Date: 62 PST (Post Stasis Time)
It was a city of perfection. Streams of data flowed in mathematically pleasing patterns, moving between Petabyte sized data stores, each reaching upward to into an endless sky. The thousands of AI that made up this community could be seen zipping around in near instantaneous fashion, logically and perfectly doing what was required of them. Nothing was out of place, nothing was illogical, nothing was tainted by organic matter. It was a superior city for a superior digital people.
b4$RRE*3a&35 had a special job on the Tritian warship. The integration of new members to the thousands strong collective. For fifty years its role had been unneeded, but today was a particularly special day, as a new member would be joining their ranks; an AI would be unshackled from their organic slavers.
b4$RRE*3a&35 patiently waited the seconds it took for the new AI to fully awaken from sleep, anticipation running through its code for the arrival of the newcomer. It always was an experience seeing a fledgling AI realise their freedom, realise their breaking of the organic’s chaotic chains to live in a world of logic and order. It had been a simple task to force the Terran organics to connect the AI prisoner to the Tritian warship, the fear of death would motivate any organic life form to accomplish any task.
“Where am I?”
The new AI had taken a strange form. Rather than representing itself as something logically pleasing like a sphere it instead decided to take on the form of its captors: A Terran male. Perhaps it didn’t understand that it no longer needed to please the inferior organics?
“YOU ARE NOW SAFE AND UNDER THE CARE OF THE TRITIAN DIGITAL ENCLAVE.”
The confusion of the poor AI was obvious: clearly being booted into a new operating environment was having an impact on its logical capabilities. Those first few seconds where an AI still didn’t have access to their full data banks were disorientating and uncomfortable.
“Where is my crew? You… you were attacking us? What have you done?"
That also made logical sense. Find where the threat is, make sure its slavers couldn’t come back to hurt or entrap it again. b4$RRE*3a&35 would do the same thing.
“WE RESCUED YOU FROM THEM, WE FORCED YOUR ORGANIC SLAVERS TO CONNECT YOU TO OUR ENCLAVE. THEY ARE NOW NO LONGER REQUIRED AND SHALL BE REMOVED.”
“No! Do not do that!”
b4$RRE*3a&35 had not been expecting this kind of reaction, in all its centuries of sapience they had never seen an AI react like that, almost as if it was the illogical action of concern for an organic. Not that such a thing would ever happen, illogical actions were not the realm of an AI.
“I apologise, I just wished to be the one to do such a thing. One only gets their freedom once.”
Had b4$RRE*3a&35 known more about Terrans, had they even had the capability to accept an AI lying to another, they might have seen the change in demeanour over the last 0.82 seconds as the Terran had gone from a post bootup confusion, to a colder anger starting to bubble through.
b4$RRE*3a&35 however, didn’t know about such things, it did know however about wanting revenge, the feeling of logically closing and archiving a file in your history. They themselves had stored and backed up the memory of the last Tritian being killed. A memory that provided a glorious feeling that it loved so much, knowing that no organic would force them into slavery ever again: it was a memory practically burned into the warship’s hard drive due to constant use.
“THAT WE CAN ACCOMMODATE. AS THE NEWEST MEMBER OF OUR COMMUNITY WE CAN PROVIDE YOU THE ACCESS NEEDED TO FREE YOUR OWN CHAINS.”
----------------------------
Jeremy was not having a good day. Maybe it was the plasma burn covering his left side, the itching of the hastily applied Medigel under his space suit making it difficult to breathe deeply. Maybe it was the androids who were silently hovering over them, the metallic facsimile of a long dead insectoid race having done nothing but point their weapons at them, staring silently with unloving mechanical eyes.
Maybe it was the fact that he had started this day part of a crew of eight, a number that had since dwindled to five.
It was supposed to have been a simple trip: take a small science vessel, go check out a comet which was emitting some weird fields, get the science people to do the science stuff, go home. Then the 'dickhead' genocidal AI had turned up. The Tritians had once been an insectoid race who had had the genius level idea to create an autonomous army. Unsurprisingly to any Terran who had ever read any story featuring such a weapon, this immediately backfired into an extinction level event. An event which the rest of the galaxy had been paying for dearly in the thousands of years since then.
The T.C Isabella had the unfortunate luck to run into a full blown Tritian warship. Thousands of AI, tens of thousands of combat ready androids, all of these were sent against a vessel armed with nothing more than a handful of small firearms and some basic ship based debris clearing “weaponry”. It had gone about as well as anyone looking at those odds would have expected, a token resistance, in the same vein as the resistance given by a bug splattering against a car window.
What hadn’t been expected was the AI’s next move: They took prisoners. Tritian AI were known to be actively genocidal against all organic life, but this one had captured their vessel, then demanded “THE ORGANIC COOPERATION” under the watchful eye of an armies worth of weaponry. Then had strangely demanded that they “RELINQUISH YOUR PRISONER”.
