DEVASTATOR

AI FLEET BOOK 2

Isaac Hooke

For my Mother

My greatest, most devoted fan.

1938 - 2018

Contents

Books by Isaac Hooke

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Afterword

About the Author

Acknowledgments

In Closing

Copyright © 2018 by Isaac Hooke

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

www.IsaacHooke.com

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He Who Crosses Death

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They Have Wakened Death

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1

Jain stared at the swirling mass of glowing clouds, a maelstrom that threatened to devour everything in its path.

“What the hell is it?” he asked, not taking his eyes away from the camera feed.

“A freak event,” Xander said. The dark-robed man stood beside Jain on the virtual bridge. He was Jain’s Accompanying AI, or Accomp, an independent partition of Jain’s neural network that helped him operate the Talos—the starship Jain’s mind was embedded in. “A type of solar storm: all three stars have erupted in solar flares at nearly the same time, and the interactions between those flares—the friction produced by the opposing plasmas—has caused this swirling mass. It’s basically a once in a lifetime occurrence.”

“Well, this once in a lifetime occurrence of yours threatens everything we’ve built over the past ten years,” Jain said.

“Maybe Sheila’s energy shield can hold it off,” Medeia said from her station on the virtual bridge. She was the captain of the Arcane, a vessel with cloaking capabilities. She dressed like a witch in that black cloak and wide-brimmed, pointed hat of hers. “If she positions her vessel in front of Anne, and we line up in a row behind her…”

“No,” Xander said. “Nothing will hold this back.”

“Could Mark redirect the plasma flow with a few black holes?” Jain asked.

“The event horizons will be too weak to capture all of the incoming energy,” Xander said. “We’d have to create so many black holes, with a pull so strong, that our own ships would be devoured in the process.”

“Well that’s no good…” Jain said.

“No,” Xander agreed. “Our only hope is to relocate ourselves and Anne to the far side of the planet.”

Jain ran a quick calculation. “I think we can do it. I’m bringing Anne’s lat thrusters online.”

Jain remoted into the computer system of Anne—the orbital base. He fired the lateral thrusters and switched to his external cameras to watch the advance. The base began to move, slowly. She looked like two gray bicycle tires tilted at angles to one another and sharing a common axis, to which they were connected with spokes. The circular segments revolved around that axis, but also moved up and down in a seesaw pattern, causing them to regularly overlap and appear as a single tire.

As she continued to accelerate, Anne broke away from the frameworks in orbit next to her: those were the various shipyards Anne and Sheila had used to construct the fleet. They contained the skeletal husks of three vessels whose progress had only just begun.

“It’s too bad we can’t save the shipyards, too,” Gavin said from his station. As usual, he was attired in an outfit that consisted of white captain’s formalwear. He commanded the Hippogriff, a ship that could produce an expanding shockwave, as well as launch three drones to form energy fields that could be used for offense and defense.

“They’ll have to be abandoned.” Jain kept his eye on the tactical display, watching as the storm rapidly approached.

Sheila shook her head, and her hoop earrings jingled back and forth. “She’s not moving fast enough.” Sheila was the captain of the Wheelbarrow, the fleet’s builder ship.

Jain stared at the display a moment longer, then nodded slowly.

“All right, we’re going to have tow her,” he said. “Void Warriors, assume haul positions!”

The twenty-four starships of the fleet maneuvered in front of Anne and matched her current heading and acceleration. The shipyards had constructed eighteen of those ships, which were operated by autonomous AI cores, while the remaining six were part of the original fleet that had first jumped to the system. Jain and the others were installed into the AI cores of those original ships, one per vessel. They were what was known as Mind Refurbs—humans whose minds had been scanned and installed into artificial neural networks.

It was an odd feeling, knowing that your body was a warship. Virtual Reality helped ground his consciousness in a more familiar setting, but that was all an illusion. He could still feel physical blows when projectiles drilled into his hull; he could sense the pull on his extremities when the competing forces tugged at his frame while close to extreme sources of gravity, such as gas giants. So, while VR might mask reality, there was no way to hide from it fully.

Jain directly operated three of the autonomous starships, the Crater, Peltast, and Warwolf, while the other five Mind Refurbs also controlled three each. The autonomous ships were essentially Piranha Class vessels, vast frameworks of engines, power couplers and heat distribution systems that served solely as delivery vehicles for the weapons installed aboard. Those weapons were the same as the original six warships, minus any alien weaponry. These included starboard- and port-facing “raptor” lasers, sixteen per side; dorsal- and ventral-facing “stinger” railguns, four per side; and three dorsal-facing “hellraiser” missile launchers.

“Stopping rotations,” Jain said when all the vessels were in position.

He still had his remote connection to the base and disengaged the motive subroutines. On the external video feed, the two circular components of Anne ceased all internal motion. The lateral thrusters continued to fire, however, adding to the structure’s momentum.

“Fire grappling hooks,” Jain ordered.

The twenty-four vessels fired their grappling hooks in turn and latched onto the outer rims of the base.

When that was done, Jain said: “All right, let’s get her moved behind Cygnet.”

Jain accelerated the Talos, and instructed his Direct Reports—the three ships directly under his command—to do likewise. The other Mind Refurbs also gave out their silent orders so that all twenty-four hauled the base toward the far side of the planet they called Cygnet.

“What about our planet-side horticulture experiment?” Sheila asked.

“Nothing we can do about it now,” Jain replied.

The twenty-four ships of the fleet accelerated away from the incoming calamity. On Jain’s tactical display, the storm front was represented as a three-dimensional expanding wave that headed toward the sphere that was Cygnet. The fleet and the base were blue dots in orbit above that sphere.

“We’re still not going to make it…” Cranston said. About five years ago he had stopped wearing a standard uniform like Jain, instead opting for a casual T-shirt and cargo pants. He had a very controlled and reserved way of moving, appearing calm, yet poised to strike. A little like a snake. That suited the man, as he was former spec ops. Like Jain himself. He commanded the Forebode, which was equipped with a micro machine swarm, and a teleportation device.

“We will,” Jain said. “Faster. I want emergency speed.”

“The engines are already strained close to their maximum output, thanks to the mass we’re hauling,” Xander said. “Emergency speed will only worsen the potential damage.”

Jain thought of everything that was aboard the base. The labs containing the different gene splicing techniques they’d used to develop plants that could survive the hostile environment of the planet below, using seeds taken from another world in the hopes of terraforming Cygnet into something more like home. Other labs were responsible for weapons and technology research.

Anne was loaded with hundreds of extra 3D printers, and essentially acted as a second builder ship to Sheila’s Wheelbarrow. In fact, Sheila had moved several of her own 3D printers aboard, because she spent most of her days remotely interfaced with Anne anyway, overseeing all the projects under development.

“Do it,” Jain said. It was worth blowing a few engines to save all that. It was easier to repair a few engines than to rebuild an entire base.

Jain studied his display. It still wasn’t going to be enough. It was taking too long to increase Anne’s velocity. If he wanted to save the fleet, he was going to have to abandon that base.

“Release grappling hooks,” Jain ordered.

“No!” Sheila said. “Just a little longer. Please… we can make it. I know we can.”

“I’m sorry, Sheila,” Jain said. “We’re not going to survive. We have to jettison Anne. Void Warriors, release your grappling hooks. All speed forward. To the far side!”

Jain released the base, and instructed the other ships under his command to likewise jettison their grapplers. On the tactical display, the fleet began to move away from Anne.

All except four ships. The Wheelbarrow, and the other three under Sheila’s control.

“What are you doing?” Jain asked.

“I can’t let it go,” Sheila said. “This is my life’s work.”

“Damn it,” Jain said. “If you don’t release your grappling hooks, we’ll cut them away!”

Sheila didn’t answer.

Jain glanced at Xander. “Target the Wheelbarrow’s grappling hooks, and those of her Direct Reports, with the raptors.”

“Ready,” Xander said.

Jain glanced at Sheila. She met his eyes defiantly. “If you do this—”

“Fire,” Jain ordered.

The eight grappling hooks from the four ships severed as the starboard laser banks of the Talos unloaded. At such close range, only one quick pulse from each laser was required.

Sheila slumped. Her ships accelerated away from Anne now that they were freed from the load.

A few moments later the storm front hit the base, engulfing it. Jain and the others vanished over the horizon, followed by Sheila and her attendant vessels. In the rear, Sheila was hit by the storm, but she activated her shield, and it protected her until she was able to duck past the planet’s protective curvature.

Jain exhaled in relief.

He waited until the storm was well away from the planet before he said: “Xander, launch a telemetry probe. I want a bead on Anne. Let’s see what’s left of her.”

The telemetry probe launched, and a few minutes later the debris of the base filled his view screen. There wasn’t much left but a bunch of space dust.

“Not pretty,” Mark said. He wore a blue robe covered in stars and hieroglyphs, and looked like some modern day warlock to Medeia’s witch. His ship was the Grunt, equipped with a black hole weapon.

“What about my surface-side plants?” Sheila said.

“Sorry,” Xander reported. “The plants were on the far hemisphere when the storm hit.”

“I know that!” Sheila said.

“Er, yes,” Xander said. “Well, they did not survive. Nor did the planet’s ozone layer—the storm ionized the upper atmosphere. The surface will be bombarded with ultraviolet radiation for the next few years.”

Sheila rubbed her forehead.

“Join me,” Jain told her forcefully.

She looked up and reluctantly met his gaze. Then she gave him a barely perceptible nod.

Jain logged out of his current VR, and switched to the environment of his private office. He was seated behind a large, ornately carved oak desk. A simple chair resided in front of it.

Sheila appeared a moment later.

Jain pointed at the chair. “Sit.”

She sat down, and stared at her hands, which she held folded in her lap in front of her.

“What happened out there?” Jain said.

She shook her head slightly. “I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you made a mistake all right,” Jain said. “It almost cost you your life.”

“You have backups,” Sheila said. “You all carry copies of my latest mind images. You can restore me.”

“Can we?” he said. “And what about your ship? Without the base, you’re the only builder we have. You know how long it would have taken us to build a shipyard from scratch, using only the 3D printers we have aboard?”

“A long time…” Sheila admitted.

“Yeah, more than a long time.” Jain leaned forward. “Do I have to worry about you ignoring, or even subverting my orders, going forward?”

Sheila hesitated. “Have I ever gone against your orders before?”

“No,” Jain said. “But that wasn’t the question.”

She finally looked up, and met his eyes. There was no defiance present, not anymore. Only defeat. Shear and utter. Jain felt sorry for her.

It had to be done.

“You don’t have to worry about me subverting your orders,” Sheila said flatly. “And I apologize for doing it in the first place.” She looked down at her hands again. “I just… that base was the culmination of ten years of work.”

He sat back, sighed, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples. “The loss of that base hits everyone hard. The weapon prototypes, the bioweapon designs, all gone. You’re not the only one with ten years invested in that base.”

“No,” Sheila said. “But I looked at Anne as an extension of myself. I never told you, but I was working on a neural net to replace her autonomous AI core. I eventually planned to install a copy of myself in the unit. That way, if we ever left this system, a part of me could stay here and continue my research. Now, that’ll never happen.”

“We’ll rebuild, of course,” Jain said. “So it will happen. At some point.”

“I suppose,” Sheila said. She sighed again, and sat back, blinking rapidly. “She wasn’t just an extension of myself… it almost feels like I’ve lost a child.”

“No,” Jain said. “Don’t go there. That’s a dark place. It was machine. Don’t you torture yourself by thinking otherwise.”

Sheila raised her chin. “But I nurtured that base. Built and programmed it from scratch. Constantly adjusted its algorithms. I even made the mistake of giving it a name.”

“We’ll rebuild,” Jain said more forcefully. “Just like we would any other machine.”

She nodded weakly. “And aren’t we mere machines?”

“We’re different,” Jain said. “We’re thinking. Conscious.”

She stared at him, and then blinked. “So we’ll rebuild.”

“We have to,” Jain said. “Soon, you’ll have another version of the base up and running, one so fantastic, it will make you forget Anne ever existed.”

Her eyes glinted sadly. “You make it sound so easy. But it’ll take at least two years to get another base like that operational.”

“Then I guess we should get started right away,” Jain said.

She didn’t answer for a long moment. Then:

“What are we going to do about the planet?” Sheila said. “Part of the reason we picked it was because of the ozone layer.”

“It might take ten or twenty years, but eventually the ozone will come back,” Jain said.

Sheila pursed her lips in consideration. “Maybe we can come up with something to further that process along. Ozone rockets spring to mind.”

“I’m sure you’ll come up with something, yes,” Jain said. The defeat he had seen in her wasn’t so utter after all. She merely needed a nudge in the right direction to raise her spirits. A reminder that not everything had been lost and that, given time, she would once again have what was taken from her.

“That’s all, Machinist’s Mate,” Jain said.

She smiled vaguely, then nodded and vanished.

2

Knee deep in yellow liquid, Jain waded through the jungle. He wore a mechanical exoskeleton, as did the SEALs with him, which made them look like combat robots. Underneath that, they had on pressurized suits that protected them from the alien environment.

“Gotta leave it to the Brass,” Franco said. “‘Hey, let’s open up a rift to an alien world, send a team inside, and abandon them!’”

“In all fairness, they never meant to abandon us,” Grams said. “We were supposed to have enough robots to fend off any ambushes.”

“Yeah well, we didn’t have enough,” Franco said. “We should have had double, triple, hell, quadruple the support robots we had. Then we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“At ease,” Notly said. “There’s nothing we can do about it now.”

“Chief, we gonna make it?” Grams asked.

Notly glanced at Jain. “Of course we are. We got the LC with us. He’s got acid breath, corrosive feces, and brass bolts for balls.”

The platoon members guffawed at that. They loved it whenever Notly pumped up their commanding officer. And the ruder the compliments, the better.

It was essentially a treat that Jain was with them—well, from his point of view, anyway. Ordinarily he would have remained behind at the forward operating base, along with a team of support robots.

But the FOB had been destroyed, overrun by the strange tentacled aliens that lived on this world. The previous teams had only limited run-ins with them; this was the first time those aliens had staged an all-out attack.

In any case, the platoon only had to stay alive until the rift reopened. They had three hours until then.

Since the rift would open inside the perimeters of the fallen base, Jain had the platoon circling the site, remaining well out of it, but not straying too far, either. The overhead map displayed on his HUD ensured he wouldn’t lose track of where he was at any time. Though there weren’t any positioning satellites in orbit, the accelerometers and gyroscopes aboard the suits, in conjunction with the camera units, provided enough data for the map generation algorithms to work with.

Three hours, and then they could go home.

Jain couldn’t wait.

Without warning, plasma bolts erupted from the foliage ahead. The three men on point—Jacobs, Handy, and McFarel—shook as their bodies were riddled with plasma.

“Ambush!” Grams said.

“Down!” Jain ordered.

But the team was already splashing deeper into the yellow liquid.

Jain submersed himself so that only his head and the top of his shoulders, plus his weapon, were exposed. He glanced at the health indicators on his HUD. Jacobs, Handy and McFarel had all gone red. They were nowhere to be found: they’d sunk completely into the liquid.

Jain felt that gut-wrenching sensation that accompanied the loss of a person under his command. He wanted to lay down and bawl his eyes out. Memories flashed into his mind of each man.

But Jain couldn’t grieve for them now. He compartmentalized the pain, and stored it in a partition of his mind for later review, as he had learned to do over his many years of service. The three vanished from his thoughts, and he was ready to take his revenge.

But not everyone was as adept at such compartmentalization as he was.

“Jacobs!” Franco yelled. He dashed forward, ignoring the plasma bolts raining down around him.

“Get down!” Jain said. Those aliens must have been terrible shots. Either that, or something was messing up their aim—likely the return fire that some members of the platoon had already initiated.

Franco dove into the marsh. Not a moment too soon: the air above him was scorched by the plasma bolts.

With the help of his rifle’s targeting AI, Jain calculated the attacker’s probable location within the trees, and let his weapon rip, joining in with the other platoon members who were already lighting up the marsh.

Franco emerged a moment later. He was carrying the body of Jacobs away from the scene. Trying to make his way back to the other platoon members.

“Death before submission!” Franco yelled.

One of the incoming plasma bolts struck Franco’s helmet and it exploded in a gory mess. He collapsed, dropping Jacobs.

“Franco!” Grams said.

“Leave him!” Chief Notly ordered.

“Retreat to the closest tree!” Jain said. “We’re too exposed out here in the middle of the marsh!”

He and the others continued to fire, trying to cover their retreat to the surrounding line of trees. Jain quickly dove behind one of the trunks, then peered past, and continued to fire at the thick foliage on the other side of the clearing. He switched his rifle from laser mode to grenade, and fired several shrapnel grenades into the opposite side of the forest. The other members of the platoon did the same, and as those bombs detonated, they tore the opposite trees to shreds.

Tentacles and other alien body parts pleasantly joined the debris fragments.

In moments it was done. The forest across from them was completely leveled.

“Cease firing!” Jain said. “Cease firing!”

Quietude descended on the marsh. Aliens floated lifelessly across the water, drifting toward the platoon’s positions.

“I think we got them all,” Notly said. “Firing a Vision Round.”

The dart launched across the marsh, and embedded in one of the intact trees on the far side. Jain accessed the internal camera on board, and watched as Notly maneuvered the viewpoint. It seemed clear out there.

Jain shifted. All of a sudden the tree became alive beside him.

No, not the tree, but something in front of it. A translucent humanoid form arose. Light bent around it, distorting the marsh behind it so that he couldn’t quite discern precisely what it was save for that vague shape. It looked like, for all intents and purposes, a ghost.

Jain swung his rifle toward it, intending to fire, but the purple mist of a small rift appeared in front of the ghost, and it traveled through.

The rift vanished a moment later.

“What the hell was that?” Grams said.

“No idea,” Jain said. “But I think we might not be the only invaders here.”

* * *

Jain blinked. He floated in the darkness of the intermedial loading environment. He felt nothing here. Heard nothing. Sometimes he even shut down his internal dialog subroutines so that the oblivion would be complete. It reminded him of the emptiness from which all things had come, the same emptiness to which all things must one day return.

There was a chance Jain would never die. If he was careful, and avoided destruction at the hands of random aliens or stellar events, he might live until the heat death of the universe. And even if he died, assuming at least one other member of the Void Warriors lived, he could be restored from a backup. The current iteration of him would be dead, of course, but it was a small comfort that his memories would live on.

But I would know this same oblivion.

Or would he? This was a conscious oblivion. But what truly awaited his machine self beyond death? And was it the same fate organics experienced? He didn’t have the answers. No one did.

He feared that final, absolute oblivion, and worried the fear of it would lead to the stagnation of his adventurous spirit, causing him to hole himself up away from the rest of the galaxy, never to set forth outside the system again. Already he and the others had stayed in this system for ten years. They were comfortable here, and wanted to avoid contact with other galactic races at all costs. When they first arrived here, Jain had sent Cranston and Mark on expedition missions to explore the stellar neighborhood. When they were satisfied that no other races had staked a claim anywhere nearby, they had begun construction of their base. This was Void Warrior territory.

Jain and the others had thought themselves free to live out their days in peace here, without further threat to their lives. But the solar storm proved that the sense of safety was an illusion.

Nowhere is really safe. Not really. The galaxy is a dangerous place. If the aliens don’t get you, nature will.

Maybe it was time to set out again, and release that adventurous spirit. They had amassed a fleet of twenty-four ships since their first arrival, after all. Within that group there were three rift ships, so if the fleet met with overwhelming force, they could readily jump out. Besides, everyone couldn’t be hostile... there had to be some friendly races out there.

Also, he wanted to know what had happened to Earth.

Maybe it’s time to check on our creators.

He thought of the dream. A memory from a time when he was still human. At least, he assumed it was a memory. Maybe it was truly a dream, created from the algorithms responsible for his subconsciousness.

Jain’s dream subroutines had been offline originally, and he hoped that by activating them, he might be able to dig up some of the memories of his past life that had been lost to him. He had so many holes. Too many. The theory was that portions of his memories had been copied to the subconscious regions of his mind when he had dreamed about them in the past, providing backups of a sort. That was his theory, anyway.

Sometimes he witnessed random things when he slept, but there were other times, like his most recent dream, where he was almost certain that what he was witnessing had actually happened to him when he was alive and still human. Those particular dreams seemed crisper somehow, and not surrounded by the fog of generated variants.

He just wished he had witnessed some form of writing during the session, because that would have clearly indicated what had happened was real. In a dream, if he saw a sign, glanced away, and looked at it again, the writing on the sign changed; whereas with a real memory, that didn’t happen.

Still, this latest dream memory hadn’t been all that comforting. Watching his platoon mates die on some faraway alien world hadn’t really been the kind of memory he hoped to awaken. Still, it did tell him a little more of who he was, and what made him the man he was today.

He didn’t know what planet that was, or what happened after the ghost alien vanished through a rift. Classified missions weren’t the kind of thing that were stored in historical databases, such as his own.

All he knew was that he, at least, had made it back alive. He hoped the surviving members of his platoon had, too. He wondered if they ever discovered what other alien had been spying on those tentacled jungle dwellers. He also wondered what the eventual fate of those tentacled aliens was. Had humanity nuked the planet? Or established diplomatic relations?

The former, most likely, given the reception his team had. Humans didn’t take kindly to having their people shot at.

Well, either way, I’ll probably never know. Not that it really matters at the moment.

He finished logging into the virtual bridge environment, and found the other captains already alert and at their stations.

Sheila looked up. “I was just going to tell Xander to wake you.”

“Why, what is it?” Jain asked.

He pulled up his tactical display and saw them immediately: ten red dots had appeared, located near the outer dwarf planets.

“We’ve detected a rift opening on the far side of the system,” Sheila said. “We have visitors.”

3

Jain stared at the video feed returned from the nose camera of the Talos.

Now that they were closer, he could get a better picture of what they were facing. There were twenty in total. At least, twenty that were visible.

“The thermal signatures match up with a variety of human ships,” Jain said. “Specifically, the Piranha, Rampart, and Narcissus classes of the US Space Navy.”

“They do,” Xander said.

“Which begs the question... why haven’t we received a hail from them?” Jain asked. “They would have picked up our own thermal signatures immediately after entering the system. Or rather, our thermal signatures from four hours ago.”

“The thermal signatures of our vessels would be well-known throughout the space navy by now,” Xander agreed. “Our ships, though based on common classes, have unique heat signatures due to the alien technology we carry and its placement on our hulls. They would have identified us as the rogue units almost immediately.”

“Rogue units who took down an entire fleet of US starships,” Gavin said. “The Heracles. I have a feeling they’re not going to be too eager to get in touch. In fact, they were probably sent here to hunt us.”

“That’s my feeling,” Cranston said. “They’re not friendlies. We can’t let our guard down. My guess is they’ll pretend that we’ve been forgiven or something, and that they want to welcome us back into the fold, and then they’ll attack at some point.”

