Марта Уэллс - Network Effect

I’ll meet you there, I told her, and started out of the engineering monitoring area. I should have at least two point five spare minutes, so I went ahead with the hack of targetControlSystem.

The thing that had protected it so far was the fact that it didn’t interact with the feed or with interfaces the way every other system I’d ever encountered had. But Target Five had accessed targetControlSystem and been responded to, so that told me what channel to concentrate on and what kind of transmissions it would accept. And it also told me I was going to need to go old school to break this fucker.

I tossed together a code bundle that duplicated the signal sent by the Targets’ screen device, copied it a hundred times, made it self-replicating so all my copies were copying themselves, then sent the whole thing to targetControlSystem.

ART would have laughed at an attack like that. (Actually, ART would have laughed at the part where it sent back a code bundle that would have eaten my face.) But I had a theory that the reason the Targets weren’t trying to access most of ART’s systems was that their targetControlSystem lacked the ability to effectively use ART’s architecture.

Then I got an alert from a sentry drone. It was on the hatch into the quarters module, the first hatch I’d sealed to create our safe zone. It couldn’t get a visual of any targetDrones, but an energy build-up near the hatch indicated a weapon or tool was being used on the controls. Uh-oh.

I started to run, following the curving corridor back out of the engineering module. I checked Scout Two in the control area foyer, just in time to see Targets Five and Six race out of its camera range.

When I said everything kept happening at once, it had mostly been an exaggeration, but now everything was actually happening at once. Something must have alerted them to the safepod on the hull.

I had an option, but it was a terrible idea. But it was also the only way to get Arada and the others inside in time. Amena, our safe zone is about to be compromised and I need to deal with it. Can you get to the airlock to cycle Arada and the others in? I was assuming targetControlSystem wasn’t going to be cooperative about admitting visitors. Plus, it was a little busy right now.

Amena had been pacing Medical, anxiously listening in on the hurried conversation in the safepod as they prepared to abandon it. She stopped, muted her comm, and said, Yes, can you give me a map?

I sent her our safe zone map with the fastest route to the airlock highlighted. You’ll have your squad of drones ahead of you. I’ll send an alert and another route if they encounter anything .

Understood . She started for the door, then stopped to pick up the Targets’ energy weapon and tuck it into her jacket pocket. Then she dodged sideways and grabbed a container out of the pile of supplies on the bench.

I meant to enlarge the image to see what she’d taken but I had intel coming in from the sentry drone that the safe zone hatch had just been breached. At the engineering module exit, I took a different route, through the hatchway into the cargo handling station and out to the corridor that ran down the outside of the central module toward the quarters hatch. If I couldn’t get in front of them, I had to come up from behind.

There were three possible reasons the Targets might have acted now: (1) they had received intel from targetControlSystem that the safepod was on the outside of the hull and interpreted its presence as an attack, (2) now that we’d left the wormhole and were presumably at our destination they knew their reinforcements would be coming soon and felt it was now relatively safe to attack us, or (3) they were expecting a supervisor to arrive at any moment and wanted to look proactive. With my luck, it was a combination of all three.

My drones zipping ahead of me, I reached the far end of the central module and ducked through two connecting corridors. I lost three drone contacts as they reached the passage to the quarters hatch but I didn’t slow down. I’d gone low in the last two encounters, and with combat drones, even weird unfamiliar ones, it was best to assume there was an active learning component. So I accelerated and as I rounded the corner I ran up the bulkhead.

Two targetDrones waited for me near the deck and I landed on one before it could change position. I smashed the second as it jolted toward my head. The hatch had been cut open, the locks drilled and partially melted. I ordered my drones to drop back; I hadn’t had time to work on countermeasures for the Targets’ protective suits and I knew I was going to regret that.

I lost one of Amena’s drone contacts and sent her an alert. She was in a corridor near a junction she would have to cross to get to the airlock and there was no alternate route. I told her, Go back to Medical .

No time, Amena said, and stepped back to press herself against the bulkhead. I think something’s wrong with the safepod .

I could have argued about that but there wasn’t time and she was right. And I’d finally gotten a view of the container she’d taken from the emergency supplies, the one she was currently holding clutched to her chest. It was the fire suppresser Ras had pointed out.

I slammed through the connecting passage and out into the next corridor.

Targets Five and Six spun to face me, pointed their clunky square energy weapons at me. Four targetDrones hovered beside them.

Two turns beyond was the junction Amena needed to pass through, so I needed to a) keep them here or b) kill them.

Let’s go with option b.

Amena’s drones clustered protectively around her as she hit the release on the fire suppresser. The chemical blast shot out and Amena hit what she aimed at because suddenly my drones could see the approaching targetDrone. The burst of chemical wash had coated the targetDrone’s casing and disrupted the camouflage. (File under save-for-later: this confirms the camouflage is a physical effect, something in the design visible on their casing, not an unknown type of transmitted interference.) The targetDrone wavered sideways, then lurched down the corridor, probably with its propulsion and sensors damaged. Amena ducked around the corner and sprinted toward the junction.

Staring at me, Target Five said something in that language with no translation. Target Six made a dismissive gesture and started to turn back toward the foyer I absolutely had to keep them away from. As Target Five lifted his weapon and the targetDrones shot forward, I moved.

My drones couldn’t see the targetDrones due to the stealth material, but I could. I pulled an estimate of the coordinates from my scan and sent a drone toward each targetDrone with orders to make surface contact. One overshot and had to loop back but all four managed a landing. With the contact drones for a reference, the rest of my drones could approximate the targetDrones’ positions. As the targetDrones reached me, I told my drones to attack at will.

While this was going on, and Target Five was lifting his weapon, I ducked and dove forward. The first blast went over my head, then a targetDrone banged into my shoulder and knocked me into the bulkhead.

Then a thing happened. The comm hidden in the pocket under my ribs, the comm ART had given me when I left it on RaviHyral’s transit ring, pinged my internal feed with a message. It was a compressed packet, a type meant to be sent in-system, not carried via transports through wormholes. Which meant it had originated with ART’s internal comm array. It was tagged with the name “Eden.”

My drones hulled two targetDrones but the third already had a fix on me. It tried to slam me in the head but it had to back up first to build up speed, which gave me a chance to grab it. I shoved it sideways in time to block a blast from Target Five’s energy weapon. Heat blasted over the targetDrone, which was a factor I hadn’t anticipated. This was different from the weapon dead Target Two had used on me; instead of just being a pain-causing annoyance, this blast was meant to destroy tissue and incapacitate permanently. Even with the targetDrone between us, my hands took damage. Three of my drones got caught in the blast and dropped to the deck.