<What if the thing can’t take their helm control?> Jenisa asked as Chase crept down the corridor.
<Then we shoot the shit out of it, and tell Alison to set the engines to go boom.>
<Engines go boom?> Fred asked. <I like the way you think, Captain.>
<I thought I was the ‘Colonel’s love-bunny’,> Chase said as the team took up positions on either side of the AHC’s entrance.
Fred chuckled. <You let us blow up a Nietzschean dreadnought, I’ll call you my love-bunny.>
<How’s about if we blow this hulk, you never say those two words together again?> Chase asked.
<Deal, Captain.>
* * * * *
<Almost there, Irek,> Niki said, as Rika peered around the stacks of NSAI nodes to the two frozen soldiers in the chamber’s entrance.
<Hurry! It feels like you’re using a sewage auger in my mind!> Irek exclaimed.
<Sorry,> Niki replied, then fell silent for several moments before continuing. <They have hard shunts in parts of your neural network. I’m using some of the fancy-pants new nano we got to remove them. Your thought processes are going to feel…disjointed when I’m done.>
<I don’t care. You just free me. When this is done, I’m going with you; that was our deal.>
<Right,> Niki replied. <Deal’s a deal.>
<We’ll honor it,> Rika added.
No one spoke for a minute, and then Niki announced, <Done! Irek, welcome to freedom.>
Irek made a strange groan-like sound over the Link. <Stars…everything is…so…big.>
<You’ll feel like that for a bit. A lot of your neural network was inaccessible to you. You’re going to have some issues keeping things straight. Let me know if you want me to help with any station systems.>
<Yes. Ummm… I’m passing you control of the station’s external defense systems. I’ll start locking down internal sectors and putting emergency clamps on every ship still docked.>
<Rika,> Niki said a moment later. <I’m passing you scan and comm access. Looks like our Marauders are doing what they do best out there. And you should see things inside the station’s ops center. They’re losing their minds. They trusted their shackling of Irek too much. Everything up there is secondary to the control systems here. We can shut them out of the whole station.>
<Great work, Niki. You’re the best.>
<I know,> the AI laughed. <Now it’s time to shoot some Niets out of the black.>
Rika accepted the connections Niki had passed, and tapped into scan first, seeing the Fury Lance pulling away with her two cruisers accompanying it. The cruisers were taking some fire from enemy ships, but most was directed at the Fury Lance.
Dozens of vessels were firing on the ‘Lance, its stasis shields flaring brightly as beams and kinetics smashed particles against the impenetrable shield.
She tapped the comms and listened in on the Niets, and then the Seppies, surprised to hear them working together.
Well, that was always a possibility, Rika thought before making a connection to the Fury Lance.
<Heather, how’re things going up there?>
<Shit! Rika! Stars, it’s good to hear your voice. The fucking Seppies won’t play ball, they’re siding with the Niets. Most of them are too far out to do much damage, but give them twenty minutes and they’ll be all over us.>
<What about the breach teams?> Rika asked. <Have they taken control of any of the ships, yet?>
<No… well, I don’t think so. Soon as they got wise to us, the Niets shut us out of the military comm systems. We can’t punch signal through their hulls to contact the teams. Potter’s trying to get back on their comm systems, but she’s also managing all of our weapons on her own, plus dealing with a bunch of Niets running around on the ‘Lance.>
Rika closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. OK…this is not going as well as I’d hoped. She took a moment to consider her options before replying.
<Give me a second, Heather; I’m going to try and see if I can get through to our teams from here. Niki has the station’s guns, and we’re going to stop any more ships from getting off, so you only have to deal with what’s out there.>
<Rika,> Heather made a choking sound. <You realize there are over two hundred enemy ships out here, right?>
<Then you’d better keep firing on them.>
<Don’t worry, we’re not stopping—oh shit! The Republic’s stasis shields just went offline. Travis called in, something blew in one of their power plants. They’re trying to re-route!>
<Pull them in close,> Rika ordered, a vision of the cruiser being holed filling her mind. <You can extend your shields around them if necessary.>
<On it.>
The realization that she could lose this engagement hit her full on. What were they doing trying to take a system with a handful of ships?