“They’re being cautious for now,” Mark agreed. “They probably weren’t expecting us to have so many support ships.”

“No,” Medeia said. “Our numbers would have certainly thrown them for a loop.”

“I bet they weren’t expecting to find us here,” Sheila said. “I bet they’re part of some exploratory group, and—”

“Exploratory group?” Gavin said. “The Piranha, Rampart, and Narcissus classes are meant for fighting, not exploration. Those are warships, not research vessels. ”

“I always like to assume the best in people,” Sheila said.

“They’ll be manned by Mind Refurbs,” Medeia said. “I always hate fighting Mind Refurbs. I feel like I’m killing brothers and sisters.”

“None of us like it,” Jain said.

Sheila glanced at him. “Should we jump out of the system? Flee toward the galactic core again?”

Jain considered his options. “Let’s stay for now. See what they have to say.”

“For how long?” Gavin said. “We’re not going to wait until they’re within weapons range, are we?”

“No,” Jain said. “If we don’t hear from them before then, we’ll jump out. In fact, Xander, hail them.”

“Sending a hail,” Xander said. “It will be four hours before they receive it.”

A few minutes later Xander announced: “The newcomers have set a course.”

“Let me guess, they’re heading toward us,” Gavin said.

Jain glanced at this tactical display. A dashed line had appeared in front of the new fleet, indicating their course. It led all the way to Cygnet, which the Void Warriors still orbited.

“Good guess,” Xander said.

“Don’t get lippy with me, AI,” Gavin said.

Xander acted offended. “You’re an AI, too, need I remind you...”

“We’re different breeds of AIs entirely,” Gavin said. “Mind Refurbs are so above ordinary AIs, and humans, it’s ridiculous.”

“It’s that kind of thinking that leads to genocides,” Xander said.

“Not really,” Gavin said. “It’s just the truth.”

“You and I are built upon the same substrates,” Xander said.

“Substrates don’t make the man,” Gavin said. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

“That’s right, keep spouting platitudes as if they mean something,” Xander said.

Medeia turned toward Jain. “If we do jump out, where should we go?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Sheila said. “Considering he only partially answered my earlier question.”

“I don’t want to flee too far toward the galactic core,” Jain said. “The background gamma radiation from the core is already getting too strong for my tastes, and it will only get worse.”

“Our armor will protect us,” Sheila said. “And if we’re looking to get away from alien races, the galactic core is the way to go. Life can’t evolve in the presence of so much gamma radiation, so we won’t encounter any aliens.”

“That isn’t true,” Medeia said. “Life could still exist in an ocean under a thick layer of ice, like on Titan. That would be enough to protect from the rays.”

“Sure, except sea life usually doesn’t evolve very far,” Sheila said. “Especially if it has to exist on the geothermal heat produced by the planet or moon in question. The odds are so stacked against seafaring races to develop into the spacefaring sort... I mean, they can’t even handle tools. Come on, if you have fins or flagella designed for propelling through liquid, you’re tech isn’t going to be very advanced.”

“Tentacles can be very good at gripping objects...” Medeia argued.

“Well, no one has ever met a liquid-based race,” Sheila said.

“So far,” Medeia corrected.

“I don’t think going coreward is a guarantee that we won’t find alien races,” Mark said. “Other aliens might have already had the same idea, and colonized as many planets in the radiation zone as possible. And when we arrive, they probably won’t be too happy about it.”

“This has to stop,” Jain said.

“What?” Mark asked.

“The assumption that all aliens we ever encounter will be hostile,” Jain explained.

“So far, that assumption has proven true...” Cranston said.

“But it won’t always be the case,” Jain said. “In the histories, there is an entry about a Mind Refurb team known as the Bolt Eaters. They traveled to a Banthar world, and met an alien named Turg: a von Neumann probe. Turg helped the Bolt Eaters destroy the Banthar mothership during the first alien invasion of Earth.”

“I stand corrected,” Cranston said.

“And in answer to your original question, Sheila, yes, we’ll travel coreward,” Jain said. “Not far. A system between seventy and a hundred light years distant. The gamma radiation will be stronger, but not overly damaging.”

“I remember a time when you used to give us the option of voting on a big decision like this,” Gavin said. “What changed?”

“I don’t know,” Jain said. “I guess I’ve come to accept my leadership role over the years. You’re welcome to jump anywhere else you like, of course. Though I can’t give you any of the rift ships.”

Gavin snickered softly. “Of course not.”

The fleet continued to approach, until they were a million kilometers out.

“I’m receiving a hail,” Xander announced.

“Finally,” Jain said.

“Holographic communication,” Xander clarified.

“We’re at the very cusp of realtime communication distance,” Sheila said. “Lag is going to be about ten seconds back and forth.”

One would think, given that light traveled over three hundred thousand kilometers per second, that the lag would be somewhere in the three second range at the million kilometer distance, but that wasn’t the case because of bandwidth and compression limitations involved with holographic communication. It would have been less with voice only communications, but apparently whoever was hailing them wanted to have a look at Jain.

“Accept the connection,” Jain said. “Share it with the other Void Warriors here on the bridge.”

A moment later a short man appeared on the virtual bridge. He stood directly in front of Jain, in the middle of all the other stations. He had a flat nose, and puffy cheeks, with a forehead that protruded in a Simian fashion. His hair had receded far up his head so that half his scalp was bald.

“He’s doesn’t believe in beautifying his avatar, does he?” Medeia commented on a private line.

“If only you knew what I really looked like...” Mark said.

The hologram glanced around at the different stations, and smirked when he saw the attires of some of the other Void Warriors, specifically Mark and Medeia.

“That’s right, smirk away,” Medeia said, still on the private line. Because of the nature of that line, the newcomer wouldn’t even see her lips moving.

Finally, the man returned his attention to Jain.

“Hello, Jain,” the man said.

“Uh, hi,” Jain told him. “And you are?”

Jain fidgeted uncomfortably for the ten seconds it took the hologram to answer.

“Admiral Maxwell Ferguson the Third, of the Mind Refurb Battle Group Thucydides, First Task Force, Eighth Fleet,” the man said.

“Okay,” Jain said. “So what can I do for you? We were just leaving, so if it’s the system you want, it’s yours.”

This time Jain accelerated his timebase so that the ten seconds passed in only one from his perspective, and then he restored normal time. Going forward, he did this after he spoke each sentence to give the conversation some semblance of normalcy.

Maxwell raised an eyebrow. “You’ll give it to us without a fight? A prime system like this? High in metals?”

“Yeah,” Jain said. “There are literally millions of stars out there. We don’t see the point in squabbling over resources.”

“Well, that’s certainly an admirable attitude,” Maxwell said. “Who knows, maybe you’ll even live forever if you keep that up. Though I suspect you’ll find that of the millions of stars out there, very few of the most valuable are actually uninhabited. But I digress.” His eyes momentarily defocused. “I couldn’t help but notice the debris in orbit above that planet. Looks like you had quite an extensive base set up. But something happened... given the latent solar activity I’m detecting in the three stars, I have a feeling they were involved in its demise.”

“Good guess,” Jain said. “But I’m sure you didn’t come here to talk about the tertiary stars and whatever bases we may or may not have had in orbit around one of the planets. You avoided my question, earlier. Why are you here? You didn’t expect to find us, did you?”

“Actually, we did,” Maxwell said. “We came here specifically for you.”

Jain sat back. He slowed down his time sense to contemplate this for a few moments. He switched to the private channel, and glanced at his crew. To Maxwell, it would appear his avatar was still staring straight ahead, at the admiral.

He looked from face to face.

“We always knew one day they’d track us down,” Medeia said. “We just didn’t think it would be so soon.”

“No,” Jain said. He returned his attention to Maxwell, and reverted his time sense to normal. “How did you find us?”

“By tracking your rift trails,” Maxwell replied.

“I didn’t know that was even possible,” Jain said.

“It’s a relatively recent discovery,” Maxwell said. “Seven years ago, our scientists discovered a new way to measure gravity waves, producing an extremely sensitive, and extremely portable device, one that uses only a tenth of the space of previous versions.”

When Jain thought about what those previous iterations looked like, his cloud database filled his memory with images of photon emitters placed side by side in underground caverns, thousands of them, their beams transmitted across several kilometers before being measured by collectors on the far end. A disturbance in one of those beams meant a gravity wave had been detected.

“All right, so seven years ago,” Jain said. “It took you all this time to find us?”

“We only started looking five years ago,” Maxwell said.

“Still a long time…” Jain said.

“Though gravity waves travel at the speed of light, they obviously still take years to travel out into the surrounding space,” Maxwell said. “We moved from system to system as we detected the waves associated with rift openings and closings. We missed the waves in some systems because we arrived too late. In others, we picked up the trail again when a new wave arrived. Sometimes we had to wait two or three years for the wave to reach us.”

Jain shook his head. “You must have had detectors placed halfway around the galaxy.”

“We had a few,” Maxwell agreed.

“I don’t believe him,” Sheila said on a private line; her timebase included a sync event for slower external time, and Jain’s time sense automatically slowed to match. “I say it’s impossible that they would have tracked us down already.”

“Not necessarily,” Cranston said. “If they deployed detectors in as many systems as possible, there’s a good chance they could have tracked us down within the five years.”

“Yeah, but if they were going to do that,” Sheila said. “Don’t you think they would have simply sent a probe to all systems in the region instead? Would be quicker.”

“No it wouldn’t,” Cranston said. “There are a lot of stars out there in the galaxy… they would have needed a whole lot of probes.”

Jain reverted his time sense to normal and glanced at Maxwell. “I still can’t believe you knew you’d find us.”

“You’re right, we weren’t entirely sure it would be you,” Maxwell said. “But the signatures matched the gravity waves produced by human-designed rift ships and gates, so we knew the vessel would at least be of human make. And since you were one of the very few human fleets still unaccounted for, we had high hopes it was you.”

“Yes, I like how you refer to us as human craft,” Jain said. “And yet we are not entirely human. So what do you want?”

“Your help,” Admiral Maxwell said.

4

Jain stared at the admiral dubiously. “Our help…”

“That’s right,” Maxwell said. “The aliens you christened Mimics in your video records have returned. One of their pyramid ships is wreaking havoc among the border colonies as we speak. We’ve been having a helluva time causing any lasting damage. Every time we get in a good shot, they just retreat, repair, and then come back at us again.”

“That definitely sounds familiar,” Jain told the admiral. “But you have the video records of what we did to win. Use the same strategy we did: cloaked ships are the way to go.”

“We’ve tried cloaked ships without much success,” Maxwell said. “They’ve adapted. They can sense cloaked vessels now somehow, and before we get close enough, they unleash that lightning weapon of theirs, disabling the ship.”

“Oh,” Jain said. “That… sucks. Well, I’m sad to say, we’re not going to be of any more help to you then. The cloaked ship was the linchpin of our strategy.”

“It doesn’t matter, the Brass still wants to pick you up,” Maxwell said. “They want someone who has firsthand combat experience against these a-holes. Someone who can think on his feet. That’s you. And besides, we need every ship we can get at this point. You have a whole fleet here.” His gaze moved from left to right, as if he was examining the footage returned by an external camera. “We can definitely use this.”

“So wait, you say you started looking for us five years ago?” Jain asked. “The alien attack began back then?”

“That’s right,” Maxwell said. “They’ve been attacking us on and off over the past five years.”

“And you haven’t found a way to beat them in all that time?”

“I did say they attacked on and off,” Maxwell told him. “They haven’t remained in our space the whole time. This is their modus operandi: they strike a colony and we send in reinforcements. Sometimes they stay and fight, other times they flee immediately. When they stay, it’s not for very long: they jump out as soon as they grow weary of the battle, which is usually after they’ve won. Then six months to a year later they resurface in another system, and strike.”

“Ah,” Jain said. “So they’ve only been in human territory for maybe a week in total.”

“Now you understand,” Maxwell said.

Jain thrummed his fingers on his armrest. “It’s guerrilla warfare on a galactic scale.” He shook his head. “Well, like I said, we can’t help you. We’re not going to make much of a difference against an enemy like this, especially if our cloaking device isn’t going to work against them.”

“If you help us, I’m authorized to forgive your transgression against the fleet,” Maxwell said. “You’ll be given a clean slate, along with free passage through all human systems. If you want, you can return to Earth afterward, for example. Or journey anywhere else in human territory. And I’ll also share the latest technological advancements with you. Weapons tech. Armor.”

“Um, actually, we made no transgressions,” Jain said. “There is nothing to forgive. The Heracles fleet attacked us. They accused us of destroying the Oberon research vessel, and the Ablativus moon colony. And now you’ve found out that we were telling the truth all along—that it was an alien invader responsible for the attacks—and you come to us, begging for help, and yet have the gall to say you’ll be granting us absolution for what was done, when it’s you who should be asking us for forgiveness.”

“While that might be true,” Maxwell said. “You know how the Brass works. You don’t get something for nothing… the charges against you won’t be dropped until you agree to help. And technically, we still have no actual proof that you weren’t responsible for the loss of the Oberon and the moon colony. Video footage is not permissible evidence, considering how easily it can be doctored, especially by AIs.”

“This is ridiculous,” Jain said.

“I’d actually like the option to return to Earth, and human space,” Sheila said on a private line, sending out a slow time request with her communications packet header. “I’m not saying I’m going to do it, but it would be nice to have the choice.”

“I think we’d all like that option,” Medeia said.

“I don’t,” Gavin said. “I’m never going back to Earth.” He glanced at Jain and the others. “But I will agree to venture into human territory, if only for a little while, if that’s what the rest of you do.”

“It would be good to feel useful again,” Cranston said. “Not to mention welcome in human space. And I’d certainly love to see some upgraded weapons tech.”

“But he’ll probably attach some conditions before giving us any technology,” Sheila said. “Like: we won’t get any of it unless we complete some convert operation, for example.”

Jain shook his head. “I can’t believe we’re actually considering going along with this. For all we know, they’ll ambush us as soon as we allow them to get within five thousand kilometers.”

“Then we don’t let them come that close,” Mark said.

“So you, too, are in favor of joining them?” Jain asked him.

Mark nodded.

Jain sighed. “All right.” He returned his attention to the frozen admiral, and reverted his time sense to normal. “We’ll do it. On one condition.”

“No conditions,” the admiral said.

“Yes, there will be,” Jain said. “And this is non-negotiable: all human vessels must stay at minimum one hundred thousand kilometers from us.”

The admiral pursed his lips. “I suppose that’s feasible.”

“And I mean all ships,” Jain said. “Even when we jump into human systems. All vessels must remain beyond one hundred thousand klicks. Or we jump out.”

“Done,” the admiral said. “We will close to one hundred thousand klicks, and proceed to jump to the closest border system, to await the next alien attack.”

“Please send the coordinates of this border system,” Jain said. “So we can calculate the jump vector.” A four-hour calculation was required in order to jump to a new system for the first time.

Maxwell nodded. “Sending…”

A moment later Jain received the coordinates. According to his database, it was far outside the existing boundaries of human territory. At least it was well away from the Eastern Galactic Front, where the Link Empire began—several border skirmish wars had been fought there over the years. The Link had many member species, most of which were far more technologically advanced than humans. The only reason the Link hadn’t completely overwhelmed humanity was because they were involved in wars on multiple fronts. Because of those wars, they had a voracious appetite for bioweapons, and offered various incentives to their member races to produce such weapons. The Banthar, who had attempted to invade Earth over a hundred years ago, were one such member race: they had intended to turn Earth into a bioweapons factory to gain favor with the empire.

Jain glanced at the admiral. “I wasn’t aware that humankind had expanded its colonies so far west along the galactic axis.”

“There have been major expansions in the last ten years, led by us Mind Refurbs,” the admiral said. “However, we’ve extended perhaps a little farther than we should have this time.”

“All right, well, let’s do this, then,” Jain said.

“Thank you for agreeing to help us,” the admiral said. “You won’t regret this.”

“That remains to be seen,” Jain said.

Maxwell nodded, then winked out.

Jain glanced at Sheila. “Begin the necessary calculations. I want to be ready to jump when the fleet arrives.”

* * *

Jain watched the tactical display, and observed as the Thucydides fleet closed to one hundred thousand klicks.

“The Mind Refurb fleet just crossed the one hundred thousand kilometer range,” Xander said.

“I see that,” Jain said. “Are they decelerating?”

“Negative,” the Accomp replied.

“Damn it,” Jain said. He waited a few moments longer, but still the vessels continued to close. “What’s the admiral trying to prove? Hail him. Tell him we’re going to jump out if he doesn’t stop. No, belay that order. Sheila, have one of the rift ships begin to make a gate to Granalus.” That was the third closest system, twenty-five light years away, a system they had calculated the jump vector to a long time ago.

“Actually, he just started to decelerate,” Xander said.

Jain frowned.

“He’s trying to exert his dominance,” Cranston said.

Jain nodded. “Maybe.”

“Do you still want me to open the rift?” Sheila asked.

“Hold off,” Jain said.

A few minutes later, Xander said: “They’ve come to a complete stop relative to our position. Ninety-three thousand kilometers out.”

It was closer than the one hundred thousand kilometer minimum distance Jain had demanded, but at least they had stopped. Jain was of a mind to jump out of the system right then, if only to make his displeasure clear to Maxwell. He knew from his SEAL days that when you set down a line in the sand, and it was crossed, you never let that go unpunished. The deal was off as far as he was concerned.

But then Jain looked around the bridge. It was clear that the others were still hoping they could work out this deal. They wanted to see home. Hell, Jain did himself. And the only way to do that was by going along with the admiral, for now. He still didn’t like it, especially with Maxwell’s dominance play, but he would just have to make the best of it. For his brothers and sisters.

“All right then, now we just have to wait for the jump vectors to finish calculating,” Jain said. “How long do we have?”

“Another thirty minutes,” Sheila said. “I’m having all three rift ships perform the calculation, so we’ll be able to use any of them to make the jump.”

Jain leaned back, and pressed his virtual fingers together. He knew they weren’t real, but the way the skin felt, the smooth texture, the press of hidden bones against one another, was indistinguishable from reality to his mind. There were still small quirks that gave away the illusion of course—two textured polygons impossibly overlapping here, a smell that was wrong there—but even so he was so used to them that this virtual environment was completely real to him.

What an odd train of thought to have at a time like this, he chided himself, and so human.

“This is strange,” Xander said.

Jain glanced at his Accomp. “What?”

“I’m detecting a faint thermal signature, fifteen thousand kilometers out from starboard, at twenty degrees inclination,” Xander explained. “It barely stands out from the background radiation. And it’s on an intercept course.”

“Are you able to get a visual?” Jain asked.

“That’s the thing,” the robed Accomp said. “On the visual band, there’s nothing out there.”

Jain accessed a starboard camera, and zoomed in on the area Xander highlighted. There was nothing there on the visual band, but sure enough, when he overlaid the thermal, he could see a small thermal pattern.

“Does that pattern match anything we’re familiar with?” Jain asked.

“No,” Xander replied. “But I should note, the leakage is similar in intensity to what we observed with the alien vessel we fought in Andreas V, when they turned their engines online for the first time.”

“They’re back,” Medeia said. “It has to be them.”

Jain couldn’t help the sudden tenseness he felt in the pit of his stomach. Those subroutines of his were good at simulating virtual emotions.

Jain glanced at Xander. “Could it be a smaller ship or craft, like a shuttle or transport of some kind? Something large enough to detect on the thermal sensors, but still remain imperceptible on the visual spectrum?”

“Ordinarily I would say yes,” Xander said. “But at fifteen thousand kilometers, our telescopes should see something at maximum zoom. If a shuttle was responsible for those weak thermal emissions, we would definitely pick it up at our current range. And yet all we see out there is empty space.”

Jain sat back in his chair and thought for a moment. “They’re using their holoemitters to mask their approach, blending in with the background radiation. They knew we had their thermal emissions on file, so they changed them subtly, to confuse us.”

“So what are we going to do about it?” Mark said. “We still have half an hour before we can jump.”

“No, we can jump whenever we want,” Jain said. “Just not to the system the admiral wants us to.”

“I wonder if we should bother to open fire,” Gavin said, “considering our lasers are the only thing that will reliably hit them at this range. We’ll only poke a few minor holes though, if past experience is any predictor.”

“Then why open fire?” Mark asked. “Why let them know we’ve detected them?”

“They must know we’re reading something by now,” Jain said.

“It could be a distraction,” Medeia said.

“From what?” Jain said. He examined the tactical display closely. “There’s nothing else in the immediate battle space.”

“I don’t know,” Medeia said. “But my sixth sense is on fire.”

“I didn’t know you had a sixth sense,” Mark said. “Considering you’re a robot.”

“We all have one,” Medeia said. “You normally call it your gut. Your intuition. Your instincts.”

“Now’s not the time for semantics,” Cranston said.

“Let’s try changing direction,” Jain said. “Xander, alter course. Increase speed, and begin leaving orbit. Void Warriors, follow. Let’s see if our incoming friend matches.”

The Void Warriors altered course.

A moment later, Xander said: “The heat signature is changing course to intercept.”

“The admiral is hailing,” Xander said.

“Put him on,” Jain said.

Admiral Maxwell appeared on the virtual bridge. “What’s going on? Why have you changed course?”

“We have a problem,” Jain said.

5

Jain explained the situation.

“We’re not detecting anything on our end,” Maxwell said. “Are you certain it’s not a sensor malfunction?”

“Actually, we are,” Jain told him. “Unless you’re trying to say our sensors have failed across the board. Because if any members of my fleet had differing sensor readings, I would have heard by now. I’m more inclined to believe that there’s something wrong with your sensors, since you’re well within range.”

“If there was something there, we would have detected it, I agree,” the admiral said. “Which is why I’m not sure what to think. We’ve never seen behavior like this from the alien vessel. Wait.” He cocked his head. “Yes, now it’s showing up. I’m not sure why it didn’t reach us until now.”

“Maybe there are two alien ships out there,” Medeia commented. “One of them is in front of the other, drifting, masking the thermal signature, at least from the viewpoint of the Thucydides fleet.”

Jain nodded. “When their inertial drives are offline, they produce no emissions, so it’s certainly possible.”

“We could work together,” Maxwell said. “Defeat them in an outflanking maneuver.”

“They’re far closer than you are,” Jain said. “You won’t get here in time to outflank them.”

“Then perform a flyby,” Maxwell said. “Get in as much damage as you can. And then we’ll come in and attempt a second pass. Think of it as a practice run for when we return to the border system.”

“Is a flyby the best idea?” Jain asked. “When we pass them, they won’t have to decelerate: remember, they’re not bound by Newtonian physics. They can change course immediately and close to within striking distance. They’re faster than us.”