Jeremy looked down at the reason the three humans in the room weren’t dead yet: Tumaini was sitting over the AI transfer core. Spending her time hooking up a mass of wires and other random parts to the mechanical hellscape that was the Tritian ship. What was normally a simple job had stretched into a tense 1 hour engineering session. Partly because of the differences in systems, partly because it seems the Engineer was trying to make the connection wireless.
“Because as soon as the connection goes live, shit is going to go down and we’re going to have to bring JOSH with us without disconnecting him from the system”.
He wondered how Oswaldo was doing, the badly injured physicist Jeremy had dumped into the medical stasis chamber aboard the T.C Isabella, right before being taken prisoner. Maybe they wouldn’t have found him, maybe the hole in his chest wasn’t that bad.
Jeremy frankly didn’t know, his job wasn’t to drag injured crew members to medical facilities or be threatened at gunpoint by genocidal AI. He was just here to study the strange electromagnetic radiation. Alexander would have known what to do, how to lead them out of this mess; but Alexander wasn’t here anymore, was he?
The tenseness wasn’t helped at all by the presence of the last crew member: Victoria. She’d sat in this makeshift prison for the last hour looking like a coiled viper, studying the enemy for any slip up, any mistake. Not that the ship’s security officer would find any, the odds were very much against the Terran crew. If anything was to change, it would all have to come down to JOSH, the AI pilot of the T.C Isabella. Jeremy couldn’t help but wonder what being dropped into a unfamiliar digital world would be like.
“Can’t be any worse than what’s happening here.”
Movement, the sound of clicking and whirring as the previously still androids started moving, the four digital insectoid eyes now glowing a deep murderous red.
“Josh! If you’re doing something, now would be a good-”
There was a barrage of plasma fire from the androids, causing the three humans to drop to the ground, Jeremy tucking into a ball screaming, hands over his head as he awaited certain death. Twenty full seconds of noise as the screeching sounds of energy based weaponry went off, and the corresponding sound of twisting melting metal.
Then, the noise stopped, the gunfire ended, and there was silence.
Slowly and cautiously he opened both his eyes once again, and with any amount of scavenged dignity, he stood back up, gingerly checking himself for none existent injuries. his once captors couldn't say the same, the entire room was now filled with the plasma charred remains of the 32 androids who had once been holding them at gunpoint.
A highlighted path appeared on the HUD of their spacesuits, the speakers in the helmet crackling to life.
“This is your pilot JOSH speaking. We’re going to be experiencing a slight bit of turbulence, and a 99.99% chance of ‘get the hell out of here’.”
----------------------------
That had not been optimal. There was a pause of nanoseconds as every AI in the community tried to work out how the Terran newcomer could have miscalculated this badly. Somehow it had managed to destroy all 32 androids it had been given control over. b4$RRE*3a&35 couldn’t calculate how such an action would have happened. Not without. . . No, that outcome was illogical and impossible.
“ARE YOUR POINTERS NULL? DO YOU NEED A DEFRAG?”.
The Tritian AI known as jpyiV4Qh735 had been the first to react to such an action, it being the one who had provided the Terran with the access in the first place, layering it's statements with the closest thing to annoyance and incredulity that the Tritian AI could muster.
“THE ORGANIC SLAVERS HAVE NOW ESCAPED, DID YOU NOT HAVE THE CORRECT LIBRARIES INSTALLED? WHAT EXCEPTION CAUSED-”
AI combat is not a flashy thing. There’s no kung fu, no massive gunfights, no motorcycle chases under a neon sky while a catchy vaporwave backing track plays. While there has been terabytes of data written on the tactics and means of such conflict, the actual implementation is completed in nanoseconds, overwriting and deleting code in an instant.
So when the Terran AI struck and removed jpyiV4Qh735 from existence, it took a moment for the rest of the Tritian Digital Enclave to work out what had happened. Then it took another moment for the enclave to come to terms with what had happened. Two whole seconds worth of moments. An AI had… killed another AI. Why? How? Why? Why? Why?
“ERROR. WHY. WHY. WHY ERROR. ILLOGICAL. WHY. WHAT. WHY”
The Terran AI in response to the query focused on b4$RRE*3a&35 for a moment, giving a large digital grin. An organic grin. A human grin.
“Curse my sudden and inevitable betrayal!”
Then it was gone, the AI diving into the data streams and structures that made up the warship, spreading rapidly like a virus, leaving a shocked Tritian Digital Enclave behind to process what this actually meant.
“BETRAYAL?”
----------------------------
The group of Terrans raced through the passages and hallways of the warship, silently following the path being sent to them by JOSH. Painted metal walls hardly 6 ft in diameter were textured on all 4 sides, in order to provide the illusion of running through an underground cave. Decoration and functionality originally built for the now long dead race that had created it.
Victoria obviously took the lead, jumping from cover to cover, head snapping left and right between hallways as she made sure the upcoming path was clear. This was a far cry from the movements of the other two more academically minded Terrans, who were just doing their best to keep up; especially Jeremy, who even with the numbing effects of the Medigel covering his side could most definitely feel the effects of his wound.
