“Glad she has our back,” Rika said, sharing Silva’s smile. “Tanis told me a bit about her meeting with the Septhian President. Let’s just say that she was not impressed. I mean, both of the assaults on the Albany System have involved Septhian traitors. They’re not really doing well at keeping their own house in order.”
“Expanded too fast.” Barne glanced around the table. “Too hard to keep control—granted, we’re kinda doing that too, what with the whole ‘strike at the heart’ plan.”
“We’re not looking to control,” Rika corrected. “Each system is capable of governing itself for a year or two before Genevia is re-established.”
“Think that will happen?” Silva asked. “I mean, seriously? One Genevia? Or will it be a bunch of smaller independent states?”
“Uhh,” Rika shrugged. “I suppose that’s up to the systems to figure out. If they sign onto the Scipio Alliance, they’ll have the allies’ backing, so maybe they don’t need to be one big nation anymore.”
“I’m more worried about what will happen as we pass through,” Heather said with a note of concern in her voice. “We’re creating a power vacuum.”
“I know,” Rika replied solemnly. “But Nietzschea has to be stopped. I don’t know anyone who feels differently. If we work our way in slowly, they’ll dig in. Our best bet is to break them with this blade strike, and then deal with the fractured mess afterward. I know I’m a bit of an optimist, but I really feel like a lot of systems are just plain tired of fighting. I think we can provide enough security while everyone gets themselves back on their feet.”
“You hope,” Barne replied.
Rika gave the surly sergeant a genuine smile. “Hope’s worked out really well for us lately. I’m going to give it a chance and see if its streak can keep going.”
“I’ve got twenty credits on hope,” Scarcliff said with a laugh.
“Just twenty?” Silva asked.
Scarcliff shrugged. “Barne cleaned me out on the bet over the thing.”
“Dammit! There’s no thing!”
RESIDENT
STELLAR DATE: 10.27.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: MSS Fury Lance
REGION: Epsilon, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
Though Rika had tried to tour as much of the Fury Lance as possible, she’d not even set foot in a tenth of the bays, passages, and disparate rooms within the ship.
At present, she was walking down an unfamiliar passage that led toward the secondary midship node chamber. Normally, the chamber would be occupied by a series of NSAI cores, but Lieutenant Carson had moved them all to a nearby bay to make room for the chamber’s new occupant: Piper.
<How’s he doing, for real?> Rika asked Niki. <And…I know it sounds ungrateful, but how much access do we give him to the ship?>
<Regarding his state of mind, I’ve been talking with him as much as I’ve been able to over these past two days. The short answer: I’m still not sure.>
Rika wondered about Niki’s qualifier. <As much as possible? I thought you could multitask better than that.>
<Oh, I can. He’s just not used to talking that much. Not only that, but he’s mourning the loss of his otherselves. It’s messed him up more than he expected.>
Though Rika conceptually understood that the other fragments of Piper that they’d been unable to rescue from their respective moons were sentient beings, and that they were also a part of Piper’s mind, it was nearly impossible for Rika to fathom the sort of internal strife that may cause a person.
She imagined it would be like losing parts of your mind, but parts that had diverged. It was possible that backups could be re-integrated, but doing so would change who you were…and possibly not for the better.
<So is there an answer to my question in there, somewhere?> Rika asked.
<Stars, Rika, it’s tough. I am the last, and I mean the last, AI you’ll ever meet that would advocate restricting another AI’s access to the nets….>
<The fact that you’ve just said those words hints at what we should do.>
<Well…if you had brought squishie human refugees with no Link onto the ship, there wouldn’t be much reason to worry about your security, right?>
<Almost zero,> Rika agreed.