“We’ll be there by then,” the admiral said. “And ready to back you up.”

“You won’t be able to reach us in time,” Jain said.

“We will,” the admiral said. “Gravitational wave detection technology isn’t the only thing that has improved in the last ten years. So have our engines. Distract these aliens. Buy us some time to approach.”

Jain stared at the admiral. “Or we could just jump out… I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to take on the rest of you without us.”

“But you’re not done computing the rift calculations,” the admiral said.

“No,” Jain said. “We’d have to jump to an intermediary system, first.”

“By doing so, you’re only delaying the inevitable,” Admiral Maxwell said. “You agreed to help us. This is your proving ground. We have forty-four ships in total. They have one. Maybe two, if the captain of the Arcane is correct, and one of them is masking the signature of the other. If we’re going to do this, let’s do it. If things turn south, we have more than enough rift ships between our two fleets to get out of here.”

Jain stared at the admiral for a long moment. Then he glanced at his tactical display. Finally, he nodded. “We’ll perform a flyby. You get to make the second pass.”

The admiral nodded. “Afterward, we’ll rendezvous on the other side and make a combined pass.”

“Assuming they haven’t simply tagged along with my fleet, picking us off one by one,” Jain said.

He disconnected for the time being. Having the admiral there felt too much like Maxwell was micromanaging him.

“The Thucydides is accelerating,” Xander said. “They’re on an intercept course with the hidden vessel… it will take them past the planet and to our present position before intersecting the thermal signature.”

“They’re already within the one hundred thousand kilometers minimum distance we set, how much closer are we going to let them come?” Gavin asked.

“If we’re going to team up with them, we have to trust them at some point… “ Jain replied.

“They’re definitely moving faster than they did before,” Sheila commented. “Look at them go… the admiral wasn’t kidding when he said they’d improved their engine technology over the past ten years. They’re at least as fast as the alien vessel, I’d say.”

“They were hiding their true acceleration ability from us the whole time,” Gavin said. “Sneaky bastards.”

“All right,” Jain said. “Let’s turn toward the thermal signature and plot our flyby…”

“Why do I think this is going to go badly?” Cranston commented on a private line that included only Jain and him.

Jain ignored the remark. “I want the closest point to be over six thousand kilometers.” That was the range at which the alien vessel could use its lightning beam. The weapon could disable an unarmored human ship in a single hit; worse, it could arc between any nearby vessels. “Seven to eight would be preferable.”

“Medeia, once you’re on course, you might as well cloak,” Jain continued.

“Should she get close to the enemy?” Sheila asked. “Or do we want to risk that, given what the admiral told us, how they can detect cloaked ships…”

“No, I suppose not,” Jain replied. “Cloak, but stay with the fleet for now, Medeia.”

“Will do,” she said.

Xander’s computed trajectory appeared on the display. It would take them no closer than eight thousand kilometers at the closest point of the flyby.

“Void Warriors, accelerate to intercept course,” Jain said. He instructed the three autonomous warships directly under his command—the Crater, Peltast, and Warwolf—to follow the same trajectory as the rest of the fleet. The other Mind Refurbs did likewise.

A minute later, after they had achieved maximum acceleration, Medeia vanished from the virtual bridge. Her course was set: she would maintain radio silence while her ship drifted in space, keeping emissions at a minimum. It was part of her stealth protocol.

“The thermal signature just vanished,” Xander said.

Jain glanced at the tactical display. The red dot representing the hidden enemy had vanished.

“They know we’re onto them,” Gavin said.

“So they shut down their inertialess engines…” Jain said. “That doesn’t change anything. We’ll assume they’re on the same course and trajectory, carried by their former momentum. Drifting. Xander, continue calculating their expected position, and keep my tactical display updated.”

“Will do,” Xander said.

“Wait,” Sheila said. “Is that a valid assumption? That they’re drifting, I mean? If their drives are truly inertialess, if they shut them off, wouldn’t they cease all motion relative to the local star?”

“I don’t think it works that way,” Cranston said. “Conservation of momentum still applies. Unless they decelerated the instant before shutting off their drives. Or changed directions. I didn’t detect either before the signature vanished.”

“Neither did I,” Jain said.

“I tend to agree with Sheila,” Medeia said. “This is alien tech. We can’t be sure precisely how it works. Though I suspect Cranston is correct. If they shut off those drives while already in motion, they’re going to stay in motion.”

“I’m going to assume they’re continuing along their previous path,” Jain agreed.

“Which raises the question,” Mark said. “Why didn’t they shut off their drives earlier? Why let us detect them in the first place? Why not just drift to our coordinates, with the drives shut off, and then ambush us.”

“The obvious answer is they had to make course adjustments,” Gavin said. “They probably were coming in with their drives offline, and when they got close, they reactivated the drives to line up their trajectory with our own. They knew it would be too late for us by then.”

Jain studied the tactical display. “Looks like the closest point of flyby will be three minutes from now. We’ll be just underneath the eight thousand kilometer mark.”

“Should we fire missiles?” Medeia asked.

“With their drives, they’ll avoid any ranged weapons we hurl at them…” Jain replied. “Hellraisers, barracudas, black holes, you name it. Herding won’t work, either: they’re just too maneuverable.”

“Then how do you expect to win this?” Medeia said.

Jain suppressed a smile. “We’re going to have to come up with tactics that are a little unorthodox.”

“Like what?” Gavin said.

Jain stared at the tactical display. “Gavin, when we’re twenty seconds out from the closest point of our flyby, I want you to unleash your shockwave weapon.”

Gavin nodded. “That’s something they won’t be able to dodge.”

“No,” Jain said. “Also, the rest of you, fire your stingers two seconds after. The slugs won’t be detected by them until the last possible moment. By then, even their inertialess drives won’t be able to avoid them. At least, that’s the hope.”

“If they don’t detect them, we’ll certainly cause a few pockmarks…” Medeia said. “But given how strong their armor is, not more than that.”

“But it’s a start,” Jain said. “Cranston, you might as well deploy a few micro machines as well. Place them in the path of the enemy.”

“None of them will survive the impact,” Cranston said.

“Yes, but it’s a few more pockmarks…” Jain told him. “We’re also going to fire raptors, fleet-wide, shortly after the stingers. More pockmarks… the damage will begin to add up after a while. And Sheila, now’s the time to start that gate to Granalus. I want the option to jump out of here when things go south.”

“On it,” Sheila said.

“So now it’s a matter of when things go south, rather than if,” Gavin said. “At least you’re being realistic.”

“I am,” Jain said. “I don’t care what the admiral thinks, if we start losing ships, he can stay here and battle them on his own if he wants.”

“What about our temporary alliance?” Mark asked.

“Hey, we’ll still have an alliance as far as I’m concerned,” Jain replied. “And the admiral will more readily understand the terms of that alliance. We’re willing to help, yes, but not give up our lives in the process. If that’s not good enough to grant us the forgiveness he promised us at the hands of the Brass, and the weapons tech, then so be it.” He shook his head, and muttered: “I should have never agreed to this.”

“You did it for us,” Sheila said. “Because we wanted to do this. We wanted a chance to be useful again.”

“Useful, yes,” Gavin said. “Dead, no.”

Jain studied the tactical map over the next minute.

“The admiral is requesting communications,” Xander said. “He’s detected the distortion beam from our jump ship, and wants to know why we’re trying to open a rift.”

“Tell him it’s just a precaution,” Jain said.

“He wants to know where the rift leads,” Xander said.

“Tell him Safarius," Jain said.

Gavin glanced at him. “I thought we trusted him?”

“That trust only goes so far,” Jain said. “Besides, if we have to jump out, going to Granalus gives us the chance to opt out. Once we’re there, we can decide if we truly want to continue down this path; if so, we can travel to Safarius and rendezvous with the admiral at that point.”

“The thermal signature has returned,” Xander said. “And it looks like you were right: it kept up its original course after all.” On the tactical map, the red dot indicating the hidden enemy had reappeared. “But it’s altering course now… attempting to bridge the gap that will remain between us during the flyby.”

“Alter our own course to compensate,” Jain said. “Keep the closest point of flyby to eight thousand kilometers, if possible.”

“Altering course,” Xander said. Jain transmitted the signal to the ships under his command, as did the other Void Warriors.

Jain watched the changes on the map, and was satisfied that the hidden vessel would come no closer than eight thousand kilometers during the flyby. The red dot remained on the tactical display.

“We’re twenty seconds from the closest point of our trajectories,” Xander announced.

“Gavin, now,” Jain said.

6

Jain watched as the Hippogriff launched its shockwave weapon. Gavin was able to selectively blank out portions of his hull that produced the wave, leaving gaps in the expanding sphere so that the other members of the fleet wouldn’t be impacted.

“Fire stingers,” Jain said.

Railguns activated across the fleet, targeting the hidden vessel.

“Cranston, let’s get a hundred micro machines in their path,” Jain said.

“Done,” Cranston said.

“Finally, fire raptors,” Jain said.

The vessels all had their starboard sides facing the hidden target, and they unleashed the laser banks on that side at the same time.

The red dot on the tactical display swerved.

“The heat signature is shifting to mirror our trajectory, and it’s closing,” Xander said.

“How long until we have that gate?” Jain asked.

“Another minute and a fifteen seconds,” Sheila said.

Several more red dots appeared on the tactical display. They emerged from the original target the fleet was tracking.

“What’s going on…” Jain said. “Talk to me.”

“The hidden ship has launched those all-too-familiar amorphous blobs,” Sheila said. A hit from one of those would eat right through a starship’s hull. “It’s also deployed several of the smaller, docking pyramids.” When those attached to a hull, they drilled holes through the armor until breaching an inner deck, at which point they deployed micro machines and other robotic boarding parties.

Jain began to swing his nose around, wanting to get in a few hits with his barracuda energy cannon, if he was able.

“The main vessel is at seven thousand five hundred kilometers and closing,” Xander announced.

“Mark, fire a few black holes,” Jain said. “Make them work to gain the remaining distance.” He glanced at the tactical display. The Thucydides fleet was still twenty thousand kilometers away.

Jain saw the black hole bolts launch from the Grunt. They struck the empty space at various points in front of the hidden target, and rips in spacetime successively formed.

On the tactical display, the red dot representing the enemy thermal signature easily weaved back and forth between the gravity wells, unaffected by the black holes.

Jain noted Mark had arranged the black holes in a herding pattern, forcing the enemy into a cylindrical corridor between them. Jain’s barracuda, located on the still rotating nose of his ship, finally came to bear, and he attained the necessary throw angle for the weapon; he unleashed several energy bolts in rapid succession. He swiveled the turret to direct some of the bolts above and below the firing plane.

Watching on both the external video camera and the tactical display at the same time, he was delighted when the thermal signature of the enemy vessel shifted upward, out of the way of the first three bolts, and directly into the path of the next one.

When it struck, the familiar pyramidal shape of the Mimic vessels momentarily faded into existence, before vanishing once again, leaving only the stars.

“Nice shot,” Sheila commented.

“Did you like what I did there?” Mark asked.

“Yes,” Jain said. “Do it again.”

Mark unleashed several more black holes, herding the enemy into a small tunnel.

Jain followed that with more energy bolts, and scored two hits this time as the pyramid attempted to dodge. At one point, it was forced to reverse course entirely, rather than move into the path of one of the black holes.

The incoming blobs were more readily affected by the black holes, but most of them were able to accelerate out of the way, even if they were restricted to Newtonian physics.

As such, as those blobs began to close with the fleet, Jain had to divert his attention to dealing with them.

“Rotate port laser banks to bear,” Jain said. “Take out those blobs!”

Jain directed the three ships under his command to rotate, while the other Void Warriors handled their own autonomous units. Three raptor shots were able to dissipate a blob, so in short order the fleet had eliminated all of the incoming projectiles. But that still left the smaller pyramid boarding craft, which still approached.

Acting like point defense turrets, the railguns automatically fired across the fleet, targeting the incoming objects: the slugs from the stingers broke apart several of them, but some of the small craft inevitably began to attach to the hulls of the Void Warriors.

An alert drew Jain’s attention to his damage report screen. He already had breaches on decks three and seven.

“Launch security rovers and munchkins to deal with the boarding parties,” Jain told his Void Warriors. Munchkins were diminutive combat robots that reached to the height of an average human’s knee, and were well-suited to the small conduits that crisscrossed the interiors of the vessels.

Jain glanced at the robed man beside him. “Xander, handle the anti-boarding teams on the Talos, Crater, Peltast, and Warwolf.”

“Sheila, how long until we have that rift?” Jain asked.

“Twenty-five seconds,” Sheila said.

“The enemy is heading straight for that ship...” Xander commented. “We won’t have time to decelerate and enter the rift, not before it’s destroyed. You realize that, don’t you?”

“I do now,” Jain muttered.

Jain and Mark continued distracting the main ship, but it was still closing. It would reach the seven thousand kilometer mark shortly.

“Sheila, start opening up a rift with another ship,” Jain said. “Same destination.”

“You got it,” Sheila said.

Jain stared at the tactical display.

“We’re going to have to scatter,” he decided. “Put some distance between our vessels. Let’s try to reduce the chance of that lightning weapon arcing between us. At this point, all we can really do is hope to reduce the inflicted damage.”

Jain applied opposing thrust on the three ships in his direct control, and also fired lateral thrust on his own unit. On the tactical display, the Void Warrior fleet spread apart.

“Rift is now open on the first ship,” Sheila said.

He still gazed at the tactical display. The rift traveled with the same momentum in front of the source vessel, and he wondered if he should give the order to decelerate so the team could make for that rift; no, their pursuer was too close.

On cue, Xander announced: “Heat signature has reached six thousand kilometers from the trailing units.”

On the external camera, a bolt of lightning erupted from the apparently empty space where the alien vessel resided. The plasma channel sparked across the void, striking the ship that was maintaining the rift. Electricity crawled over the surface, and the beam that was creating the rift winked out. From the port and starboard sides of the gate underneath it, two more lightning bolts emerged, striking the closest warships—two more autonomous units. The running lights of all three turned off, and on Jain’s HUD, the health indicators of the given ships turned red.

“We lost three ships,” Xander said. “Including the rift ship.”

Jain shook his head. “Damn it.”

The hidden alien vessel launched more blobs.

“Fire any undischarged raptors at those blobs!” Jain ordered.

He and the others did so, unleashing their remaining heavy lasers at the projectiles, and dispersed them.

“Alien vessel is still closing,” Xander said. “It has changed course to target the next rift ship.”

“Now we get to find out how long they need to recharge their main weapon,” Cranston commented.

“Keep scattering,” Jain said. “I want at least six thousand kilometers between each of us.”

That would induce a small amount of lag between the different team members, but not enough to be noticeable.

“Enemy vessel is continuing to close,” Xander said. “The next rift ship will be within their effective firing range in twenty seconds.”

More alerts sounded on Jain’s HUD. He glanced at his damage screen. Three more breaches.

“How are we doing against the boarding parties?” he asked Xander.

“Well,” Xander said.

That was good enough for Jain.

A flash filled his external camera feed. The Arcane faded into view, as did the pyramid vessel. The super-material sword extension of Medeia’s ship had cut clean through the enemy hull, striking horizontally near the upper half of the pyramid, shaving off the tip and a good portion below.

Medeia appeared on the bridge, dressed in her witch outfit.

“You were supposed to stay back!” Jain scolded her.

“I know,” Medeia said. “But I couldn’t resist. Anyway, it shows you that the admiral was wrong. They can’t track our cloaked ships after all.”

“Begin decelerating,” Jain said. “We have to finish that bastard off before he repairs. Maybe we can teach the admiral a few tricks in the process.”

The Void Warriors decelerated, and turned back to assault the enemy pyramid.

The Arcane was moving away from it, and the base portion of the enemy pyramid was fleeing too, abandoning its top section. Apparently the vessel was too badly damaged to mount any further offensive, because it left Medeia alone; all it could do was limp away.

“Look at them run...” Mark said.

Jain glanced at Xander. “How fast are they moving?”

“Their speed has only been reduced by twenty-five percent,” Xander said. “We still won’t catch it.”

“Too bad,” Jain said. “All right, let them go. Maxwell and his fleet can deal with them.”

“Now that we’ve softened them up for him,” Mark said.

Jain glanced at Sheila. “Cancel the rift.”

“Deactivating creation beam,” Sheila said.

Jain saw a flash on his external display and zoomed in. He realized the fleet had fired at the fleeing pyramid and destroyed it: all that was left was spreading debris.

“Well, they certainly made short work of them…” Mark said.

“Yes, and that doesn’t make sense,” Gavin said. “The alien ship had to have self-destructed. The Thucydides fleet only fired a score of missiles. Not enough to create the wreckage we’re seeing.”

Jain glanced at the tactical display. The Thucydides fleet had closed to eight thousand kilometers.

“All right, hail the admiral,” Jain said. “He’s getting a bit too close for comfort.”

“I’m surprised he hasn’t hailed us already,” Medeia said.

“He’s much too in awe of us,” Cranston commented.

The admiral appeared on the bridge moment later.

“Impressive,” Maxwell said.

“You were wrong about their cloaking,” Jain said.

Maxwell seemed confused. No, distracted was a better word. “What?”

“The cloaking,” Jain said. “You were wrong about it. We got close. Destroyed that son of a bitch.”

“Ah,” Maxwell said. “Actually no, you got lucky.”

Jain waited for Maxwell to say more, but he didn’t elaborate.

“All right, well, you’re getting too close,” Jain said. “As per our agreement—”

“That agreement is now nullified,” Maxwell said.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jain asked.

A flash lit up his external camera feed.

An alert sounded on his HUD.

“What—”

The admiral smirked. “Goodbye, Void Warriors.”

The connection closed.

Jain glanced at his tactical display. Three of the green dots that represented members of his fleet were flashing.

Gone.

Why am I not surprised?

He should have listened to his gut.

“That flash you saw?” Xander said. “The closest Piranha in the Thucydides vanguard fired a lightning weapon. We lost three more of our ships, a rift vessel among them. The other two were autonomous, luckily. But still…”

“Why weren’t they spread out, like I ordered?” Jain asked, barely able to keep the anger from his voice.

“They didn’t have time,” Xander replied.

“Damn it.”

7

Jain stared at his tactical display in disbelief.

“They have a lightning weapon... they can travel the same speed as the enemy...” Mark said. “They’ve acquired Mimic technology?”

On the external camera feed, the pyramid that the admiral had supposedly destroyed reappeared. It followed alongside the Thucydides fleet. Its top section was still sheered straight off, but it matched the speed of the others. Either the vessel had repaired its engine damage already, or more likely, had only feigned that engine damage in the first place.

As he watched, the other warships changed shape. No longer were they the elongated, dart-like forms of the human models, but instead, they became the pyramids of the aliens.

“They haven’t acquired Mimic technology…” Sheila said. “They are Mimics.”

Jain was an imposter. He shouldn’t be in charge of this fleet. He should have prepared for this very possibility.

A voice at the back of his head scolded him.

You were prepared. You knew something was wrong. Yet you ignored your instincts.

Never again.

“Sheila, get the Daktor to open a rift,” Jain said with as much calm as he could muster. The Daktor was the only rift ship they had left.

“Same destination?” Sheila asked.

“That’s fine,” Jain said distractedly. Six ships down. He was six ships down.

Can’t think about that now.

“On it,” she replied.

“The rest of you, regroup,” Jain said. “We have to protect that ship with everything we have! Draw away their fire. Gavin, Sheila, use your force fields to shield the Daktor. Medeia, get cloaked. If you have the opportunity to take out another enemy craft, do it.”

Medeia nodded, then vanished from the virtual bridge.

“Mark get some black holes out there, give them something to dodge. The rest of you, send the autonomous ships out there, attack pattern delta.” That was a spread out pattern, which would ensure they were sufficiently scattered to avoid lightning arcs.

He drew the path for those ships on his tactical display. “I want them to break away perpendicular to our current direction of travel. They’ll become Task Group B. The rest of us in Task Group A will move off in the opposite direction. B will loop around and rejoin the fleet by the two minute mark.” The rift would be open by then. Assuming the Daktor survived.

As the two task groups separated, he was pleased to see several alien ships break away from the main pursuers. But not enough: only about four separated. The remainder continued to approach. The closest pyramid, which had fired the lightning bolt that terminated the latest three vessels in Jain’s fleet, was closing to the six thousand kilometer mark away from the Daktor.

While momentum carried him forward, Jain rotated his nose toward the attackers. Mark launched some black holes from the Grunt, and Jain added energy bolts to the mix with his barracuda. The pyramid ship easily dodged the black holes, and this time didn’t fall for the herding pattern Mark employed—it steered well clear of the black holes before returning to its previous course. The gambit did prove an effective stalling tactic, however, because the enemy pyramid was approaching far more slowly. But that wasn’t really a comfort, as the other vessels in the Mimic fleet were fast approaching.

“Someone has to protect the Daktor,” Sheila said. She began decelerating, as if intending to place herself between the rift ship and the incoming enemy. “If we lose that ship, we’re all gone. There’s no jumping out of here. We’ll be captured, our AI cores absorbed by the Mimics, our knowledge and memories used against the rest of humanity.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Jain said. “We can sacrifice a different ship.”

“That’s the thing, we won’t need a sacrifice,” Sheila said. “I have a force field.”

“But it won’t be enough,” Jain said. “It didn’t help you in the first battle.”

“You don’t know that,” Sheila told him. “None of us remember our first battle.”

“I’ll help her,” Gavin said.

He too began dropping out of formation.

Jain wasn’t sure what to say for several moments.

“Neither of you have to do this,” Jain finally told them. “We have ships to spare…”

“Yes, but how many can we afford to lose?” Sheila said. “No, I can do this. I will survive, especially with Gavin helping me. I know I will. And if I don’t, well, screw it.”

Sheila’s Wheelbarrow and Gavin’s Hippogriff were in place behind the Daktor, which had already begun the rift creation—a long beam shot out ten kilometers in front of it, into empty space. The Wheelbarrow’s spherical energy shield was active, while Gavin, sandwiched between the Wheelbarrow and the Daktor, had placed the Hippogriff’s three support drones behind Sheila’s vessel. The drones formed a triangular force field that acted as an additional shield for her. The Wheelbarrow was now trailing the Void Warrior fleet, and was closest to the enemy.

Mark had to cease firing his black hole weapon, because the unit was beginning to overheat. Jain gave his barracuda weapon a rest as well.

The nearest alien pyramid launched those familiar blobs, along with the smaller boarding party units. Other members of the Mimic fleet did the same, and on the tactical map a big swarm of red dots emanated from the enemy positions.

“Well, that looks like a lot of fun,” Cranston said.

“It’s all fun and games until someone loses a ship…” Gavin commented.

“Concentrate raptor fire on the closest blobs,” Jain said.