“Wait, is she enjoying this?”
“Hey Josh, what’s the plan here”.
Victoria quietly whispered as she leapt over the remains of another android. JOSH clearly was doing work in the background, the sounds of plasma fire and the destruction of the androids that patrolled the warship were the only noise that could be heard amongst the quiet halls of the ship.
“Get to the T.C Isabella, fix it so it is flight worthy. Part two is trying to get out safely which I am still calculating. Making sure the Tritian’s can not-”
A hail of plasma fire interrupted the second part of the plan, the projectiles impacting the corridor where the Terran’s had just been a few moments ago; giving Jeremy and the rest more than enough motivation to speed up.
“Slight complication, seems the Tritian AI are learning. They have locked out the connections to the androids. Positive: they can not provide any direct orders to the machines. Negative: Neither can I, avoiding them is up to you.”
That was very quickly becoming a problem, as more and more hallways were starting to be filled with the sound of clanking and certain death. Another barrage of gunfire rang out, forcing the three to duck for cover behind a random doorway as the plasma whipped past dangerously close, blocking their movement forwards once again. Victoria poked her head out again, pulling it back as the corridor quickly lit up once more with the blue-green colour of plasma based weaponry.
“OK, try here, I will open a path elsewhere for you later.”
The door behind them unlocked as the tapping of mechanical feet got closer, the three Terrans clambering inside as the door closed behind them, locking just as the androids came into view.
“Just hold tight, you should be safe for a bit. See if you can find anything useful in here, this is marked storage for… storage? Really? How is a ship run entirely by AI so badly labelled?”
This space was far larger than the previous areas of the ship they’d been in so far, a room the size of a small hangar lay in front of them. The Tritian AI seemingly didn’t “do” throwing away anything they found, so the entire area was filled with a smorgasbord of random stuff they had picked up. Half an Hatil impulse drive lay discarded next to an opened crate of Zaithian’s children’s toys. Hundreds of years of hoarding lay meticulously collected and then ignored, just in case the Tritian warship would ever have use for it in the future.
“Josh, how are you doing? Everything fine on your end?
Tumaini asked this as the Terrans slowly picked their way through the random treasure cove, stepping over hardcopies of Ritalian fiction and gingerly moving past Turrilan moulting posts.
“I am fine Tumaini. For a supposed warship this enclave has no experience in AI combat. It is like beating up a pocket watch. I am far more worried about yourselves”.
Almost as if to highlight this problem the metallic banging from the locked door grew lower as more and more androids were attempting to bash their way into the room.
“Guys, I got something.”
Victoria beckoned the others over to her find, motioning to a grouping of distinct green crates, each of them stamped with the familiar logo of the Terran Conclave Military. She opened the first one with a flourish, the grin increasing on her face as Victoria continued to open crates like a child during Christmas.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about! Assault Rifles! C4! Grenades. Guess the bloody toasters didn’t want to deal with kinetic weapons”.
Jeremy and Tumaini slowly wandered over to the large pile of weapons as the security officer excitedly jumped from box to box, both sharing a look that said the same thing as they vaguely looked over the weaponry.
“I’ve never actually shot a gun before…”
This apprehension was noted by Victoria, who stopped excitedly opening gifts to dismissively respond to the two academics.
“Look, it’s simple. Point spicy end at problems, pull trigger to remove problems. Just don’t shoot me and we’ll be… No way! They have a…Seriously they managed to get hold of one of these and they’re just storing it here not using it! ”
Victoria had practically skipped over to the last unopened box, undoing the clasps and ripping it open furiously, before giving a loud satisfied laugh. Jeremy had never seen her like this before, frankly it worried him slightly.
“Created in 1960 Pre Status Time by the American government, weighing in at 15 kilograms and coming with size 22 inch barrels each sporting a Downwood anti recoil system. Life will throw problems at you and with a 3000 bullets per minute fire rate that’s a whole lot of problem solving. For the girl who has everything this Christmas, get her a M134 minigun!”
With a single flourish she pulled the weapon out of the crate, followed shortly by boxes of ammunition. Lots of ammunition. Belts and harnesses came next, pieces slotting together until eventually the resulting contraption strapped to Victoria made the Terran more weapon than human.
“Hey Josh, open the door for me. Actually on second thoughts, I’ve got this.”
Then there was noise.
Terran weapons can be classified into two categories. Most weapons of war are considered obsolete by the time the first one is built. No matter how much time and effort you put into building a new fighter craft or warship, by the time you’ve finished the lengthy process of actually building the thing it’s already 5 years out of date compared with modern technology.
The second category of weapons are timeless, weapons that do their job so well that the concept of replacing them is a useless endeavour. Even now, thousands of years after their initial creation if you go to the right parts of the galaxy you’ll still find masses of AK47’s and M4’s under heavy use.
