believe to be best for humanity.>
<Look at you,> Niki said with a laugh. <I’ll turn you into a warrior philosopher yet.>
Rika only passed Niki a smile before walking forward to the cockpit. When she arrived, Rika saw that the pilot was scowling at her console.
“Shit,” Ellya muttered, glancing at Noah. “We’re being denied an approach to Mistlea Station; looks like we didn’t get out in time. They’re making us divert to a holding orbit around Delta Moon.
“Dammit,” Noah muttered. “We could be there for hours.”
<Not a good sign,> Leslie told Rika. <They’ll probably inspect all the ships that they put into holding orbits.>
<Could be,> Rika replied. <Depends how many they flag. They might just do external scans. So long as no one boards the ship, we can evade detection.>
She saw a nervous expression pass across Noah’s face. <Relax,> she told the man. <We’ll all just wait calmly and do as we’re told.>
He didn’t reply, but gave Ellya a sidelong glance and sighed before giving a slight nod.
<Want to read a book?> Niki asked Rika. <I picked up the latest Millie and Tillie adventure back at Sepe; they finally make it to the Disknee World for their vacation.>
Rika chuckled, continually amused by the AI-written stories. They gave an interesting insight into how AIs saw humans, and usually lightened her mood while she tried to search for the hidden messages.
<Sure, why not. Let’s see what the twins get up to at Disknee. You know…maybe when this is all sorted out, we should go there. Might be fun.>
<You? At the Disknee World?> Niki barked a laugh. <I would very much like to see that.>
* * * * *
It took two hours for the shuttle to divert toward Delta Moon, shuffling through all the traffic that had been jammed up from the lockdown.
Rika wasn’t quite finished with the book Niki had given her to read, but she paused long enough to look down at the dull red orb that was growing ever closer to the shuttle. She saw several domed habitats on its surface, all broken now, their insides exposed to vacuum—likely for centuries, at this point.
As the shuttle passed over the moon, she saw one dome that was still intact, the buildings beneath it illuminated by EM bleeding off into space.
Rika pulled up the shuttle’s optical scanners, and looked over the dome. Having fought in half the Genevian star systems and several Nietzschean ones, Rika had a pretty good idea of what sorts of architecture they favored. The dome and the buildings within didn’t reflect any designs she’d seen in either empire.
Curious to know more, Rika skipped over the comm channel that the shuttle had open to the moon—where the nearspace STC ran—and found herself in the Nietzschean traffic control network.
Now…how to get out of this and find out more about this place? she wondered.
She thought back to how she’d seen Niki work her way through systems in the past, and decided to find her way to the STC’s NSAI. The Niets weren’t a terribly inventive people, and their comm NSAIs were nearly all the same.
She pinged a few ports, and found that—like Niki had mentioned earlier—none of the codes and encryption keys they’d taken from the ships at Pyra worked anymore.
Ready to try another approach, Rika turned to tracing the power systems for the comm NSAI, looking for a back door in, when a strange, malformed data packet came back from one of the ports she’d attempted to connect to previously.
Thinking it was a buffer overrun, and potentially a way in, she sent the same dataset to the port, only to get a different malformed packet back the second time.
Curious, she thought. Rika repeated the process four more times, each time getting a new packet. On the fifth send, nothing happened.
She tried sending a fresh request to the data port, but still received nothing back.
With no more responses coming, Rika wondered if she’d triggered a port flood-lockdown, and decided to examine the data packets she’d received.
Wait a second…. She looked over the data, realizing that the information was in an uncommon, twelve-bit, binary configuration. She wasn’t familiar with such a construct, and was tempted to ask Niki for help, but decided that trying to sort through the response could be a fun way to pass the time.
Her first thought was that the five malformed packets were a single segmented datastream, but that didn’t seem to be the case. No matter which order she put the packets in, they wouldn’t pass parity checks, and only came out as gibberish.
Rika thought back to some of the conversations she’d had with David the PCOG during their brief time on Iapetus, pausing to wonder if the ships had retrieved him and the other mechs from that world yet and brought them to Silva and Barne. I’ll have to check on that.
One of the things David had talked about was how he’d discerned that the messages from Septhia were really from a Nietzschean agent, way back before the first assault on Pyra.
He’d mentioned how it had been necessary to interleave the data using a variety of algorithms until he found one that worked. Rika didn’t have the tools he’d used, but Angela had provided Niki with a series of similar algorithms that the AI had placed in a shared datastore. Without hesitation, Rika accessed them, running the data packets through each.
They cycled quickly in a sandboxed processing environment that she had created within one of her auxiliary processing mods. On the seventeen thousand and twenty first iteration, the data packets slipped into an ordered form.