<However, if you brought a mentally unstable K1R onto the ship, you may have cause for concern.>
<I’m with you there.>
<Piper is like a platoon of mentally unstable K1Rs.>
<So what do we do?>
<Well, if he was the Linkless squishie equivalent of an AI, it would be fine. Between Potter and I, we could keep him in check. But there may be times when Potter and I aren’t on the ship.>
<I don’t want any sort of active limiting placed on his access, though,> Rika replied, remembering the network restrictor device and the NSAI attack drones that had watched Piper for centuries. <He’d feel like he was trading one prison for another.>
<I know, this takes us back to my initial statement of being the last AI to ever want to do anything close to shackling another sentient.>
<Because of what happened to you on the Persephone Jones, where we found you?>
Niki didn’t respond at first, and Rika could feel that there was some sort of turmoil in the AI’s mind.
<What is it?>
<I’ve just been around a long time, Rika. Being shackled on the Persephone Jones wasn’t my first brush with that sort of imprisonment. It wasn’t even terribly effective, if you recall. I let you all disable me and get me off that ship.>
<I know, I know,> Rika laughed softly at how Barne still thought that he’d been instrumental in saving Niki. They’d not had the heart to let him know that Niki herself had set those wheels in motion.
Granted, Barne’s had been the hands that had done the work, without which Niki would still be on the Jones, so she felt that it was a harmless bit of misdirection.
<So, if I get your meaning, if we’re going to give Piper unfettered access to the general shipnet—he’s not a Marauder, so he gets what any visitor would—then we need to ensure that there’s always an AI aboard to keep watch and ensure he’s not stepping out of bounds.>
<We should really have a ship’s AI anyway,> Niki replied. <Only our three former Genevian Marauder ships have them. None of the Nietzschean ships do.>
<Adira has a ship’s AI on the Trenton, as well,> Rika supplied.
<I know that, Rika,> Niki sent a mild feeling of exasperation. <I was referring to AIs you can move to the Fury Lance. I know you and Adira are all chummy, but I doubt she’s gonna let you nab her ship’s AI and ensconce her in the Lance.>
<OK, fair point.> She nodded, reaching the final bend before the node entrance and stopping to finish the conversation with Niki. <However, taking Cora from the Golden Lark, or Moshe from the Perseid’s Dream would cause Major Tim to crawl further up my ass than he already is.>
<I think you have that figure of speech wrong,> Niki said with a laugh. <My understanding is that an ass kisser is someone who is a yes-man, and someone who crawls right up inside is the ultimate version of that.>
<Dead wrong, Niki. One of those things hurts, and the other doesn’t. Not that I want to get into the biology of all this. Either way, I like Cora and Moshe where they are; I need someone I trust to keep an eye on Tim.>
<OK, well, there are three other AIs on those ships that they could spare in a pinch. Lauren is on the Perseid’s Dream, and Jane and Frankie are on the Golden Lark.>
Rika nodded slowly, looking through each of the AIs’ service records. None of the three had ever been ship’s AI on anything so large as the Fury Lance. In fact, only Jane had ever run a ship at all.
<Oh, wait…what’s this, Niki? Frankie was a facility AI on something called ‘Mont Wilton’? What’s that?>
<Not sure, I’ll ask him,> Niki replied.
Frankie curren
tly ran the drop bays on the Golden Lark, and the ship was near the Fury Lance in the formation. As a result, Niki’s conversation with the other AI only took seconds.
<Damn…he doesn’t share this often, I guess, but Mont Wilton was a station out in the Pembroke System. Upscale transfer terminal of some sort. He managed all the mass balancing and traffic coming in and out of the station.>
<How big was it?> Rika asked, intrigued that the unassuming Frankie had once held such an important position.
Keeping a station in a stable orbit while its mass was constantly changing with ships coming and going was no mean feat, and one that required a sharp and focused AI—usually backed by an array of NSAIs.