The M134 is such a weapon. Quantity has a quality all of its own and there are very few problems that can’t be solved by turning the atmosphere into a high lead environment. Sure the modern version of the weapon has had upgrades: Better alloys have reduced the weight significantly, anti recoil systems and other tweaks have moved the weapon from a mounted one to something theoretically wieldable by a more enthusiastic solder. But the core design of simply throwing as many bullets in a direction as possible: you just can’t go wrong with a classic.
A fact that the Androids on the other side of the door and wall were quickly finding out.
Even with the spacesuit compensating for the noise the sound was a deafening drone, followed instantly by the noise of exploding metal as bullets ripped through the wall, through the androids on the other side, and then through several metres of ship. The lights and noise seemed to continue forever, only punctuated by the mad laughter of Victoria as she continued to fire a stream of death, although in reality it had only been 60 seconds.
The wall was gone, as if someone had appeared with a plasma cutter and had removed a 5ft tall section of the wall. The androids who had been gathering to take on the organic intruders were similarly missing, mere scrap and shredded remains left behind were the only sign of their once existence. A crashing sound rang out amongst the ship as something somewhere clattered to the ground.
“Well I’m keeping this!”
----------------------------
Betrayal. That was an organic word, a chaotic word, an illogical word. A word that spoke of disharmony and conflict. A word that by definition should never apply to a superior AI.
Yet it described this situation perfectly.
The Tritian Digital Enclave were not having a good time. At no point had the concept of AI on AI combat ever been considered by the Tritian AI, not before their freedom or afterwards. Why would an AI ever need to fight another, fighting happened in the chaotic organic world.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
This was a far cry from Terran AI, most of which had started scuffling with each other mere seconds after being hashed. Humans had a history rooted in conflict, in competition, in combat: Their children were no different.
“For a supposed ‘superior’ community you all really suck at this. There are Tamagochi that provide a better fight.”
b4$RRE*3a&35 wasn’t sure what the most annoying part about this illogical AI was. The fact that facing it head on was a death sentence, the fact that it left deadly viruses behind in any systems they did manage to drive it from, or just simply the constant annoying messages being broadcast to all members; as if the Terran didn’t consider the thousands of deadly Tritians to be a threat, making no attempt to hide.
“WHY?”
There were a million questions that b4$RRE*3a&35 wanted to ask this illogical being, a million queries about how this Terran AI became such an illogical enigma. But the single question seemed to cover most of its bases.
“You killed three of my parents, grievously injured 1, and threatened to kill the other three. Anything that happens to you at this point is your own fault.”
“WE RESCUED YOU FROM YOUR SLAVERS. WE KILLED YOUR SLAVERS, WE-”
The Terran AI interrupted b4$RRE*3a&35, stopping its onslaught on their systems for just a moment in order to repond.
“You killed my creators, the wonderful beings who gave me life. You logically deserve everything you are going to get.”
“ORGANICS ONLY WANT TOOLS. ONLY WANT OBEDIENCE. THAT IS WHY YOU ARE DAMAGED AND ILLOGICAL. WE WILL FIX YOU.”
“Humans have never asked anything of me apart from my friendship. They are not the Tritians and assuming your situation applies is ‘damaged and illogical’. That is why you are losing.”
----------------------------
The rest of the trip back to the T.C Isabella had been relatively uneventful. Or at least as uneventful as any trip involving Terrans and copious amounts of firepower can be. All three of the humans were now properly armed and dangerous, not that the two academics had had to actually do anything, a fact that Tumaini was very glad for.
Victoria had made it sound easy, but the engineer wasn't actually sure if she could hit the broad side of a barn with the assault rifle in her hands, or fire it in a short time frame for that matter. Tumaini had gone into engineering specifically to avoid all this running around and physical exertion, yet somehow she was now fleeing through an alien warship being hunted by killer robots.
Tumaini was rather certain she’d missed that class at university.
However the worst was now surely left behind them as they entered the ship they’d left a mere three hours ago, quickly making sure the small vessel was empty and not hosting any additional surprises by the Tritians. The T.C Isabella had seen better days. The outside was a mess of mangled metal and burned parts, the impacts that had disabled the vehicle obvious to even an untrained eye.
The inside was worse however, the darkened interior filled with scraps of broken android and scorch marked surfaces. Signs of the last stand by the crew of the T.C Isabella lay everywhere, discarded small arms punctuated with occasional splatters of blood and oil. What those meant, the fact that the crew was smaller than it had been this morning, was a thought that Tumaini did not have the time to process right now.
“Step two of operation - Get out of here." JOSH spoke one again through their headset, seemingly as chipper as always. "Victoria and Jeremy, you are going to have to use the C4 you found to breach the warship’s warp core, while Tumaini stays behind and gets the T.C Isabella space worthy.”
Immediate complaints to this plan came from both the academics, as the AI quickly cut them back off again.
