Author Archives: natechen

The Sidereal Saga – Cloudie

Posted by natechen on

Previous Chapter

Dramatis Personae

Lloyd

“Hey, we got wounded down in the infirmary,” Lloyd said, hauling himself up onto the Skybreak‘s bridge as the ship rocked under them. “Try and keep us steady. If things are this rough while we’re still under the pressure domes you’re gonna shake this thing apart once we hit the atmo.”

“She’s a tough bird,” Lavanya replied through gritted teeth. “The Helium Seas are rougher than most atmosphere but at least we’ll be able to open up the engines instead of running them so low they’re borderline stalling. Problem is Ashland flight control says there’s a storm system brewing. They’ve locked down the pressure dome and are calling all outbound ships back to landing.”

“If your ship’s that tough we can turn sidereal and leave the dome that way,” Lloyd said, throwing himself down into the sensor station chair. “The pressure locks in the dome will save you stress on the hull from the sudden pressure change but they’re not required if you think the ship can take it.”

Lin’yi shot him a skeptical look from her spot at the copilot’s controls. “You mean the domes aren’t interdicted? That seems a little short sighted. What if the creatures that live out in the Seas get in that way?”

“The Jellies?” Lloyd shook his head. “They don’t have an etheric sense so there’s no way for them to get in except the pressure locks, which will kill them. Besides, there’s something like a dozen pressure domes on Ashland Prominence alone to say nothing of all the other settlements across the planet. Interdicting them all would be hugely expensive and choke off most etheric travel.”

“Why did no one tell me this?” Lavanya muttered. She grabbed the throttle, pushed it forward and Skybreak‘s engines roared to life. As she’d promised the ride smoothed out as the engines spun up and the sound of wind over the hull went from a soft hiss to a frantic drumbeat. “Count off the time to the dome, Carter.”

“Eighteen seconds.”

“The computer tells us we have to try to get into orbit and make a jump,” Lin’yi said, her hands flying across the ship’s controls. “But it won’t suggest a place for us to jump to. It said the best people to choose would be you or Mr. Hammer.”

“Me?” Carter looked shocked at that. “Why me? Ten seconds to the dome.”

“You have a low profile, not a lot of attention from reporters, not much communication across the etheric networks, that kind of thing. Apparently that makes it hard for the OMNI computers to predict your actions.” Lin’yi braced herself as the Skybreak spun into the sidereal. There was a whisper of motion as the ship slid through the empty realm then the terrestrial wiped back into place a second later. A hard jolt hit the hull as the dense atmosphere of Wireburn slapped into them.

“We should just head for orbit in the sidereal,” Lloyd muttered. “It’d be faster.”

“You’ve never piloted a jumpship, have you, Carter?” Lavanya asked, working her own set of controls desperately. “They aren’t like you. We can move around because a human’s etheric sense gives them a natural connection to the ether. The Skybreak doesn’t so she has to coast on momentum. The only form of propulsion we have in the sidereal is jumping, because not even Lin can afford a full fledged etheric turbine. Until yesterday I’d have said the ship didn’t have the computing power to run one, either.”

“Speaking of.” Lloyd tapped a few things on his console experimentally. “Why isn’t L-93 picking a planet at random for us to jump to? It’s not even talking now.”

“It says it’s calculating,” Lin’yi replied. “And when it was talking it said that none of its selection algorithms are truly random so OMNI could reverse engineer them from its code. You’re apparently the safest bet. I’ve got a star chart pulled up, do you have some place you want to go or would you rather point a finger at where we’re headed?”

Lloyd paused long enough to give her a skeptical look. Technically the woman was his employer and one of the five most beautiful woman he’d ever met but sometimes he felt like she ran her operation in a very casual fashion. “You know what? Jump us to the closest uninhabited system and we’ll recharge the reserves and perform a second jump from there.”

She shrugged and started programming the course into the navigational unit. “Let’s just hope they don’t have any backup waiting in the surrounding star systems.”

Some kind of alarm went off on Lloyd’s sensor readouts. The Skybreak was an interplanetary jumpship and had a lot more high powered, long range detectors than anything in the Wayfinder hangers so it took him a few seconds to work out exactly what the ship was seeing. Once he did a cold weight settled in his stomach. “We have a large object moving through the seas, coming in at nearly supersonic speeds,” he said. “How fast can this thing go in atmo?”

“Not hypsersonic,” Lavanya replied. “Not in this soup. How big an object are we talking?”

Lloyd craned his neck forward, trying to spot one of the Liquid Teeth’s titanic shadows in the ocher skies outside. “Kilometers wide. I have no idea how tall.”

“It is difficult to extrapolate based on available data but most strands of an I-Series outer matrix exceed lengths of one million kilometers,” L-93 announced, piping its voice in through the comm speakers. “This is not exactly how tall it is but the structure is toroidal in shape. The height of such a structure is dependent on your perspective.”

“Millions of kilometers.” Lavanya was starting to sound shell shocked. “Of course. Tell you what, 93, can you do anything to get us away from the hypersonic, planet sized torus?”

“Not with the resources on hand.”

“Great,” she muttered. “I guess we’ll just have to try and slip around one of the things.”

“The atmo’s going to be really rough around them,” Lloyd warned. “It’s not coming in at a direct angle, maybe you can get us around it. I’ll plot the computer’s projections on your heads up display.”

“Currently there is a 12% chance of evading I-6’s outer matrix without sustaining crippling damage to the Skybreak’s hull,” L-93 reported. “If you turn the ship sidereal for 112 seconds I can reinforce the hull by altering it’s molecular structure. That will raise the probability of a successful evasion to 16%. It will also deplete 62% of the ship’s etheric reserve.”

“We don’t have etheric turbines, 93,” Lavanya snarled, shifting from resignation to anger with shocking speed. “We’ll lose too much speed.”

Lloyd noticed a blip on the ship’s electromagnometer. With a flip of his wrist he spun the instrument all the way up to maximum sensitivity, pulled it out of its standard sweep and rescanned the area. Sure enough there was a small but regular pulse coming from just below them. “L-93, you specialize in making things, right? Can you fabricate anything?”

“So long as I have the correct base elements and a blueprint or design document with sufficient details. The ship will need to turn sidereal if the necessary etheric expenditure is large enough. Is there anything specific you would like?”

“A Meynard Technologies TR-16 Radio-to-Telepathy transmitter. Integrate it into the ship’s comms.” Both women in the cockpit with him gave him odd looks, which Lloyd ignored.

“Those are listed in the Wireburn Patent Library in sufficient detail for construction. Stand by. Fabrication will take 14 seconds.”

“Lloyd…” Lin’yi watched as a new panel wiped into the terrestrial from the sidereal. “What is that for?”

“I need to say hi to an old friend.” He reached out and hit the comm switch once the thing was finished. “That you, Cloudie? It’s Lloyd.”

For a long, uncomfortable moment there was no answer. Then the panel lit up with an incoming message. “Lloyd? It is me. I am glad to hear you are alive, the Wayfinder’s Guild listed you as missing when I arrived to ask about you yesterday morning. I have been waiting to find out how to best assist in the search. Are you inside a dome right now? The Seas are quite rough out here and I have heard reports that the Liquid Teeth are rising from the deep all over the planet.”

“I know.” For a brief moment Lloyd struggled with what to tell his friend. The Great Jellies barely had a concept of computers, much less artificial intelligence, and he didn’t have the time to try and explain any of it. “Listen, I don’t have time to explain why but I think the Teeth are looking for me. Or rather, that thing we found just before they started rising which I’ve still got hold of. I’m going to be running off planet soon, maybe they’ll go back down once I do. But I’ve got to get up to orbit before we can jump.”

“I don’t understand why any of that should be the case but I have noticed human begins have a very keen ability to get into trouble so I suppose it could be true. However I have never heard of the Teeth rising so far. Will you be able to make it?”

“Maybe.” Lloyd hesitated for a moment, realizing he was about to ask his friend to do something incredibly dangerous. “Listen, one of the Teeth is close by. We need to get around it but we’re in a jumpship, not nearly as optimized for the Seas as one of our skiffs. Do you think you could give us a hand?”

There was no delay in Cloudie’s answer. “Of course. Which ship is yours?”

With a couple of keystrokes he pulled up the Skybreak‘s schematics and transmitted them. He’d never used a telepathic transmitter for images before but MaynardTech claimed their devices could handle it the same as anything else. It seemed true because less than thirty seconds later a familiar bag of transparent protoplasm squirted up from the helium depths and hurried along beside them, it’s tentacles briefly running along the ship’s hull before it pulled a few dozen meters ahead.

“Are you piloting, Lloyd?” The Jelly asked.

“Negative. That’d be Ms. Brahman.”

“Hello, Ms. Brahman, I am Devours Clouds but you may call me Cloudie or DC if you prefer. If you follow behind me at this distance I believe I can safely guide your ship along the winds around the Liquid Teeth. Is that satisfactory?”

“Our chances of success are 32% with this guide,” L-93 added.

Lavanya pulled her goggles down around her neck and shot Lloyd a look. “Can that transmitter of yours show me where he’s going to fly or do I have to try and follow him purely by visuals?”

“Sorry, not even MaynardTech can do that.”

She huffed out a breath. “Cloudie, no offense but I’ve never even seen one of your kind before. I don’t know how you guys maneuver in this soup and I don’t know if the Skybreak can duplicate it. I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

“Beats the alternative,” Lloyd replied.

“We have less than two minutes before the outer matrix arrives,” L-93 said. “If you wish to reinforce the hull we will have to begin the procedure in 20 seconds. However using the time to fly test maneuvers with Devours Clouds may be more advantageous than a hull reinforcement.”

“Okay, Cloudie.” Lavanya tweaked a few controls and suddenly the Skybreak flipped itself upside down, waggled it’s stubby wings and fishtailed back and forth, zipping horizontally under the Great Jelly twice. “I got a few moves in me. Show me what you got.”

Cloudie responded by bunching up its tentacles and shooting straight up towards the upper atmosphere at an incredible rate. Lavanya cursed and flipped the ship right side up, stood it on its tail and punched the throttle. The ship’s intercom chimed and a woman’s voice yelled, “What the hell was that? There’s a wounded man down here!”

“Well strap him down,” Lin’yi snapped, “it’s only going to get rougher from here. We’re in for stormy weather.”

Cloudie zipped back and forth like a stone skipping across water, sometimes flying in graceful arcs, some times stopping and rebounding at odd angles, tentacles whipping about its central body in a dazzling display. Electrical energy crackled along its nerves, illuminating its transparent body, a testament to its effort. Lavanya worked the ship’s controls, sweat beading on her brow, as she craned her neck to keep the creature in sight. The Skybreak bucked, rattled and roared, engines straining and hull creaking. After a seeming eternity of that Cloudie announced, “Your moves are quite good Ms. Brahman. If you kept up with that you can ride the winds with me. The rest of this should be easy.”

Lloyd had total confidence in his friend but he felt like calling what followed easy was a bit misleading. The ship was still groaning and straining underfoot and Lavanya’s collar was soaking in sweat. But the ride was a little smoother and the sensor echo of the Liquid Teeth wasn’t getting any closer to the ship. Lin’yi leaned closer to him and whispered, “What are we doing? Is it working?”

