Stephen Berry - The AI War

"Now, D'Trelna, you know I can't betray a client's confidence," said the corsair. "Though, had I known about the mindslaver, we'd have found an easier mark. Like Prime Base. And as soon as it breaks your command up for parts, we'll be on our way."

D'Trelna shook his head. "We go, you go. My word on it." He swiveled his chair. "Egg," he said to the slaver machine, "by how much must we boost signal power for Alpha Prime to detect the third vessel, Victory Day?"

The golden spheroid drifted to D'Trelna's side, coming within pickup range of the transmission. "Increase by a factor of three," it said.

D'Trelna turned to the comm officer. "K'Lana, I seem to be having a problem. Increase signal strength by a factor of three, please."

"Wait!" K'Tran's smile was gone. "What do you want?"

"Hold, K'Lana," said D'Trelna. He turned back to K'Tran. "Can't you guess, K'Tran?"

A'Tir had pulled an ID from Victory Day's archives. She sent it over to K'Tran's station. He stared at the data for a surprised instant, then looked up. "Where'd you get a slaver computer, D'Trelna? TNil's Revenge!"

"Where I got it isn't important," said the commodore. "What we'll be using it for is."

"We'll?"

"Yes," said D'Trelna. "It'll be conning our combined battleops. We're going to penetrate that mindslaver's defenses and storm her bridge, K'Tran. You and me, yours and mine, side by side. Victory or death."

There was a long silence on both bridges. "You're mad, D'Trelna," said the corsair.

"Am I?" said D'Trelna. "You're a superb tactician. Consider the situation tactically, K'Tran."

He did, fingers softly drumming the chairarm, eyes distant. When he looked back at the pickup, both his and D'Trelna's crew were watching. "Victory or death, Commodore," he said. "There's no other way. What are your orders?"

"Maintain position, be prepared to link battleops on my command," said D'Trelna.

"As the commodore orders," said the corsair, switching off.

"You're serious?" said A'Tir as D'Trelna's face vanished. "We're taking orders from Fats?"

K'Tran nodded slowly. "We're too close to run, but near enough to attack. Only a coordinated assault has even a remote chance of success. That slaver computer may give us an edge."

"Or betray us utterly," said A'Tir.

"It's a fluid situation," said K'Tran slowly. "And it may yet favor us." His old self-assurance, blunted for a moment, was returning. "We're not burdened by duty, ethics or conscience." He nodded toward the screen. "They are… Stand by to link battleops. And give me shipwide so everyone can share in the good news."

Stephen Ames Berry

The AI War

The slaver's bridge was big, cold and empty, a soft-lit, multitiered cavern beneath a transparent dome.

Perfect temperature for preserving meat, thought John. Shivering, he rubbed his hands together, then thrust them back into his pockets.

Hundreds of consoles lined the tiers, lights twinkling, alarms chirping. Nowhere was there a chair, nowhere a sign that any living being had ever ere wed Alpha Prime. The Terran stared up at T'Lan, one tier above him. One thing's for sure, he thought-I'm the only human on this bridge.

Floating along at eye level, the translucent blue globe had led them from the shuttle out across the dark hangar deck. It had been a long, cold walk, their footfalls echoing distantly, John keenly aware of T'Lan striding beside him, a precise, unfaltering tap-tap-tap. T'Lan would sometimes look right or left, eyes seeming to focus… on what? John wondered. No matter. T'Lan can see in the dark. He filed it away, another bit of data.

Going up a ramp, they'd gone down a short passageway, through a door that moved noiselessly aside, and into a brightly lit anteroom. John stood blinking, squinting in the sudden glare as T'Lan followed the globe to one of a score of open-topped, two-seat cars that rested in power niches along the room's circumference.

Turning to John, T'Lan had pointed toward the first car, the one over which the blue globe hovered. He'd stood there, waiting until the Terran had slid over the siderail into the seat.

Once T'Lan was in, the globe vanished. Without a sound, the car turned, rose and streaked from the room, moving at high speed down endless gray corridors.

Doorways, intersections and the occasional instrument panel had flashed by; then they'd shot up a long, spiraling ramp to the bridge. Slowing, stopping, the car had settled before the faint glow of a forcefield. Stepping from the vehicle, the two had followed another blue globe through a sudden opening in the field, across the broad sweep of the bridge's deck and up a series of ramps, halting at last before the single black console that occupied the highest tier. As T'Lan spoke, the blue globe vanished. "Commander T'Lan and John Harrison, from Implacable."

"We have a commwand for you, from Pocsym Six." Velvet soft and as cold as this ship, thought John of the voice. It spoke contemporary K'Ronarin and seemed to come from between him and T'Lan, rather than from the console.

"A message from the dead," said T'Lan. "Who are you?"

"We have no names, Commander," said the voice. "The centuries burned them away. We have only purpose."

"Do you know what's on the commwand?" asked T'Lan.

"Data relating to the Trel Cache," said the R'Actolian.

T'Lan held out his hand. "You may give it to me."

John glanced over the slender railing, gauging the distance to the deck: about two hundred feet. I'm going to save us some travel time back to the deck, thing, he thought, shifting his weight. The instant you get that commwand, over we go.

"Don't do anything quixotic, Harrison," said T'Lan in perfect English, his eyes still on the console, hand extended. "The commwand," he said in K'Ronarin.

"Pocsym," said the R'Actolian, ignoring the demand, "kept us supplied over the centuries. There were items we needed that we couldn't manufacture, but that Pocsym could. In return for these things, we pledged to remain in this quadrant, Blue Nine. Very recently, as we judge time, Pocsym entrusted us with the commwand, asking that we give it to the first K'Ronarin Fleet ship to reach these precise coordinates."

"We are here," said T'Lan.

John tensed himself, ready to jump.

"We're not giving you the commwand," said the R'Actolian.

"Why not?" said T'Lan, dropping his hand.

John laughed-a short nervous laugh. "They've tumbled to you, T'Lan."

T'Lan half turned toward the Terran. "Harrison…" he hissed.

"You're not a true emissary of K'Ronar, Commander T'Lan," continued the R'Actolian. "You're something out of Imperial prehistory, an AI combat droid-a survivor of that almost mythic war between man and machine."

"It's no myth," said T'Lan. "I was there."

"You are here to intercept the commwand," said the R'Actolian. "Why?"

"The Trel defeated us once. Legend says they left a weapon to be used against us."

"You wish to destroy the commwand."

T'Lan nodded. "Logically, it must hold the location of the Cache. No location, no weapon. The Fleet of the One triumphs."

The voice sighed, a legacy of lungs and bodies long cast off. "We are both man and machine, T'Lan, and love neither. It isn't out of malice that we deny you what you want, but because we've given our pledge."

"You cannot deny me," said the AI, walking around the console. "The cybernetics of this vessel were taken from Quadrant Fleet inventory on D'Lin, after you wiped Governor R'Actol." He looked down at the instruments.

"How did you know that?"

"Your first- and second-level computers," said the AI, ignoring the question, "the golden egg and its retinue of secondaries, were machines originally entrusted to the Governor of Blue Nine for safekeeping-machines salvaged from our defeated ships, centuries before. The designs were copied first, of course, and sent to K'Ronar. When reproduced later, in Fleet's own mindslavers, there was no trace of us in them. But here-" He reached out a finger, "Here is different."