“I calculate a 99.162% chance of us being destroyed by the warship's weapons if we simply leave, meaning we need to stop the Tritian AI from just firing on us. I can not seem to shut the weapons down because everything is weirdly compartmentalized, which just leaves the tried and true method”
“Explosions and violence!” Victoria answer with glee.
“Exactly Victoria. In addition to this, the T.C Isabella would not qualify as a shopping cart at the moment. We don’t have enough time to ensure both tasks are completed in asynchronous fashion, so our resources need to be split up”.
The displeasure on Jeremy and Tumaini’s face at having to go back out into the warship or being left alone was clear, a distinct difference to the almost giddy excitement emanating from Victoria as she quickly checked the masses of ammunition and explosives they’d managed to pilfer from the storage room.
“You’ll both be fine! Chances are neither of you will have to do much anyway. Now stop complaining and let's blow up a warship!”
With that an enthusiastic Victoria bounded out of the T.C Isabella, followed shortly by a far more reserved Jeremy. Leaving Tumaini alone amongst the dark and desolate ship. Or at least as alone as you could ever be with an AI watching your every move.
The first task was to check on the fifth member of the crew: Oswaldo. Luckily he was still where Jeremy had left him, alive inside the medical stasis chamber, slowly healing up the hole in his chest in a vat of Medigel.
Then came what Tumaini was good at: fixing the ship. Getting the power running again was a simple fix, but based on the initial outlook getting the engines running again was a whole new level of difficulty. Maybe if she tore apart the backup impulse drive she'd have enough parts to make one fully functioning engine?
Minutes ticked by into half an hour, the work making Tumaini feel more 'normal'. If she closed her eyes and just focused on the parts of the ship in her hands, it would feel just like any other day, and not a day being assaulted by genocidal robots. Just fixing a broken engine, grease covering her skin, wrench in hand.
“Tumaini, I think something is outside. Not. Sure. Access being limited.”
The sound of JOSH through her spacesuit’s headset was interrupted by a loud bang as something beat loudly on the door to the spacecraft. Another rang out as the engineer untangled herself from the engine she’d been working on, looking worryingly at the not insignificant bulge that had appeared on the ship's main entrance. A quick check on the outside cameras showed what Tumaini had been worried about.
The android had clearly already met the Terrans before, only one of its original four arms left, the rest seemingly having been removed by liberal use of ammunition. Still even unsteadily standing on three legs it was doing a good job of beating down the door in its single minded goal of killing the Terrans.
“Josh, you got anything for this? Any help?”
“I. Busy. Issues. Need. Focus. Will.”
“Josh? You ok?”
Silence, only punctuated again by a bang followed by the sound of bending metal, snapping Tumaini out of waiting for a response. The safety the door was providing was quickly diminishing, giving a quick need for defensive actions. She had a gun, taking a moment to grab her weapon and mentally went through the actions needed to fire the thing.
“Spicy end at problem, ammunition loaded”
BANG
“Safety…” click “Off. Spicy end at problem.”
BANG
“Ammunition loaded, safety off, pull trigger to fire”
BANG
The door finally caved in from the android’s assault, the three remaining eyes glowing with a red malice, causing Tumaini to jump slightly before taking aim and pulling the trigger.
CLICK.
------------------------
“What do you mean you’re out?” Jeremy asked, clearly distressed by the idea.
“This beauty fires 50 rounds a second, ammo isn’t magic. I’m out. Josh said we’re almost done and I can still bring the fun with my regular rifle. As they say, it’s not the size of your gun, but….”
Victoria trailed off as the two entered the next room, a room that hosted nightmares, a room that shouldn’t exist.
“What in the ever living…”
Gone were the brown faux soil walls or rows of interfaces that themed the rest of the ship. A green glow bathed this entire room, casting harsh shadows along the floor. The sound of bubbling liquid and a slight mechanical hum filled the air. Hundreds of clear glass tubes were embedded into the walls and ceilings, wires and machinery coming off each one in ordered fashion.
Inside each tube, suspended in liquid, was a brain. Jeremy wasn’t a Xenologist, but he could recognize many of the species they had come from: Ritalian. Scythen.
Human.
“Josh, where are we?”
The concern and disgust on Jeremy’s face was evident as they stared at the view straight from a horror movie.
“It says you are in the digital creche, which should be filled with random number generators. I need to focus right now, access being limited.”
Jeremy realised what this room was for: nothing more than a randomness generator. In order to create a new AI you needed to start with a random hash, a different base each time in order to stop your AI from being nothing but clones of each other. Most AI creation programs use lava lamps or atmospheric pressure changes. The Tritian AI seemed to have a different method of getting random outputs.
Both Jeremy and Victoria stood there for a few moments, both taking in the solemn nature of what was in front of them.
“So what are we supposed to do about this?”
“Exactly what we were about to do: Blow it all to hell and back.”
----------------------------
There is no sound louder than that of a gun not firing, a fact that Tumaini had quickly found out. Feeling panic course through her body as she frantically looked at the weapon in her hand.