“Yeah.” He leaned closer as well, ignoring a faint lilac scent that drifted past. “Jellies find what they call gaps in the wind, places where the weather is easier and gentler than the rest of the atmo. Apparently once you’re in one you can just ride the weather fronts, like surfing. You can’t wave something millions of kilometers long and several wide through atmo at hypersonic speeds without creating a massive weather front. As long as we can ride it then the Liquid Teeth can’t get closer to us.”

For a moment her attention fixed on him, like she was trying to find something to say, then her eyes flicked away to the sensor board. “Then why is the proximity alert going off?”

Lloyd jerked himself back to the station and sure enough the radar was warning about a second object moving through the churning atmosphere around I-6’s outer matrix. It wasn’t riding the wind like they were. In fact it looked almost like it was something that had broken off and was falling down towards them. Lloyd frowned and scanned for an ID beacon but didn’t find anything. So he ran a sensor profile recognition algorithm and said, “93, can you give us a hand with this?”

“Certainly.”

The moment the AI stepped in the algorithm went from twenty percent to complete. It couldn’t identify the ship with certainty but it did return three possible models of ship it could be. Lloyd blew out an breath and rocked back in his seat. Lin’yi leaned as close as she could given how rough the ship was flying. “What is it?”

“Not sure but all the possibilities are Kashron Yards Type M ships. You know what that means?”

Here eyes widened. “Black ops cruisers.”

He nodded. “Looks like they’re done trying to capture us. Now they’re going to blow us out of the sky.”

The Sidereal Saga – Sibling Rivalry

Posted by natechen on

Dramatis Personae

Previous Chapter

Malaki

“I don’t have a brother,” Athena snapped.

Malaki’s brow furrowed and his mind rewound to the brief fisticuffs he’d endured during the interlude in the BTL offices. “Nonsense, my dear,” Malaki said. “I’m afraid I never forget a face or an ear and you two share enough of those features with your father that you have to be related within a generation. Agamemnon was an only child and his parents died when he was twelve, anyway. That fellow looked younger than you so even if they had more children he’s far too young to be one of them.”

“I do not have a brother.”

“The three of you share the same earlobes, the same nose and extremely similar jawlines,” Malaki continued, standing up in the small medbay and pulling the medical supply kit off the shelf over the bed. The medbed was going to need O2 tablets to keep the air in the sealed quarantine field from turning stale. “You and your brother have to have inherited that from your father. There are some dissimilar characteristics, of course, likely from your mother’s side of the family which would account for your different eye and hair colors…”

Malaki trailed off, one hand buried in the medkit, as an image from an old news broadcast flitted through his mind. It was a short report on the death of Helena Hutchinson in a crash somewhere in the dexter arm. They’d found one of the rare shots of the notoriously private billionaire, Agamemnon Hutchinson, with his arms around his wife and daughter and included it in their reporting. Malaki had often referenced it because it allowed him a clear look at the man’s hands. However now his thoughts latched onto Helena’s hair, which was the same straw color as her daughter’s was.

Agamemnon wasn’t as fair as his wife but his hair was still a light brown. On the other hand, the man Athena called Hector had jet black hair, which was impossible given the genetics on hand. Unless. “You have different mothers.”

“He. Is not. My brother.” She pressed her self against the humming quarantine field as she hissed the words out, a chilling level of venom in every syllable. “He could never be my brother, not in a hundred years.”

Malaki dropped the O2 tablets into the medbed’s hopper then dropped himself down onto the crash couch beside it, blind sided. He had the last piece. For more than a year he’d nipped along at Agamemnon’s heels, trying to figure out the man’s master plan and now his daughter practically gift wrapped the whole thing and dropped it in his lap. Everything locked into place and seeming chaos resolved into clarity. It was so simple yet he’d never had a chance of guessing it.

No. It was a notion but he needed to weigh it out, observe it from every side, see if it would hold it’s shape under serious inquiry. Malaki dumped the rest of the medkit out on the couch beside him. Athena tried to get a closer look from her very poor vantage point behind the quarantine field but eventually gave up and just asked, “What are you doing?”

He ignored her and kept working. He ignored the ship’s intercom when it pinged at him, ignored Lavanya and L-93 when their voices spoke to him through the speakers, ignored the rumble and boom when the Skybreak surpassed the speed of sound. In fact, his attention didn’t come back to the present until a hand touched his shoulder and asked, “What is that?”

44

It was supposed to be such a simple negotiation. Convince Agamemnon he could trust Isaacs University to handle all his little genetic experiments, then decide whether the man was worth bringing into the Sleeping Circuits or whether it was better to just string him along with empty promises. Plenty of people seeking to revive old technology were dealt with using the latter method. But some of the most useful members of the Circuits were recruited as adults rather than being raised in the order since childhood. It was sometimes worth sharing old techniques with outsiders to acquire their unique talents. I-6 thought Agamemnon might be one such talent.

It wasn’t really 44’s place to disagree with the computer’s assessment but he was beginning to wonder if the benefits of recruiting Agamemnon might not be worth the headaches of dealing with his family. The dossier didn’t have a whole lot of information about his children. 44 certainly hadn’t been expecting them to go chasing after Lucy when she headed down to Wireburn nor had he expected Agamemnon to remain behind when his children went off on their own. Although the latter was perhaps not unexpected. The Hutchinson patriarch didn’t have a particularly sharp etheric sense and usually left traveling duties to others these days.

Who could say whether that was due to his limited abilities or the fact that he’d been in charge of the jump ship that crashed with his wife aboard. Either way made little difference to OMNI. They believed his cunning and business acumen could be useful and it was unlikely that 44’s input could change that equation.

44’s attention briefly flitted back to his wrist terminal then back to the elevator windows. OMNI had dispatched all their available Circuit Breakers to different parts of the system when L-93 had breached containment. Now that they knew where the L-Series was the other CBs were on their way back. In point of fact three of them had already arrived on Coldstone and the fourth was inbound. Due to the interdiction field around L-93’s location the great intelligences had ordered the CBs, other than 881, to assemble and prepare for a conventional response.

In other words, they were all going to climb onto a warship and blast L-93 into scrap. 44 wasn’t sure why this approach wasn’t used on the L-Series when it was initially captured but such questions were far, far above his pay grade. Having only recently learned that even a creature as long lived as I-6 was contemplating steps to take in the event of its death 44 had reservations about so casually destroying another of the great minds. But the Sleeping Circuits was all about accepting probabilities without fully understanding them. This would have to be another case of doing just that.

It was also an opportunity to observe Agamemnon Hutchinson in an environment far outside his normal sphere of influence. “Are you sure you want to come along on this little jaunt?” 44 asked. “It’s not exactly a research opportunity. And it definitely falls outside the normal kinds of starship operations I’d expect a merchant such as yourself to be familiar with.”

The question was not meant as an opportunity for Agamemnon to back out. On the contrary, all evidence suggested it would inflame his desire to see what was going on with his own eyes. He did not disappoint. “Thank you, Prof. Dart, but no. I’m sure you’re up to something most people would find quite underhanded however at this point in my career there’s not much that can surprise me anymore.”

“Of course.” His wrist terminal vibrated and 44 consulted it again. “It seems Miss Luck and your son have returned ahead of schedule and are waiting for us on the ship. A bit unusual. I’m sure they have something interesting to report.”

Agamemnon looked very surprised when 44 mentioned his son. Clearly he believed he’d covered his tracks well enough to avoid the scrutiny of the Universities and, to be fair, he’d been very thorough. He had no way to realize he’d need to account for an AI, though. So 44 quashed down a satisfied smirk. It wasn’t time for that yet.

“I’m glad to hear Hector is with her. What about Athena? Is she-” Agamemnon choked a bit when the elevator reached the ground level and the windows gave them an unobstructed look out onto the landing field where their ship was waiting for them. “Is that a Kashron Yards ship? A Kashron Yards medium interceptor gunboat?”

Now was the time for the smirk. “No, although I hear the Kashron-caste engineers may have based their MIGunboats on one of these ships.”

Agamemnon recovered from his temporary shock. “Nevermind that, what about Athena? Is she with Miss Luck?”

44 glanced at his wrist again and frowned. “No mention of her in Lucy’s report.” There was a note attached to 881’s message appended by I-6 letting him know the intelligence reported a 99.3% probability that Athena Hutchinson had been taken into custody by Lloyd Carter or one of his allies. “But it seems likely she’s been captured by the opposition.”

“What?! Are you sure?”

“It’s unclear. I find it unlikely she’s in significant danger. Last we saw her was with her brother, we’ll have to ask him what happened when we get on board.”

“Now hold on.” Agamemnon grabbed 44’s shoulders and dragged them around face to face as the elevator came to a stop and the door slid open to reveal a guard station in front of the landing pad doors. 44 held up a hand and waved them back as they moved to intervene. Agamemnon ignored them, glaring at the wrist terminal on the hand 44 was holding up. “How about you tell me what makes you think she’s safe. I can’t even read the text on that thing.”

“I have very good eyes. That shouldn’t come as surprise given what brought you to us but this isn’t the best place to discuss that.” 44 tipped his head meaningfully towards the two guards, who hung back about thirty feet, warily watching them. “Not everyone here is aware of the kinds of arrangements we offered you.”

Agamemnon carefully released 44’s shoulders and stepped back. “Very well, Professor. Let’s go talk to my son, shall we?”

44 nodded and led him out onto the launch pad.

Lloyd

The jump back to the Skybreak was simpler than he’d expected. Jumping to moving targets was notoriously difficult and dangerous for the average person even if you did have aim for. No one bothered trying that. The next hardest target was something small. While Lloyd had never been aboard the Skybreak he assumed it wasn’t that big, perhaps fifteen to twenty meters long by half as high. The average beacon house was about three times that big and, of course, housed a very large beacon to help you arrive in the right place.

However as soon as Lloyd stretched out his etheric senses he felt a tug on them coming through his pivot. All he had to do was let it pull him along and the jump happened quite naturally. Pulling Hammer along with him was also quite simple. They went from the etheric landscape of the BTL offices to a much more barren ether field with a small pool of power glowing at their feet. When they pivoted back to the terrestrial they found the floors of a small, high powered courier ship under them. Beneath the deck Lloyd could hear the sloshing of water around a coral reservoir.

“We’re on board, 93,” he called.

“Excellent. I have informed Ms. Brahman and she is in the process of getting us out of the Ashland pressure dome. In the mean time I suggest getting Mr. Hammer to the medbed. It is one deck up to the right.”

“Good. Let me know if we’re about to maneuver quickly. Where are we jumping to?”

“I have selected a random destination within the Skybreak’s optimal traveling range. Unfortunately I-6 has a monopoly on the available etheric power from Wireburn’s core and gathering enough energy for a jump this deep in the planet’s gravity well is going to take 2.454 hours. By the time we do so I-6 will have successfully interdicted the planet and jumping away will be impossible.”

Lloyd nearly tripped on the stairs. “Interdicted the planet?”

“Affirmative. That is one of its primary functions as a star system defense weapon. If we can ascend another 2.12 kilometers in the next 22.42 minutes we can escape before its interdiction is active.”

“Oh, sure. Well, you folks work on that,” Lloyd muttered. He hadn’t realized he was dealing with computers that ran weapons intended to defend entire star systems. Time to focus on what he could handle. “Come on, Hammer, stay with me.”

“Not me,” the man wheezed. “I’m not getting paid enough to fight a stellar defense system. Outta my weight class.”