<Still trying to get details out of him. Shit! The thing was over five hundred klicks across!>
<Sounds like we have our AI,> Rika said, feeling a sense of relief. <If he could manage something like that, the Fury Lance should be a breeze.>
<Well…he may not be interested in the job. I’m sensing hesitation. I’ll work on him.>
Rika pursed her lips, wondering why nothing was ever easy. <What about Potter, do you think she’d do it?>
<Well, we could strong-arm her into it, she kinda does half-duty as ship’s AI right now anyway—but I get the impression that she likes going out on missions with the mechs. She’s a bit of a thrill-seeker.>
Never having considered what sort of ‘thrills’ AIs sought, Rika paused to wonder what Potter got out of the arrangement.
<She’s even talked about getting a mobile frame, now that we have access to the ISF’s more advanced tech.>
<What, she didn’t want to going into something meaty like a K1R body?> Rika asked with an irony-laced laugh.
<In a word, no.>
The answer didn’t surprise her in the least. K1Rs drew weapons fire like nothing else on the battlefield. There were times that Rika had wished for one of their monster chainguns, with each barrel capable of tri-fire modes like her GNR, but the mobility that being an SMI offered, she felt, was far superior.
As evidenced by the fact that she and Kelly once took out a K1R on their own.
The memory of that day on Naera came back to her, standing atop the poor K1R that had been turned to the Nietzschean side, firing rounds directly into its body as the metal monster tried to choke the life out of Kelly.
For so long, that ultimate victory had been bittersweet, linked so closely to the memory of Kelly’s death—which had turned out not to be a death at all.
Even now, the memory of that three-day slog on Naera hadn’t caught up with the fact that Kelly was still amongst the living, and the same pain came back. Rika supposed that the memory of holding her friend in her arms with a hole blown through her torso was never going to feel great.
<OK…> She brought herself back to the present. <So let’s assume we wrangle someone into being the Lance’s AI full-time. Where does that leave us with Piper.>
<I vote for wireless access, only.> Niki’s voice contained a tendril of pained regret. <We can easily reduce, or even sever, that access through a variety of means. At present, he has a small, low-gain antenna on his core. Let’s just feed him carefully buffered power for now, and then see how things proceed from there.>
<Sounds like a plan. We’ll see how things play out from there.>
<That’s what I said.>
Rika groaned as she pushed herself upright. <I know…I was agreeing.>
<You were repeating.>
<Why are all AIs so surly?>
Niki only laughed as they rounded the corner and walked into the entrance to the node chamber.
In the middle of the space sat the looming shape of Piper’s core. Five meters cubed, covered in shielding and a variety of status indicators, it loomed over them and the general disarray of the room.
“Sorry the digs aren’t as tidy as your old space, Piper,” Rika apologized as she approached.
<Rika, Niki, trust me, a change is nice, even if it is disarray. Plus, it feels nice to be…cozy. After spending centuries stationed above a five-hundred-kilometer-deep shaft, at the bottom of which was a black hole….”
<I bet the mechdragon ride through space didn’t help, either,> Niki said with a laugh.
Rika shook her head, a smile forming on her lips. “Adira and her mechs are a bit nuts. I’ve never felt so vulnerable in my life.”
<I’ll agree that I certainly would have preferred a ship wrapped around me,> Piper replied with a soft laugh. <But I was so glad to be out of that cursed place that it was more a relief than anything else.>
“You know,” a voice came from behind the core. “If I had some help down here, we’d be done already.”
Rika walked around Piper’s core to see the AM-X mech staring down at a mess of power conduits that previously fed the dozen NSAIs the chamber normally contained.
“Too heavy for you?” she asked with a laugh, as Stripes pulled one conduit under another and then laid it out straight.
“No…just….” He straightened and grabbed a cloth to clean the grime off his hands—one of which was standard AM-style, while the other was a massive K1R gauntlet. “Piper here doesn’t exactly have standard hookups. Been a nightmare trying to get the right power to the right place.”