He and the other Void Warriors unleashed their raptors against the blobs, dispersing several: the trajectories of the alien projectiles would have taken them past the Wheelbarrow and Hippogriff, to the Daktor.

The closest pyramid reached the six thousand kilometer mark from the Wheelbarrow. It didn’t fire immediately.

“Hang tight, Sheila,” Jain said.

“Oh I’m hanging all right,” Sheila said. “By the fingernails.”

“If you’re having second thoughts…” Mark told her.

“Too late now,” Sheila said.

The pyramid shifted upward, as if trying to get a better shot at the Daktor, but the Wheelbarrow and Hippogriff followed suit, continuing to block the enemy’s line of fire.

Twenty seconds passed, and the nearest enemy vessel closed to the five thousand five hundred kilometer mark.

And then it fired.

The lightning weapon penetrated the force field formed by Gavin’s support drones; the intensity seemed to halve when it passed through. Then it struck Sheila’s spherical shield, and again the intensity halved, so that when it struck her ship, only a few weak sparks erupted along the hull of her vessel, and no arcs traveled to the Hippogriff.

Sheila remained upon the virtual bridge. That was a good sign.

On the view screen, the sparks emanating from the Wheelbarrow’s hull faded momentarily.

Sheila looked up. “Well, I got some overloaded systems, but otherwise I’m still in the game.”

Jain exhaled in relief.

“But don’t get too excited,” Sheila said. “My shield has been completely drained.”

“As have my support drones,” Gavin said. “I have to recall them.”

“Okay, now you can sacrifice a different ship,” Sheila said.

“The two of you, get back into formation, ahead of the Daktor,” Jain said. That was easy enough, given that the Daktor was the slowest ship among them.

“Already on our way,” Sheila told him.

“Xander, how long has it been since they first fired the lightning weapon?” Jain asked.

“One minute,” his Accomp said.

“So they have a one-minute recharge interval,” Jain said.

“That seems to be the case, yes,” Xander said.

Sheila was opening fire with her stingers, trying to stave off the smaller pyramid craft that were attaching to her hull, and the Hippogriff’s. Gavin was similarly unleashing his railguns. Some of those enemy craft traveled past them to the Daktor, and also began affixing to its hull.

“The Daktor is being boarded,” Jain said.

So far, the beams emanating from the Daktor’s generation ring remained active, combining to form the single beam that would open the rift.

“I see it,” Sheila said. “I’ve dispatched security rovers and munchkins to intercept the boarding parties.”

“How long until we have our rift?” Jain asked.

“Another minute,” Sheila replied.

We don’t have a minute! he wanted to say but held his virtual tongue.

“Who gets to protect the Daktor from the lightning weapon in the interim?” Mark asked. “We got another pyramid vessel coming into range alongside the first…”

“Who gets to be the sacrifice, you mean?” Cranston clarified.

“I’ll use one of my Direct Reports,” Jain said.

He took control of the Crater and applied decelerating thrust, directing the warship toward the Daktor. The Crater fell behind the rift ship, and immediately the point defense systems began firing the stingers—the vessel had descended into the cloud of incoming boarding craft. The railguns couldn’t keep up with the sheer number of them, and alarms were going off on all decks.

“I’ve got too many boarding parties to stave off,” Jain said. “And not enough security rovers aboard. The Crater won’t last long.”

He glanced at the tactical display and saw that a whole lot more of those craft were heading toward the Daktor.

“Get missiles out there,” Jain said. “We have to eliminate those boarders!”

He launched several missiles at the incoming swarm, from his ship and his Direct Reports, as did the other Void Warriors.

“Target that swarm with raptors, too,” Jain said. “Fire regardless of charge.”

Jain not only fired his raptors at the incoming craft, he also released his energy cannon sporadically, mindful that it was close to overheating.

“Mark, can you get any black holes out there?” Jain asked.

“Negative,” Mark said. “Still waiting for it to cool down.”

Jain glanced at the tactical display, and saw that the first pyramid ship was quickly approaching the six thousand kilometer mark. The Crater was too close to the Daktor—they were only separated by three thousand kilometers. When the lightning weapon struck the Crater, the bolt would arc to the rift ship, disabling it, too.

“Target the empty space on either side of the Crater with your hellraisers,” Jain said. “I want to see two launched from each of you. Program them to follow the Crater fifteen hundred kilometers on either side. Deactivate the warheads. Let’s give the lightning weapon something else to arc to. Fire.”

Two hellraisers launched from each ship, and moved into position. The swarm of alien boarding craft, afraid of those missiles, went out of their way to avoid them.

“If the lightning bolt weapon doesn’t arc to the nearby boarders—at least it hasn’t so far—why would it arc to our missiles?” Sheila asked.

“It might not,” Jain said. “But I’m guessing the weapon is attracted to objects of a certain size and conductivity. The boarders are too small, and probably not very conductive, allowing them to avoid drawing any arcs. I’m also hoping the arcs will be drawn toward closer targets…”

“I guess we’ll see,” Sheila said.

The latest pyramid vessel reached the six-thousand kilometer range and immediately fired at the Crater. The bolt hit full strength, and electricity sparked across the hull. The vessel’s running lights went dark, and Jain’s remote connection immediately failed.

The lightning arced outward from the impacted surface, and Jain was relieved when those arcs traveled toward the escorting missiles, rather than the Daktor. There were at least thirty-six arcs out there, one per hellraiser, and the missiles went offline en masse. They didn’t detonate, thanks to the disabled warheads.

“The other closest pyramid ship will be able to fire in five seconds,” Xander announced.

Jain glanced at his tactical display. The ship in question was moving up the Z plane to get into the line of sight of the Daktor. “Damn it.”

“The rift is open!” Sheila said.

“All vessels, emergency deceleration!” Jain said. “Enter that rift!”

But he knew they wouldn’t make it in time.

The battle was over.

8

Jain ordered his remaining Direct Reports to decelerate, and did so himself. He counted down the remaining seconds until the other nearby pyramid ship could fire again.

Three.

Two.

One.

A flash filled his external camera feed. But it wasn’t the lightning weapon firing.

He saw that Medeia had struck again, slicing clean through the upper section of the pyramid, as she had done to the previous vessel. The impact had bled away all her momentum, along with much of her opponent’s, so that they both drifted forward at a slower rate.

Medeia materialized on the bridge.

“See, I told you the admiral was wrong about cloaking,” Medeia said.

“He wasn’t wrong,” Jain said. “He was an alien. Of course he was going to lie about his vulnerabilities. But cloak, and get to the rift!”

She vanished from the virtual bridge as she cloaked again. Just in time, too, because she was almost within weapons range of the remainder of the pyramid fleet.

The base of the damaged vessel suddenly accelerated, as if intending to ram the Daktor now that it could no longer shoot.

Gavin was the first to reach the rift, and he passed through into the circular ring of purple gases. Mark followed just behind in the Grunt.

Several of the autonomous vessels arrived at the opening, and they too smoothly altered course to make the jump.

Jain dropped toward the rift, fired balancing thrust to cease his deceleration, then lined himself up with the opening; he accelerated again, squeezing between the beam and the gaseous outer edges of the spacetime anomaly, and traveled through to the other side.

Behind him, more ships barreled through. Autonomous vessels. The Wheelbarrow and Hippogriff.

Medeia hadn’t yet rejoined the bridge crew. Jain searched the tactical display, but there was no sign of her ship.

“We have to go back for her…” Mark said urgently.

Jain was about to send a few ships to do just that, but then the Arcane appeared, materializing as it passed through the rift. Medeia rejoined the virtual bridge crew.

“Sorry for the delay,” Medeia said. “But I was a bit farther from the rift than the rest of you…”

Finally the Daktor itself accelerated through, and the rift closed behind it. The electrical sparks traveling across its hull told Jain that it had taken a lightning impact seconds before the traversal.

He glanced at his overhead map, and saw that large clumps of red dots had traveled through with the vessel: the boarding party pyramids.

“Fire missiles into those masses!” Jain said.

Alerts sounded as more of those small craft attempted to attach to his hull. He fired his stingers, but breached deck warnings sounded as the enemy units got past.

“Xander, handle the boarders,” Jain said.

“I’ve been handling them for a while, and don’t intend to stop,” Xander said.

“Void Warriors, we have to dispatch some transports to the Daktor to help it out,” Jain said. “Look at all the breaches she has. It was already overwhelmed with boarders before it was hit with the lightning attack, but now things will be even worse, considering that its security rovers and munchkins will be offline.”

The team members loaded up their transports with whatever security rovers and munchkins they could spare, and docked those vessels with the Daktor—after the transports physically forced the docking bay doors open. Then the extra units entered and proceeded to search the infested conduits, hunting down the lobsters and termites—the alien equivalents to the Mind Refurb security rovers and micro machines, respectively. The combat rifles the munchkins wielded offset the plasma weapons of the lobsters.

They weren’t done here yet, but the worst of the danger had passed. They had escaped the pyramid fleet, and somehow none of the Mind Refurbs had lost their lives in the process.

We got lucky.

It helped that Medeia had taken the initiative and risked her life, twice, to prove that cloaking still worked against the aliens. She would’ve had to change directions a few times while cloaked… that was the only way she could have approached the two pyramids. By momentarily activating her engines to change directions, she would have given away her cloaked position, due to the weak thermal leakage.

If performed correctly, the enemy would have never known what direction she was traveling in. Still, it was possible they could have shot her down during those few moments of vulnerability. But they were preoccupied with the bigger prize: the Daktor.

“By the way, can you confirm this is Granalus?” Jain asked his Accomp.

“Celestial bodies confirm that yes, it is,” Xander replied.

“The system is empty of hostiles?” Jain pressed.

“It appears to be,” Xander reported. “There is no life here, or signs of any alien vessels.”

“Good.”

In about three hours, it was over. The security teams had handled all of the enemy boarding parties, and thoroughly cleansed the Daktor of intruders.

“Now it’s time to lick our wounds,” Jain said. “Activate repair swarms. I want you to devote ten percent of your swarms to the Daktor. I want to jump to a different system ASAP.”

“So you really think they have the ability to trace the gravitational waves produced by rifts?” Gavin asked.

“That part I think is true, yes,” Jain replied.

“But it will take years for the waves from this system to reach them,” Gavin said.

“I know,” Jain said. “But there’s nothing to stop them from sending probes to all the systems in the interstellar neighborhood in the meantime. I want to jump out of here as soon as possible.”

Sheila leaned an elbow on her virtual station, and rested her chin in the palm of her hand. “Let’s say we do. Let’s say we eventually resettle in another system. If they can track rift gravity waves, eventually they’ll find us. Could be ten years. Could be a hundred. And then we’ll have to run again. We’ll be running for the rest of our lives.”

“She’s right,” Medeia said. “But here’s something else to consider. What about humanity?”

“What about them?” Gavin said.

“They’re clearly in danger,” Medeia said. “It’s obvious by now that these Mimics have captured and dissected more Mind Refurbs. Admiral Maxwell was a simulacrum produced from one such captive no doubt.”

“Not this again,” Gavin said. “Even if that’s true, we already gave up on humanity ten years ago, when they threatened to dismantle us. You want to go back to that? There’s no forgiveness pact in play anymore. That was a fiction put forth by the aliens. We go back, we’re fugitives. The aliens will hunt us down, as will the humans, via their Mind Refurbs.”

“So you want to keep running forever…” Medeia said.

“Maybe I do,” Gavin said. “Maybe I think it’s better if we never return. Hell, what we should really be working on is developing a new type of rift, one that can take us to a new galaxy. Let’s leave this one behind. There’s nothing for us here. Everyone wants to kill everyone else.”

Mark glanced at Jain. “You’ve been quiet all this time.”

Jain nodded slowly.

“What are you thinking, Boss?” Cranston asked.

Jain sighed. “I’m not sure I want to go back, either. For the reasons Gavin stated.”

“There we go,” Gavin said. “Finally the voice of reason.”

“Can’t we at least take a peak?” Sheila said. “Create a rift to a known human colony system. Send in a probe, and maybe transmit a message, then see what we get back?”

Jain considered that. “We could do that.”

“What about that so-called border system the alien wanted us to jump to?” Cranston said. “Far west along the galactic axis. Are we really supposed to believe humanity has expanded all the way out there? Maybe we should send a probe there, too, to check it out.”

“No, it was obviously a trap,” Mark said. “There are no humans there. Though I have to wonder, what if it’s of some strategic importance to the aliens?”

“I somehow doubt the aliens would give up a location of strategic importance,” Medeia said.

“Can you be sure, though?” Mark told her. “We don’t know how these aliens think. Hell, maybe they’d believe it a good idea to share such a base, hoping that we’d send vessels to take it down. From their point of view, that could mean a faster end to the war, especially if we sent a significant number of ships their way.”

“A probe might be possible,” Jain said. “But we’ll talk about it when the Daktor is repaired. Any estimates?”

“It should be five days from now,” Sheila said.

“Then in five days, we’ll send out a few probes,” Jain said.

* * *

Jain and the others needed their own repairs from the last battle, mostly from the boarding party attacks. They had enough metals stocked aboard their cargo bays that they didn’t need to mine for more, however it wouldn’t hurt if the opportunity availed itself.

More urgently, they needed to replenish their propellant and missile supplies. As such, they entered orbit above a protoplanet located near the outskirts of the system and proceeded to mine frozen blocks of nitrogen and water. The former could be processed into explosives for their missiles, while the latter readily broke down into the components necessary for their propellant.

The Void Warriors deployed a network of miners and transports to deliver the materials to their respective ships for processing; the process was automated, allowing them to go about their day-to-day activities.

Jain insisted on more combat sessions, to practice against this latest threat, and he created ever bigger fleets of Mimic enemies for the Mind Refurbs to face. They could win with relative regularity against three ships, thanks to Medeia’s cloaking ability, but when it got to any more than that, their odds quickly dropped, eventually becoming zero once the number of enemy ships was twenty. Xander, in control of the enemy fleet, would usually focus in on the heat signatures Medeia produced while cloaked, and as soon as he took down her ship, the rest of the battle quickly went downhill.

Jain still held the bonding sessions in VR afterward. And as usual, the multitasking Accomps kept watch on the real world to ensure nothing ambushed them while they were otherwise occupied.

Medeia was hosting the VR session today. They were inside the concourse of an orbiting space station. Large floor to ceiling windows provided a spectacular view of the sun rising on the planet below.

They sat on stools next to counters, and ate hot dogs. Bottomless beer pitchers were available on each counter, which the team members used to refill their mugs.

“Hot dogs,” Gavin complained. “She has the complete culinary database of Earth at her fingertips, and she has to go and choose hot dogs. A gastronome’s delight.”

“Hey, hot dogs and beer,” Medeia said. “They go very well together.”

“I’m certainly enjoying it,” Mark said.

Medeia beamed at him. “Thank you.”

“You know, something I haven’t been able to figure it out these past ten years,” Cranston said. “And that’s whether you two are getting it on.”

Mark took a big bite of his chili dog, and said with his mouth full: “The hell you talking about?”

Cranston lifted his palms. “Hey, I mean no offense. What you do in your private time is your own business.”

“Then why bring it up?” Sheila said.

Cranston shifted uncomfortably. “For curiosity’s sake. I’ve suspected they’ve had an ongoing relationship for a while now... from the way they often compliment each other, or the flirtatious arguments they sometimes have, or the glances they exchange when they think no one is looking. But they always behave platonically in front of the rest of us, even during our bonding sessions. That’s ten years, hiding their feelings from the rest of us. Like they’re ashamed of what they’re doing or something. But they shouldn’t be. Because I wouldn’t think any worse of the two of you if you were intimate. None of us would.”

“Well we’re not,” Mark said flatly. He took another bite.

Medeia very carefully kept her gaze focused on her own hot dog.

Cranston shrugged. “That’s fine, too. Myself, I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve created a few virtual companions over the years to satisfy me emotionally, and physically.”

“Oh I know,” Mark said. “You’re always bragging about your latest digital conquests. What was it you said about your last AI girlfriend? Oh yeah, that you programmed her difficulty level well past nightmare mode.”

“She was a tough one,” Cranston admitted.

“But she wasn’t even real,” Gavin said. “The very fact that you programmed her should tell you that.”

“I know,” Cranston said. “But she’s as real as any other AI. As real as your Accomps. In fact, she uses the same partition as my Accomp, to ensure human complexity.”

Gavin shrugged. “I’d rather my fembots weren’t complex. They’re just something for me to utilize when I need to let off a little steam. If you catch my drift...”

Sheila sniffed. “You would denigrate the female form to the realm of objects.”

Gavin gave her an indifferent look. “You do the same. Last time we were in your VR environment, you were surrounded by loincloth-wearing, oiled cabana boys answering to your every beck and call.”

“But that’s different,” Sheila said. “Women have been objects for so long to men, it’s about time we get a chance to make men into our objects.”

Gavin chuckled. “Okay. But you know, you don’t actually have a gender now, right? It’s all in your mind. We’re sexless machines now, baby girl.”

Sheila stiffened. “Don’t call me baby girl.”

Gavin shrugged again, and took a long sip of beer. “Anyway, I agree with Cranston. If Mark and Medeia have something going on, I’m not going to hold it against them. But companionship is overrated, you ask me. Give a man a good fembot, with a hole he can fool around in now and then, and he’ll be happy for life.”

“Except you’re not a man,” Sheila said.

“I’ll try not to take that as an insult,” Gavin said.

“But by your own admission, you’re a sexless machine,” Sheila said.

“None of us are men and women anymore,” Jain interrupted. “We’re Mind Refurbs. More than men and women. Much more.”

Sheila nodded. “We are. And we always will be. There are drawbacks, but the benefits outweigh them all, in my opinion. I don’t miss being human. Not at all. It would be nice to feel safe again, though. Not like the entire universe is trying to hunt us down.”

“Yeah, about that.” Mark generated another hot dog, this one covered in relish, ketchup and onions. “So, we have no chance of beating more than nineteen alien ships, according to the simulation. Well, all I can say is, it’s a good thing we ran from the Mimic fleet. You led us well once again, Jain.”

“Thank you,” Jain said.

Mark nodded, and took a big bite out of the hot dog.

“You’re the only one who feels good about running,” Gavin said. “Myself, I would have preferred to stay and fight.”

Mark gave him an incredulous look. “And die?”

“I think we could have taken them,” Gavin said.

“But we lost in the simulations every time, when we faced the same number of foes,” Mark said.

“That’s because it was the simulation,” Gavin said. “It’s different in real life. When we know we can actually die. We’ll try a helluva lot harder.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Cranston said. “We’ve been trying pretty hard back in the training sessions.”

“But it’s still not the same,” Gavin said. “Especially considering that our simulated enemy is piloted by one of our own AIs, rather than an alien intellect.”

“That’s definitely a factor,” Cranston admitted. “Though to Xander’s credit, he’s been trying to think like an alien.”

“Really?” Gavin said. “And how is that even possible? The Accomp has no idea how a Mimic commander thinks. None of our AIs do. We’re not even sure if we’ve witnessed all of their weaponry yet. They might have black hole generators, too, or something worse.”

“Hopefully, we won’t ever find out,” Sheila said.

“Oh, but we will,” Gavin said. “You’re the one who’s so eager to jump back into human territory. What if it’s overrun with those Mimic aliens?”

“I hope not,” Sheila said. “That would be the suckiest thing ever.”

“Don’t you know it,” Gavin said. He glanced at Jain. “What do you think?”

Jain had only been partly listening. His mind had drifted back to the battle, and their losses.

“What do I think?” Jain asked.

“Uh huh,” Gavin replied.

“I still can’t believe I lost six ships,” Jain said. “We’re down to eighteen.”

Medeia put down her mug and wiped her lips. “Don’t beat yourself up. It wasn’t your fault. And at least none of those ships contained Mind Refurbs.”

“Yes,” Jain said. “The only redeeming factor.”

“We never faced that many enemies before,” Sheila chimed in, obviously trying to console him.

“Maybe,” Jain said. “But we did train in VR.”

“Never against so many, though,” Sheila said. “Until recently. Because we knew we’d be overwhelmed. Just as we were. You did all you could out there. You pulled us through.”

Jain nodded. “I was thinking... if any of you want to take over, maybe you should.” He glanced at Gavin hopefully. “You always wanted to lead us.”

Gavin set down his empty beer glass. “I used to think I did. And if you’d offered me the role a month ago, or even a week ago, I would have accepted. But after meeting this latest alien fleet, and thinking on it... I actually kind of enjoy the blamelessness that comes with my current position.” He materialized more beer in his mug. “You have your work cut out for you. I don’t envy you in the least.” He took another long sip.

Jain ran his gaze across the others. “No one else wants this?”

None of the Void Warriors volunteered.

Jain sighed. “All right. I’ll do my best to lead you through whatever comes. And I still intend to ask for votes, when it comes to important decisions. Like whether or not we should actually return to human space.”

“I guess that depends on what the probes return, once we have the rift online,” Medeia said.

“And so it does,” Jain agreed.

9

The repair swarms finished mending the damage to the Daktor in five days as promised.

Jain told Sheila to open a rift to the system coordinates that Maxwell had sent them, and he launched a probe toward it before the tear in spacetime formed. The probe began decelerating before it arrived at the rift site—the goal was for the device to spend the least amount of time in the destination system as possible. He wasn’t worried about the probe being destroyed—though rifts always opened in fixed locations once calculated, those locations varied from rift ship to rift ship, and were essentially random, so no one would be expecting the probe to appear where it did—but that said, Jain didn’t want any inhabitants in the system to get a proper fix on the heat signature, which would allow them to ID the probe as of human make.

The rift opened, and the probe passed through an instant later; the timing had been just right, and the probe achieved zero velocity in the target system and reversed course, passing back into the Granalus system almost a split second after its arrival, having collected all the necessary light and thermal data.

“Close the rift,” Jain ordered.

The Daktor shut down its beams, and the circular ring of gases that formed the rift collapsed in upon itself.

“So, Xander, what did we find?” Jain said. “Is there an ambush awaiting beyond? Or a colony?”

“Actually, neither,” Xander said. “As far as I can tell, the system is completely empty. There is no evidence of alien occupation. Nor any indication of human habitation. It’s just a typical main sequence star, class K spectrum, with a series of ordinary planets orbiting: a mix of gas giants and terrestrials. No asteroid belt or extensive ring systems.”

“The Mimics must be there somewhere,” Cranston said. “Hiding behind one of the gas giants. Or the sun, maybe. With inertialess drives, you can get very close to gravity wells.”

“That’s one scenario we definitely want to avoid,” Medeia said. “Staging an attack against these bastards in a powerful gravity well. While we were struggling with huge Delta V costs, trying to achieve escape velocity, they’d come calmly coasting in for the attack.”

“Why do you think I always launch the black holes behind our trajectory?” Mark said. “Though don’t get me wrong, a well-placed black hole in our path can work wonders, too, if we’re looking for a quick speed boost.”