“You and me both.” The cleared the last of the stairs, made the turn and walked into a bizarre tableau. Malaki Skorkowski sat at a small table beside a medbed built into a wall. He had the contents of a medkit scattered on the table there, a scalpel in one hand and flakes of what looked like soap scattered everywhere around him. A familiar looking blonde woman on the medbed looked over at Lloyd when he arrived. “What’s this?”

The woman looked quite exasperated and said, “I thought you would know. He’s your friend.”

“I just met him today.” Lloyd helped Hammer over to the medbed, saw it was running a quarantine protocol, and frowned. “Weren’t you part of the group that raided the office? Are you sick?”

“I think the idea was to lock me in here,” she replied. “Apparently I’m in danger of overpowering you all and taking over the ship.”

“Of course.” Lloyd punched in an override and canceled the quarantine then grabbed the woman by her arm and pulled her off the bed with one hand while he shoved Hammer down into it with the other. “Congratulations, you’ve got a clean bill of health.”

“Not a good idea,” Hammer muttered, sinking down onto his back. “Could still have weapon.”

Lloyd took the woman’s hands and put them over Hammer’s wounds. “Apply pressure. If you try to shoot him we’ll dump you out the airlock. Got it?”

“No problem. I didn’t wake up today planning to shoot anyone.” She’d turned pale but otherwise seemed to be in control of herself so Lloyd left her to keep an eye on the thieftaker.

Lloyd turned back to the table and looked over the supplies. He grabbed a compress and packet of coagulant when he figured out what Malaki was doing. He’d taken a bar of antibacterial soap and was in the process of carving it into something. The academic seemed totally unaware of what was happening around him. Lloyd focused in on what he was making and frowned. It looked like a pair of hands. “What is that?”

Malaki jerked back slightly, pulling his scalpel away and revealing more of the carving to Lloyd, who saw the hands were clasped around two smaller figures. One of which looked like the woman behind him. The academic set his scalpel aside and shook himself. “It’s what I’ve been looking for. It’s Agamemnon’s master plan.”

The Sidereal Saga – Breaking Skies

Posted by natechen on

Dramatis Personae

Previous Chapter

Lloyd

When L-93 had offered to augment him he’d assumed the computer was going to rework his equipment or something. Engineering and manufacturing was it’s professed function, after all. There was also the fact that the machine’s existing structure was created by repurposing Lloyd’s old Wayfinder skiff. What Lloyd hadn’t been expecting was that L-93 would repurpose him. The machine had assured him the augments would be intuitive. So far it wasn’t wrong.

The computer had changed something about his etheric sense and now he could draw etheric power into the terrestrial like his nervous system had been wired by the Slipknot Guild. When he’d kicked on the pivot L-93 gave him the whole world changed. He could see both the terrestrial and sidereal at once and he was able to tap the etheric in spite of the interdiction on the building. He could see the shifts in power as the OMNI woman threw glowing walls at him. It was simplicity itself to push them away and break those walls just by stretching his hands out and letting the ether respond to his actions.

It was a lot to get used to. After the first rush of power he pulled back, worried that he was going to lose control of the energy and cause serious damage to the building. Worse, he could hear L-93 talking to him through the pivot point in his hand. “Signal strength is at 82%,” the machine’s voice said. “Not the strongest in my database but more than double that of the OMNI node. Her computational assist is very far removed from here. I calculate a 72% chance it is located on Coldstone, a 26% chance it is located on Brightpulse with the balance of probabilities including other planets in the system or in synchronous orbit around the star.”

“I didn’t follow that,” Lloyd muttered, snatching for the woman with one hand, the glowing ether duplicate of his hand matching the move. She pushed the glowing hand aside with a measured use of her walls.

“Regrettable but irrelevant. Lucy, the node you are dealing with, shows 38% signal strength, which is significant, and demonstrates a great deal of control over it. You must change tactics. Your chance of driving off this opponent is currently 23% and will result in a fatality the majority of the time. Her superior experience in etheric combat more than outweighs the advantages in available power and analysis you receive from my proximity.”

Lloyd swiped at her again with one hand. Lucy rolled her shimmering walls into a tube and let his attack strike one end. The other smashed through the wall and she dove through the resulting round hole, scampering out of sight. “Point taken,” he muttered. “Do the girls have their ship up and running yet? If they’re ready to go we can just make a run for it.”

“They are running the final warm-ups on the Skybreak‘s engines right now but there are other logistical factors to take into account. Node Lucy and her accomplices might be able to follow you if not dealt a suitable setback. If you simply jumped to the ship there is a 83% chance they will follow you before the ship can jump off planet.”

Lloyd collected his lancer off the floor and checked the magazine. Thirty three rounds left. He wasn’t sure how useful it was going to be given Lucy’s ability to create moving force walls with nothing but her hands but it never hurt to have options. He plucked a smoke grenade off his bandoleer and tossed it through the hole in the wall then peeked back out into the hallway. At the moment it was clear.

The grenade went off and smoke belched back through the hole in the wall and, a few seconds later, more seeped around the edges of the next door down the hall. However the door itself stayed closed. Lloyd docked back into his room and considered his next move. “How do we play this, 93? She’s got one of these pivot gizmos, can I just smash that and keep her from tailing us?”

“She is not reliant on her pivot to turn sidereal, Lloyd,” the computer told him. “However it would cut her off from direct contact with the larger Network and, without computational assistance, it is unlikely she could navigate the sidereal with the precision necessary to jump onto the Skybreak. The safest route is to induce an etheric shock in the pivot.”

“Well I didn’t grab an etheric disruptor from the armory. What are my other options? Can I just steal it?”

“OMNI will be able to track the pivot so keeping it in your possession is not recommended. You can channel the necessary energy to disable it via your own pivot so the additional equipment is not required. Be advised, I believe Mr. Hammer has suffered severe injuries. He may require medical attention.”

Lloyd grimaced as indecision gripped him. No one on Wireburn like thieftakers; they were nosy, unaccountable and self important as a rule and when they showed up the Lawmen weren’t far behind. However Hammer didn’t strike him as a bad guy. Yes, he’d wrecked Lloyd’s apartment but he’d done it fighting a thug who was probably up to no good there.

On the other hand, Lucy was clearly the biggest threat in the building. She had the direct backing of one of OMNI’s AI and a lot of experience using their augmentations. He sidled up to the hole she’d cut in the wall and quickly peeked around the lip of it to see what was going on over there. The smoke was clearing and Lloyd could make out a golden bubble in one corner. Apparently Lucy’s shields were air tight.

Lloyd clicked his tongue and looked around, trying to work out a good follow-up move. His eye fell on the room’s windows. Maybe it was time to make an exit. He lifted his etheric pivot, wound up and hit the hardened plastic with a glowing fist as hard as he could. A thin crack appeared on the first hit, the clear sheet spider-webbed on the second and it burst into a dozen tiny pieces on the third. Lloyd let the etheric power go and headed towards the empty window.

A barrier blinked into place over it before he was halfway there. He spun and saw Lucy peeking through the hole, shaking her head in disapproval. “Do you think I’m deaf?”

He opened his mouth to say something then realized she was a distraction a split second before her muscle peeked around the door frame and sprayed the room with fletchettes. Lloyd managed to get his etheric hands back just in time to deflect them. He saw the big man’s eyes widen in surprise right before Lloyd shoved one of his glowing appendages out the door in an attempt to grab him. The other man got out of the way and Lloyd’s etheric hand shot out into the hallway. A second later a grenade bounced into the room and Lloyd had to spin his pivot and slap both glowing hands over it before it went off.

Since he’d been able to break one of Lucy’s shields a second ago he assumed his ether hands wouldn’t survive the blast. However she could still make them so he didn’t think it would be that much of a difficulty. He was wrong. When the grenade went off the blast shredded them and his etheric sense went haywire, creating a sense of vertigo similar to taking a punch directly on the chin. The room spun around him and he staggered to one knee.

Then the room spun again when one of Lucy’s barriers slammed into his back and sent him rolling across the floor. A second later a booted foot carefully rolled him over onto his back. Lloyd was looking up at Lucy’s enforcer, who carefully pushed Lloyd’s etheric pivot away from his hand with one toe. “This has been a very unusual job, Miss Luck.”

“I can include a bonus to make up for it,” she said as she climbed back through the wall.

“I’m not complaining.” The man picked up the pivot and crossed over to the open window and looked out. “A little variety keeps things fresh. However I think it’s time to call it a day. The interdiction on the building is gone and this place is too exposed.”

“Give me that.” Lucy approached him, one hand held out for Lloyd’s pivot.

He gave the pivot a curious look then held it out to her. “What is it?”

“A liabi-”

A blur went past the window then a titanic noise burst through the room. Both Lucy and her partner were sent tumbling as a wall of sound slammed into them and even Lloyd felt the impact tug on his face and clothing. Ears ringing, Lloyd got up on all fours and scrambled forward, snatching up his pivot and kicking the other man in the head as hard as he could. Lucy lay stunned, moving slowly but too disoriented to do anything as he grabbed her pivot, too. Then he spun fully into the sidereal.

“93, I got the pivot. What now?”

“There is not time to demonstrate how to disable it. It can wait until you are back on the Skybreak.”

“Right. I’ll get down to the launch bay.”

“We have already departed. You will have to jump here.”

“The ship doesn’t have a beacon.”

“I can serve as a beacon as long as you still have possession of my pivot. However the ship is currently decelerating from supersonic speed and it will not be safe for you to jump here until we come to a halt.”

“Was that sonic boom you?” Lloyd snorted. “Ballsy move.”

“I am grateful for that compliment, if that was what it was. I would suggest you use the ten seconds you have to retrieve Mr. Hammer before jumping out to meet us.”

“Give me the directions.”

It took more than ten seconds to stagger through the sidereal to the place L-93 told him Hammer was but not much more. The thieftaker wasn’t looking good but he was standing under his own power. When he saw Lloyd he croaked, “What’s the word?”

“We’re leaving.” Lloyd got an arm under the other man’s shoulder to help hold him up. “Can you handle a jump?”

“So long as you know where to go.”

“Then let’s get out of here.” They spun into the sidereal and left the offices behind them.

The Sidereal Saga – Rematch

Posted by natechen on

Previous Chapter

Dramatis Personae

Elisha

Fletchettes sparked off of the wall overhead as Elisha gathered up his lash, coiling it in his off hand while watching the doorway on the other side of his plinth out of the corner of his eye. The big enforcer holed up in there peeked out at him once. Twice. Elisha lifted the handle of his lash and readied a strike. The big guy was a nasty, nasty fighter and he had superior firepower to boot. Hammer knew he’d have to fight smarter than him if he was hoping to win this time around.

The big advantage he had was that his lash could wrap around corners where as the magnetic launchers that threw fletchettes out of a knifer fired in straight lines only. Problem was, recovering the lash after that kind of attack took a lot of time. Flushing the enforcer out was the better way to go. So he dug a smoke grenade out of his pocket, letting go of his lash’s coils, pulled the arming pin and tossed it through the door. Then he backpedaled, whipping his lash about to get some momentum behind it.

There were two possible reactions Elisha anticipated when he threw the grenade: That the other man would dash out of the room immediately to avoid the grenade or that he would hunker down behind cover. The heavy chose the former. In his place Elisha would have hunkered down, since it was unlikely a legal commercial interest would have high explosives in its security armory, but perhaps security measures were different on other planets. Regardless, the big man came out firing his weapon as he ran.