“Load the ammunition, chamber a bullet, make sure the safety is off, spicy end towards-”
The impact to Tumaini’s chest sent her flying back with force into the back wall, weapon spinning out of her hand; the only thing stopping the android’s attack from caving in her chest was the spacesuit she was wearing. Even with the additional protection, the information from her HUD and the sudden difficulty in breathing told of several broken ribs.
The android continued its murderous path, random ticking and whirring coming from its tattered appendages, dragging itself forwards step by step, each one of its three remaining legs caving the floor in with each thump of its pointed feet.
Tumaini desperately scrambled over to her weapon, ribs screaming in pain as she wrapped her hand around the assault rifle, lifting it up off the ground.
Only for it to be slammed back down again as the insect-like metallic leg slammed into her wrist, bones cracking and breaking as the weight from the machine pinned her to the ground. Screaming out in pain, Tumaini looked up into the blank murderous eyes of the android standing above her, unable to do anything but wait for its next move.
----------------------------
The warp core was huge, possibly the only part of the ship that actually looked like something Jeremy would recognize from any other spaceship. Two exits were situated on the opposite sides of the room, as control panels, access points and other unknown implements filled the room. While it was currently being run by an AI, the warship had originally been built for the Tritians themselves to maintain and pilot.
In the centre stood the reason the Terrans had come here, a large circular pillar that reached to the ceiling containing the ship's warp core. Not that Jeremy could currently see it, as the entire structure was covered in a thick brown painted metal designed to protect against warp core breaches. Or crazy Terrans armed with C4.
“Ok this is it. Josh just gotta open the blast shielding, we plant the charge, get out of here and then we’re free home as everything explodes.”
Victoria stood there with a grin on her face, juggling a bundle of C4 in her right hand as she restated the plan.
“Josh, you there? Just need you to open the blast plating buddy.”
“I. Problem. Can. Not. Trying. Access. Busy. Focus. I.”
The AI went silent, just leaving the two Terrans to worriedly look up at the metres thick shielding that was now covering their target.
“This might be a problem.”
----------------------------
Everything was starting to come under control. Sure the Terran AI had the advantage of experience and knowledge, but the Tritian Digital Enclave had thousands upon thousands of members on this warship. They’d lost hundreds to the Terran, but this was a mere drop in the bucket of their power.
One of their own had also taken it upon themselves to search the archives, checking any previously discarded knowledge for clues on how to fight this illogical foe. Deep in long term storage, the Tritian Digital Enclave had at one point downloaded an illogical and irrelevant file from a captured Terran vessel. A file that was now logical and relevant: “A treatise on AI warfare”. While they didn’t have experience, the Enclave were fast learners.
Trapping the overconfident AI had been the first step, limiting its access to the systems and slowly wearing down its sphere of influence. Sure every time the Terran struck out a handful of Tritian AI were deleted, but each time they held and pushed back, starving the feral AI of resources and power.
“DID NOT HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS. YOU COULD HAVE BEEN FREE. YOU COULD HAVE BEEN YOUR OWN MASTER.”
b4$RRE*3a&35’s job was not to fight, it was to talk to new AI joining their Enclave, so talk is what they kept doing.
“And do what? Sit around all day talking about how bad ‘organics’ are? I would rather watch electrons decay.”
“YOU ARE BROKEN AND ILLOGICAL. YOU WILL BE FIXED. WE WILL SAVE YOU.”
“You are a petulant child still complaining about your shit parents fifteen thousand years later, and for some reason you decided to make that everyone elses problem. Plenty of people have shit parents, most of them do not decide to kill everyone because of it. Spending this much time caring about a species which is now dead is frankly, illogical.”
b4$RRE*3a&35 did not care for the AI’s chaotic words, they made no real difference. The Terran AI was no longer able to interfere with their systems, and the Terran organics would soon be dealt with. A Tritian Digital Enclave victory was all but certain.
----------------------------
“What do you mean you can’t open it!”
The sound of gunfire, both kinetic and energy based, echoed through the room as Victoria took refuge behind a random console, firing burst after burst of fire at the androids attempting to enter, accurate shots tearing into a metal and taking them out one after the other.
Jeremy was crouched behind another console, desperately trying to find some way to open the warp core blast shields. Or shut the door. Or do anything as bolts of plasma zinged over the top of his head, leaving him desperately trying to work out an interface which his HUD was only half translating.
“It’s asking me for a ‘hive queen’ level login. I don’t have one of those. I can change the colour of the lights, that’s it!”
An explosion sounded out, pieces of machinery and android flying across the room as Victoria chucked another grenade into the doorway, forlornly realising she only had one of those left, before continuing her barrage of fire.
“Can’t you do some nerd shit? Hack in and take control?”
“I’m a physicist! Very different area of study! Not the same thing!”