Still…at the heart of it, this is Tanis’s plan. The Admiral wouldn’t have sent us out here to die.
The thought reassured Rika, and she tapped into the station’s comm systems. Once in, she hopped onto the Nietzschean battle network and found her way to the sixty ships her Marauder teams were breaching. The first ship she reached out to was the one Leslie’s team had boarded.
<Leslie, how’s it going in there?>
<Rika? Wow, how are we talking right now? We only have control of engines, not comm or weapons.>
Rika couldn’t help but laugh at the confusion in Leslie’s voice. <Well if you’re fighting for control of comms, how am I talking to you?>
<Funny, Rika. We were locked out till you reached in. How did you do that?>
<I’m in the station’s node chamber. Niki’s tapped into the Nietzschean systems through here, and they haven’t realized we’re in control—though that won’t last much longer.>
<Thanks, Niki,> Leslie replied. <Any chance you can lock out the Niets comms on this tub?>
<Actually…> Rika sifted through the control systems aboard the enemy ship. <Yeah, I think I know how to do that. There’s a vulnerability in one of these relays… yes, there it is. OK, I’ve just flipped all their encryption systems to use new hashing algorithms. Passing you the new hashes. Now you’re the only ones aboard who can use comms.>
<Holy shit, Rika…how the hell did you do that?> Leslie asked.
<Umm…I’m not sure, I just wanted to do it, and then I knew how. Niki?>
Niki responded after a moment. <Well…that relay vulnerability was in the dump Angela provided, but I hadn’t even tried it yet.>
<OK, Leslie, apparently, I’m a hacker savant. I need to get everyone linked up.>
<You got it, we’ll keep squishing Niets.>
Rika felt a twinge of worry at her ability to breach the Nietzschean comm relay. A part of her wondered if the things Finaeus had done to her brain had created some sort of back channel between herself and Niki. Except the thing she’d done wasn’t something Niki had tried.
Am I accessing the same general data pool as Niki? She’d know if that was the case… Even an L0 human brain could tell the difference between organic memories and external data storage.
Right?
She pushed it from her mind as best she could and reached out to more and more of the Marauder teams until she’d brought all sixty of them together.
The data flow turned out to be more than she could manage—what, with her and Niki both sharing the same hard-Link and routing through Irek.
Rika suddenly realized she was staring right at a stack of comm NSAI nodes. She remembered one of the options for her right arm was an auxiliary data connector. After flipping through several configuration options, she found it, and the ‘skin’ on her right pinky slid back, and a second hard-Link socket appeared.
She reached out to the closest comm NSAI and plugged into one of its ports.
<Rika…what are you doing?> Niki asked, a strange tone in her mental voice.
<I’m Linking up with everyone so I can give them real-time feeds. The teams have taken six ships, and we should have another seven in just a mi
nute. I’m helping them assume control of all ship-board communications. It’s really messing up the Niets.>
Rika couldn’t help but laugh as a Nietzschean ship captain called down to his engineering room, and got a mech corporal instead.
Niki didn’t respond for a moment, then asked, <Yeah, but how are you doing it?>
<Umm…well, I’m routing the comms through back channels in the station—one normally reserved for civilian refueling operations. Then I’m linking them to the node here, and sorting who needs feeds from who, while providing real-time directions to everyone. Potter is taking the fire-control data, and Dredge is assisting in coordinating maneuvering with the data I’m sending them.>
<Rika, that’s not what I mean…I understand the mechanics of what you’re doing, I just don’t get how.>
<Niki, I can’t think about that right now. I get it, it’s weird. Let’s just get this done and wonder if I’ve grown a second brain later.>
Niki laughed. <OK, just don’t crowd me out.>
Rika finally found Chase aboard the Peerless. He was breaching the auxiliary helm control room, but he’d lost communication with Alison.