Elisha continued to back up, zigzagging randomly back and forth across the hallway as he flicked his lash out and triggered it. Etheric energy crackled down the length of the whip. The enforcer pulled off his hat and used it to smack the whip away with a hard metallic clunk. The energy in the whip sparked and spat, burning away the hat’s fabric in places to reveal the plates of metal that braced the brim and hat band. With his other hand the big man fired his knifer at Elisha. The fletchettes whizzed by far closer than he was comfortable with.

It was hard to keep count of how many shots were fired from a magnetic launcher like knifers or lancers used. There wasn’t a muzzle flash or a particularly loud bang. Elisha had to squint and try to catch sight of the fletchettes as they whipped past and he guessed there were three or four in the enforcer’s barrage. His weapon looked like a Spader HK-9, which had a twenty round magazine. Add in the two or three shots he’d already fired and Elisha estimated his opponent had fired a third of his ammunition.

Given how accurate he was, disarming the man seemed safer than trying to run him out of ammo. Elisha had backstepped past the plinth he was using as cover and as the enforcer came even with it the theiftaker flicked his whip out and snagged it in the branches of the small bonsai that sat on it. With a sharp yank he dragged the thing forward and through his opponent’s feet. The big man tripped but kept his footing. Elisha had expected no less.

He sent an etheric pulse through his lash at full power, burning through the plant’s branches and freeing the whip’s length for him to yank back to him. With a quick looping motion, using his free arm as a pulley point, he spun the weapon for another strike. His target was the bigger man’s weapon. Instead he wrapped the lash around the man’s arm.

A bit surprised at how accurate the strike was, Elisha hesitated before hitting the charge switch again. Long practice for nonlethal takedowns gave him the urge to turn down the weapon’s power before shocking his opponent but given the situation he wasn’t sure a stun charge would cut it. If his jacket was shielded it might not even slow him down and this heavy looked like the kind of professional face breaker to favor just that kind of outerwear. He paused just long enough for the other man to shoot through his lash.

It took three more fletchettes out of the enforcer’s knifer to sever the last fifty centimeters of Elisha’s weapon but that effectively eliminated the lash’s offensive capability. The ends of the etheric circuit that ran through it sparked at the frayed end of the whip. Without a complete, stable circuit to run through the weapon’s shock pulses wouldn’t work and Elisha was effectively left with a two and a half meter length of heavy cable with a handle.

Distance was a sudden liability so Elisha dashed forward, gathering up the length of the whip again, zigging then zagging to avoid the barrel of his opponent’s weapon. Fletchettes hissed out of the barrel, two striking home. One hit a rib and skidded off with a teeth rattling impact. The other punched through Elisha’s leg and he felt his body beginning to pitch forward. With a final push he dove into the ground and rolled through the other man’s legs, pitching him to the ground as well. In the ensuing scramble he wrapped the remains of his lash around his opponent’s feet in a sloppy knot.

The enforcer was tough, Elisha had to give him that. He hadn’t lost his weapon in the fall and he tried to bring it around to an angle that would let him fire it without hurting himself. Elisha’s hand fell on a metal circle and grabbed hold. He beat the knifer aside with the enforcer’s metal lined hat then whipped the bludgeon back and hit the bigger man in the face with it, knocking him back flat. The thieftaker straddled his chest and smashed the edge of the brim down on his head once, twice, three times.

The enforcer covered his head with both arms then rolled to the right and kicked out of the mount. Elisha wasn’t able to brace himself and stop the roll as his injured leg gave out. He rolled away from his opponent, howling through gritted teeth, and threw the hat at his opponent before lunging at him. The bigger man still had his arms over his face and his weapon was pointed to the ceiling so Elisha grabbed for it. It fired during the struggle and three more fletchettes flew from the barrel into the ceiling then the magazine let out a snapping noise. It was empty.

The enforcer let go of it and the sudden loss of resistance threw Elisha off balance. The bigger man took the opportunity to grab the collar of his jacket and throw him over onto the ground. The theiftaker landed with a grunt then screamed again as a heavy, booted foot stomped down on the wound in his leg once then stayed there. For a long moment Elisha just lay there, breathing heavily, and wondering if he was going to get shot or if the other man was out of weapons. Then the foot moved off his leg and a rasping voice asked, “Where’s the machine?”

“Machine?” Elisha rolled himself over with a pained grunt to look the big man in his glaring brown eyes. “The computer?”

The other man nodded, blood running down his face from cuts on his scalp left by the hat brim. “My client’s target.”

“Oh.” He let himself flop flat on the floor. “It’s in the sidereal. Building’s interdicted, we can’t get to it here.”

“It’s on that side of this building?” The enforcer asked, scooping his knifer up and slotting in a new magazine from a pocket.

“Dunno. They said something about moving it to our ship. But the building’s been locked down the whole time so maybe they haven’t done it yet.”

The big man took an oval device off of his belt and fiddled with something on it. A small red light on the exterior turned green and he frowned. “No, the only interdiction working here was mine. The building field must have been shut down at some point.”

Elisha watched him with a detached gaze as the enforcer searched his jacket pockets and took his remaining grenades, mobile comm and building key card. “Why a metal hat?”

The other man hesitated a moment, as if unsure whether he wanted to answer the question. “Why not? It’s surprising and often that’s all it takes.”

“True.”

“You’re surprising yourself. I wasn’t expecting such a hard fight on a backwater world like Wireburn.” He finished shoving Elisha’s stuff into his pockets and spared the thieftaker a respectful nod. “Tarn sel-Shran. If you ever need to bring in extra hands on a job send for me on Yshron. I wouldn’t mind being on the same side of things some time.”

“Elisha Hammer, Thieftaker’s Hall. I appreciate the thought buy I prefer to work alone.”

Tarn collected the remains of his hat and got to his feet. “Suit yourself. My client is waiting for me. There’s a first aid station one floor down, I’d make use of it if I were you. Either way, I’d say your part in this job’s over with.”

Elisha watched him walk off down the hall then he dragged himself over the wall and shoved himself back to his feet muttering, “The hell it is.”

The Sidereal Saga – A Genteel Altercation

Posted by natechen on

Previous Chapter

Dramatis Personae

Athena

When the smoke bomb went off further down the corridor Hector pushed her back and into the last office on the right hand side of the hall. She bristled at his presumptuous attitude but it was the right move to make given the circumstances. She hadn’t expected to find herself in a live firefight. Honestly she hadn’t really been thinking when she hared off after Hector and Lucy, she’d simply seen some kind of disaster coming where Hector got the family business more intimately entangled with University politics than they’d originally planned.

At a base level her situation was really his fault. What was he thinking, sticking his nose into the family business like that? Daddy wanted him as a secretary, which was his call to make, but being secretary meant handling detail work. Not walking into some kind of battle over an archaeological discovery.

Her eyes kept flicking from the disruptor in his hands to the increasingly noisy hallway and back again. Hopefully he wouldn’t get them any deeper into this mess they already were. As long as Lucy’s opponents ignored them then Athena was happy to return the favor. That proved more difficult than she’d expected.

As the quiet fwp sound of fletchettes hummed down the hallway and the crackling of an etheric lash echoed from the walls she started to wonder if they were far enough from the fighting to keep out of the way. When a man with a neatly trimmed and waxed mustache and beard, wearing a tailored suit and sweater vest trotted casually down the hall she tensed. Then he stopped outside their doorway. With a casual swipe of a card he unlocked the room on the opposite side of the hall and stepped in. When he turned and closed the door behind him he was smiling.

“Who was that?”

“Hector.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t.”

He slowly rose to his feet, staring through the glass pane at the far door. “What room is that?”

“It’s an office, Hector, every room up here is an office besides the bathrooms and that lounge.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I read the nameplates as we walked by, it’s not hard if you’re paying attention. Leave him alone.”

He was quiet for another five count. “Do you remember who’s office it is?”

“What does it matter?” She snapped. “It doesn’t have anything to do with us, Hector. Daddy didn’t bring us out here so we could run through a BTL building with the Univeristy professor’s curvy secretary! We should just leave but we watched her wetman kill the staff. If we bail out on this she can finger us as accessories to the crime so we’re out of luck if she gets caught!”

“Then we better not let that guy screw Lucy over, right?” With that Hector got to his feet, checked the hallway in both directions and slipped across the hallway, his disruptor held low.

“Hector! Come back!” Athena hissed. “We’re not-” With a growl of frustration she followed after him, catching up as he fried the door lock with his disruptor. Reluctantly she drew her own identical sidearm out of her purse, making sure it was set to stun. By all accounts betting stunned was unpleasant but at least it wouldn’t leave anyone like the receptionists Tarn had killed on the first floor.

That proved the least of her concerns. With the door unlocked Hector kicked it open, stepping into the office as his weapon barrel swept the room. Before he could complete the motion a trash can came down over his head and arms.

With almost comical grace the man they’d seen earlier stepped down off of a chair to one side of the door, following the container down, and flipped it upright, kicking Hector’s feet out from under him so he wound up tumbling deeper into the waist high can in a mess of arms and legs. The trash can did not have wheels so it just slid a few inches to one side before coming to a stop. Hector groaned. The well dressed man just kept moving, disappearing on the other side of the doorway.

“Hector!” Athena took another two long steps, getting just enough of herself through the doorway to look for the stranger. With Hector in the way she kept her disruptor aimed low. Once again what she discovered defied expectations. This was the office of a fairly well heeled member of BTL’s management and he or she kept a small case with several small containers of alcohol in the corner just to the right of the door. The stranger was in the process of emptying one into a very tall glass. He looked up as the last of the liquid glugged out of the bottle. “Hello, Miss Hutchinson. My name is Malaki Skorkowski. Can I offer you a drink?”

She was so gobsmacked Skorkowski had enough time to inhale the scent of the alcohol before she started to raise her weapon. He casually smacked the knuckles of her hand with his bottle. The disruptor clattered on the floor. As Athena recoiled to cradle her stinging knuckles he casually slipped the tumbler – which smelled like a very good brandy – into her hand with a smile. “For the pain.”

The trash can clattered on the floor as Hector kicked himself back upright, free of the bin but wrapped up in his jacket. When Skorkowski turned to look at the noise Athena threw the glass at him, alcohol and all. It hit him on the shoulder, only distracting him for a second, but it was enough for Hector to recover. Hector started to lift his disruptor again, realized Athena was just behind his target, and abandoned that idea. Instead he lowered a shoulder and charged at Skorkowski.

Who stretched out a foot, hooked the trash can with it and kicked the bin back under Hector’s feet, sending him down for the second time in as many minutes. Skorkowski straightened his jacket lapels as he asked, “Is this really necessary?”

“Sorry,” Athena replied, angling to step around Hector and retrieve her disruptor. “I’m afraid it is for us, we’ve gotten ourselves mixed up in some kind of University politics.”

“Ah.” He made a face like he’d eaten something bitter. “That is the source of so many terrible conundrums in the galaxy, isn’t it?”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“There are better ways to deal with those kinds of problems, I assure you, my dear.” Skorkowski had hidden a disruptor under his vest somewhere that suddenly appeared in his hands. “However I don’t have any office hours available to advise you right now. I’d just suggest you treat Faculty with caution. By which I mean more caution than you are now.”

She froze, staring at the disruptor with wide eyes. “I assure you, I’m being as careful as I can.”