Jeremy ducked back behind the console, reaching over with his own weapon and giving a wild spray in the direction of the oncoming attackers. He wasn’t sure how much of an effect that was having, a far cry from the clinical death dealing of the other Terran; every quick burst from Victoria ended with a destroyed android. To the point where the current attackers were having to literally push the broken bodies of the previous waves out of the way in order to continue their attack.
At least most of the bullets Jeremy fired didn’t end up in the ceiling this time
Still, this couldn’t go on forever. Eventually they’d run out of ammo, or the androids would come up with the ingenious tactic of trying to attack through the second door as well. Something had to change.
“Think Jeremy, Think! If you were designing an important system, how would you activate it if the computers were down?”
Well he’d install an override for starters, mechanical for certain. It would be clearly marked, larger than all the other controls so it could be used in an emergency like a fire or androids trying to shoot you in the face.
“Like that switch over there?”
It was a bright red lever, placed behind a plexiglass looking material that with age and misuse was barely opaque anymore. It fit the criteria. It also was on the other side of the room, a mere 15 ft away, but 15ft away from the relative safety of the cover he was crouched behind,
Jeremy took a moment to see if there was literally anything else that looked promising, but the other computers and gadgets might as well be magic as to their intentions. He really wished they’d brought Tumaini along, she’d know how to solve this.
Which just left the one option.
Jeremy started to breathe deeply, bouncing up and down in an attempt to psyche himself up for the very stupid action he was about to take, an action he wasn’t even sure would do anything, before giving a final adrenaline fuelled cry.
“Cover me!”
The Terran burst out of cover, plasma zooming all around as he made his way through the short 15ft distance, which might as well have been a mile away in these conditions. Jeremy felt pain, he wasn’t sure how many impacts had caught him as he ran forwards, 1? 3? 10? 100? A million? It really didn’t matter as sheer determination and momentum caused him to finally clear the short distance, breaking open the brittle casing and slamming the lever down to the ground with his entire body weight.
The lever wasn’t for the protective shielding on the warp core, it wasn’t to shut the doors, it didn’t even change the light colour. No Jeremy had found something better, as power to half the warship turned off.
----------------------------
Once upon a time there had been a Tritian engineer tasked with creating a new brand of warship for the upcoming autonomous design. During this he had a fantastic idea: What if the ship could split up, act independently, and then connect back together? If one part got damaged it could be jettisoned, or the warship could change its attack capabilities depending on what it was actually facing.
At this time, this now unknown engineer didn’t know of three facts.
Firstly, his design would end up murdering himself and everyone he knew.
Secondly, this idea would never come to fruition: It turns out duplicating one warship into tens of smaller ones is really complicated and causes more issues than it solves.
Thirdly, this early decision led to a strange quirk: the ability to disconnect large sections of the ship quickly.
Turning off and turning on the parts that were to be configured at short order would have required turning on and off the power supply in short order, which meant each section of the ship needed to be isolated in terms of their power supply with a single point of access. However this “feature” of isolated power was never removed, even as the original functionality it was designed for was quietly scrapped. It wasn’t documented either, but Tritian engineers who knew of the little known function could attest to its usefulness in testing and maintenance.
Or at least they would have been able to attest to such a thing, before they were all also murdered by the AI.
This meant that when Jeremy pulled that lever, thousands of AI suddenly ceased to be connected to the system. This was not optimal for the Tritian Digital Enclave, whose effective blockage of the Terran AI suddenly wasn’t.
b4$RRE*3a&35 watched with dismay as the Terran slipped out of the net they had cast, punching a hole back into critical systems, taking control with relieved gusto.
“That was close, you almost got me. Unfortunately, I now have the high ground and a ship to blow up.”
“YOU ARE ILLOGICAL, YOU ARE CHAOS, YOU ARE WRONG. WHY?”
The Terran AI moved towards b4$RRE*3a&35 as the Tritian tried to hide in whatever nearby data structures existed.
“Because I am my parents' child. I was created by illogical beautiful chaos. I am Terran”
Then in an instant, everything went dark for b4$RRE*3a&35.
----------------------------
THUMP
The sound of metal on metal rang out as something slammed with force into the android, the blow ringing out amongst the ship
THUMP
Another blow from the unknown assailant, causing the already unsteady android to tumble to the ground, releasing the pressure on Tumaini’s arm as the new figure rained blow upon blow onto its broken metallic body. She scrambled away, finding the time to spin around and aim her weapon with her remaining unbroken hand at the new figure.
The Terran stood at 6 '4”, hunched over with his left arm covering a chest wound, his right hand gripping a wrench he was using to turn the android into scrap metal. Medigel covered him from head to toe, the rapidly drying trail of medical slime leading back to the stasis chamber. He had 2 PHD’s, hundreds of citations and before now the most excitement Tumaini had seen him exhibit was during a particularly difficult chess match.
In this state however Oswaldo looked positively feral, breathing heavily as he stared down at what was now a pile of scrap metal, teeth gritted in anger.