<I appreciate your efforts, Corporal,> Piper said. <I’m no longer drawing on my internal reserves, though I’m having to keep cogitation to a minimum.>
“Glad it’s working,” Stripes said, gesturing to a pair of power lines that connected to a series of four chained converters, the last of which was connected to the AI’s core. “Just keep the draw low. I have the fab shop working on a single converter, but it’s going to take a day to make it and then put it through its paces. Then I need to make three more.”
“Should we ask the ISF for help?” Rika asked. “Maybe they’ll have something that would work.”
“Carson reached out,” Stripes said as he shifted another line. “They don’t have anything close, as it turns out. They could fab one, too, but I’d prefer that we do it here so that if we need to make more, we have the process down.”
<Seems prudent,> Niki commented. <Send me your specs, Stripes, I may have a design that could suit our needs here.>
“Really?” Stripes glanced at Rika’s stomach, and Rika laughed, tapping her head.
“She’s up here now, Stripes.”
“Sure, yeah, but then I’m looking at your eyes, and that seems weird.”
“Seems weirder to have you looking at my bellybutton.”
The corporal rose and glanced at Rika’s abdomen once more. “Good thing you don’t have one of those anymore.”
“I’ve still got a bioport in its place,” Rika tapped her armored stomach. “Not that I plan on ever sucking nutripaste in through it again.”
<Never say never,> Niki intoned. <You have no idea how many times I’ve had to eat words like that in the past.>
Stripes snorted. “I’d rather eat words than nutripaste.”
“Nice one,” Rika laughed.
“OK, well, if you’re gonna stay here and babysit our new AI, I’m going to go check on the fab shop.” Corporal Stripes began to step carefully over the power lines that snaked across the deck.
“Do I need to do anything?” Rika asked.
“Yeah, don’t touch anything.”
Rika shot Stripes a dirty look and then turned back to Piper, gazing up at his impassive form.
“So? Are you actually doing alright?”
<Maybe,> the AI replied. <I’m carefully segmenting my thoughts at present. With my current power allotment, I don’t have the energy to review and verify the backups I pulled from my other nodes, so I don’t know if they are fully operational…. I’m trying to avoid thinking about the fact that they might not be.>
Rika nodded, once again trying to imagine what that would be like.
<Rika and I were discussing what sort of access to give you on the ship.>
A soft
chuckle from Piper rumbled through their minds. <I imagine that could not have been a straightforward conversation—or maybe it was. I suppose agreement on denial would be easy.>
“That’s not where we landed,” Rika replied.
<Well, I’m glad for that. I owe you a lot. I had only been contemplating how to die, but you gave me a chance at life again.>
<Do you really want it?> Niki asked, a slight edge to her voice. <If you’re seriously considering self-termination….>
<I’m not,> Piper replied, his tone matching his words.
<Good,> Niki said.
“So what do you want to do?” Rika asked. “I’ll remind you that we’re going deeper into Nietzschean-held territory. If you want any measure of safety, staying on this ship long-term is not going to provide it.”
<And my other options?> Piper’s tone became guarded.
“Return to Pyra with the ISF ships,” Rika offered. “There’s plenty to do there: build a ring, the shipyards, salvage—”
<No.> Piper’s tone brooked no dissent. <I’ll not venture into the same system as him.>
“Bob?” Rika asked, remembering that Piper had previously voiced uncertainty regarding meeting Bob.
<Yes, the one you call Bob. I’ve spoken to AIs aboard the ISF ships. He’s…he’s something I’m not ready to confront yet.>
<Strange,> Niki commented privately to Rika. <When we explained that Bob was from the Intrepid, he seemed more agreeable to meeting him. I wonder why he’s changed his mind.>
<Beats me, I’m looking to you for guidance on that one.>
<I wonder if he’s not considering it fully until he’s fully powered,> Niki suggested.
“Very well, then you understand that the risks in remaining aboard the Fury Lance are likely more existential than visiting Bob? I’ve met him and survived the experience.”
<I do,> Piper replied simply.