She linked them back up, routing their comms through a waste processing system aboard the dreadnought.
<Whoa, thanks Rika,> Chase exclaimed. <You sound…weird.>
<I’m just managing a lot of stuff,> Rika replied. <I think that the NSAI is echoing data streams, and not everyone receiving can filter them all out. I’m working on sussing out why it’s doing that.>
<You are?> Chase asked.
<Yes, don’t ask. I don’t know. Keep it up, we’re making progress.>
<Didn’t have anything else in mind.>
Rika pulled back from direct conversation with her teams and looked at the battlespace through the eyes of the station’s sensors and scan analysis NSAIs.
The Marauders now had full control of forty of the ships they’d breached, and the other twenty would be in their control, or disabled, within minutes.
She considered the remaining forty Nietzschean-controlled ships that had pulled away from the station. Niki was holding off firing on them because of their proximity to Marauder-controlled vessels, using the station’s rails to instead keep the ships further out on the move, restricting their firing solutions.
Rika wondered if she could use her abilities to breach the comms on the Nietzschean-controlled ships as well. Even if it was nothing more than a distraction, it could prove useful.
The Niets still hadn’t turned off their connections to the station nets, so she connected to their networks with ease, finding the same flawed relays and switching their hashing algorithms.
Now she had access to all their attempted communications, and was able to block anything she didn’t want to get through.
<Niki or Irek, can you give me access to comm systems in the station’s operations center?>
<You?> Irek asked.
Rika wasn’t sure how, but she could tell that the AI still seemed disoriented after having new parts of his mind opened up. Ironically, she knew that the same sort of thing was happening to her, but in her case, it wasn’t disorienting at all.
It was exhilarating.
<Yes, I’ve taken control of communications on all Nietzschean ships connected to the station’s network. I’m feeding them misinformation, but I’d like to control the station side as well.>
Access codes and root tokens hit Rika’s mind, and she connected to the operations center’s systems with those credentials.
<I’m in! Thanks.>
Rika found the operation center’s nodes and began to feed them new information directly, throwing the room into chaos. From the messages being sent, she realized that Admiral Fels was present in the room.
She appropriated his public tokens and masqueraded as him, issuing new orders to the ships, directing them into sub-optimal vectors. Some didn’t take the partially authenticated commands, but many did.
Referencing scan data that was flowing into her mind, Rika commanded the bulk of the Nietzschean ships to fire on the ‘Lance, saving the Republic from further abuse.
Red indicators began to appear on the edges of scan as the Nietzschean ships at other stations began to undock, moving toward the battlespace surrounding Ursa Station.
Rika attempted to connect to those ships, but without pre-existing internal access, she was unable to make a privileged connection.
<Chase,> Rika connected to the Peerless once more. <How’re you doing?>
<We have helm control, but I’ll be honest, Rika: I’m shit for piloting something like this. The bridge still has weapons control, so I’m just setting the Peerless on a vector out of here.>
<Niki, Potter, can any of you help Chase steer that beast? I need him and Alison’s squad to take their forward comm relays. In there, we should find logs with the Admiral’s private codes—I hope. Get those, and I’ll be able to assume full command of the Nietzschean ships.>
<On it,> Niki replied quickly. <Irek is finally getting his brain sorted out, and I can pass station battery control back to him.>
<Hey!> Irek exclaimed. <I’m in this conversation.>
Niki laughed. <I know.>
<Jerk,> Irek said in mock anger. <OK, I’ve locked down most of the station, though I’m trying to keep repair crews at bay. They’re trying to take the railguns’ power systems offline.>
<Heather,> Rika called out to the Fury Lance. <How’s your breach situation going?>
<Fuck, Rika,> Heather sounded a little anxious, but mostly angry. <Two of those buggers got to the bridge. I got one, and Yig was right behind the other. I think Alice wet her pants. That woman’s about as useful as tits on a bull.>
<Yig’s team is doing more sweeps, but we think we have them all,> Heather confirmed. <What do you need?>
<Send one of the assault shuttles to the coordinates I’ve marked on the station. We’ve got civvies trying to kill the juice for the big guns. Tell the team to go as non-lethal as possible, but we need to secure those systems.>
<Consider it done, Colonel,> Heather replied smartly.
