Stephen Berry - The AI War

"You weren't told, you weren't given," said D'Trelna, disgusted. "Anything else we should know?"

"Probably," said the commwand. "But nothing I know."

"We risked our lives and lost people for that?" said John.

D'Trelna ejected the commwand and tucked it away. "Every bit of data's vital, John. At least now we have a destination."

He looked at the AI. "That was a hideous machine you created, R'Gal."

"I did not create that machine, D'Trelna," said the AI. "I merely made sure that something like it would be created." He wagged a finger at the commodore. "Without Pocsym, you'd have no effective Fleet now, and you'd have been wiped at Terra Two. My fascistic brothers would have mopped you up some time ago."

D'Trelna grunted.

"Still, for what little information is on that commwand, we lost lives?" said L'Wrona.

"Fleets and planets have been sacrificed for less," said R'Gal.

D'Trelna opened the commlink. "Commander K'Raoda." K'Raoda's face filled the small desk screen. "Commodore?"

"Copy these coordinates and read back." He held the paper up to the scan.

K'Raoda touched the complink. "Print screen, my commlink," he ordered.

"Commander." It was K'Lana's voice, from somewhere off scan.

K'Raoda turned.

"Automatic transmission on Fleet distress channel. Lifepod Thirty-six," she reported.

"Zahava!" John almost leaped from the chair. "Where?" he called, hovering over D'Trelna's shoulder.

K'Raoda took the nav figures from a yeoman, then frowned, looking down at something outside the pickup. "Here," he said, holding up the commslip from K'Lana and the printout from D'Trelna. The figures were the same.

"How long?" asked D'Trelna.

K'Raoda did some quick calculations. "About a week," he said. "Give or take a jump."

"Plot and execute," said the commodore, switching off.

L'Wrona and Harrison excused themselves and left for the bridge.

"You know," said R'Gal after a moment, "you really ought to give Egg a medal-posthumously, of course."

D'Trelna's acerbic reply was drowned out by the jump klaxon echoing from the corridor.

The small bit of Blue Nine that had held three ships was empty again.

Stephen Ames Berry

The AI War

"Alert! Alert! Alert!"

The voice pricked her mind, rousing her from the coils of a gray-white sleep.

"Alert! Alert! Alert!"

Zahava sat up.

"Your urgent attention is directed to the tacscan," said the voice. Computer, she thought. The universe was a blur, half-visible through tearing eyes. Rubbing the tears away, Zahava saw she was in the center flight chair of the lifepod's command tier. Above her the main screen held a tri-dee tactical scan: asteroid-ringed moon circling a green planet, the planet itself orbited by eleven silver blips. As she watched, two of the blips detached themselves and began closing on a single yellow dot that sped toward the planet. A tactical summary flowed across the bottom of the screen. It would have meant something to a K'Ronarin Fleet officer.

"Those silver blips-are they ships?" asked Zahava. She was shocked at how dry and hoarse she sounded.

"Yes," said the asexual voice. "Identified as deep-space exploration vessels of a K'Ronarin industrial combine."

"Which combine?"

"Combine T'Lan," said the computer.

"Armed?"

"Heavily armed. They have answered our automatic distress signal. We are instructed to dock with the lead ship now approaching."

The silver blips were halfway to the lifepod.

"Disregard," said Zahava. "Vessels are hostile. Take evasive action."

"Evading. We will have to land on the planet. It would be impossible to escape both the hostile vessels and the planet's gravitational field."

"What planet is that?" she asked, dialing up a cup of water from the chairarm.

"It is the planet D'Lin," said the computer. "Former capital of Imperial Quadrant Blue Nine. Charts and all other regional data have not been updated since the Fall."

On the screen the yellow blip of the lifepod was now accelerating away from the combine ships-and away from D'Lin. "You're going to miss the planet!" said Zahava.

"No," said the computer. "We'll draw them off, loop back, land on the nightside."

"Can we outdistance them?" she asked, dubiously eyeing the tacscan. The lead combine ships were turning in pursuit, with three more breaking orbit to join the chase.

"Long enough. But there will be a missile salvo."

"Can you show me D'Lin?" she asked.

Shrinking, the tacscan moved screen-right. Screen-left now showed a world of green-blue oceans and swirling clouds. A string of brown spread north and south from the equator.

"Archipelago," said Zahava.

"Yes. D'Lin's mostly water," said the computer. "I'll put the stats on your comm screen."

"Don't bother," she said, looking at the screen-left. "I won't have time to read them."

Silver needles were spanning the gap between the lifepod and the combine ships.

Faster than the machine spoke them, Zahava read the flame-red letters beneath the tacscan:

Cursing, arms flailing, Zahava fell backward as her flight chair dropped into crash position, water spilling across her chest. Then she forgot about it as the flight chair became a white cocoon, its sides sweeping up, expanding to enfold her in a thick-padded crash shell. Suddenly giddy, she found herself rising, butting into the soft quilting of the cocoon.

"Broaching atmosphere at max speed, full evasive pattern," the computer whispered near her ear. "N-gravs going off-line until landing-missiles home on it at final approach,"

The sudden shock of G-plus gravity pressed her deep into the cocoon, fighting for breath. From outside, the hull screamed as the pod knifed into atmosphere, plunging toward the charted location of the old quadrant capital. The computer thought it odd that most of the area scanned as rain forest, but committed to its pattern, missiles closing, it said nothing.

What was left of the 103rd Border Battalion lay hidden in the ruins, hoping the thick, old stone and the night would keep death away.

Major L'Kor sat at the head of what once had been an impressive stairway-a long, graceful sweep of alabaster-white stone, broken long ago by fusion fire, the torn slabs of rock smoothed by millennia of wind and rain.

"How many?" he asked, steeling himself.

"Seven," said G'Sol, looking not at him but at the spectacular night sky, high above the canopy of jungle. She was a captain, even younger than L'Kor, but just as thin and worn. It would have been hard to judge, there in the starlight, whose mottled-green uniform was the more patched.

"Sit," he said, jerking his head to the right. "You look like you're about to fall down."

G'Sol sat. Like the rest, she'd been on quarter rations and brackish water for a week. Sickness and short rations were going to finish what the invaders had missed.

"Jungle fever?" he asked wearily.

"Yes," she said, hugging her knees, looking out into the night. "It's going to get us all-water's bad, food's low, medicine's gone. I give us a month. The rains start then, anyway."

"Maybe we'll get lucky, S'Yin," said L'Kor softly. "Maybe they'll find us." He looked toward the night sky, brilliant with a million stars. Some of the lights were moving-more tonight than before, thought the major. But who knew what they did, or why?

"I'm not going to sit here, waiting to die," said G'Sol, a sudden fire to her voice. She stood, looking at L'Kor. "There are ninety-eight of us left. Let's buy something with our lives."

"What?" said the major with a bitter smile. He stabbed his carbine toward the sky. "They're invulnerable to our weapons, their ships track us from space, their little ships hunt us down and slaughter us like v'arx." He looked up at the angry young woman. "What can we do against that, Captain?"