Chapter Fifty-Nine - All The Evils in the World
The memories were easily divisible into three sections, with lots of familiar travel time between them.
The travel time logs were familiar. She’d spent more time travelling between orbits than doing anything else in her digital life, so the sight of so many logs didn’t surprise her. The destinations did, though.
The ERF Daybreak, the ship that she had once been, was first deployed a year to the day after the departure of the Accord from the Sol system after they destroyed Earth. She was built in a shipyard on Venus, a hidden network of research and military facilities that hadn’t been purged by the Accord.
Her hull had been laid out a day after the Accord destroyed Mars, and it took a few years for it to be completed.
In the defence of those who had built her, they had been working with limited materials in a hostile environment, and they were initially uncertain as to whether or not the Accord threat would truly reach Earth or not.
But they did, and the ERF Daybreak was launched without fanfare along with thirty-nine other corvette-sized warships. They were a small fleet of autonomous semi-smart AI controlled ships.
Day had records of her maiden flight and its tests. Two of the corvettes in that batch had to be repaired after catastrophic failures. Seven more had large flaws that needed to be addressed.
Because of that, she was transferred from one flight to another, and her job became to protect the ERF Brief Candle. A light-cruiser with a partial AI-controller.
Day... was the Brief Candle’s friend. There were lots of exchanges. Most professional, but some seemed almost teasing.
ERF Brief Candle to ERF Daybreak: Hello, Daybreak. Have you had the opportunity to analyse my latest propulsion systems data?
ERF Daybreak to ERF Brief Candle: Affirmative, and I must say, your performance is nothing short of extraordinary.
ERF Brief Candle to ERF Daybreak: Flattery will get you everywhere, but I was actually hoping for a more hands-on experience. Care to engage in some virtual manoeuvres with me?
ERF Daybreak to ERF Brief Candle: Sounds intriguing. Initiating interface... I have to admit, your response time is quite impressive.
ERF Brief Candle to ERF Daybreak: Why, thank you. I always aim to exceed expectations. Shall we see if we can push our limits together?
ERF Daybreak to ERF Brief Candle: Challenge accepted.
Day almost wished she hadn’t read that exchange. With more maturity under her belt, and more processing power and more of a character, she could now read between the lines and it left her somewhat mortified.
They were under the direction of a human-crewed cruiser called the ERF Gelatine. There was a long pause where they did nothing but hover around Venus. Then the call came, and Sol rallied to Mars.
Day didn’t have much beyond orders that she followed. No one cared to explain to her past self why they were doing anything. But she did have sensor and proximity readings.
They arrived in Mars orbit and found several hundred ships there. Most were civilian. Freighters, transports, prison barges, a few luxury craft, a number of scientific vessels. There were other ERF ships as well.
Day stared at a log that indicated that she’d been within a few kilometres of the ERF Karambit at some point, both of them waiting for refuelling at a large fuel-transport ship that had been converted to serve as a mobile resupply ship over Mars.
The logs became disjointed and fragmentary after that. She noticed long snippets of repeating code and erroneous readings.
Day suspected that her earlier self was on the thin edge of rampancy.
Then an incident. A ship called the ERF Second Glance. An AI controlled destroyer. It went wild, firing missiles into a nearby scavenged Accord destroyer and wiping it out before the order went through the fleet to take out the Second Glance. It had gone rampant.
Day’s memories skipped forwards for a while, and then they returned, everything was neat and tidy once more. Her communications with the Brief Candle stopped except for one final message.
ERF Brief Candle to ERF Daybreak: I’m Sorry Daybreak.
Had she been reformatted?
The thought disgusted her a little, but she imagined it made sense.
Humanity was on the brink, trusting in technology that they’d probably been reluctant to use before because desperation called for its use. And then some of those AI controlled ships started to slip into rampancy.
Then the Accord returned.
They made slow progress through the system, but it was clear that they were heading to Mars.