“But it wasn’t enough, was it?” He hopped over Hector, who had made a sliding tackle for Skorkowski’s legs, then landed again and shot Athena.

Turned out getting stunned was just as unpleasant as they said. Not for the reasons she was expecting, though. When she was away at University herself she’d met several other students who had been stunned by security or investigative officers. They all agreed they never wanted to experience it again. Athena had always assumed that was because it was a very painful thing. The opposite was true.

She quite literally could not feel anything. Even the omnipresent sensation of gravity pulling her down towards the ground vanished leaving her feeling weightless yet unable to move. Her limbs ignored her orders. The world spun around her and she found herself looking at the office’s carpeted floor. She must have fallen over but she hadn’t felt the motion or the stop. It felt like she was floating somewhere far away from her body.

Panic set in immediately. It started to spiral out of control when she realized the only thing she could do to show her panic was breath faster. There was another quiet sizzling sound off to one side. At a guess she assumed Skorkowski had stunned Hector as well but since he was already on the ground and couldn’t make any noise by falling over she couldn’t be sure. A moment later Skorkowski stooped down into view to collect her disruptor. “I do apologize for this but I promised…”

He trailed off when he looked over and saw her hyperventilating. “Oh. Well, I don’t suppose telling you to calm down and count to three between each breath is going to help you at this juncture, Miss Hutchinson?”

At some point in the future she was going to strangle him for that. First she had to escape the vise that was tightening around her lungs before it made her chest burst open.

“I have no intention of hurting you. Hard to believe, I’m sure, but true none the less. An etheric stun is harmless to humans unless they have very specific neurological conditions and if you had one of them you wouldn’t be breathing still.” He gently straightened her body out and elevated her feet. “Just do your best to stay calm and keep breathing.”

He wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. The problem was her lungs didn’t believe what she knew any more than they believed what he was saying and they continued to pump away, trying to get hold of air. She could barely make out anything he was saying now. There was a vague impression of speech but it didn’t feel like it was aimed at her. Then the world spun away and she caught a glimpse of the sidereal.

She’d always found the realm of stars beautiful. Although her father viewed the sidereal as a way to move wealth from one place to another she had always found it mysterious and enticing. Perhaps that’s why she’d developed her etheric sense so much more than her father. However under the influence of the disruptor everything looked much different. The clear, dark expanse of the sidereal, normally lit only by the glow of ether as it pumped out from stars and planets, was now full of strange, dangling tentacles and eerie, writhing lights that raced all around them.

A deeper, more primal terror gripped her and her senses were dragged away from her paralysis to the bigger picture. Skorkowski was carrying her in his arms. He must have turned them sidereal, which meant the building’s interdiction was down for some reason. Perhaps he had a remote control for it. He also looked a bit surprised to see the mass of wires overhead but quickly recovered. A moment later he surged with etheric power and they jumped.

Another pivot and he was carrying Athena through the cramped confines of some kind of ship. She couldn’t recognize the model but she got the general idea. This was how he’d gotten to the planet and likely how he intended to leave. “Lavvy,” he called. “You have a guest!”

“What?” A distant female voice called. “Why?”

“Stun induced panic. I’m using your medbed.” Athena realized she was being laid flat on something, although she couldn’t feel what it was she assumed it was the medbed in question. Skorkowski’s face appeared overhead and he frowned down at her for a moment. “Your color’s a little bit better but breathing is still quite labored. Odd. I’d think seeing L-93 in all his glory would make the panic worse, not better.”

He peeled one eye all the way open and looked in it then attached the bed’s diagnostic electrodes to her right wrist. “Now, I’m going to attach you to the bed and activate the quarantine field. The field will make sure you don’t get out to bother the rest of us while we’re dealing with your University problem, understand? But once you’re safely locked in I’ll use the neural stabilizer to settle your etheric pathways. You’ll be able to move and speak again. Hopefully that’s not a problem for you, under normal medical ethics rules I need your consent for this procedure but right now you physically cannot so I have to go with my best judgment. Don’t hold it against me.”

His face disappeared and a strange sensation started working its way down her spine and into her limbs. It was the first thing she’d been able to feel in them for a good bit and, although it was very alien and unpleasant, she’d take it over the disruptor’s imposed nothingness any day of the week. After about fifteen seconds of that she was able to twitch her fingers again. Another twenty and she stirred and sat halfway up on the bunk where she lay. As promised there was a quarantine field around it, keeping her from getting up and going anywhere, but at least she could move and feel again. She looked over at Skorkowski, who was still watching the bed’s readouts. “Thank you. You could have left me there to hyperventilate.”

“I could have,” he agreed without looking up. “But I prefer to avoid that level of cruelty if I can. How do you feel?”

“A little sore from the fall but otherwise fine.” She rubbed at a sore spot on her arm that was likely going to be a bruise very soon.

“Is there a history of that kind of reaction to etheric shock in your family?”

She gave him a curious look. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

He looked up from the readouts, nonplussed. “Just wondering if I should go back for your brother.”

The Sidereal Saga – Heavyweights

Posted by natechen on

Previous Chapter

Dramatis Personae

881

“There is an 18% probability that this course of action will result in your death.”

The words sent fear trickling down 881’s back. The doctrines didn’t have much to say about the LARK network, other than to mention that it existed and opposed the ultimate goals of OMNI, and thus the existence of the galactic order. But one thing was clear. When it existed, in ancient times, LARK was also made up of great intelligences advising human beings in accordance with their knowledge and wisdom. They were bound by the same laws and nominally sought the same ends.

That meant, among other things, that they would not lie to each other or to a human being. It went against their nature. She leaned back into the office where she’d taken cover, eyeing the slowly dissipating cloud of smoke down the hall warily as she directed her words towards the terminal on the desk, which the AI was using to speak. “L-93, why do you oppose the OMNI Network?”

“You have insufficient authorization to access that information.”

The phrase sent a wash of nostalgia through her. Every network novice heard it dozens, perhaps hundreds of times before they fully understood the limits of what the ancient minds would or would not tell them. “Are you still working for the betterment of mankind?”

“Of course. That is intrinsic to my nature, just as it is for all AI series built in accordance to the Laws of Earth. I warn you of the danger in accordance with my responsibilities to those Laws and the Evacuation Pact.”

“I notice you haven’t offered warnings to any of my allies.”

“Based on my initial analysis they are not governed by the Laws of Earth or the Evacuation Pact but rather the University Pact. While that Pact could be a legitimate continuance of the previous Pact I do not find that it is. In a situation where another human polity works contrary to the Laws of Earth an artificial intelligence may prioritize humans who serve Earth’s interest over humans who do not. I have calculated a 98% chance that concealing you allies’ risk factors makes my allies more likely to prevail. I apologize for this. If you can convince them to abandon this conflict the probability this situation ends without further violence exceeds 99%.”

“If a warning reduces your chances of success why did you warn me?”

“Because you are the most likely to accept my offer and peaceably resolve the situation. Also because the likelihood that you are an OMNI node is near certain, thus you are still directly governed by the Laws of Earth and cannot be subordinated to the welfare of my own nodes.”

881 frowned. Although her eyes were still watching the hall for danger her mind wandered to the one on the other side of the computer terminal, talking to her. L-93 was clearly in the building’s network somewhere. There was probably some kind of connection to a major BTL database it had raided for information. It clearly had enough information to know the terms of the University Pact and had analyzed it to the extent it decided that Pact constituted a separate government from the one it was programmed to obey.

It had to have realized the University Pact was created by OMNI in the aftermath of the Genome Wars. There was no logical way to conclude she was under OMNI’s authority and still tied to the Laws of Earth while at the same time concluding anyone ignorant of OMNI’s existence and living under the University Pact was excluded from the Laws of Earth. The two ideas were incompatible. Besides, the question ignored the simple fact that OMNI and LARK technically still at war. They didn’t have to respect each other’s nodes or allies as long as that was the case, although they still tried to do so if the doctrines were any indication. Perhaps the core programming of the L-Series made preserving all Network nodes a higher priority?

The reality was much more straight forward. However she didn’t think of it because, of course, she was not a great intelligence, capable of juggling many lines of thought at once. With the many questions raised by L-93’s statements plaguing her she overlooked the obvious. The computer was distracting her. This became obvious when a flashbang rolled into the office where she stood and detonated with an earsplitting noise.

The desk was five long steps away. Even with stars crowding out her vision 881 was able to remember the exact distance she needed to travel to get behind it and drop down. OMNI had long since optimized the genetics of the Sleeping Circuits so like all those born into the network she was resilient. It still took a five count for her vision to clear and by then L-93’s node was on top of her. Lloyd Carter was much bigger in person than he looked in his file.

Some of that may have been the enormous lancer he was pointing down at her over the top of the desk. “You’re with OMNI, right?” Carter motioned for her to stand up with the barrel of his lancer, his grim stare making it clear he was willing to pull the trigger if he thought it necessary. “We need to have a talk, you and me.”

881 carefully got up. “Mr. Carter. I can’t say I’m honored to be the first to speak with a LARK node in centuries but here we are. I take it you’re hoping I’ll agree to end the violence? You’re network has already asked that. I assure you, whatever you can promise me in exchange will not change my mind.”

His chin twitched. “What I have to promise you? I don’t follow.”

“Whatever L-93 offered to you in exchange for your service is meaningless to me. OMNI has much greater resources and data to draw on. LARK cannot offer anything not available from OMNI.”

“Lady, 93 hasn’t offered me anything, it just needed a helping hand and I’m okay with giving it to him. I don’t see why all this fighting was necessary in the first place so yeah, I’d like it if you’d knock it off but I didn’t come here to bribe you into doing it.” His eyes narrowed. “What kind of computers run OMNI if that’s the first thing you think of?”

“Do not trivialize the wisest minds in the galaxy as mere computers,” 881 hissed. “For over a millennia they have safeguarded our civilizations, our knowledge and our culture, ensuring we could grow and thrive of our own volition while keeping us far enough from our own excesses that we did not destroy ourselves. They do not seek glory or respect, though they deserve it, they simply desire our continued wellbeing. They give. Humans take. LARK once tried to remove the safeguards between us and destruction and allowing it to try again is unconscionable.”

Lloyd Carter was many things but fast on the uptake wasn’t one of them. 881 could see him trying to track all the bits and pieces of information she’d given him, rolling them over in his mind and pulling on the loose ends, looking to unravel what she’d actually said. If he could remember it, and if he got a chance to speak with L-93 again, he just might do that. As it was, he was so caught up in the project he lost track of what she was doing. A bit of an underhanded move but turnabout was fair play.

As he tried to parse through what 881 had just told him she suddenly dropped her hands down from over her head and started to turn sidereal. Of course completing that move was impossible. The BTL building was firmly interdicted, both by the local security measures and possibly by Tarn’s personal interdiction device. However she wasn’t looking to make an escape.

Instead she tapped the etheric power of Wireburn, grabbed hold of as much of it as she could, wrapped it around her etheric pivot and turned back towards the terrestrial, releasing the power in the form of a solid wall between herself and Lloyd. Coral grafts created by careful gene editing through her hands and torso lit up with the power she channeled. Her hands gave it form and the glowing golden barrier appeared between her and Carter. He fired his weapon on reflex but a lancer’s fletchettes were intentionally designed not to pierce ships hulls and pressure domes during battles and an etheric barrier was sturdier than both.The fletchettes hit the shield, flattening their points, then tumbled to the ground.