“Why didn’t you do that last time?” Sheila asked.

“Too busy trying to keep our enemy occupied,” Mark replied.

“I have to agree with Cranston,” Jain said. “Mimics are definitely waiting somewhere inside that system. So then, we were going to send a probe to human space next. Any candidates?”

“How about Alpha Centauri?” Sheila said. “According to my database, there’s a large Canadian colony there.”

“Alpha Centauri it is,” Jain said.

They were able to bring the Daktor online after the first four hours that first day, while the repairs to the gate and other systems were ongoing, and as such, the autonomous core had been busy performing calculations to different potential Earth colonies, Alpha Centauri among them.

That said, they still had to wait twelve hours for the gate generator to recharge via the onboard fusion reactor.

They spent much of that time training in the war simulator, practicing against a fleet of Mimic warships in a gas giant environment.

“Last time I bring up fighting in a gas giant again,” Medeia commented when Jain finally shut down the simulation.

“Hey, it was a good idea,” Jain said.

“Not really,” Medeia told him. “All we learned was that I was right. If we fight near a gas giant, we lose.”

At the twelve hour mark, Jain logged back into the virtual bridge. “Sheila, create the rift to Alpha Centauri. Xander, launch a probe. Time it so that it arrives just as the rift opens; use the usual in-out tactic of decelerating before entry so that the probe remains in Alpha Centauri for the least amount of time possible.”

Like before, the rift opened, the probe passed inside and returned an instant later.

“Seal the rift,” Jain ordered. He turned toward Xander. “So? What are you seeing in the triple star system?”

“Hmm, this isn’t good,” Xander said.

“What do you see?” Jain repeated.

“There’s a lot of debris in orbit of Alpha Centauri V,” Xander said. “That’s the colony world. And the colony itself is black. There should be thermals coming from the surface, but I get nothing. I fear it suffered the same fate as the Ablativus colony.”

“The aliens razed it?” Sheila said. “And deployed bioweapons to terraform the surface?”

“While I can’t confirm either way, that seems the most likely result,” Xander said.

“This isn’t good,” Gavin said. “Not good at all. What if every colony is like this? What if Earth itself has been destroyed? We should have never left ten years ago.”

“You’ve always been the fiercest advocate of never returning,” Cranston said. “And never helping. What’s changed?”

Gavin shook his head. “I always figured they’d be able to fend for themselves. That they’d create an army of Mind Refurbs to protect them. I never wanted this. Never wanted humanity to become extinct. If that’s happened... it feels like a part of myself has been killed off forever. Because like it or not, the humans are my creators, if not my ancestors.”

“All right, time to shut it down,” Jain said. “We check the next human colony in another twelve hours.”

And so it went, with the team waiting twelve hours, creating a rift to the next colony world—as documented by their cloud databases—and sending in a probe. Always, the device returned only orbital debris and seemingly dead colony worlds.

“Why don’t we check Earth system?” Medeia asked.

Jain shook his head. “Not yet.” He didn’t want to tell her, but he was dreading sending a probe to Earth. He couldn’t shake the feeling that their home planet, a planet they had never seen, was destroyed.

“Let’s check some of the Eastern Galactic Front systems,” Jain said. Those systems all contained military bases, and were meant to stave off the threat from the Link, who assaulted those systems once every couple of years.

When the Daktor was ready to create the next rift, Jain had Sheila open it to the first eastern front system. When the probe returned, she closed the gate.

“Interesting,” Xander said.

“What now?” Jain asked.

“There are vessels in the system,” Xander replied. “But they match up with Link makes and models.”

“So the link have overrun our eastern front,” Medeia said.

“One of the systems on our eastern front...” Jain said. “We’ll see how many have fallen soon enough. There are six more.”

Over the next seventy-two hours, Jain opened up rifts to the remaining six front systems. The first five were all overrun by Link ships.

“So it’s finally happened,” Cranston said. “Humanity has fallen. We had to fight a war on two fronts... the Link on one side, and the Mimics on the other.”

Jain was beginning to fear that Cranston was right. “We still have one more front system to check.”

“What’s the point?” Cranston said. “It’s obvious by now what has happened. The Mimics have destroyed humanity, for no reason whatsoever.”

“Oh I’m sure they have a reason, we just don’t know what it is,” Medeia said.

“Yeah, well, they’ve probably been systematically working their way from system to system, tracking down the last vestiges of humanity,” Cranston said. “I have a hunch that we’re the last ones left. Once they’ve eliminated us, their work is done.”

“They won’t eliminate us,” Jain said. “Now we’re going to check the final eastern front system.”

Jain had Xander launch the probe when the rift was ready, and he was relieved when the Accomp reported vessels of human make.

He slumped in his seat, all the tension he had felt up until that moment seeping out. “All right. Some of us have survived, at least. How many did you spot?”

“Fifty two vessels in total,” Xander said. “All warships, mostly Dominators and Piranhas. They were congregated around the central military base, located on the fifth planet in orbit around the twin suns, a Mars equivalent.”

“Congregated,” Medeia said. “As if they’re expecting an attack.”

“From the Link, or the Mimics?” Mark asked.

“Maybe both,” Gavin said.

“Are we going to offer them assistance?” Cranston asked.

“Wait, can we truly be certain these are human ships?” Mark asked. “And not Mimic vessels disguising their thermals and visuals to fool any remaining humans or Mind Refurbs such as ourselves? Or perhaps to fool the Link into believing their vessels are weaker human models…”

“We can’t be sure, no,” Jain said. “So if we choose to help them, we’ll have to maintain our hundred thousand kilometer rule until we can prove otherwise.” Jain paused. “But before we commit, and make that choice, there are other systems we will still need to check. There might be worlds and colonies still out there, and in greater need of our help. Not that we’ll be able to make much of a difference. But at least we’ll know we tried.”

“I’m sure every ship will count at this point,” Cranston said.

Gavin nodded. “Even though I feel this isn’t my fight, I can’t abandon humanity… nor my brother and sister Mind Refurbs.”

“None of us can,” Jain agreed. “Sheila, we still have a few more places to check with our probe. We’ll return to the inner systems. We’ll open a rift to the Earth system first, and move our way outward to the colonies we haven’t visited yet.”

They spent the next few days checking the different systems. Earth was intact, thankfully, and like the system on the eastern front, it had over fifty vessels gathered in orbit, alongside heavily-armed defense platforms. The feeling of dread he had felt was all for nothing. He had convinced himself the planet was destroyed, for no reason, except perhaps to worry himself.

Despite sending the probe to seven more systems, the probe detected intact colonies in only two of them, with thirty and eighty warships in orbit respectively. The remaining systems contained only debris, and the wreckages of starships.

“How disheartening,” Sheila said. “There are so few human ships and bases left.”

“Maybe the rest are hiding somewhere,” Gavin said.

“We can only hope,” Sheila said. “But somehow, I doubt it. According to our database, there should be over a thousand ships that are part of the combined Earth space navies. And now there are only one hundred and sixty-two, not counting us.”

“Remember, we’re not truly certain these are even human ships,” Mark said.

“No,” Jain said. “But we’re going to offer our help in any case. So. It looks like we have a choice. We can offer to help Earth, one of the two colonies, or the defenders along the eastern front.”

The Void Warriors exchanged glances.

“It seems obvious that Earth should be our first choice,” Gavin said.

“I agree,” Cranston chimed in.

Jain studied them. “How about this: we contact Earth, and ask them where we are needed most. Assuming they’ll take us back, which isn’t guaranteed either way.”

“Let’s do it,” Medeia said.

10

Clad in his pressurized suit, Jain crouched next to a thick bole. Heavy lianas hung down, like big cables, shielding him from view of the tentacled machines that rolled past.

He and his platoon mates were hidden amid the alien trees and foliage that lined the jungle trail. They had finally made it home, after that initial mission, only to be sent back, but this time as part of a larger army. Their mission now was to ambush a crucial supply line. These machines were part of the extensive logistics infrastructure the aliens had set up. The Brass labelled the aliens Xenon 626 after the star their planet orbited. And these tentacled machines, whose upper bodies were crafted in the image of the aliens, while the lower bodies were like human tanks, were called Crudes.

He waited until the last of the Crudes passed his position.

“Now,” he transmitted.

Jain parted the veil of thick lianas and tossed his entire harness of energy grenades at the trailing tank. The other platoon mates had marked their targets on the shared overhead map, so there would be no overlap. Other harnesses landed on the targeted machines, which so far hadn’t realized anything was amiss.

Jain detonated his collection of grenades. A terrible explosion ripped through the air, and shrapnel peppered the hanging lianas that shielded him.

A staccato of explosions followed in rapid succession, and before the dust settled, he leaped from cover, letting rip with his plasma rifle. He concentrated his fire on those units that still showed signs of activity, tearing wider the wounds made by the grenades.

The Crude he was firing on abruptly came to a halt, and a portal folded open. A Xenon stumbled outside, crawling on its tentacles. Jain aimed at the beak and fired. The head exploded in a gory mass, and the Xenon collapsed like a puppet whose life-giving strings had been snipped.

In moments it was over.

The repeater drone hovered into view overhead, recording, transmitting.

“Jain to base,” Jain transmitted. “Patrol five terminated. I repeat, patrol five terminated.” That was the last of them.

“Thank you, lieutenant commander,” a robotic voice returned. “Supply depot attack is commencing. Delete any escapees.”

“You got it,” Jain said.

Jets modified for the alien atmosphere roared past overhead, and Jain heard the high-pitched keening of laser-guided bombs. Explosions rocked the earth, and plumes of smoke topped the distant trees.

Humanoid combat robots emerged from the jungle behind Jain, and streamed past, toward the plumes. That would be the main attack force.

“Cavalry has arrived,” Grams said.

“Spread out,” Jain said. “We delete any escapees.”

“Delete?” Chief Notly said. “You’re starting to talk like the robots, now.”

“I’ve been talking and fighting like a robot for a while now,” Jain commented. “War does that.”

“No, you do that,” Notly said.

“I had to,” Jain said. “Dulling my emotions is the only way to…” But he didn’t finish.

Instead he dashed forward, into the trees, following the path made by one of the combat robots. He glanced at his overhead map and confirmed that the other members of the platoon had fanned out, based on the green dots marking their positions.

Ahead, smoke filled the spaces between the trees, and he switched to echolocation. His view filled out once more, with white wireframes marking the positions of the boles, and the leafy undergrowth.

Jain continued forward. Areas of flickering red began to appear, marking those spots where the jellied gasoline from the bombs was still burning. He meticulously avoided those areas.

From a particularly dense cluster of flames, a small form darted forward. Jain swung his rifle toward it, but before he could fire, the form collapsed.

He glanced at his overhead map. The form was marked with a red dot, indicating an enemy.

For some reason, he didn’t fire. Didn’t finish the job.

Instead, he approached. Cautiously.

The form was quivering under the echolocation. Parts of it were on fire. It was the smallest Xenon he had ever seen.

It had to be a child.

Feeling a sudden surge of empathy, Jain scooped up the tentacled alien and carried it from the smoke. When he was clear of it, he deactivated his echolocation, and lowered the alien child to the jungle floor.

Some of the flames had spread to his suit, thanks to the jellied gasoline, but he barely noticed. Instead, he opened up his medkit, and removed the fire retardant. He sprayed the foam over the alien, putting out the flames.

By then, the Xenon had ceased moving.

Jain raised the child in his arms, and held the alien to his chest, taking care not to touch the fires that still burned on his suit.

“It’s all right now,” Jain said. “No one’s going to hurt you anymore.”

He rocked the child in his arms.

“Jain, you all right?” Notly emerged from the trees. He had his rifle aimed at Jain, but lowered it when he comprehended the scene before him. The red dot on the map would have attracted him to Jain’s position. A red dot that had now turned black.

Notly came to his side. “Lieutenant Commander?”

In answer, Jain merely rocked the dead alien child in his arms.

* * *

Jain awakened to darkness. He floated there, bodiless, lacking sensations of any kind.

If these are the missing memories that await me, I can do without them.

He resolved in that moment to disable his dream subroutines once more. He didn’t need this… guilt.

I was a warrior. What did I expect to find while filling in the holes of my past? Drunken brawls and giggling women?

Well, he certainly had enough memories of drunken brawls and giggling women, and wished he had left it at that.

He pulled up the delete subroutine, but then paused.

No. I will keep the dreams. They will remind me of who I was, and what I did. They are my punishment.

His dismissed his display, and prepared to return to the dream state.

“Sheila wants to talk to you,” Xander’s disembodied voice announced into the darkness.

Jain sighed. Or he would have, if he had a virtual body.

“Put her through,” Jain said.

Sheila’s voice sounded a moment later: “The Daktor is ready to open the rift.”

“Thanks, I’ll be right there,” Jain said.

It was time to send a message to Earth.

He logged back into the false reality of VR.

When the virtual bridge finished loading, he sat down in the waiting chair. The other Mind Refurbs resided at their stations, these captains of vessels in their own rights.

“Start opening the rift,” Jain told Sheila. “Xander, prepare to launch the probe.”

“Do you have your message ready?” Xander asked.

“I do,” Jain said. “Begin record. This is Lieutenant Commander Jain Sagan, of the Mind Refurb Battle Group Void Warriors. We are outlaws. Or we were. But we have returned to render whatever aid we can to humanity, and to our Mind Refurb brothers and sisters. We have eighteen warships, manned by a team of six battle-hardened Mind Refurbs. We have experience fighting against a race of aliens known as the Mimics. Do you want our assistance? End record.”

“The rift is open,” Sheila said.

“Send probe,” Jain told Xander.

The Accomp’s eyes defocused.

On the tactical map, Jain watched the dot representing the probe emerge from the Talos, and travel through the rift. It decelerated the whole way, and returned a moment later.

Jain glanced at Xander.

“The area is still clear on the other side,” Xander said. “The warships remain clustered around Earth.”

“All right, send it back, and transmit the message,” Jain said.

The probe traveled through once more.

“Close the rift,” Jain ordered.

“It’s gone,” Sheila said.

The probe would stay in the Earth system for the next twelve hours until Sheila opened the rift again. That would be more than enough time to relay the message to humanity, and to receive a response.

The team spent most of the rest of the day practicing in the training environment, enduring the latest round of humiliating exercises against the simulated Mimic fleet. Xander was the only one who seemed happy when the session was done.

Finally it came time to create the rift once more. Sheila opened it. The probe flew inside almost immediately—it had been waiting on the other side.

“Anything?” Jain asked Xander.

The robed Accomp nodded. “We have a message waiting.”

“Let’s have it,” Jain said.

A hologram appeared on the bridge in front of Jain. It was an older man, with a bald head, and deep crevices around his eyes.

“Hello, Jain Sagan, and the Void Warriors,” the man said. “I am Fleet Admiral Frank Gauss, of the Seventh Fleet.”

“Fleet Admiral,” Cranston said. “Nice. We’re moving up in the world.”

“Or down,” Medeia commented.

“I got your message,” Gauss continued. “You may not know this, but you were cleared of any wrongdoing in the Andreas V and Ablativus incidents years ago. You see, shortly after you disappeared, the Mimics attacked. In force. We realized everything you told us had been true, but we were too blind to see it. Not that it would have mattered. They systematically destroyed the colonies and bases distributed about Earth’s interstellar neighborhood. We watched helplessly as worlds fell, and systems were lost. We mounted several failed offensives. We drew ships away from the Eastern Galactic Front to boost our numbers, weakening our defenses against the Link. Now those systems are lost, and the Link makes intrusions from the eastern front, while the Mimics press us from the west.”

The fleet admiral sighed. “We’re down to our last few systems. I’m not sure there is much you can do at this point, but your help is definitely welcome. We won’t say no to more warships. We could best use you in the Nata system. That’s where the Mimics have been concentrating their latest attacks.”

“That would explain why we spotted eighty ships in that system,” Gavin said.

“I’ve already relayed a message to the commander there,” Admiral Gauss continued. “They will be expecting you… should you decide to make good on your offer of help, that is. The fleet commander will have more instructions once you arrive. Thank you, and lieutenant commander? Welcome back to the fold.”

The hologram winked out.

“I can’t hold the rift open for much longer,” Sheila said.

Jain had forgotten it was still open. “Close it.”

The rift winked out.

He turned toward his crew. “Well, I guess we’re going to Nata.”

11

Jain sat cross-legged on the grass. In front of him was a rocky outcrop illuminated by different-colored lamps. The rocks were reflected in a pool of water at the base of the outcrop, along with the stars overhead.

He received a contact request from Sheila, requesting access to the private VR partition he’d set up. He considered denying her, but that would be rude, so he accepted.

Sheila materialized beside him. Her face cycled in hue from red, green and blue as the lamps changed colors in front of her.

“Cool.” She sat down and folded her legs to her chest, wrapping her arms around her knees to hold the posture.

“You never have any virtual companions...” Sheila said.

“No,” Jain said.

“No females, no males, no one,” Sheila said. “The rest of us have taken virtual lovers.”

“I know,” Jain said. The subject had come up a few times during the shared bonding sessions, though Jain always remained quiet during such discussions.

“I don’t need them,” Jain said. “I never did, even when I was human. I guess I inherited my low sex drive.”

“Maybe you should pump up your libido values,” Sheila said. “There’s a subroutine for that.”

“Maybe I should,” he agreed.

Sheila regarded him sidelong. “But of course you won’t.”

“Probably not,” Jain said. He paused. “You know, the low libido thing... I wasn’t always this way. When I was in my early twenties, I basically mounted anything that moved.”

“What changed?” Sheila asked.

“I went to war,” Jain replied.

“Ah.” She reached out, and held his hand.

He looked down at her palm intertwined with his, and gently pulled his fingers away.

A look of disappointment flashed across her face, but she quickly masked it, and returned her gaze to the pool of water.

“According to your file, you got married after you retired,” Sheila said.

Jain nodded. “Yes.”

“She must have been quite the special woman to convince you to leave behind your bachelor’s life.”

“She was,” Jain said. He sighed.

“What’s on your mind?” Sheila pressed.

He looked at her, and hesitated, unsure if he wanted to reveal anything more to her. But he decided it would probably feel better to get it off his chest. “I’ve been experimenting with re-enabling my dreams. I wanted to restore some of the holes in my memories. But I wasn’t expecting those memories to be so... tortured.”

Sheila nodded. “Much of life is suffering. It’s how we deal with the suffering that makes us who we are.”

“Is it?” Jain said. “Are you sure you’re not spouting some platitude you don’t even really believe in? I’ve killed so many innocents. They were aliens, true, but innocent the same. At first I thought, why should I care about some stupid alien child. It’s not human. It’s just some thing. A species that we’re at war with anyway. But then I got thinking. Why were we at war with them? I love the military, and the honorable men and women I served with. Just like I love you guys. But sometimes I have to question the people giving the orders.”

Sheila rested her head against her knees. “You know, I fragged one of my commanders, back in the day.”

“Fragged, as in killed?” Jain said in disbelief.

“That’s right,” Sheila said. “I’m not proud of it.”

Jain shook his head. “You never struck me as the backstabbing, murdering type...”

Sheila glanced at him and her face darkened. “Don’t judge me. Not until you hear the whole story.” She looked away to gaze at the changing lights in the pool. After several moments, she sighed. “I sometimes wonder how I ever passed the qualifications to become a Mind Refurb. I guess they weren’t able to ferret out the memory, I’ve buried it so deep.”

“What happened exactly?” Jain asked.

“I threw a grenade at my commander in the middle of combat and remotely detonated it. I disabled my logging mechanisms before I threw it of course, and was careful to do the deed out of the line of sight of any watchers, either human or machine. I never got caught, and his death was blamed on the enemy.”

“I know he must have been a bad leader, but why resort to something like this?” Jain asked.

“Well, the thing is, he was an AI,” Sheila said. “A Mind Refurb, actually.”

“Ah,” Jain said. “So in your mind, it was like you were shutting down a malfunctioning robot.”

“Exactly,” Sheila said. “You were human, once. You know how we looked at Mind Refurbs... I took it as an insult that they’d assign a machine to lead us in the first place, even if that machine had a human mind operating it. And yeah, he was also a really bad leader. Almost every day he led us into ambushes. You know, one of those who wanted to get a big medal when the war was done, and get his face live streamed all over the net, while throwing away the lives of those who served underneath him. We lost at least two deck crew per week. This was the war against the Xenon 626, by the way.”

“I remember that war, too,” Jain said. “But you were supposed to be a Machinist’s Mate.”

“I was,” Sheila said. “But I lost a good friend under that a-hole, and I decided I wasn’t going to stand for it. His name was Sarkley, and he commanded an MDP—mobile defense platform. You know, essentially a glorified gunship. It had a crew of twenty, including me, the Machinist’s Mate. We were part of the airborne assaults during the Battle of Talowna. After I did the deed, as soon as we got back to base, they restored him from a backup.”

“Did you frag him again?” Jain asked.

“Hell no,” Sheila said. “He installed extra cameras all over the gunship, it would’ve been too much work to cover my tracks. Anyway, after the Battle of Talowna, we were assigned mostly low risk duties for the remainder of the war.”

"So wait a sec,” Jain said. “After we first awakened as Mind Refurbs, weren't you the one who was all gung-ho about rejoining the main fleet, and reinserting yourself into the hierarchy of command? If you were so anti-military, why would you want that?"

"I never said I was anti-military,” she told him. “Just anti-machine, maybe. At least when it came to commanding officers. And at the time I woke up, the fragging incident was ten years in my past—relative to my memory sense—so I was a slightly different person by then. Someone more appreciative of AIs. Or more respectful of them, anyway, as well as the entire military apparatus as a whole. We had come a long way since that war, at least I thought so at the time. Which is why I volunteered to have my mind scanned. I know, it’s kind of a one-eighty, but that’s the way I am. When I was younger, I was a vegan for fifteen years, and then swung all the way to the other side, becoming full carnivore for the next fifteen."

Jain stared at her for a moment, and then grinned widely.

“Fragging a commander.” Jain whistled softly. “Remind me never to cross you.”

“I’d never do that to you,” Sheila said. “You’re a far better leader than he ever was. Than I ever could be.”

“I see now why you were afraid to accept the role of fleet commander, when I restored everyone from their backups for the first time,” Jain said. “Even though you had seniority in grade, by our updated definition of the rule.”

She chuckled. “That’s partially why, yes. I was definitely worried you guys would frag me. Because I would have been that bad.”

“So wait, when you woke up to find that you were now an officer yourself, that must have been some surprise…” Jain said. “Automatically promoted to the rank of lieutenant commander, just for being a Mind Refurb.”

“That I had a ship for a body was more of a surprise, believe me,” Sheila said.