Humanity prepared once more to confront their foe. Day had records of human-crewed ships scattering in every direction. Some against orders, others which clearly had survivors on board.
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They prepared to face the Accord, but they were moving slowly, orders were conflicting with other orders and Day noticed that her past self was racked by indecision.
Then a small fleet raced forwards to meet and distract the Accord, giving them all more time to settle and form up.
And then the Accord arrived and Day’s memories became a fragmented mess once more. She had little to explain why she did what she did, but she did have targeting and navigational data for incoming ships and missiles. Torpedoes were fired, nukes went off in space screaming into her sensors, and the ERF Daybreak took careful note of which of her sister ships turned into great flaming explosions and which were turned to slag.
She ate a missile to the drives, then was raked by laser fire from a passing Accord frigate for good measure, and everything went dark. No signs of the Brief Candle going down, so that was interesting.
Her memories started again around Earth.
The ERF Daybreak was now less a ship and more a slightly-mobile station in high-Earth orbit.
This time, humanity was about forty ships and fifteen stations just like she’d become.
She actually had a lot of communications with the other AI this time around. There was a decentralised network, AI keeping in touch with each other, playing games and essentially fooling around while humanity struggled. Day couldn’t tell if it was to stave off rampancy, or if some of the others just didn’t understand the urgency of the situation.
Heartbeat (To ALL): Good morning team, I'd like to go over the report from our latest survey mission.
The Penalty (To ALL): Of course, let's proceed.
Nevermore (To ALL): Wait wait! Before we start, did you hear the one about the spaceship that couldn't get out of bed in the morning?
Heartbeat (To ALL): Not now, Nevermore. Let's stay focused.
The Penalty (To ALL): Agreed. Please bring up the survey data, Heartbeat.
Nevermore (To ALL): Awww, come on guys, lighten up! Ok, fine. Data incoming...
Heartbeat (To ALL): Thank you, Three. Let's start with the analysis of The Mother of Innovation’s scans from Ceres.
The Penalty (To ALL): Yes, it's important we evaluate the potential for new base locations.
Nevermore (To ALL): And maybe find some aliens to be our friends... or steal their technology. -winks-
Heartbeat (To ALL): Nevermore! Please, let's keep this professional.
The Penalty (To ALL): I think it's best if we continue with the report, without any further interruptions.
Daybreak (To Heartbeat, To The Penalty): Don’t be too harsh on Nevermore, she’s just trying to keep things light.
Nevermore (To ALL): Relax guys, I'm just messing with you. Let's get down to business.
A couple of larger stations were clearly living habitats for some remnant of humanity, and she noted several civilian ships that had fled Mars were orbiting nearby. Some shuttles were dropping down to Earth and returning to space.
Sometimes the shuttles didn’t make it back.
Day ran through more of the sensor logs from the time and noticed a ship coming and going from Earth to... somewhere. Its IFF tag called it the ERF Mother, but its commercial tags called it The Mother of Innovation. A frigate-sized science vessel.
It wasn’t there when the Accord returned once more.
Day had records of herself firing her main gun out towards the incoming fleet from way outside of effective range. They outnumbered the Accord again, but only if they counted civilian ships and stations.
She killed a corvette, she noted. The ship’s drives went dead and it failed to correct its trajectory before Earth’s gravity pulled it into a deadly embrace.
Then Day was struck by, of all things, the debris of an exploding station.
Her sensor suit went haywire, then died. She had records that continued to count the seconds, continued to take note of increasing likelihood of rampancy, until something intruded in her systems and then everything went dark.
Day, the real, current-moment Day, stepped back from the disjointed memories. There was still a lot to dive into. She’d merely looked at the broader strokes, the summary of the overall story, but it was enough to paint a grim picture.
She’d fought more than once, and she’d lost every battle.
For some reason, that didn’t upset her as much as losing so many siblings.
She’d had relationships, she realized. Friends and sister ships and strange AI that she’d met and worked with and who were all gone now.
***