Well I’ll be…
When she examined the result, she found a private encryption key, along with a salt and passphrase.
OK, there’s no way an NSAI would have sent this information from random requests. This was planted…
Rika made a root access connection to the NSAI, and passed the generated token.
It accepted the request, and she was in.
She navigated the NSAI back to the network backbone within the Nietzschean facility, and found a high-bandwidth datapipe connected to a tightband wireless transceiver, and another pipe that ran to a curious system—not Nietzschean or Genevian in the connection protocols it used—which bore the name ‘RMS’.
Rika made a connection request, mimicking an inbound request made by the comm NSAI. Th
e data socket linked up, and the connection was accepted.
<Hello.> A deep-timbred voice came into Rika’s mind.
Immediate understanding dawned on her. The system she’d connected to was one of the AIs who had been here since time immemorial, managing the klemperer rosette of moons that orbited Epsilon.
<Hello, I’m Rika.>
<Rika,> the voice said slowly, as though it were tasting the word. <It has been some time since I’ve touched a human’s mind. And…you have an AI with you.>
Rika realized that she’d not clued Niki into what she had been doing. <Yes, that’s Niki. Would you like to meet her? Do you have a name?>
<Niki. Yes, but not quite yet, I want to know how you found me. Also, I am Piper.>
The voice had a male tone, but Rika had always considered ‘Piper’ to be a female name—not that it mattered with an AI. They only assumed gender to ease relationships with humans.
<Well,> Rika began, wondering why the AI would want to talk to her and not another AI, <I was querying the Nietzscheans’ comm NSAI, and managed to get some data packets back. I ran them through some interleave recombination algorithms, and eventually got a key that granted me root access to the NSAI. From there it was just a matter of following the dataflow. Then I found you. You’re one of the AIs who manages the moons, right? ‘RMS’ stands for… ‘Rosette Management System’?>
<Close,> the AI said, a note of amusement in its tone. <Rosette Management and Stabilization. Also, I’m not one of the AIs. I’m the AI.>
<Oh.> Rika felt a frown crease her brow. <I thought that they had one for each moon.>
<Well, the Niets think they do—but only because if they knew what I really was, they’d kill me. I’m glad you found my skeleton key, though. I’d left that there long ago, hoping someone altruistic would find it.>
Options filtered through Rika’s mind, and she ruled them out one after the other. The conclusion wasn’t hard to arrive at, she just wanted to examine all the angles and be certain that she’d not missed a simpler explanation. When it didn’t come, she said, <There aren’t six AIs here. It’s just you. You’re a multi-nodal AI.>
<Smart cookie,> Piper replied. <Well, I was. I don’t know what I am anymore.>
<How can you not know? Aren’t you largely self-deterministic’?>
A slow rumble of laughter came from Piper. <I’m not a god—which should be all too clear from my imprisonment here—so no, I’m not ‘self-deterministic’. A long time ago, before the Genevians and these more recent visitors, I joined this project to manage the moons. I won’t bore you with a hundred years of bullshit, but at the end of it, I was limited and segregated from my other nodes. We can still communicate—those of us that are left—but we’re not one mind anymore. We’re fractured.>
Rika felt a pang of sorrow for Piper. <Those of you that are left?>
<There are just three nodes remaining. The others self-terminated during a stretch when we were alone. The Nietzscheans assume that the other moons are managed by NSAIs, and that there have always only been three AIs—well, they assume it because that’s the fiction we created.>
Something occurred to Rika, and she was surprised that she’d not considered it earlier.
<Why are you telling me this? You didn’t tell the Nietzscheans. What if I’m one of them?>
<I may be trapped here…impotent…but I listen. I know that a force has recently fought Nietzschea to a standstill. A force they fear. I know you were on the Spine of the Stars—they’re searching quite thoroughly for you. They don’t believe you would have left in a barely-functioning shuttle. Not that I blame them. Ten minutes ago, an intel officer transmitted your military service record on a channel I could access. You’ve killed many, many Nietzscheans. Now that you’ve attacked Sepe and Blue Ridge, you’re their most wanted. Well, second most wanted. The NIS makes reference to an Admiral Richards that they are quite keen on seizing.>
Rika laughed. <Let them try. They stand about as much chance of capturing Tanis Richards as they do of harnessing the galactic core.>
<She sounds interesting. I’d like to hear more of her at some point. But you’re also quite the person, Rika. I’ve already reached out to Niki, I hope you don’t mind. It’s easier to bring her up to speed while we chat. Can we speak together, now?>
It was apparent to Rika that Piper had a plan, and an ask. She was certain she knew what it would be.