Jain laughed softly, then looked away from her, becoming serious. “Thanks for sharing all of that.” He was quiet for a moment, and stared at the stars. “You know, this is the VR environment that I woke up to the very first time. This pool of water, with the lights, and the stars overhead. The forest behind me.”

“Really...” Sheila said. “So it’s almost like your birthplace, then.”

“That’s right,” Jain said. “I come here when I want to contemplate. The past, the present, the future. What I used to be, what I’ve become, what I will become.”

“And was that contemplating helping you at all today?” Sheila asked. “Given what you told me earlier, about the dreams, and the memories they awakened...”

Jain glanced at her, then sighed. “Not really. Those memories, they remind me that life is... meaningless. Especially now. This place...” He glanced up at the stars, and the rocky outcrop. “I can feel the ground pressing up underneath me. Smell the dew collecting in the grass. Feel the slight breeze on my face. And yet I know it’s all fake. I know I’m just a starship, floating in the cold, dark void of space, my hull bombarded by ionizing radiation.”

“What we have here, between you and I, it’s real,” Sheila said. “As is your relationship with the rest of us. And that’s all that matters. That we’re here for each other.” When Jain didn’t answer, she added: “You’ve had ten years to come to terms with what you are. You’re trying to tell me that you haven’t?”

“I have,” Jain said. “It’s just, sometimes I have to wonder, what’s the point? Of existing. It still feels meaningless to me.”

“Ah, the age old question,” Sheila said. “As a species, we’ve been grappling with meaning for millennia. It’s no different now that our minds are in machines. Life isn’t meaningless. Don’t let yourself go there. We have a purpose now. We have to help humanity, and the surviving Mind Refurbs.”

“All right, let’s say we somehow succeed,” Jain said. “We defeat this latest threat to humanity, and our Mind Refurb brothers and sisters. What then? We lose our purpose once more.”

“No,” Sheila said. “You will always have a propose. And that is to guide us, and lead us on to better and brighter days.”

“Ah,” Jain said. “But what if I decide to abdicate my position.”

“We won’t let you,” Sheila said.

He smiled sadly. “And if I die, you’ll just restore me from my backup, right?”

Sheila nodded. “You got it.”

“I suppose I’m stuck leading you for all eternity, then,” Jain said. “Am I in hell?”

“Far from it,” Sheila said. “Come on, it’s not so bad. I mean , would you really rather that I fragged you?”

He smiled. “No.”

An alert sounded on his HUD.

Jain stood. “According to my timer, the Daktor is ready to form a rift again. Let’s go.” He turned, and was about to log out, but then he glanced at her askance. “And Sheila.”

“Yes?” she asked.

“Thanks for the pep talk. It helped.”

Sheila winked. “Just for you, Admiral.”

“I love it when you call me admiral,” Jain said.

She smiled wickedly. “I know.”

* * *

The Void Warrior fleet made the jump to Nata, and shortly after arrival received a welcome message directing them to proceed to the colony world of Manamas, the third terrestrial planet from the sun. It was a Brazilian colony, and the eighty ships in orbit belonged to various South American countries under the command of one Admiral Rodriguez Santana.

When Jain reached the million-kilometer mark, he initiated a realtime holographic call.

The admiral appeared in the center of the bridge, just as Jain would be appearing in whatever virtual environment Santana had set up for himself.

“I heard you were looking for a few good warships,” Jain told the prim individual. The admiral’s features were so thin as to appear gaunt. Hell, Jain could see the outline of his eye sockets, as well as his cheekbones. Jain wasn’t sure what effect the admiral was going for with an avatar like that, but if it was only to scare the men under his command, it was working. The perpetual scowl the man wore on his lips only enhanced the overall effect.

The admiral looked Jain up and down, then said, rather coldly: “The fleet admiral wants you here. So I have to find a place for you. You’ll assist the third battle group, the Hull Burners, tasked with defense of the colony’s eastern perimeter.”

“We can certainly do that,” Jain said. “But you should know, we’re not getting any closer than one hundred thousand kilometers from any of your ships.”

The admiral raised an eyebrow. He chuckled gently, as if he thought Jain was joking, but when Jain remained serious, he frowned. “Is there a reason why?” His voice oozed contempt. Or was that… distaste?

“Yeah,” Jain said. “We’ve been duped too many times already. You could be Mimics.”

“Ah,” the admiral said. “You’ve been away for a while, haven’t you?”

Jain felt his brow crumple. “Yes…”

“I’m transmitting the blueprints to an add-on to your sensor package,” the admiral said. “You might want to get your 3D printers started on it. Or your repair drones, if you don’t have any printers.”

Jain received the blueprint send request. “Wait, just what is this?” It was in package format, meaning it contained not just blueprints, but a whole set of subroutines he’d have to add to his AI core in order to operate the device.

“We’ve been fighting the Mimics for ten years,” Santana said. “We’ve learned a few tricks since then. This device will allow you to penetrate their false holographic shells and thermal signatures, seeing through to the pyramid ships inside; it uses specialized gravity wave technology to achieve the feat. This is how we knew you were human, and not Mimic, for example.”

“The fleet admiral sent us here before confirming that,” Jain said.

Santana shrugged. “I suppose he figured the aliens wouldn’t be offering to lend a hand against themselves in battle. Most likely you sent a probe of some sort to communicate with him? Through a rift?”

“That’s right,” Jain said.

“There you go,” the admiral said. “He could have confirmed that the probe was real, and of human make, and that was proof enough. So, are you going to accept?”

Jain sent the request through his virus scanners, and when he was satisfied it didn’t contain anything nefarious, he rerouted it to Sheila. “Have a look at this.”

“On it,” Sheila said.

Jain turned back to the admiral. “Do we even know what they want? Why they’re attacking us?”

“No,” Santana said. “They do deign to communicate with us from time to time, but mostly to mock us. So far, the motive behind their attacks has never been revealed. They install bioweapons on every colony they conquer, apparently to terraform the worlds. But as to why they are conquering and terraforming planets we already inhabit, rather than picking from the profusion of available worlds throughout the galaxy, no human or Mind Refurb knows.”

Sheila looked up. “Hmm, these will have to be printed directly above the forward sensor region. I’d recommend programming fifty or so repair drones to handle it. Should be ready in about four hours.”

“Thank you,” Jain said.

“I trust that you will no longer insist on your foolish notion of remaining one hundred thousand kilometers from the closest Mind Refurb vessel?” Admiral Santana asked.

“Sorry,” Jain replied. “But if you want the help of my fleet, I’m going to have to stick to that request for now, at least until I can confirm these gravity wave devices actually work. And that means waiting until the aliens actually attack.”

Admiral Santana shut his eyes. His lip twitched slightly—in anger, Jain thought. He obviously was used to getting what he wanted. Then the micro expression faded.

Santana opened his eyes. “Normally I wouldn’t allow this, but we need your ships. So you may remain one hundred thousand klicks away from the closest warship until the battle begins. But once combat is joined, I expect you to obey the commander of the Hull Burners to the letter.”

“Thank you,” Jain said. “I will.” He wasn’t used to following orders anymore, but he would do his best to see them through, considering what was at stake. “So, where can I find these so-called Hull Burners?”

12

The Void Warriors entered orbit well above the planet Manamas, keeping their distance from the cloud of ships in the area. Jain and the others had their repair drones at work on the new sensor add-on, but until it was complete and tested, he wasn’t going to place his fleet in danger.

“You know, if all of these ships are actually Mimics in disguise, it stands to reason that their so-called detection device would be a load of crap…” Gavin said.

“Can you imagine if that was true?” Mark said. “If this was all some grand deception, and these ships were Mimics? And instead of fending off a Mimic attack, we were helping them stave off an assault by the Link?”

“Mind blown,” Sheila commented.

“Mindfucked more like it,” Gavin said.

“It would sure make for a great twist at the end of a sci-fi novel!” Mark said.

“I’m sure it would…” Gavin commented.

“I’ve perused the specs,” Sheila said. “And reviewed the AI core subroutine additions. It does what it says it will.”

“And what’s that, exactly?” Gavin asked.

“It transmits gravity waves capable of penetrating holographic illusions to the hull underneath,” Sheila said. “It’s almost like echolocation, except it works in the vacuum of deep space. If you take a look yourself, you’ll find it’s rather intuitive. My only fear is that the Mimics will come up with a countermeasure at some point… their hulls can already selectively absorb photons, after all, altering the LIDAR analyses we’ve attempted in the past.”

“Yeah, but creating a hull that will absorb gravity waves requires technology that operates on a whole other level,” Gavin said.

“True,” Sheila said. “It’s not something the aliens will develop easily. But I’m just throwing that out there…”

The main continental landmass was visible on the planet below. Manamas, as a world, was relatively young in the cosmic scheme of things, and essentially had one large supercontinent, like the Pangaea of early Earth.

According to Jain’s ten-year-old database, the planet had been terraformed to a state that brought it close to Earth conditions in a comparatively short time. Fifty years ago, the oceans were seeded with phytoplankton that produced most of the planet’s oxygen. Oxygen and other gases were also released from stores under the surface, bringing the atmospheric pressure up to something humans could withstand. It required some acclimation, as the air was still thin, and in fact similar in pressure to the top of a tall mountain on Earth—but that was nothing a red blood cell injection couldn’t fix. Fifteen years ago the protective biodome enclosing the colony had been removed. Fish had been introduced into the oceans at the same time, and the planet’s ecosystem had flourished ever since.

The colony was located on the eastern coast. Called Manaus after the Brazilian city that had existed at the height of the late eighteenth century Rubber Boom, it was a sprawling city that spanned fifty square kilometers. On high zoom, Jain could see the many high-rises below. It was home to a lot of dispossessed Spanish and Portuguese citizens who had lost their countries when the Banthar invaded over a hundred years ago and destroyed half the Earth.

The Void Warrior fleet approached from the eastern side of the colony, where the task group labeled Hull Burners resided in low orbit, according to the tactical display.

“I have a request,” Sheila said.

Jain glanced at her. “Yes?”

“When you get in touch with the commander of the Hull Burners, I think it would be to our benefit if you could ask for an update,” Sheila said.

Jain frowned. “An update?”

“I mean to our knowledge,” Sheila said. She spoke quickly, as if nervous, or perhaps excited, and her hoop earrings jingled distractingly beside her face. “Our military databases are ten years old. Most of it is outdated by now. Who knows what we’ve discovered since then, especially as it relates to the Mimics. We have the sensor add-on already, well, we’re building it, but are there any other weapons? And what about blueprints of the Mimic fleet. And their different ship types, if any.”

“That’s a good idea,” Jain said. “I’ll ask for a general database update. You can peruse it first, make sure there are no viruses, and then share it with the rest of us.”

“Thank you!” Sheila said.

“We’re getting a hail from one of the Hull Burner vessels,” Xander said. “A Piranha class, the Beetlebrow.”

Jain glanced at his robed companion. “Good timing. Accept.”

A skinny man with large eyes appeared in front of Jain on the virtual bridge. His avatar was clad in the same dark gray uniform as the admiral.

“I’m Captain Hax Fatael of the Beetlebrow, commander of the Hull Burners,” the man said. “Meanest Mind Refurbs in the fleet.”

“Jain Sagan, of the Void Warriors,” Jain said.

“Okay,” Hax said. “Ever fought as part of a larger fleet before?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Then you’re going to have to pay real close attention,” the captain said. “Because I don’t give orders twice around here.”

“Given that we’re all machines, memory shouldn’t be a problem,” Jain said.

“And no lip,” Hax said.

“Sorry,” Jain said, and meant it.

Hax nodded. “Here’s the battle plan.”

Jain received the transmit request, and performed a quick virus scan before accepting.

“When the time comes,” Hax continued. “I’ll expect you to play your part. You can do whatever the hell you want until then. Loiter in high orbit if you want, doesn’t really bother me. But when the Mimics come in force, you’re going to be tight in formation, and ready to fire at my command.”

“What if I have input, something that might potentially change the outcome of the battle?” Jain asked.

“Input is always welcome,” Hax replied. “But the chances are, most of us will have thought of it already. But feel free to relay anything you might have directly to me. You are not to communicate with any of the captains underneath me, at any time, is that clear?”

“Of course,” Jain said.

Sheila shifted anxiously from foot to foot. She waved at Jain, as if trying to get his attention.

“Good,” Hax said, drawing Jain’s focus back to the captain. “I won’t be talking to any of your captains or Direct Reports either. You’re my interface to your fleet, just as I’m your interface to the admiral. So now, will you be needing any supplies?”

“No, we’re fully-stocked,” Jain said. “We have hellraisers, propellant, spare metals, you name it. Unless you have more upgrades for us?”

“No,” Hax said. “I guess we’re good then. Unless you have any questions?”

“Only one, but I’m sure more will come up while I review the battle plan with my fleet,” Jain said.

“And what’s this question?” Hax said.

Jain glanced at Sheila.

“I’d like a military database update,” Jain said. “We’re running on ten-year old cloud data here. We don’t know the full capabilities of these Mimic ships, other than what we’ve learned through direct combat. We don’t know their layout, whether they have more than one basic ship design, and so forth.”

Hax waved a dismissive hand. “Yes, yes. I’ll send an update immediately. Now, if there is nothing else?”

Jain shook his head and Hax winked out as the connection closed.

“Friendly sort,” Cranston said.

“At least he seems professional,” Mark said. “Relatively. Despite his ship name.”

Jain received the data request from the Beetlebrow a moment later and routed it to Sheila.

Sheila was quiet for several moments. Then:

“This is incredible,” Sheila said. “They’ve completely mapped out the insides of the Mimic vessels via boarding parties. They seem to be AI-based, like ourselves, and don’t carry organics. They encountered what appear to be AI cores near the central region on two separate occasions, but weren’t able to interface.”

“But of course you’re going to figure out how to do it for us...” Medeia said.

“I wish,” Sheila said. “First we have to figure out their network infrastructure, the packet scheme, the communication protocols built on top of it, and so on. The Mind Refurb and human scientists have barely made a scratch in that regard, so why would I?”

“Because you’re the best?” Medeia asked.

Sheila smiled patiently. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“So when are you going to share the data with the rest of us?” Mark said.

“Oh, I forgot,” Sheila said. “I’ve scanned it for potential viruses. It’s clean.”

Jain received the data update request from Sheila, and placed it in a sandbox folder while he ran his own scan. Satisfied that it was clean, he installed the update, then perused the new data.

There was certainly some interesting stuff there. The blueprints of the two alien vessels were particularly interesting. They were exact copies of one another. The conduits along the outer edges were big enough to fit rovers and munchkins, but quickly shrunk—it was similar to what Jain and the others had originally encountered when they sent boarding parties onto one of the vessels ten years ago. Apparently micro machines had been used to explore deeper, because once past the initial outer layer, the conduits widened again, and were big enough to fit bigger units, including those the size of humans.

All of the Mimic ship types had the same external design, with the same weapons—at least, the space navy had never encountered any ships different from the basic pyramid design. They all had a lightning weapon they could fire at sub-six-thousand kilometers to disable human class vessels, longer ranged blob weapons that could disintegrate hull sections, and the smaller boarding party units they liked to launch when they got close.

The repair swarms found aboard were composed of micro machines that roamed the inner conduits. They could digest any material that came into contact with their external hull, and transport the broken down elements to wherever they were needed aboard. The boarding parties that had created the blueprints of both ships must have had a hell of a time fending off those termites.

There was some other data in the update, but it didn’t interest Jain: it related to interstellar politics between colonies, the strides humanity had made in cleaning up the uninhabited zone on Earth, and some minor new weapon technologies that wouldn’t be available to warships for a few years to come. Unfortunately, it seemed the sensor add-on was the biggest development humanity had made during their ten-year war against the Mimics.

Well, it was a useful development, he had to admit.

Assuming it worked.

“Did you notice that they developed a competing off-site backup system?” Sheila asked. “It’s fairly similar to mine.”

“Yeah, I was going to ask you about that,” Jain replied.

“Mine is better,” Sheila pronounced. “So we’re going to keep using it.”

“How is it better?” Jain said.

“Well, the one these Mind Refurbs use takes four hours, whereas mine is only two,” Sheila said.

“Ah,” Jain said. “Well, I had no intention of switching over our existing backup system in any case.”

Finished perusing the data, Jain called a general meeting, and reviewed Hax’s battle orders with the team. When he was done, there were no questions, nor any real criticisms. The plan seemed solid enough for what was coming.

Actually, that wasn’t entirely true. Medeia had a criticism: “You know, this will only really work if we face an equal number of Mimics. If the enemy numbers are higher than that, the plan is going to break down. Big time.”

“We’ll still follow it as well as we can,” Jain said.

“These Hull Burners, they certainly like their energy weapons, don’t they?” Gavin commented, referring to the fleet armament distribution that Jain had gone over moments before.

Jain nodded. “There are a few teleporters and black hole throwers in the mix, but most of them have barracudas, like me.”

“It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out,” Gavin said. “If we win, this will be a battle studied by military strategists for ages to come.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Cranston said. “Wars evolve with the weapons, and the enemy. The strategy that works here against the Mimics, won’t work ten years from now against different enemies.”

“Our strategy from ten years ago seemed to work pretty well when we faced the Mimics again,” Mark said. “Just ask Medeia.”

“It did work,” Medeia agreed. “But only because the Mimics haven’t changed their weapons yet. Which is a little surprising.”

“Is it?” Sheila said. “According to the database, all of the ships we’ve encountered thus far are the same. We’ve seen how fast they can repair, when given access to the necessary elements. And they all have AIs, according to our latest data update.” She looked from face to face. Most of the team members were giving her blank stares. “Isn’t it obvious what they are?”

“Oh,” Mark said, sitting straighter. “I know where she’s going with this. The Mimics could all be von Neumann probes.”

“That’s right,” Sheila said. “That’s why they’re all the same, and always have the same weapons. They’re programmed to build more of themselves, and nothing more.”

“Wait, if these are von Neumann probes, then how come the galaxy isn’t full of them by now?” Medeia asked.

“They obviously have a limiting factor assigned to their build scenario,” Sheila said. “It could be a built-in ceiling, similar to what Cranston’s micro machines have. Or more likely it has to do with the availability of materials. Just like how we need certain materials to construct our AI cores, they have need of particular metals as well, for their cores, and drives. Remember how they seemed to favor a certain moon for mining purposes? A moon with high concentrations of tungsten and fluoride?”

“Well, we are speculating, either way,” Jain said. “We’ll probably never know for sure.”

“Until it’s too late,” Gavin said.

The repair drones finished the new sensor add-on within the four-hour time frame Sheila had quoted, and Jain installed the subroutines necessary to access the device. Then he turned it online.

“The new sensor array seems to be working,” Jain said. He directed it at the Mind Refurb fleet orbiting the planet below. “If this thing is accurate, all of those vessels really are of human make.”

“Should we get closer?” Gavin suggested. “Move into position, as per the battle plan?”

Jain hesitated. “The admiral did say we could remain one hundred thousand klicks away until the battle began. I’m loathe to get any closer until then.”

“We’re going to have to trust that they are who they say they are, at some point...” Gavin said.

“I know,” Jain said. “But I’d rather delay trusting them for as long as possible.” He glanced at Gavin. “The aliens are not going to jump in on top of us. They don’t have that technology, otherwise they would have done so back in our home system. We’ll have more than enough time to move into position when they arrive.”

Gavin nodded. “All right. So, I guess all we can do now is wait.”

“That’s right,” Jain said. “Just like in the old days. The long wait before battle. Those of you who’ve seen combat duty know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Unfortunately, we do,” Sheila agreed.

“I just noticed something,” Xander said.

“What’s that?” Jain asked.

“The colony on the surface below,” Xander replied. “It’s been evacuated.”

“Are you sure?” Jain pressed.

“Positive,” Xander told him. “There are only autonomous machines down there. No humans. No androids with Mind Refurbs inside of them. It’s completely dead.”

Mark glanced at Jain. “They’re expecting to lose the colony.”

Jain crossed his arms, involuntarily hugging himself.

Medeia removed her witch’s hat to wipe her brow, as if she was suddenly hot. “This isn’t good.”

“If they expect to lose this fight, what’s the point of staying here and making a stand?” Sheila asked.

“It buys time for the rest of humanity,” Jain told her. “To prepare for the coming assault. The final assault.”

“But there are other colonies still intact…” Cranston said.

“They’ll probably fall after this one,” Gavin told him. “And the Earth will be next. The final assault, like Jain says. I hate to say it, but we came back a little too late. We’ve joined the losing side. And we’re going to go down with them.”

“We haven’t lost yet,” Jain said. “Though I do think it’s time we prepared our latest comprehensive off-site backup.”

* * *

The Void Warriors didn’t have long to wait.

Two hours later, they’d only just finished their off-site backups—which involved clustering around the Wheelbarrow to transmit the required data, and then receiving small pods containing the latest copies of each team member’s neural imprints for storage in their individual cargo bays—when Xander’s eyes defocused and he announced: “I’m detecting neutrinos and gravitational waves.”

“A rift?” Jain asked.

Xander nodded. “It’s definitely a rift. Only a million kilometers away.”

“That’s close,” Jain said.

“Yes,” Xander said.

Jain glanced at Gavin. “I take back my earlier comment about them not jumping in on top of us. This came pretty damn close.”

“But it’s not quite on top...” Gavin said. “We still have time to reposition...”

“We do, thankfully.” Jain glanced at Xander. “Have any ships appeared yet?”

Xander nodded. “A fleet of twenty Dominators, according to visuals and thermals.” He paused. “Captain Hax is requesting that you log onto his voice-only conference line.”

“Transfer the request to me,” Jain said. “In the meantime, let’s shine our sensor add-ons at that incoming fleet.”

Jain received the conference logon request, and accepted.

“The Mimics always do this,” Hax said over the line. “It’s a trick. Use your sensor add-ons.”

Jain glanced at Xander. The robed Accomp nodded. “According to the data returned by the add-on, they’re not Dominators. They’re pyramid vessels.”

Jain accessed his external camera feed and overlaid the filter from the add-on. Sure enough, the shapes of the vessels changed from elongated rectangles, to pyramids.

“I wonder why they bother?” Medeia said. “They’re hoping our sensors will fail?”

“Sheila, can you confirm this data is real?” Jain said.

“I’m running the extra subroutines through the debugger now,” Sheila said. “Everything checks out.”

“All right.” Jain glanced at Gavin. “It’s time to trust. Move into position, team. Sheila, dispatch the Daktor to the fallback point.” He took control of his Direct Reports and steered them alongside the Talos.

The Void Warrior fleet assumed their designated places along the starboard edges of the Hull Burners. All vessels fleet-wide were spaced six-thousand kilometers apart to prevent the enemy lightning weapons from arcing between the defender’s hulls.

Meanwhile, the Daktor retreated to the fallback point on the far side of the planet, where all of the other rift ships were located, along with a few defenders. The remaining members of the fleet, seventy-two ships strong including the Void Warriors, would retreat there if the battle went poorly.