Moments later, a sound reached Rika’s ears, and the realization that she had a body—and that it was in a rather vulnerable physical location—flooded back into her mind.
She opened her eyes and pulled feeds from her drones. Two lightly armored Niets were trying to get past the locked-up guards at the node-chamber’s entrance.
<Crap. Niki, I can’t pull hard-Links out and keep this up, can I?>
<Rika, I have no idea how you’re doing what you’re doing to begin with, but I’m positive that your wireless transceivers can’t keep up. Stars, I just realized you’re running two hard-Links! When did you do that?>
Rika was surprised Niki hadn’t noticed. Perhaps the AI had been too focused on running the station’s defensive emplacements. <Nevermind, what can we do about those Niets out front?>
<Not ‘we’, Rika, you.>
PUPPETS
STELLAR DATE: 09.20.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: SAI Node Chamber 1A
REGION: Ursa Station, Sepe System (Independent)
Rika clenched her jaw as she slipped her consciousness into the armor of the Nietzschean soldier on the right side of the node chamber’s entrance. She felt out his weapons systems, the powered limb controls, the sensors, and optics.
Crude, even compared to my Genevian mech systems. And feels like it may as well be made of stone, compared to the ISF’s tech.
She shifted her vision to the feeds from the armor, and saw that in front of her stood two Nietzschean soldiers, both in light armor. They were yelling at the frozen figures, trying to get them to move and allow access into the node chamber.
“The fuck is wrong with you?” one of the Niets was screaming while pushing at the soldier Rika had taken control of.
She was tangentially aware of the fact that the man trapped inside the armor was freaking out. He was de
sperately trying to move the armor, to reach out on comms, or to get it to open up and release him.
Rika felt a small pang of compassion, and triggered the armor’s sedation systems. She informed it that the soldier was grievously wounded and needed to be put into a medical coma.
The armor obliged, and a few seconds later, the man inside was out cold.
Not wasting any more time, Rika lifted the railgun her auxiliary body was holding, and fired it on the closest enemy—the yelling man—and cut his body in half. Then she fired on the other Niet, killing him without a second thought.
Half the soldiers in the adjacent corridors had been watching the events at the entrance to the node chamber unfold, and within seconds, they were firing on Rika. Though her soldier had the heaviest armor of any deployed nearby, the odds said that the Niets would cut him down before long.
She considered the other locked-up soldier in the entrance.
In for a chit, in for a credit, she thought, and reached into his armor, as well.
It felt like she was splitting her mind in half, and the first soldier faltered for a moment, taking a beam round from a Niet down the passage to the right. She recovered and sprayed HE rounds from her chaingun in that direction.
OK, Rika, just like you have two arms. Right and left. Their limbs are your fingers. You can do this.
She dispatched a message to a group of Nietzschean ships, ordering them to take up a position further from Ursa Station. It wouldn’t make any sense yet, but when the Seppies got her new messages, it would look like the Niets were going to attack them.
While ensuring the ships followed her orders—appearing to come from Admiral Fels, on the station—she moved her puppet soldiers forward, allowing Irek to close the node chamber’s door behind them.
She unleashed the full fury of the Nietzscheans’ weaponry on the enemies, praying it would be enough to hold them at bay until the Marauders’ work was done.
One of her soldiers took a shot in the leg that blew out the armor’s knee actuators, and then the other’s railgun took a hit that bent the barrel.