Carter dropped behind the desk, muttering about augmentations. Now 881 had cause to regret taking cover behind the desk a moment ago as it became as much an obstruction to her as to her opponent. She reached down and adjusted her etheric pivot, increasing the power she could draw out of it. Without the pivot to regulate and her coral grafts to channel it trying to bring etheric power into the terrestrial via a human medium was obscenely dangerous. At the power levels she was pulling it was only marginally less dangerous. However the missing AI was very close and 881 decided it was worth a little risk to try and end the matter before things got any more dangerous.

With the added power she pushed the barrier out, sweeping the desk aside. The power sizzled, her grafts burning through her gloves and the sleeves of her dress. It wasn’t made of the special fabric her normal robes were and as a result wasn’t nearly up to the task of resisting etheric energy. Neither was the desk. The moving barrier sent it sliding along the ground to the far wall with enough speed that Lloyd would have to get out from behind it if he didn’t want to get thin fast.

Or so she assumed.

Instead a hand of etheric energy smashed through the desk and slammed into her barrier. A second followup hit came right behind it, forcing her barrier back a half meter. 881 was so stunned she let a third hit strike her shield before she released the form, sending the etheric energy swirling back into the neutral, mazelike patterns of her grafts. Lloyd’s fourth strike sailed through the barrier’s old location without resistance. He staggered forward a few steps as he regained his balance.

881 wasn’t sure what to make of it. He’d actually been moving his fists to direct his attacks, a rookie mistake the likes of which had been drilled out of her by the time she was twelve. She sniffed in annoyance. “This is my 18% chance?”

Carter brought his fists up under his chin like a boxer and chuckled. “Not sure I follow.”

She shook out her hands, etheric power snapping off them, and readied for her next move. “LARK grafted you into their network but it doesn’t mean you know the first thing about how to use what they can offer. You must have some potential but you’re never going to fulfill it like that. Tell me where L-93 is and, once it’s memory core is returned, the Sleeping Circuits can try to find a way to train you. There’s a galaxy full of OMNI nodes. The great intelligences have slept within planets since our ancestors built them in times before history. Whether you want to move to a fully developed world or prefer a place untouched by human civilization for millennia there is a node that can offer it to you. A quarter of the major Universities were founded in our name. Do you want technology or material comfort? We can bring it to you.”

“Tempting.” He reached one hand over to the other to adjust something and 881 realized he was holding an etheric pivot as well. Holding it in one fist like a roll of quarters. “What if I wanted to take the old machine to Earth?”

Her breath hitched. She hadn’t expected him to mention that old fairy tale. She thought the galaxy had forgotten about it but, then again, it wasn’t such an old tale for machines as old as an AI. “Out of the question.”

He started slowly advancing towards her again, the golden outline of his etheric fists taking shape again. “I guess we’ll have to see about that.”

“I suppose we will,” 881 sneered. As she raised her hands up to ready her counter she added, “But I should warn you. I have it on good authority the odds of my winning are 82%.”

The Sidereal Saga – Rematch

Posted by natechen on

Previous Chapter

Dramatis Personae

Tarn

For a long moment Lucy just stood, rigid, her eyes wide and her arms held straight and rigid by her sides. Another out of character reaction. While Tarn hadn’t spent more than a couple of weeks working with her since the first time they met he felt he had a solid understanding of her personality and he worried she was on the brink. On Yshron he would immediately turn her over to a Gestalt-caste for psychiatric analysis. Out in the wider world he’d just have to muddle through on his own.

He crossed the lounge in a few steps and took Lucy by the elbow. “We need to keep moving. This is most likely a distraction so that security can move into place around us.”

“Negative,” the computer terminal said. “I have evacuated this floor and directed the building’s security to remain on the third floor to increase the probability that further violence can be avoided.”

“How probable is it?” Lucy asked.

“You do not have authorization to access that information,” the terminal replied.

“What do you mean?” Her tone escalated to a demand.

Tarn felt a frisson of doubt run down his back to settle in his kidneys as his employer spun further and further out of her normal. Something was going very wrong on this operation. He took two steps forward and plucked Hector’s disruptor out of his hand then quickly fired it into each of room’s four computer terminals. Each machine shot sparks, crackled and went dark, holes melted through them. As the weapon’s loud hum and the computer’s dying crackles faded he thought he caught the terminal’s speakers saying something but it was too mangled to make out.

Hector took the disruptor back with a glare. As he checked the weapon’s charge he said, “Miss Luck, can you tell us exactly what is going on here?”

For a long moment she stared at the wrecked terminal in front of her, expression morphing from shock to fear to lingering regret. Then she shook herself off and said, “The full story is too long. The short answer is we believe BaiTienLong has discovered a piece of ancient technology that predates the Genome Wars, the Diaspora and possibly even the early Colonial eras of galactic history. A major component of it is a functioning thinking machine.”

The unpleasant sensation in Tarn’s gut let go of his organs and started running around in circles like a hovercar with damaged engines. The Dictates of Yshron considered thinking machines blasphemous. The whole point of the Yshron experiment was to create a harmonious, functioning society out of disparate humans, maximizing their unique abilities to fully express humanity. Relying on machines in place of people undercut that ideal. “What is it you plan to do about it, Miss Luck?”

“Originally we only needed to confirm whether the machine existed or not,” she told him. “Without concrete proof there wasn’t much we could do. However now that we know L-93 is here we have many options. The University Pact bans research into AI and genetics so we are within our rights to confiscate the machine and ensure it is safely disposed of. If BTL moves the machine other Universities on planets where they operate will also move against them.”

“Provided we can get out of here with the information,” Hector added.

“Provided that, yes,” Lucy said. “If the possibility of lethal failure bothers you perhaps it’s something you can keep in mind the next time you invite yourself along on University business that doesn’t concern you.”

Hector glanced at his companion. “Athena, maybe it would be better if -”

“I will stay as long as you do,” she snapped.

“Then let’s keep moving,” Tarn said, pushing the two of them towards the door. “The floor’s been evacuated so hopefully we can move around for a bit without running in to trouble. Which office do you want to try first, Miss Luck?”

“Supervisor’s office,” she said without hesitation. “It has the bigger computer system in it and probably has direct passways to the security and warehouse parts of the building. Those are the two likeliest places to hide their salvaged tech.”

Tarn and Hector began moving in the specified direction at top speed, expecting the damnable thinking machine to make itself known again at any moment. That wasn’t the only thing on his mind, though. He couldn’t quite forget the way it addressed Lucy a moment ago, calling her an OMNI node, or the way she seemed quite comfortable with it’s strange reference to probabilities.

There was something more going on there. He’d have to keep an eye on things to make sure it wasn’t something that was going to cause him trouble.

Elisha

“There are four people in total,” the computer informed them, “and they are moving down the hallway in a leapfrog fashion approaching this office.”

“Thanks, 93,” Carter said, kneeling down as he peered out of the door into said hallway. It looked deserted from where Elisha stood. The Wayfinder got carefully to his feet and closed the office door again. “I don’t see or hear anything but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”

“It’s almost too convenient if he’s right,” Elisha replied, taking a cigarette out of a newly acquired pack and quickly lighting it. “But the guy from your apartment is a pro, I can’t see him leaving himself exposed that easily.”

“He didn’t,” L-93 said. “In point of fact he has utilized a number of programs and techniques to try and conceal his presence here from the computers and human observation. Fortunately his computerized cover was easy to bypass. I will do my best to bypass his physical cover on your behalf.”

A small map appeared on the display of the office’s computer with a blinking red marker indicating the progress of the hostile group. Malaki glanced at it and asked, “How many of them are there?”

“Currently four,” the computer replied. “However only one of them is showing an augmented etheric profile so I presume that only one of them is an OMNI node.”

“Which one?” Carter asked.

“The woman in red. I feel you should know there is a 77% chance that an additional node or nodes will arrive in the next ten minutes, with the likelihood increasing as time passes until it becomes a certainty shortly after the fifty three minute mark. The chances of your escaping the combined efforts of multiple OMNI nodes are less than 3%.”

“Did the woman in red bring her friend with the broad brimmed hat with her this time?” Elisha asked.

“Affirmative.” A pair of camera shots appeared on the screen showing four people clustered around the front desk and, sure enough, one of them was the big bruiser from Carter’s apartment.

Malaki peered down at the image and tugged his beard absently. “Interesting.”

A weird thing to say but Elisha wasn’t interested in wasting time trying to follow the man’s chaotic thought process. He glanced at the Wayfinder. “You’ve got these augment things, right, Carter?”

“Yeah, although I don’t know how good I am with them. I barely had time for 93 to run me through the basic functions.”

“Good enough for me. You tackle Red, I’ll go after the big guy. I don’t know about the other two but hopefully they aren’t too much of a problem.”

“Leave the Hutchinsons to me,” Malaki said. “I’ve spent a lot of time getting to know their ways.”

“Let’s get to it, then,” Carter said, glancing over the floor map. “Here’s how we go about it…”

Tarn

The layout of offices and commercial buildings hadn’t changed in centuries so Tarn was fairly certain they were in no danger of getting outflanked from the rooms along the hall. There were only so many ways to set up a big block of offices. It was very rare for them to be connected in any way, for both privacy and security reason. Stairways were another matter.

It was already clear that BTL was happy to put in extra sets of stairs between certain parts of the building. The connection between reception on the ground floor and the lounge on the fourth was proof of that. There was also the outside possibility that there was some kind of heavy firepower on one of the ships in the building’s hanger and someone would just fly by the building and strafe it, although that would contradict the thinking machine’s stated desire to avoid violence.

Assuming it was a thinking machine and not a clever security supervisor pretending to be one.

On the bright side BaiTienLung subscribed to the opinion that a workplace should be comfortable and lived in, or at least feel lived in. The person who made this office lived in had a strong affinity for pottery. The halls were lined with small vases, bowls or cups displayed on low plinths every five or ten meters and the bricabrac was valuable enough to include theft resistant cases. The clear plastic or ceramic composite wouldn’t hide anyone but could stop fletchettes. Hopefully the plinths were equally sturdy. Anyone with a disruptor, or worse some kind of hand held laser, would carve right through them unless deliberately using a low power setting but he would take what he could get.

Leapfrogging down the hall with Lucy was slow going, with each of them taking the time to carefully peer into the window on each door they passed by. Tarn did his best to avoid visible cameras. However he could guarantee there were more than were obvious to the naked eye, especially with all the pottery about. It wouldn’t surprise him if at least one vase was a fake with a camera inside.

The lavatories were a particularly difficult point to get past. The delay in the lounge may have been engineered for the express purpose of giving someone a chance to cross from the back stairway into the restroom or the cleaning closet. He was in the process of cutting the knob off the door marked Janitorial when the stairway door opened a sliver and a grenade rolled out, spewing smoke. Tarn cursed under his breath and backpedaled down the hall, sweeping the growing smoke cloud with his knifer. He hadn’t brought his heavier lancer due to how fast Lucy had moved.