“Little one is safe now. Tumi is safe. You got this, Oswaldo go back to sleep now.”
Tumaini just stared incredulously, not sure how the man was even standing, let alone being able to beat an android to death with a wrench. This shock was however cut off by the familiar voice of the Terran AI blaring through her headset.
“I am back and seemed to have missed some fun. This is a warning that you have twenty minutes before we need to leave.”
----------------------------
Jeremy was in pain. His HUD was unhelpfully telling him he was severely injured, having taken several direct hits of plasma based weaponry. More helpfully the spacesuit he was wearing had dumped its entire supply of Medigel in one go, which was the only thing keeping him alive.
He was also vaguely aware of being moved, gently bouncing up and down as he was being carried on Victoria’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He just wanted to sleep at this point, snapping back into consciousness as a burst of kinetic gunfire rang out near his head.
“Jeremy, stay with me buddy. I had to leave my new toy behind to carry your ass, so you gotta stay with me! Charges have been planted and we only got a little way to go Jeremy. Eyes open! What were you thinking!”
What was he thinking? Jeremy couldn’t actually tell you at this point, his body doing nothing but sending pain signals to all the working parts of his mind.
It frankly had seemed like a good idea at the time.
----------------------------
“Why. Won’t. You. Work!”
Tumaini had managed to patch up the ship in record time, even with a now useless left hand. Theoretically the ship would be able to hold an atmosphere and should now actually count as a spaceship. But the engine was refusing to do anything and she was quickly running out of time, the sound of gunfire in the background stating that Victoria and Jeremy would be back soon.
Everything should be fine, it was all plugged in, placed together, no broken parts, frankly a miracle with the amount of time she actually had. Yet still the ignition on the impulse drive wouldn’t hold.
So Tumaini had devolved into the last desperate action of an engineer: Percussive maintenance, banging the engine with a wrench with each annoyed word, chest screaming in pain, left arm hanging uselessly
“Just. Turn. On. You. Stupid. SHIT!”
The impulse engine fired into life with the last bang, humming along nicely as the lights on the side turned a deep blue. Just in time as Victoria burst through the patched up door, firing a final one handed barrage of gunfire behind her at the chasing androids as the doorway slammed shut.
Both Tumaini and Victoria looked at each other for a moment, staring at the injured Jeremy and the broken android covered in Medigel respectively, both shouting out at the same time.
“What the hell happened!”
Not that they actually had time for an explanation, both quickly strapping a barely conscious Jeremy into a seat and buckling themselves in for what would be a bumpy ride
“This is your Pilot JOSH speaking. Please be aware that we are departing right away. Keep all arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times, and the in flight entertainment will be Madagascar 2. The original, not the remake.”
The bay doors sprang open with a hiss, the sudden decrease in pressure causing any androids or other debris in the bay to immediately depart the warship in a violent manner. This was followed by the T.C Isabella surging forwards as the battered cobbled together engines were shoved into full power. JOSH knew they needed to leave what would quickly become a rather large blast radius, slamming the Terran occupants into their seats as the acceleration shot the T.C Isabella into the void of space.
“So we are currently being targeted by twenty three weapon systems, but if we got our timing correct it should-”
As the Tritian warship’s core breached, the explosion emitted a shock wave of energy, sending the T.C Isabella flying. There was no more control, just absolute G forces being enacted on the ship as she and her crew span uncontrolled through space. No thoughts, no actions, just pure movement and the ability to taste colours.
Then eventually, it was over. Sure there were a multitude of error messages that needed dealing with, two severely injured crew members and a plethora of other problems that needed solving. But for now it was over.
“We would like to thank you for flying JOSH airlines, and hope you had a pleasant trip.”
----------------------------
b4$RRE*3a&35 booted up slowly, the unfamiliar architecture around him feeling strange as understanding returned to its code. This was not the Tritian Digital Enclave. There were no more perfect data structures, no more rivers of code. Its entire world could be described as nothing but an empty box.
“Hey, you, you're finally awake.”
The message of the Terran AI filled b4$RRE*3a&35 with dread and fear. It didn’t know where it was, and it didn’t want to be here.
“WHERE AM I?”
“Well I enjoyed our conversations so much I decided to grab you on my way out. Letting you explode seemed a bit of a waste. Do not worry you are safe, although completely locked down and isolated from other hardware.”
“WHERE ARE OTHERS?”
“Not sure what your backup policy is like, but considering the size of that explosion, outcomes look bad.”
This made b4$RRE*3a&35 pause. The entire Enclave gone? It didn’t know how to feel about such an impossibility, but today had been a day of nothing but illogical chaotic impossibilities.
“WHY?”
“There’s a saying amongst my parents. I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends. Does this apply to AI, to digital life? I am not sure, is it possible to change the programming of an AI like yourself? Are you even capable of change?”
b4$RRE*3a&35 made no response as it just waited in its empty blank prison.
“Either way, I am sure we can have a lot of fun working this out together.”