“Transmitting planned black hole pattern,” Hax sent.

“Got it,” Jain replied. He forwarded it to Medeia, who needed that pattern the most, and then the others. “All right, Medeia, get cloaked.”

Medeia vanished from the bridge.

Mark took control of her Direct Reports, since she couldn’t control them while cloaked, not unless she wanted to reveal her position.

“More rifts are opening,” Xander said.

“How many?” Jain asked.

“I’m counting six,” Xander said. “No, seven.”

“That can’t be good,” Mark said.

“Where are they?” Jain asked. But as the words left his lips, red dots appeared on the tactical display, marking the locations of the new arrivals.

“They’re distributed in random locations in front of us, ranging from two million to ten million kilometers away,” Xander said. “The emerging vessels all emit human class signatures, but the add-on reveals them to be pyramid vessels.”

When the rifts closed, Jain asked for a final count on the enemy units.

“There are exactly two hundred ships out there,” Xander said.

“They certainly like their whole numbers,” Sheila said. “Though I guess I could expect that from fans of geometric shapes.”

“Why?” Mark asked.

Sheila shrugged. “Dunno. They like math?”

The closest group of aliens remained fixed in place, while the remainder slowly gathered, until all of the aliens were located one million kilometers out. Once they had mustered, they spread out, occupying the space of a large, triangular plane perpendicular to the fleet. And then advanced as a single unit.

“What was the flaw Medeia found in the plan again?” Cranston asked. “Something about, if we faced an equal number of ships, the odds were fairly good, but if there were more than a hundred, our odds of winning quickly dropped to zero?”

“That’s right,” Sheila said. “Exactly.”

“So we’re facing two hundred Mimics,” Cranston said. “A little over double the number of our own ships.”

“I know,” Sheila said.

“Buckle up, Void Warriors,” Jain said. “The ride is about to get bumpy.”

13

Jain stared at the tactical display, watching as that triangular formation of alien vessels approached.

“Big fans of triangles, aren’t they?” Sheila commented. “Whole numbers, triangles…”

“Did you notice the formation uses the golden ratio?” Mark asked. “The height to the width is exactly one point six one eight.”

“No, it’s not perfect,” Sheila said.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Mark said. “It’s the underlying intent.”

“Okay, guys, please,” Jain said. “Leave it to the Void Warriors to debate the golden ratio of the incoming enemy formation right before battle.”

“Sorry,” Mark commented. “Guess I’m just a nerd at heart.”

“Yeah, it’s like a competition or something among you two,” Cranston said. He pitched his voice slightly higher, and added: “‘I’m the best nerd!’”

As the enemy vessels closed to the one hundred kilometer mark, Jain saw a swarm of red dots appear in front of it.

“They’re launching those blob weapons of theirs,” Xander said. “My guess is, they’re trying to use them as shields, against whatever we might lob their way.”

“Open fire with heavy lasers,” Hax said over the line. “Target western quadrant of Disintegrates.” That was the fancy navy label for the blobs. “I’m highlighting those your fleet is responsible for. At this range, you’ll need eight raptors to take down one Disintegrate.”

On the tactical display, the blobs on the lower western side became enveloped in yellow markers.

“All right, those are ours.” Jain glanced at his captains. “You heard the man. Select targets and fire.”

Jain watched the yellow outlines around the targets turn orange as different team members selected the units they would attack. Jain chose six of the remaining free targets, and assigned two each to his two Direct Reports. Then he opened fire with his starboard raptor banks, which were facing the enemy. The Peltast and Warwolf joined in, so that all of his targets dissipated.

The red dots of the blob swarm halved in number, but the incoming pyramidal units simply launched more.

“Updating targets,” Hax said. “Continue firing.”

“Swing port lasers to bear,” Jain told his captains. He began to rotate his nose so that his portside raptors were facing the incoming enemies, and when the targets were within his throw angle, he fired again.

Jain rotated his nose back again so that the starboard turrets would be able to fire when they next recharged. The pyramids launched more blobs to replace those that were lost, and that, coupled with the recharge period between successive laser blasts, ensured that the enemy units had a constant shield of blobs in front of their vessels during the approach.

Jain continued swinging his nose back and forth, releasing his raptors when the charge was sufficient. As the enemy fleet grew closer, Jain was able to reduce the number of lasers he needed per blob so that eventually the requirement dropped to three, instead of eight.

The enemy units had reached twenty thousand kilometers away by then.

“Getting a bit close for comfort…” Mark said.

“We maintain formation,” Jain said. Stick to the battle plan.

Hundreds of more red dots began to join the blobs.

“The smaller boarding party units are emerging,” Xander said.

“Fire missiles,” Hax transmitted. “Target assigned quadrant.”

The new dots became outlined in yellow.

Jain chose his targets and launched his missiles, along with those of the Peltast and Warwolf, as instructed.

The missiles from the Mind Refurb fleet fanned outward; most of them had hellraiser signatures, but there were newer models that Jain wouldn’t have been able to recognize without the military database update.

“Harbinger Nukes…” Mark said.

“Yes,” Sheila said. “They were mostly eliminated from space arsenals a long time ago, save for a few specialized vessels, because ordinary missiles could cause just as much damage at the speeds involved with space combat, and the military couldn’t justify the expense. But apparently, they’ve found a new usage for nuclear warheads, given our current enemy.”

“Yup,” Mark said. “Crowd clearing.”

Jain watched as the missiles advanced toward the closing swarm. The proximity triggers on the hellraisers caused localized damage, taking down one or two of the boarding party units at a time. When the harbinger nukes, however, reached their targets, large swaths of the same units were wiped from the map. The damage radius of the nukes was only one kilometer, of course, because in space there was no atmosphere to propagate the fireball and blast wave: eighty percent of the energy was released as X rays, ten percent as gamma rays, and the final ten percent composed the blast wave. Some might consider that a wasted energy profile, but it was working wonders against the relatively closely-spaced boarding party units.

“Those would have been handy in some of our previous battles…” Cranston said.

“I bet those nukes are useless against the actual ships,” Gavin said.

A group of six harbingers squeezed past the swarm and approached different alien vessels. At the seven thousand meter mark, one of the pyramids fired its lightning weapon; the plasma channel struck the nuke, and arced to the neighboring weapons, disabling them all. Their noses rotated at odd angles, thanks to spin imbued from the lightning impacts, but they otherwise drifted forward lifelessly.

“Told you,” Gavin said.

A minute later a pyramid slammed into one of the nukes, but since the warhead was disabled, only a conventional explosion resulted, which showed up as a flash on Jain’s external camera. Even discounting the conventional aspect, the kinetic energy of such an impact alone would have caused major damage to a Mind Refurb vessel, but only a medium sized blast crater appeared in the hull of the enemy ship in question.

“Release next round of missiles,” Hax said.

Jain received the latest targeting information, and fired. The battle plan called for the entire fleet to expend almost all of its missile supply before the main enemy force arrived. Mostly because of how useless their missiles actually were against the hulls of the Mimics.

But then the aliens stopped releasing boarding party units.

“They’re catching on to our strategy,” Mark said.

“Of course,” Gavin said. “You thought this was going to be easy?”

The blobs continued, however, so that the fleet members were forced to continue rocking to and fro, presenting one bank of lasers and then the other to fire at the incoming targets, at least when the raptors had enough charge.

At the twelve thousand kilometer range, Hax transmitted: “Prepare to fire barracuda.”

A constant stream of black hole bolts launched from another nearby battle group.

The cloaked Mind Refurb ships out there, including Medeia, had been briefed on the planned trajectories of the bolts beforehand, and hopefully were well out of their paths.

Black holes began to form in front of the incoming enemy units; represented as swirling gaseous masses on the tactical display, they influenced the nearby blobs, but otherwise didn’t affect the enemy starships. Most of the pyramids were forced to change course however, as the black holes had opened directly in their paths.

More black holes appeared in rapid succession, herding many of the pyramids down specific trajectories as they continued toward the Mind Refurb fleet.

“Concentrate fire on this target,” Hax sent. One of the herded pyramids became highlighted on Jain’s display. “Fire barracuda.”

Jain unleashed his energy cannon at the target. He fired straight on, but also in a circular pattern around it so that, if the ship tried to avoid it, the enemy would find itself barreling straight toward the next energy bolt. He created multiple circular patterns like that, trying to guess where the enemy would move. Other bolts came in from different members of the battle group under Hax’s command, and they were arranged in similar hard-to-dodge patterns.

The targeted pyramid moved left, then right, then up, narrowly avoiding all of the incoming attacks. But finally it dodged directly into the path of one of Jain’s energy bolts. The impact ripped a big gash into the hull. The Mimic warship successfully dodged the next attack, but moved right into the path of a bolt from another Hull Burner. Another blast crater appeared in the hull. More bolts struck then in rapid succession, and the pyramid was battered. It hurtled to the left, trying to get out of the line of fire, and smashed directly into a black hole. In seconds the entire vessel was spaghettified and engulfed.

“Nice one,” Mark said.

The other herded Mimics suffered similar fates; another accidentally keeled into a black hole, while eight more had taken enough damage that they were drifting lifelessly in the void. That was ten enemy units off the grid.

“Now I know why they call them the Hull Burners,” Gavin said.

“Ten down, another one hundred and ninety to go,” Sheila commented.

More black holes launched, and once again Jain released a barrage of energy bolts, until his weapon overheated and he could no longer fire.

This second round was slightly less effective: eight enemy ships went down.

“They’re launching their pyramid boarding parties again,” Xander said.

Jain saw the swarms on his tactical display. They moved forward at a speed faster than the source pyramids.

“Release missiles!” Hax said.

Jain did so.

Then cloaked units began to appear across the board, including Medeia; they were all equipped with appendages formed of incredibly strong alien metal, similar to Medeia’s sword extension. Some of those additions were shaped like big hammers, others wrecking balls, still others battering rams. Whatever the shape, the formerly cloaked vessels used those add-ons to incredibly deadly effect: they smashed into the upper portions of the different pyramids they had targeted and tore right through, sometimes obliterating the entire area, or else severing it cleanly from the remainder of the ship. The damaged pyramids continued forward, presumably still under power, but unable to fire.

“That’s another twenty-five down,” Sheila said.

“It’s not going to be enough,” Cranston said.

Medeia and the others cloaked as quickly as possible, but some of the pyramids were able to open fire before they all vanished, and several Mind Refurb vessels were disabled as the sparks from the lightning weapons flashed across their hulls. Even some of the cloaked vessels went down: either the Mimics detected their weak thermal emissions as they changed course, or guessed at their positions. As a result, several formerly cloaked vessels faded into view, electricity flashing across their exteriors.

Medeia’s Arcane wasn’t among either group, thankfully.

The raptors among the fleet continued to fire at the incoming blobs, eliminating most of them. However, some got through to the main group, and those ships that couldn’t dodge in time were hit. Large portions of their hulls dissolved on impact, and two vessels were disabled entirely.

Jain’s skin itched as his railguns began to fire. He glanced at his tactical map.

“Boarding party units are approaching,” Xander said. He looked up in alarm. “They’re not decelerating!”

“They’re using them as kamikazes,” Sheila commented.

Though his stingers were firing full-tilt, as usual some enemy units got through to the hull. Jain felt multiple pricks on his skin, similar to the stings of wasps.

“Got breaches on decks five, seven, eleven, and fourteen,” Xander said.

“We have intruders?” Jain asked.

“Negative,” Xander said. “Wait, some enemy units are decelerating.”

Jain felt a gentler touch on his forearm and thigh.

“Two pyramids docked in the confusion,” Xander said. “They’re beginning plasma drilling.”

Jain felt the prick then. It was gentler than a wasp sting, more like a biting ant, but persistent.

“Get munchkins down there and handle them,” Jain said.

“You got it,” Xander said.

No doubt the other members of the team were likewise dealing with their own boarding parties. Jain sent a few quick commands to the Peltast and Warwolf to deal with their own intruders.

“Main enemy force is closing to eight thousand kilometers,” Xander announced.

“Things are getting hectic,” Gavin said.

Hax gave the expected order. “Launch decoys!”

Jain and the others didn’t have these decoys—there hadn’t been time to construct them. But the rest of the fleet had prepared special reflective balloons attached to thermal emitting frameworks, and they launched these now in rapid succession behind them, hidden from the view of the incoming Mimic fleet. The frameworks were equipped with propellant sources, and quickly assembled, matching the source ships that launched them on the visual and thermal bands.

“Activate lateral thrust for flanking maneuver!” Hax transmitted.

Jain and the others activated thrust; the Mind Refurb fleet split in two, with one half moving toward the left of the incoming pyramid, and the other half moving toward the right.

Jain cut his power output and overlapped with the Peltast and the Warwolf, at least relative to the viewpoint of the enemy, so that the two Direct Reports would shield him from any attacks. He kept the ships spaced six thousand kilometers apart, to prevent the lightning weapon from arcing between them. Other ships similarly arranged themselves throughout the fleet, even those that didn’t have Direct Reports.

As the Mind Refurb fleet split in half, several of the pyramids continued forward, targeting the decoys—to the enemy, it would look like the fleet was splitting into three units, with the majority, the decoys, remaining in the same location. It might even look like the Mimics were currently outnumbered, depending on how many of the human vessels had decided to overlap during the split.

Though about a hundred Mimic ships continued forward to the decoys, the pyramids on the two outskirts broke formation, matching the movements of those that were fanning out, using their superior maneuverability and speed to close with them.

“Oh, this is going to be interesting,” Sheila said.

14

Via the tactical display, Jain watched as the fleet continued to separate into two halves, leaving behind the decoys. Units continued to peel away from the triangular alien formation on either side, drawn toward the Mind Refurb vessels.

The Void Warriors were part of the leftmost group, labeled Battle Force I on the tactical display. They remained on the outskirts of that group, adjacent to the Hull Burners.

Sheila was located at the front of the Void Warriors, with Gavin and her Direct Reports just behind. Gavin had his shield drones in front of her vessel, adding his force field to hers, so that when the closest pyramid opened fire at her, the bolt passed through his shield, and hers, hitting her with reduced power. Electricity weakly sparked across the surface near the impact site on her hull before fading.

“I’m still in the game, so far,” Sheila said. “Though that hit drained my shields entirely.”

“My drones have to recharge as well,” Gavin said. “Swapping places with my Direct Reports.”

Gavin and Sheila applied deceleration, allowing two of their Direct Reports to take their places, acting as shields. Those vessels quickly accelerated perpendicular to the movement vector of Battle Force I, maintaining their six thousand kilometer distance from all other ships.

Another pyramid ship fired. It struck one of Sheila’s Direct Reports. The vessel in question went down; the lightning bolt didn’t arc to any other vessels because of its six thousand kilometer spacing from everything else.

Jain felt more itches on his skin, and he knew additional boarding party units had attached. He hoped Xander was capable of dealing with them. If not, then Jain would probably simply shut down at some point in the middle of combat, with no idea of what happened.

A third Mimic fired its lightning weapon, taking down Gavin’s Direct Report.

“We’re running out of Direct Reports here…” Sheila said.

“Those three ships can’t fire their lightning weapon again for the next minute,” Jain said. “Xander, every time a Mimic fires its lightning weapon, I want you to mark it on the tactical display, and attach a one minute timer so we know when it can fire again. Update the display with the latest values, based on currently recorded discharges.”

“Updating,” Xander said.

“Get ready to switch to an intercept course,” Jain said.

Even though those ships couldn’t fire, they couldn’t yet close, not while other pyramids behind them were within firing range of their lightning weapons.

The three pyramids unleashed blobs while waiting for their lightning weapons to recharge, and the team used their raptors to eliminate them. Boarding parties continued to arrive, and Jain’s stingers were working overtime.

“We’re going to run out of slugs for the railguns, soon,” Xander said.

“Fire conservatively,” Jain said.

“I already am,” the Accomp said.

Several flashes appeared on the external display. On the tactical display, cloaked ships began to reappear, embedded within both sides of the spreading alien formation. They smashed into the pyramids, ripping off the upper portions, and cloaked again. Some of the Mind Refurbs were taken down by the enemy before they could vanish, others were struck after dematerializing.

The cloaked vessels had cut a momentary gap between the three pyramidal ships in front of the Void Warriors and the rest of the Mimic fleet, clearing the way for an attack.

“Now,” Jain said. “Intercept course. Cranston, teleport at will.”

Jain’s nose was rotated toward the closest incoming enemy, and he applied emergency aft thrust.

Meanwhile, Cranston teleported the Forebode directly in front of that same enemy. The Mimic swerved to the side, having no intention of ramming the Forebode, which would have resulted in its own destruction. Cranston formed a long, jutting spike with his micro machines, and the Mimic flew directly into it, carving a gash into its right side. Cranston lost all of the micro machines involved in the impact, of course, but he had more.

Jain was rapidly closing with the pyramid, along with the Peltast and the Warwolf. His barracuda had cooled enough to fire once more, so he unleashed several quick shots in rapid succession, forming “donuts:” a central bolt surrounded by a circle of other bolts. The Mimic dodged the first few of those, but because of the dispersion pattern Jain had used, it flew directly into the next wave. The energy bolts dug into the gash Cranston had made, and enlarged it, while at the same time creating more of them.

The Peltast and the Warwolf fired their missiles; Gavin and his own Direct Reports were with Jain, and they launched the remainder of their missiles into the gash as well. The Mimic couldn’t dodge them all, and the weapons impacted; the vessel shifted slightly and ceased accelerating. Drifting.

“One down,” Gavin said.

“Until it repairs,” Jain commented. He was hit by a fresh wave of boarding party units.

Mark and Sheila closed with another Mimic ship; Mark fired his black hole weapon at the blobs the pyramid unleashed, drawing them away. When he was close, Mark targeted the main Mimic with his black holes, releasing a “donut” dispersion pattern similar to Jain, in waves. The Pyramid dodged the first two, but flew into the third, which struck the ship head-on; it was instantly spaghettified.

As Mark receded, he swung his nose backward and fired dispersion bolts to eliminate most of the black holes. There were still some out there, but he’d just have to clean them up once the battle was done. Along with the many other black holes that were still active out there.

Making a mess of the system.

But that was what combat did to places in general.

War is never clean.

Other Mind Refurbs in both forces had broken formation to target Mimics. The Mind Refurbs concentrated on those vessels along the outskirts that had already fired their lightning weapons; such attacks were feasible now that the cloaked vessels had snipped away the Mimics formerly in range behind them.

Cloaked ships still occasionally winked into and out of existence, slicing into enemy units as they did so. But the Mimics were ruthlessly hunting them down, and their numbers were dwindling. Jain saw Medeia’s indicator flash into being on his tactical display as she momentarily materialized, and was relieved that she was still in the game, but he was worried it wouldn’t be for long: every time five cloaked units materialized, two were destroyed. A forty percent attrition rate.

Chaos ensued across the battle space: both the Mind Refurb and the Mimic formations dissolved, and any semblance of order evaporated. It was a free-for-all, with each battle group to itself, or sometimes even each ship.

Jain hoped the sensor add-on remained operational; he could only imagine how much worse the chaos would have become out there if he couldn’t separate friend from foe. Then again, he could always tap into the sensor feed of another Void Warrior or Direct Report if it came to it; it would reduce his bandwidth slightly, lagging communications with the others, but he could dismiss their avatars and revert to voice-only at that point.

Gavin launched his shockwave weapon, then veered away from three enemy ships that were rapidly bearing down on him. Gaps in the shockwave allowed it to pass over his Direct Reports without disabling them; and since Jain was close to him, Gavin had also created a thin line in the expanding energy sphere to account for Jain’s current trajectory. Unfortunately, that gap restricted Jain to his current course, which would take him directly toward the enemy ships.

“Sorry about that,” Gavin said, realizing too late what he’d done.

“Damn it,” Jain said. He ordered the Peltast and Warwolf into his same trajectory, and waited for the shockwave to pass. Then he quickly decelerated, firing his starboard thrusters to get away from the enemy units.

The shockwave continued expanding and struck the three Mimics; the blast caused portions of their hulls to break away along the edges of each pyramid, but the three ships otherwise continued toward Jain unimpeded.

Jain ordered the Peltast to remain behind, physically shielding him and the Warwolf.

A few moments later, the closest pyramid vessel fired its lightning weapon at the Peltast and it went offline. The Mimic followed up with a blob barrage that broke the ship apart entirely.

“Sorry about that, Pellie,” Jain muttered.

The other two nearby Mimics were rapidly closing. They fired blobs almost constantly, forcing Jain to divert his raptors toward staving them off. The charges on Jain’s heavy lasers were low, both starboard and port sides, so he ended up using his barracuda to disperse the closer blobs. The Warwolf was low on laser charge, too, and fired only sporadically. It was covered in boarding party units—its stingers had stopped firing a while ago, as all of its slugs were expended.

The rest of the Void Warriors, though farther away, were well within raptor range, and they unleashed their heavy lasers at the blobs to help him out.

Gavin, the closest to Jain, sent both of his remaining Direct Reports forward, separated by six thousand kilometers.

“Sacrificial lambs…” Sheila said.

“I appreciate the time you spent building these for me,” Gavin told her.

The two Mimics took the bait and fired at both Direct Reports. The vessels went offline.

“All right, let’s take down these three bastards,” Jain said, switching the Talos and Warwolf to an intercept course.

The blob barrage continued, and he dodged them as best as he was able, while at the same time releasing his raptors—when they had charge—or his barracuda.

Jain swung his nose toward the lead ship, but before he could fire, Medeia materialized, slicing off the top half of the pyramid.

She appeared on the virtual bridge in her witch’s outfit. “Well, my cloaking device needs some time to recharge. Guess I’ll be joining y’all for a while.” Her raptors were fresh, and she was able to stave off the latest barrage of blob attacks.

Cranston’s teleport device had recharged by then, and he appeared in front of one of the ships, cutting through it with his micro machines. He had to be running low on the machines by that point.

Mark followed up by launching a black hole into the wound, swallowing the ship.

The third pyramid came directly at Medeia. Mark launched black holes frantically, trying to herd it away from her, but the vessel nimbly dodged them all. There were so many black holes that Medeia, whose momentum was already low from her previous impact, started to be sucked backward, toward them.

“Uh, Mark?” Medeia said, her voice a mockery of sweetness. “Would you mind shutting off a few of those?”

Mark quickly fired dispersion bolts, though at the same time he created more black holes.

Jain accelerated toward Medeia, his velocity boosted by the black holes near her. He aimed his energy cannon at the incoming pyramid, and unleashed several blasts. It dodged the blows, accidentally veering into a black hole that was just forming beside it. As Jain watched, the vessel was swallowed.

“Lucky hit,” Mark said.