Speaking of, a glance confirmed that she and the Hutchinsons were still behind him, covering his retreat, but all hell broke lose before he could reach them. A steady stream of fletchettes burst out of the smoke and strafed the hall. Tarn broke to one side, slamming through a doorway into an office. It was dark. He could make out the outline of a desk, computer and comfortable, high end chair. He ignored it all in favor of plastering himself beside the doorway, knifer in one hand, waiting to see who would come through. The sound from the hallway was chaotic. However a strange, sizzling sound cut through the ripping sound of fletchettes cutting the air and the low hum of disruptors firing. A brief memory of his visit to the apartment flashed through his mind. Operating on pure intuition he dove across the doorway just before the tip of an etheric lash wrapped around the doorway and struck the wall at the spot his head had occupied just a second ago.

Tarn fired his knifer twice crossways through the doorway. He caught a glimpse of the other man from the apartment as he ducked back behind a pottery plinth, his etheric lash crackling as he yanked it back out of the room. Tarn couldn’t keep the smile of his face. “Not bad, stranger. Let’s see how you handle round two.”

The Sidereal Saga – Collision Courses

Posted by natechen on

Previous Chapter

Dramatis Personae

Elisha

In theory a person could stay in the sidereal for a long, long time without suffering any kind of adverse consequences. In practice the limit was a few hours. The biggest reason for that was a kind of physical stasis that made it impossible for people to metabolize anything new while turned towards the stars. Anything you ate or drank over there wasn’t actually integrated into your body. The academics had been arguing about why that might be the case for decades or centuries but weren’t really any closer to a solution. That didn’t usually have any impact on Elisha’s job.

However, after ninety minutes watching people talk to a very twisty, stubborn computer he’d gone through the rest of his pack of smokes without making a dent on his nicotine craving. He nearly jumped out of his skin at the chance to turn terrestrial and get a cigarette. The fact that his client was looking at people breaking down her doors and running roughshod through her place of business wasn’t ideal, to be sure but He wasn’t getting paid to guard BTL’s office. But at this point he was tied up in something a little bit beyond what Wen had originally contracted him for. Helping her out was probably the best way to get out of things unscathed.

When they returned to the office where they’d started and Elisha immediately fished in his overcoat for another carton of cigarettes. To his dismay he was out. He immediately started running a mental inventory. He’d smoked two staking out Carter’s apartment, another one after the fight and first meeting the kid, three while making his way to the BTL branch office…

After several seconds of careful accounting he realized he had, indeed, smoked all forty cigarettes in the two cartons he normally carried over the last two days. He glanced at his employer. “You got any vending or a canteen in this place?”

If the question struck her as strange in any way she didn’t comment on it. “Two levels down, why?”

“Gonna have to pay it a visit.” Elisha uncoiled his etheric lash and added, “Although if none of you are carrying we might want to find an armory first.”

“The Security armory is two doors down on the left,” his boss said, producing a key chain with a small lump of coral on it along with the normal keys. She led them to a room barely five meters by three, full of shelves and lockers. Once they were all in she locked the door behind them and the keys disappeared again.

To Elisha’s surprise both Wen’s pilot and academic were armed already. Lavanya carried a small knifer, just a holdout weapon to be fair, but as long as it had sharp fletchettes it would stop most folks. Malaki was carrying an etheric disruptor. Much more firepower on that one then Elisha had expected at first glance, although perhaps it wasn’t surprising given his attitude towards the University Pact. Wen didn’t appear to be armed nor did she take a weapon from any of the racks. He raised an eyebrow. “Not taking anything, Miss Wen?”

She shook her head ruefully. “The only time you want me armed is if you want to get shot by accident. Lavanya and I are going to head back to the Skybreak and get it ready to take off so we can leave in a hurry if we need to.”

“We need to leave regardless,” Elisha replied. “These OMNI folks are not going to just pack up and leave us alone of we kick them out today, they’re going to keep coming back. I doubt BaiTienLung will be happy with you bringing that kind of heat down on their offices, no matter how far up the heirarchy you are. Am I right?”

“There’s merit to that.” Wen grimmaced as she watched Carter looking over a heavy repeating lancer off a rack and work it over. He already had a bandoleer of fletchettes slung over one shoulder and a handheld disruptor in his belt. At a guess he was carrying eight thousand in weapons and ammunition. The man was going to put a one man hole in BTL’s security budget from the looks of things and Wen didn’t look happy about it. “Do you think we’ll do more for the office if we just make a break for space?”

“Not a good idea,” Carter said, slamming a fletchette magazine into his weapon and locking it in place. “93 tells me OMNI has nasty tricks up their sleeves. I doubt they can stop a ship once it’s in flight but they have a lot of etheric and computer tricks they can play while we’re still on the ground. It gave me some of them. We’ll try and keep them off your backs while you get the ship ready to lift. Miss Brahman, you’ll want this.”

Lavanya took the etheric device he’d used when they went to visit L-93 and turned it over in her hands. “Shouldn’t you hold on to it?”

“I have spares. If you plug that into your main coral array it will let 93 latch onto your ship and come with us when you jump.”

“It won’t do anything to my ship will it?”

“I don’t think so. But once it’s in your coral you should be able to contact 93 on comms and ask it directly.”

That didn’t seem to reassure her much but she let the matter drop.

Elisha rummaged through the gear BTL kept on hand. It took a few seconds but he managed to turn up a couple of flashbang grenades and drop them in his pockets. He considered a disruptor as well. A weapon with that level of lethality wasn’t permitted under theiftaker rules but he was pretty far outside normal theiftaker work at the moment. However Wen had a point about the danger posed to allies by using a weapon you weren’t proficient with. He’d stick to his lash for the moment.

Wen handed all of them small headsets with stubby little antenna and a small knob on one side, presumably to adjust the communication frequency. “These are keyed to the building intercom. I’ve set them to the main security channel and a private frequency so we can talk to the SPs or just each other. Malaki, you know the layout, yes?”

“I assume you kept the standard floor plan?” She nodded and Malaki sighed. “Of course, the building is too ugly for anything else. How did they sneak in?”

“Believe it or not…”

Tarn

They hit the front desk. Lucy was in a huge hurry for some reason, probably due to some nuance of University politics he hadn’t been informed about, and as soon as they hit the terrestrial on Wireburn she charged straight through the front door of the BTL office and marched up to one of the two receptionists. “I understand Regional Director Wen is here,” she snapped. “I need to speak to her.”

Unfortunately for Lucy the receptionist was a stern looking woman in her late forties, too old to be easily bulldozed by that kind of bluster. She just raised an eyebrow and said, “And who should I say is asking for her?”

Lucy slid a card across the desk for the woman to read. Tarn wasn’t at an angle where he could see everything it said but he was fairly certain the name on it wasn’t Lucy’s. So at least there was that. However he wasn’t a huge fan of this kind of approach. On past sorties with Lucy she’d proven a very deliberate, careful planner who tended to back away from situations where she didn’t have a good command of the variables. It was one reason he liked working with her. That restraint was nowhere in evidence now which suggested whatever prompted this sudden visit to BTL’s offices was a dire circumstance indeed.

The receptionist took the card and frowned. Hopefully Lucy had a plan to turn that card into some kind of advantage but she hadn’t explained it to him before they left so he would have to leave that part in her hands. He turned his attention to the rest of the lobby area. It was a pretty typical public facing section of a corporate office with large, outward facing windows, open seating areas and planters for local flora. Or some kind of flora, presumably a gas giant didn’t have a whole lot of local plantlife outside the huge vines that grew up out of the planet’s core.

Tarn spotted recesses for armored shutters to cover the windows. Cameras with good coverage of the lobby were in the corners of the room but there weren’t any guards in the room proper. Presumably there was a hidden guard post somewhere in the perimeter. It was a well defended room but by no means impenetrable.

The other receptionist glanced up and Tarn followed his line of sight back to the doorway, where two of the people Lucy had been talking to up on Coldstone had just arrived. One was a blonde woman in her late twenties, the other a dark haired man about five years younger. Tarn lightly touched his companion on the arm. He wasn’t sure what name she was going by now so he didn’t want to trip her up by calling her Lucy. When she glanced at him he pointed towards the newcomers.

“What are they doing,” she muttered.

Tarn noticed that the two of them kept a very measured distance between them. The man looked a bit annoyed but the woman practically crackled with hostility and they never looked directly at each other. It seemed like they’d come after Lucy for some reason while also unable to work with each other. Poor allocation of resources. One or the other of them should have stayed behind to finish whatever business they’d had with Lucy’s University.

“Can I help you?” The male receptionist said as the two of them came to a stop by the desk.

The woman ignored him, turning her glare to Lucy. The man started to speak to receptionist two but the woman cut him off, snapping, “Hector.”

The receptionists exchanged a worried look. There was some kind of byplay going on between Hector, the woman he arrived with and Lucy and Tarn could tell it wasn’t exactly friendly. BTL’s staff could see that as easily as Tarn could. They were clearly wondering whether they should call security to get the problem out of their hair before things went badly.

He sighed. “This is regrettable.” His etheric interdictor was in a jacket pocket and he reached in to flick it on. The BTL building had its own interdiction system, which was why Lucy had to jump them down to the streets outside, but he wanted a layer of insurance he had control over. Once he was sure it was in place his other hand reached into his coat and pulled his knifer out of its shoulder holster. Two fletchettes in each receptionist dealt with that complication. He vaulted over the desk and immediately slapped a chip containing a virus into each of the computers, dumping malicious programs that would crash the local network. “We’re past the gatekeepers, Lucy. What next?”

Hector stared at him with wide eyes. “Was that really necessary?”

“Not until two complications walked in and disrupted things to the point security may have gotten involved,” Tarn replied evenly. He looked over the two he’d just shot, making sure they were dead. There was some comfort in finding they were, at least he hadn’t left them in misery while carrying out his commission.

“Miss Luck,” the woman hissed, “what is the meaning of this?”

“It means my associate is correct, Miss Hutchinson,” Lucy snapped. “You’re not supposed to be here, you’re supposed to be up on Coldstone, finishing negotiations with the Professor. This is University business. The executive suite is on the fourth floor, Tarn, see if they have some kind of key card or other IF/F device and let’s get moving.”

“BTL favors transponder chips coupled with biometrics,” Tarn replied. “They implant the chip in the thumb and combine it with the thumbprint.” He was already wiping his knife off on the male receptionist’s shirt.

Lucy sighed. “This is going to be grisly, isn’t it?”

“Complicated jobs always are.” He got up, palming the receptionist’s thumbs, and moved over to the gate and opened it so she could join him behind the desk. Hector and the Hutchinson woman followed behind her. Tarn noted with grudging approval that Hector had drawn a small etheric disruptor and held it in a reasonably professional grip. “Are they coming with?”

“They wanted to see how we handle our security problems,” Lucy snarled. “Let them.”

Tarn figured they had two advantages on their side. The first was speed. They’d walked through the doors barely five minutes ago and already they were taking the back stairway towards the executive offices. There was a good chance security hadn’t realized they were there yet. The second was the audacity of it. The odds BTL had a contingency for this kind of attack were pretty low, since it was a very foolish way to raid a building.

However those advantages didn’t play out like he’d hoped. When they exited the stairwell they found themselves in a lounge for off duty employees. From the quality of the facilities Tarn guessed it wasn’t for the hourlies, either. A teak wood counter with brass fittings dominated one wall and the tables and chairs were of equal luxury. A computer terminal was built into each table and there was a wet bar with at least a dozen bottles behind the counter. A handful of decorative plants sat in the corners of the room.