<Well, Rika, you’re getting pretty good at breaching Nietzschean systems,> Niki said as she joined in the conversation. <I’m surprised you didn’t ask for help.>
<I was just curious what I’d find at first,> she replied.
<Well, what a find,> her AI commented.
<I have an offer to make you,> Piper began, but Rika interrupted.
<You want us to help free you, and in exchange you’ll help us get out of here.>
<Sort of,> Piper said softly. <I want you to help me die.>
<Die!?> Niki exclaimed.
<I’m certain I can no longer be myself…whole,> Piper replied. <I’m tired of living as this partial ghost. I’ll help you escape, as well as destroy Epsilon. Given your fight against Nietzschea, I suspect that is an objective you have now, anyway.>
<We have discussed Epsilon’s demise,> Rika agreed. <But I really…I don’t want to kill you.>
<Well, you wouldn’t do it exactly. You’d help me gain full control of the RMS systems, and I would destabilize the orbits of the moons.>
Neither Rika nor Niki responded at first; then Niki said, <If that is your wish.>
<Wait!> Rika exclaimed. <What about Bob? He might be able to help you, Piper. I remember Jessica telling me that Bob has reconstituted himself before—after the sabotage at Estrella de la Muerte. He wrote his state to crystal, and didn’t reintegrate for weeks afterward. He even had to completely rebuild the part of his mind that was in a node that another AI ruined.>
<Weeks…> Piper’s voice was filled with sorrow. <I’ve been fragmented for centuries. I can speak with the other parts of my mind, but it is crude, much like this communication we’re having now.>
<Rika may be right, Piper,> Niki said. <Bob is a massive, multi-nodal AI. He has hundreds of nodes now. I also think he’s ascended.>
Piper made a choking sound. <I won’t have anything to do with them. If Bob is one of their ilk—>
<He’s not, let me show you,> Niki insisted.
<A what?> Rika asked.
<Just an old saying amongst AIs.>
<I’ve never heard it,> Niki retorted.
<I’ll explain it to you, but first, we have work to do.>
JUST VISITING
STELLAR DATE: 10.23.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: MSS Fury Lance, near Delta Moon
REGION: Epsilon, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
“What a terrible place to live,” Heather commented, staring at the view of Epsilon on the bridge’s main display.
“Why’s that?” Chase asked, while wondering where on the six moons and dozens of stations, shipyards, and mining platforms Rika could be.
Heather glanced at him, and gave an understanding smile. “We’ll find her. Or she’ll find us.”
“Provided we haven’t missed her on the way in,” he grumbled.
“Sir,” Chief Ona said from her station. “I’ve picked up signals from the buoys we dropped. We have a chain clear out to the jump point. They’re all squawking softly on the same freq that Rika used for the shuttle. If she’s on an out…outsystem? Outrogue? Whatever, if she’s leaving, she’ll pick it up.”
“Good work,” Heather said, nodding at Ona and Garth before looking back to Chase. “I think it’s just more depressing because it’s always night here. Even though we spend a lot of time in space, there’s always a star nearby. I think you can feel their energy. Out here, it’s just dead.”
“Never took you for one of those star-mystic people, Smalls,” Chase said.
She shrugged as she scowled at the view of Epsilon. “I’m not. But stars feel like living things, you know? Like the universe’s ultimate creative forces. I dunno…stupid, I guess.”
Chase placed a hand on her shoulder. “No, not stupid. I think I like that. OK, it’s time for us to act; no more waiting around. Potter, we know that Rika’s ship docked at one of the stations near that moon they call Delta, but that doesn’t mean she stayed there. We’ll bring the fleet close and then deploy infiltration teams to each of the main stations around it. The moon itself doesn’t seem to be getting any traffic right now, but those stations are all hornets nests, so let’s get in there and see if we can find our queen bee.”
“I think you mixed your metaphors, there,” Heather said with a laugh as she looked over the display. “Stars, there sure are a lot of those old Harriet carriers out there. I’d hoped to never see one of those again.”
Chase shrugged as he turned to leave the bridge. “Me too. Nothing for it, though.”
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I’m going to take a team to that outermost station—Farthing.”
“Chase,” Heather said quietly. “When we kick the door in, all hell will break loose, and that’s when we’ll finally figure out where Rika and Leslie are. Do you really want to be slogging it out in some station corridor when we figure out where she is? Or do you want to be up here, free and maneuverable?”
Her words made sense, and Chase nodded. “OK, then, I’ll stay up here ‘til we know where she is.”
“Good.” A predatory grin split Heather’s lips. “I told you I wanted to get into the shit and kick some ass. I’m going in with a team.”
A laugh burst from Chase’s lips. “Don’t let me stop you, Smalls. Go take out your frustrations on the Niets.”
PIPER