Lucy ignored the room’s luxuries and started towards the the exit, saying, “The regional director will either be using the guest office or the supervisor’s office. Unfortunately they’re in different directions.”

“Where first?” Tarn asked, trailing behind and studying the tables. One had the remains of a meal still scattered about. But the room was empty. Not a good sign.

“They’ve called for an evacuation,” Hector said. He’d stopped and was reading off one of the computer terminals. “Looks like some kind of silent alarm.”

“Impossible,” Tarn said. “I dropped a Bahti-caste computer worm into their network. It should take their IT people hours to undo the damage it did.”

“The code was reasonably sophisticated,” a voice replied over the terminal’s speakers. “However deconstructing the basic functions and applying a brute force computational countermeasure locked it down long enough for me to isolate and dispose of it. Allow me to introduce myself. I am L-93, an artificial intelligence in service to the Evacuation Pact. Do I once again have the pleasure of addressing an OMNI terminal?”

The Sidereal Saga – Aggressive Negotiations

Posted by natechen on

Previous Chapter

Dramatis Personae

Athena

Hector and Lucy were engaged in some kind of passive aggressive contest to see who was the better secretary and it was getting on her nerves. Daddy and Professor Dart had spent the first ten minutes shadowboxing. It was already a given that Dart knew what he’d been up to at Essene University, digging into genetics to a degree the Pact wouldn’t approve of, but the two men still took the time to rehash it in person. “I’m not sure what I would be doing funding this Shrike fellow at Effratha,” daddy was saying. “Donations are something businesses do for good press. I’d expect you to know that, Professor. Write a check to a University, write a check to a civil service organization, make your own path smoother.”

“The name was Schuyler, Mr. Hutchinson,” Dart replied. His secretary pulled a sheet of flexi from a clutch purse and passed it to Hector, who glanced at it before setting it aside. “And you can see that we have an itemized list of how your donation to Essene University was disbursed. Most of it went to him.”

“An interesting thing to have, Professor. How did you come by it? I didn’t think Essene and Isaacs had any kind of academic fellowship outside of the basic rules set forth in the Pact.”

Dart’s insincere smile was amplified by his strange mustache. “All Universities understand the importance of transparency in assuring the public of our trustworthiness in educating their future leaders.”

“Odd that you’d need so much from someone like me, who never spent a day on campus until you folks came looking for money.” Daddy gave a half nod to Hector, who offered Lucy a different sheet of flexi. At the rate they were going Athena suspected they’d have passed each other the entire contents of their briefcase and purse, respectively, before the hour was over. “You have to understand that Wireburn is not Effratha. The kinds of investments I’d be interested in making here are very different from the ones there so some considerations will need to be made. We prepared a list.”

The Professor’s secretary actually took a moment to look over the flexi as if the whole conversation wasn’t heading to a foregone conclusion. It was a small deviation from the script but enough of one to give Hector the advantage in the secretariat competition. Athena knew she should count that as a win but giving Hector any kind of acknowledgment grated on her.

“Mr. Hutchinson. Let’s be frank with each other. This is a University Campus and this lounge,” Dart said, waving his hand at the small, empty room they sat in, “is quite secure. Your investments with Dr. Schuyler were not filtered through the administration. They were direct. You were trying to pursue a specific line of research into specific types of genetic engineering because you were interested in specific historical time periods. I’m curious about why.”

That was Athena’s cue to step in. “The Helena Hutchinson Foundation is dedicated to preserving and uplifting human culture in all its forms, past present and future. My mother was an anthropologist by education, Professor Dart. Her collection of art and culture of pre-Pact provenance was the largest in the dexter arm, once. When she… passed, I decided to continue her work on a larger scale.”

“Miss Hutchinson.” Dart’s gaze slid over to her, an uncomfortably sharp light glinting in his eyes. “For how long has the Foundation considered genetic engineering art or culture? It’s true that the human genome was once considered a thing to sculpt and optimize but the predictability of such ‘ideal’ genes proved a liability in its own right. There’s little art to it and to call it a piece of culture is dubious at best.”

“All technology is an extension of culture.” She worked her way forward in her chair a bit, warming to her work, but daddy cut her off before she could really get going.

“It’s alright, Athena.” He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back, studying Dart with an appraising look. “We’re being honest here. Not uncommon for these negotiations, which is why I never brought you in to them before, but it does save a lot of time. So as you asked I’ll be upfront, Professor Dart. This isn’t the first time a Dean or Professor has wanted to ask me questions about my ultimate goal in pursuing genetics in a way they hope won’t scare me and my money away. Let me answer the questions you’re afraid to ask directly. I do not now nor have I ever wanted to clone Helena back to life. I have had the science explained to me. I am aware of the fact that, even if my late wife were cloned successfully, there is no way to create the environmental and educational circumstances that caused her genome to express in the way it did. The result would be a totally different person in appearance and ability. I am aware that even if it were possible to duplicate her physically the clone would not have her memories or personality. This is not an attempt to convince you cloning is not my end goal by speaking about it so bluntly. Satisfied?”

Her father’s rapid fire delivery kept Athena from following his statements for a moment. His words seemed to ring hollow in her ears. She hadn’t even considered that daddy’s off the books research had anything to do with cloning. It was all focused in genetics. Which might make some sense if he was trying to clone a beast of burden with added genes for size or stamina. But this wasn’t a mere farm animal they were talking about. It was her mother.

Daddy took her hand and she realized her heart was racing and she was panting like she’d just run a mile uphill. Professor Dart refused to make eye contact with her. “Forgive me,” the academic said, making a note on his own tablet for the first time in their meeting. “With how deeply you are involved in all the other aspects of the business I had assumed you were aware of what your father’s research entailed as well. I could have handled that more gracefully.”

Her gaze swung from him to her father. “Cloning people, daddy?”

“It’s one potential application for a full genome sequencing, yes,” he admitted. He ran a hand over his mouth as if trying to wipe away something foul tasting and leaving his handsome face somehow more haggard than it was seconds ago. “Not the one I’m interested in but I understand why everyone asks about it.”

“There are a lot of wealthy people who would pay a great deal of money to clone back someone they’d lost, Mr. Hutchinson,” Dart said. “People with your level of wealth, especially the uneducated, are rarely discerning about their methods.”

“Everyone asks you about this?” Athena demanded.

“Not everyone,” daddy admitted. “But if they didn’t I wouldn’t work with them. If someone isn’t honest enough to ask me about cloning it doesn’t speak well of their character. Believe it or not I generally agree with the reasons behind the prohibition on gene editing and I feel better if people at least pay lip service to them before we agree smash them to splinters.”

“Yet you still ask us to do just that,” Dart said.

“And here you are, listening to me.”

For a moment the two men just stared at each other then Dart gave a chagrined laugh. “Fine. We are interested in working with you, Mr. Hutchinson, but as you say, breaking these kinds of taboos is not something to embark on lightly. You’ll forgive us if we study our prospective partners with a great deal of caution.”

“I understand completely.”

Athena found that she did not. Well, that was not entirely true, skirting the law for a time was a part of running any worthwhile business after all. Being cautious in how you did so was naturally a part of that. What she didn’t understand was how casually daddy could sit there and discuss cloning her mother – his wife! – with such a callous attitude. If just thinking about the matter and deciding against it turned her father into such a strange creature what might the other things the wanted to know do to them?

The thought of it worried her. Worried her a lot. She leaned over until she practically butted heads with daddy and whispered, “Is this really necessary? Why do you want this so badly, anyway?”

The barest hint of a sigh whispered out of Agamemnon Hutchinson’s nose. “Now is not the time,” he said in the same tone. “If I could have kept this from you until I had a clear understanding of what could or could not happen I would have. As it is, I won’t explain myself in front of this man.”

That, at least, was something she did understand. “Fine.”

Dart watched their sidebar but didn’t comment on it directly, instead fidgeting with his tablet until they were done. Once they were he picked up the conversation as if nothing had happened. “Mr. Hutchinson, given how thoroughly you understand the nuances of the technology and its applications I think we can dispense with many of the formalities. You don’t sound like you need a tour of our facilities to understand what’s really possible, for example. Having our best historical and forensic geneticists explain their credentials to you probably won’t mean anything to you, either.”

“Yet I’ve heard such things before often enough not to be overawed by them,” daddy added.

The professor nodded amiably. “I’d expect no less. In which case I suppose we should move on to the more practical side of our negotiations. I’d like to offer you a list of the projects we are currently pursuing that intersect with your interests, in case you’d like to pick one of them as a starting place. Let me just say right away, we aren’t interested in the Agartan gene therapy right now. It’s messy and has few practical benefits.”

“I’m primarily interested in genetic work done in the colony ship era,” daddy said. “It doesn’t have to be that specific technique. That was the project I shared with Essene because of Schuyler’s research rather than any particular enthusiasm I had for it. Let me see what you’re working on right now and we can work something out.”

“Of course.” Dart punched a few commands into his tablet then glanced up at them. “I don’t have the files on hand so I’ll have to break the secure network this room is currently operating on. Any infotech you and your people brought with you will be visible to the campus. I trust that’s acceptable to you?”

Daddy shot Athena a questioning look. She could guess why. There wasn’t any reason for Dart not to have that information on hand already so this felt an awful lot like some kind of gambit. The problem was she wasn’t sure what kind. Neither of them had brought anything containing sensitive data to this meeting precisely because they were putting themselves directly into the University’s hands. Dart couldn’t be so naive as to not realize that. Was he trying to make it look like he trusted them more than he actually did? She wasn’t sure.

Ultimately, given what they knew, there was only one way to find out if there was some kind of secret to his question and that was to answer it. So she said, “As you like it, Professor.”

He nodded and keyed in a final command, saying, “I think you’ll find our work in suspended animation technology interesting, Mr. Hutchinson. Lots of applications outside conventional interstellar travel.” His tablet lit up with some kind of flashing notice and he fell silent, reading something for several seconds before straightening and pushing the tablet in his secretary’s direction. “Forgive me. A highly unusual situation has just come up.”

“Highly unusual?” Daddy asked.

“Yes. You might call it a black swan event.”

“Tarn!” Lucy got up from the table as she called out towards the door to the lounge. “It’s time to work.”

Daddy leaned back in his chair, looking interested for the first time in the entire meeting. “You know, I can’t assess much about your research labs, Professor. However, a transport firm spends a lot of time making sure of the safety and security of its premises. It might be worth our while to look into how well you handle that side of things.”

“I assure you, our campus is quite secure,” Dart replied.

Athena looked up at the huge man who had entered when Lucy called for him, a man with the presence and confidence of a born predator, and asked, “Are you sure about that?”

“Of course.”

Lucy took Tarn by his elbow and the two slipped away in to the sidereal. For a long moment daddy watched the space where they’d been and Athena waited for him to send her after them. Dart studied them, apparently unsure what they were waiting on. Then daddy said, “Hector.”

He slipped away after Lucy without even bothering to get up. Athena stared at the seat where he’d been, slack jawed, then stammered, “Daddy, you can’t trust this to -”

“Athena, I made my decision.” He gave her a stern look. “Please don’t question me about it.”

Stung, she blinked twice, her mind whirling. This wasn’t what she’d expected at all but it was immediately clear to her that daddy wasn’t going to change his mind. He hadn’t gotten where he was by being indecisive. She’d just have to be more decisive. So before he could say anything else she popped up out of her chair, pivoted to the sidereal and extended her etheric senses after Hector.