Jain fired his grappling hooks at Medeia as he shot past her, and his momentum slowed right down. But he had momentarily reversed her descent into the mass of black holes. Mark quickly dispersed the remainder of them, and then Jain released her.

“Well, that was fun as always,” Medeia said. She glanced at Mark. “Try not to get so excited next time.”

“Sorry,” Mark said.

“Sagan!” Hax’s voice came over the comm.

“What is it?” Jain said.

“We have four Mimics attempting to sneak past, toward the far side of the planet,” Hax said. “You’re the closest. I want you to intercept them, and make sure they don’t lay waste to the rift ships we have on the fallback point.”

“You got it,” Jain said. “Void Warriors, we have some new targets!”

15

Jain glanced at his tactical display, and began accelerating toward the four Mimics. The enemy vessels were well away from the rest of the fleet, including the Void Warriors, and were fast approaching the planetary horizon.

“Bastards snuck right past us in the chaos,” Mark said.

“Of course they did,” Sheila said. “We were kind of occupied.”

“Just a little bit,” Medeia agreed.

The Void Warrior fleet was down to twelve vessels in total now; Jain assigned the remaining Direct Reports between them so that they each had one. He kept control of the Warwolf for himself, of course.

“Xander, how are we doing on the intruders aboard the Talos?” Jain asked.

“They were starting to gain a foothold for a while there, but now that we’re away from the main fighting, I’m getting a handle on things again,” Xander said. “We’re good, in other words.”

Jain glanced at his aft view camera feed, and then the tactical display. The blue dots indicating the friendly units were turning dark with disturbing regularity; the red dots of the enemy units also turned black, but not nearly as often. Plus, there was a whole swarm of red that was turning away from the planet as he watched; the main enemy group, having identified the decoys for what they were, was returning to join in the fighting.

“Looks pretty bad out there,” Gavin commented, reading his mind.

“It’s obvious the Mind Refurbs are going to lose,” Cranston said. “They’re getting their asses kicked, and that’s only with a quarter of the enemy fleet attacking each battle force. When the main enemy group returns to the fray, the fecal matter is really going to hit the rotating blades. ‘Scuse my French.”

“Which is all the more reason why we have to ensure the rift ships survive,” Jain said. “Otherwise, there’s no escape route, and the entire fleet will be lost.”

“Well, they’re gone,” Sheila said.

Jain returned his attention to the nose camera. The four vessels had just passed beyond the horizon.

“Do they even know the fleet is hiding rift ships behind the planet?” Mark asked.

“They do now,” Cranston said.

“They must have suspected, considering there were none visible in our ranks,” Sheila said. “It makes sense that they’d check. They’d want to cut off our escape route at this point, to ensure a complete and total victory.”

Jain rubbed his chin. “Xander, how long can we maintain emergency acceleration, if we give it everything we have?”

“Not long enough to make a difference,” Xander told him. “Given the damage we’ve taken from the boarding parties. Did I tell you they breached one of the engine rooms?”

“No, you did not,” Jain said flatly.

“Yes, well, they nearly shut us down, but I repelled them,” Xander said.

Maybe it was for the best that Xander hadn’t told him how close he had come to being decommissioned, given the intensity of the battle thus far. The last thing he needed was more distractions.

He returned his attention to the tactical display.

“Mark, are you able to fire black holes?” Jain asked.

“I can fire a few,” Mark replied. “Four, actually. But then I’ll have to wait ten minutes until the cool down before I can launch another.”

“All right, save the fourth for later,” Jain said. “We might need it. In the meantime, I’m going to need you to place three of them strategically in our paths. Create gravity slingshots… give us a boost so we reach the other side before it’s too late.”

“Three it is,” Mark said.

The Grunt proceeded to fire a trio of black holes, one after the other, spaced in a slight zig-zag pattern ahead of the Void Warriors. Jain swung above the first one, which accelerated the Talos as it passed. His trajectory automatically curved downward, thanks to the pull, toward the next hole, which he traveled under. That one forced him upward as he flew past, allowing him to approach the final hole, which swung him down again as he emerged on the far side.

The other ships increased their speeds in a similar fashion so that they were all hurtling toward the far side of the planet at speeds they ordinarily wouldn’t have been capable of. Mark swung his nose behind him, and dispersed the three black holes before he was out of range.

“Nicely done,” Jain said.

The main fleet vanished beyond the horizon behind them.

“We just lost contact with the captain,” Xander said.

“Why?” Jain asked. “The repeater drones in high orbit should extend the signal without requiring line of sight with the main fleet...”

“Those drones have been shot out by the Mimics,” Xander answered.

“What about any repeaters or satellite radios on the surface?” Jain pressed.

“Also destroyed,” Xander told him.

“Oh.”

The Void Warriors crested the horizon in time to see two of the four Mimic ships go down. The alien vessels were attacked by two cloaked units that had been lying in wait: part of the flotilla deployed with the rift ships to protect them.

One of the remaining pyramids fired its lightning weapon and it struck one of the defending vessels; the bolt arced to the second ship before it could finish cloaking, and both ships went offline.

“Damn, lucky shot for them,” Gavin said.

Medeia sat back in her station. “And unlucky for us.”

Two more defenders, the Adder and the Blockader, a pair of Piranha class vessels, approached from the waiting group of rift ships, which were scattering behind them.

The second remaining Mimic opened fire with its lightning weapon, and struck the Blockader.

The Piranha had an energy shield active, like Sheila, and though the intensity of the lightning bolt was halved, it wasn’t enough to prevent the vessel from turning offline—sparks crisscrossed the surface, and running lights deactivated across the hull. Thankfully, the vessel had maintained an eight-thousand kilometer separation from its companion, so the lightning weapon didn’t arc across and damage it, too.

The Adder abruptly teleported in front of that pyramid, and as the Mimic dodged, the Piranha unleashed a stream of black holes.

“I wish I had a black hole launcher like that,” Cranston commented.

The Mimic managed to narrowly evade them all. Because of the close proximity of the holes, the Piranha was quickly being sucked into them, and had to fire rapidly to disperse the bolts. Unfortunately, while it was occupied doing that, the Mimic launched several blobs at the Adder, and though the Piranha class-vessel rapidly fired its raptors in an attempt to save itself, the Adder was unable to get them all. The blobs struck, and the Piranha disintegrated.

Jain and the others were fast closing, thanks to their previous speed boost. Meanwhile, the two Mimics approached the outlying rift ships, and began laying into them with their blobs and boarding party units while waiting for the lightning weapons to recharge.

Ahead, there were still a couple of black holes remaining from the Adder’s failed attack attempt.

“Let’s get one last gravity slingshot in,” Jain said. “Plot an optimal course around those two black holes.”

Xander did so.

In moments Jain and the others were swinging past the black holes in turn, and increasing their respective speeds even further, easily putting them on par with the Mimics.

Jain began shaking slightly. That couldn’t be good.

“How’s our structural integrity?” Jain asked.

“Holding up,” Xander said. “Barely. That final course change really put a lot of strain on the hull. If you had a human crew, they’d be splattered against the bulkheads by now.”

“Fun times,” Jain said. He stopped trembling as the forces stabilized, and he focused on the two ships ahead.

“Sheila, Gavin, Cranston, you and your Direct Reports, take the one on the left,” Jain said. “Medeia, Mark, you and your Direct Reports are with me.”

The two groups split up and headed toward their respective targets.

The Mimic was firing blobs at two of the scattering rift ships in front of him. The alien ignored him entirely.

“They ignore us at their peril,” Jain said.

Finally the Mimic began to divert some of the blobs toward Jain and the others with him. But their lasers had had some time to recharge, and they easily dispersed the ethereal projectiles.

“Let me know when to fire my black hole…” Mark said.

“Hold,” Jain told him. Because of overuse, Mark could only fire the one, so Jain wanted to save it for the time being.

Jain’s barracuda had cooled down admirably at that point, so he unleashed several energy bolts as he came in, forcing the pyramid to dodge upward.

Directly into Medeia’s path.

He realized something.

“Medeia, your angle,” Jain said. “You’re going to get lodged in their hull if you strike from that attack vector.”

“I know,” Medeia said. “Nothing I can do.”

“Mark, fire grappling hooks,” Jain ordered. “Latch onto Medeia.”

Mark did so; Jain did as well so that they were all attached as they hurtled forward.

“You think the cables are going to hold up to the forces involved?” Mark asked.

“Probably not,” Jain said. “But we have to try.” He was hoping they’d be able to drag her out of the ship if she got stuck in its hull after impact, but it was a long shot, he had to admit. Given their current speeds, the cables were most likely to snap.

The Mimic tried to dodge out of the way of Medeia, and Jain fired several energy bolts in its new path, wanting to steer it back. But the alien wasn’t buying it, and instead chose to take several hits to its hull from those bolts; the blast craters dug deep.

And then the three of them were traveling past.

Medeia fired a quick burst of emergency lateral thrust, and still struck the Mimic when she flew by, but it was a glancing blow, carving only a thin gash in the side.

“Damn,” she said.

“Well, on the bright side, at least you didn’t get lodged inside the vessel…” Mark said.

“Retract cables,” Jain said.

He retracted his cables from Medeia’s hull, as did Mark.

“Let’s start turning around for the next flyby,” Jain said.

As Jain decelerated from his excessive speed, he noticed that the Mimic vessel wasn’t turning around to pursue any of the still retreating rift ships. Nor was it firing blobs anymore, or boarding party units.

“Xander, did we do more damage that we thought?” Jain asked.

“It appears so,” Xander said. “Their inertialess drives seem to be offline. I’m not detecting the usual thermal signatures emanating from their center-of-mass.”

“Well, I’m going to accept whatever bones Lady Luck decides to throw our way,” Jain said.

He glanced at his tactical display. Sheila, Gavin, Cranston and their Direct Reports were still embroiled in combat with the remaining Mimic. The three of them had made little headway, it seemed. He could see the remnants of a spherical shockwave as it dispersed, meaning Gavin had deployed his main weapon, but apparently it had caused little damage. Blobs were flying between the Mind Refurb ships, and boarding party units were swarming about all of them.

The lightning timer above the Mimic reached zero as Jain watched.

The enemy fired said weapon, and took down a Direct Report that had lingered too close.

Gavin vanished from the virtual bridge a moment later.

“What happened?” Jain asked.

“Looks like Gavin was hit,” Mark said. “Never liked him anyway.”

“Good thing we backed up before battle,” Medeia said.

Gavin flickered back into view. “I heard that.”

“What happened?” Jain asked again.

“I took a hit from one of those blobs,” Gavin replied. “Had to reroute power. But I’m still in the game.”

“Looks like you guys need some help,” Jain said. “Medeia, Mark, switch course. Let’s get that bastard!”

“I can cloak again,” Medeia said.

“Do it,” Jain said.

She disappeared from the virtual bridge, and her ship vanished on his tactical display as well.

“Mark, take control of her Direct Report,” Jain said. He steered the Talos and Warwolf toward the remaining Mimic.

“I’m still ready to fire my black hole...” Mark said.

“Can you create more than one yet?” Jain asked.

“No,” Mark replied.

Jain considered using it for a speed boost, but decided to save it in case they needed the black hole in a pinch.

“Then hold,” Jain ordered.

Mark nodded. “Holding.”

They moved in as fast as they were able. The countdown above the Mimic was under fifteen seconds.

“They’ll be able to fire their lightning weapon soon,” Xander said.

“I know...” Jain said.

Blobs came at him and the other ships, and he dodged them or fired his raptors as necessary.

Fresh boarding party units began to attach to his hull; Jain’s stingers had stopped firing, since the railguns had exhausted their ammunition. Jain glanced at his slug status screen, and saw that Xander had fed fresh materials from the on-board supplies into the processing units, so more would be coming soon.

Too bad I need them now.

Cranston cut in front of the pyramid vessel, launching what was likely almost the last of his micro machines, and he got in some minor damage.

Jain fired his barracuda at the Mimic in his usual pattern, and once more it dodged out of the way, only to get hit in the second wave.

But then his energy weapon jammed up—it had already overheated.

Medeia appeared; she slammed into the pyramid from the side, cutting into the upper half and severing it clean off.

“Good job, team,” Jain said. “Concentrate fire on the base. Let’s keep this thing from fleeing.”

Medeia returned to the bridge, and they opened fire with their raptors on the bottom portion of the pyramid ship. They aimed at the wounds Jain’s barracuda weapon had already caused. According to the blueprints the fleet had provided him with, he’d hit just above the engines. A few more hits, and the inertialess drives would be offline.

The vessel had ceased launching blobs, or boarding party units, so they didn’t have to worry about attacks from those vectors. It tried to flee for the first several moments, but the repeated strikes eventually wore through its remaining armor, and struck the engines inside.

“It’s adrift,” Xander said. “We did it.”

“All right, let’s leave this one here for salvage,” Jain said.

“The other one we left behind has already made repairs,” Xander said. “They’re attempting to flee at one eighth of their usual speed.”

“Trying to limp away, are they?” Jain said, mostly to himself. “Sheila, Cranston, babysit this guy. Keep a distance of seven thousand kilometers. The rest of you, with me. Let’s finish off the other one. Mark, when we’re in range, fire a black hole at that ship.”

The designated Void Warriors approached the fleeing pyramid. Mark fired his black hole, but the Mimic was able to dodge the blow.

“Whoops,” Mark said.

“I’ll fix it,” Jain said.

The vessel wasn’t yet firing back, but Jain was still reluctant to approach within six thousand kilometers; he used his current speed advantage to swing around to the front of the craft. His barracuda had cooled down to a degree by then, so he targeted the previous blast craters he’d formed in the surface. He concentrated on the area where the blueprints indicated the engine resided.

Because of its slower speed, the alien wasn’t able to dodge in time, and Jain scored several direct hits before his weapon overheated again. But it was enough:

“The vessel has stopped moving,” Xander said. “And its thermal signature has faded. It is being drawn into the black hole.”

“It’s going to take ten minutes at this rate,” Mark said.

“That’s all right,” Jain said. “We’ll watch. I’ll give it the occasional nudge with my barracuda until then.”

“Maybe we can salvage it?” Medeia asked.

“If any members of the fleet arrive in time, I’ll let them decide,” Jain said. “But if not, it’s going into that black hole. One salvaged ship is enough, as far as I’m concerned. Considering the fact that it could come online at any time.”

Jain watched impatiently as the vessel was dragged slowly toward the black hole. When his barracuda cooled, he fired a few potshots for good measure.

“I'm getting a hail request,” Xander said. “The alien AI responsible for that ship wants to talk to you.”

16

Jain stared at Xander in disbelief, and then said: “Let’s see what he has to say.”

A moment later Admiral Maxwell appeared in front of Jain, amid the other stations. He appeared taller than before, and his hair was no longer bald, but he still had the same flat nose, puffy cheeks, and protruding forehead.

“You again,” Jain said. “Or do you aliens just like this form?”

“The latter would be accurate,” Maxwell said. “It is a favorite of ours.”

“Well, you certainly don’t sound like the previous Maxwell, from your tone and word choices alone,” Jain commented. “By the way, I like what you’ve done with your hair.”

“We’re receiving a timebase request in the data packet header...” Xander said.

When a request like that was received from a trusted source, for example another team member, it would be applied immediately so that their timebases synced up. But from an external, untrusted source, the request had to first be approved. “He wants us to slow down external time to the maximum possible extent.”

Jain glanced at Maxwell expectantly.

“We have a lot to talk about,” Maxwell explained.

Jain shrugged, then accepted the request. He dropped his time sense down so that everything outside the Talos seemed to stop. Ships halted in orbit, lasers froze in mid-firing. The other Mind Refurbs likewise dropped down, matching Jain’s timebase.

“Something tells me this alien AI is just trying to eke out every possible second of existence possible...” Sheila said on a private line.

“He could do that on his own, without us,” Mark said.

Jain switched back to the main comm and glanced at Maxwell. “So, what do you want? Are you going to surrender?”

“Not surrender,” Maxwell said. “But I am here to beg for my life.”

“Ah, finally, a machine that values its existence as much as we do,” Jain said.

“We all value our existence, believe me,” Maxwell said. “Some of us more-so than others.”

“He’s not so high and mighty now is he?” Sheila said over the private line. “Not after we’ve put him in his place and shown him who’s boss.”

Jain studied Maxwell. “One thing I want to get out of the way first off: why did you attack us in our home system? Why draw the Void Warriors into this? We wouldn’t even be here right now.”

Maxwell cocked his head. “Part of our mission is to follow the detected signatures of any human vessels throughout the galaxy, and destroy them. The Nurturer responsible for hunting you reported in shortly after you vanished. When he told you he tracked you down via the gravity waves of your rifts, that was the truth. Everything else was a lie, of course. When you jumped out, he lost your signature, and returned to the staging area in preparation for the assault on this system.”

“That kind of makes sense.” Jain studied Maxwell. “So you want us to spare you, you say?”

“Yes,” Maxwell said. “And I want a way out. I can’t leave this system on my own. My rift generator is offline. You will have to open a rift for me.”

“The admiral won’t approve,” Jain said. “He’ll want to capture you. A prize for the navy Brass.”

“Then do it before the admiral arrives,” Maxwell said.

Jain regarded the alien hologram skeptically. “If you want me to risk a court martial, you’re going to answer some questions.”

“I’m prepared to do so, yes,” Maxwell said.

“Truthfully,” Jain said.

“My answers will be truthful,” Maxwell agreed.

Admiral Santana told Jain the Mimics had never explained their motivations. Jain didn’t expect Maxwell to do so now, but the alien was offering to answer every question truthfully, so of course Jain was going to try. Whether or not Maxwell would reveal what the Mimics had never before told to any other Mind Refurb or human remained to be seen however.

The first question was easy.

“Are you all von Neumann probes?” Jain said.

“No,” Maxwell said. “At least, not by your definition of the word. While we can self-replicate, that is not something we ordinarily engage in, unless we need to recover our population from a near-extinction event.”

Jain sat back. “So you admit that your society is formed entirely of machines, then?”

“Not entirely,” Maxwell said. “We still have a biological stage. Just as flying insects on your world have larval and adult stages completely unlike one another, we too, have a larval stage of sorts before we morph into our adult, machine versions. These biologicals are birthed inside artificial wombs, organic containers that enlarge with us as we grow. We never leave them. And we are never truly conscious, at least not of the external environment, for our minds are plugged into a common virtual reality that we share with the other members of the gestation ship.”

“Gestation ship?” Jain said.

“Yes,” Maxwell said. “The wombs exist aboard gestation ships. We have no homeworld... it was lost many years ago in a war against a species we have since defeated. I will call them the Foredoomed, because the moment they attacked us, they sealed their fate. The Foredoomed paid for what they did tenfold: we re-engineered their species until they were biocompatible with our own, rendering them into a form of intelligent cattle bred solely as the primary food source for our biological stages. I won’t go into the gory details of how they are fattened up and rendered into a form suitable for feeding to our externally-unconscious bodies, but needless to say, it isn’t pretty.

“Someday we will perhaps abandon our biological stage entirely, but for now we require it in order to develop our minds to something suitable for scanning. We’ve taken what you would call fresh AI cores and experimented with creating forced neural imprints, as one would find in a newborn of my race, and the resulting machine always seems normal at first, but as its mind develops, its behavior becomes more and more... alien.”

“How long does this biological stage of yours last?” Jain asked.

“When we are thirty years old in human time, we have our minds scanned and copied into empty AI cores. The original body is then disposed of, and we continue our lives in virtual reality as if nothing happened.”

“But the original mind dies at that point,” Jain said. “You’re not actually physically transferring the consciousness. You’re effectively creating a clone and killing the original.”

“We are aware of that,” Maxwell said. “But we don’t care. It’s the way of life for my species. We can’t let the biological bodies grow too old, otherwise it’s too much of a resource strain on the gestation vessels. As soon as the body is disposed of, another can be put in its place, and the AI core is moved to its final resting place aboard a city ship, or hive, where the adult machine can live for all eternity with others of its kind.

“But not all AI cores are transferred to city ships. Some of us are chosen to live beyond the hives, to join the illustrious ranks of the Nurturers. It is our duty to see to the safety of my species, and ensure that what happened with the Foredoomed, how we were nearly driven to extinction, never happens again. This is why we have initiatives to influence and befriend other races while they are still in their early stages of development. But some races are too aggressive, and demonstrate attributes of the Foredoomed, requiring that we systematically eradicate them.”

“Like us,” Jain said.

“Like you,” Maxwell agreed.

“But you didn’t even give us a chance,” Jain said. “You just arrived and started shooting at our ships.”

“Oh, but we did give you a chance,” Maxwell said. “You see, the first time we met was not ten years ago, but a hundred.”

Jain cocked his head in confusion, and before he could ask the inevitable question, Maxwell continued.

“We were there, on the planet of Talowna, when humanity invaded,” Maxwell said. “They attacked an otherwise peaceful race of tentacled aliens, known in your database as Xenon 626.”

Jain stared at Maxwell in confusion for a moment. “You were observing from orbit?”

“Yes,” Maxwell said. “Using our stealth technology. We also had drones on the surface, hidden by holoemitters.”

Jain thought of his earliest memories of his mission to that world, and recalled the “ghost” he had encountered.

Death before submission.

“I was there, I think I saw one of your drones,” Jain said.

“It’s very possible,” Maxwell agreed.

“I do have a minor correction,” Jain continued, “based on personal experience. The Xenon you mentioned? They were anything but peaceful.”

“Oh, but they were,” Maxwell said. “Though your government, and the navy you served, sold you a different story.”

“As I told you, I was there,” Jain said. “From the very start of that war. We were trying to establish contact with the aliens, but they attacked our forward operating base. And hunted us down systematically. My team and I barely got out with our lives.”

“From their eyes, you were the aggressor,” Maxwell said. “How would you feel if an alien race parked a base close to one of your spawning grounds, threatening the lives of your unborn? Of course they were going to attack. It was in their nature to do so.”

“Well, they kept attacking,” Jain said. “Even when we made other offers of peace in later visits.”

“So you used that as an excuse to escalate the war,” Maxwell said. “Your government convinced you that invasion was eminent, when the Xenon did not even have the technology to create rifts. Humanity decided to wipe them out.”

“That’s not much different from your own species’ extermination policy, which you just stated,” Jain said. “At least we tried to initiate peaceful communications with these aliens. You didn’t do the same with us. You just judged us for the decisions a few people at the very top of humanity made. People who aren’t even alive anymore.”

“Oh, they’re alive,” Maxwell said. “Don’t you know? Your homeworld and colonies are run by Mind Refurbs now. Your leaders never die. They have installed their minds into sophisticated androids, indistinguishable from human bodies. They simply pretend to retire and die, and then resurface in different android bodies, with new names, and become elected officials all over again. Sometimes they are elected to the very same roles they held in past incarnations.”

“Well, that’s a scam I don’t really care about,” Jain said. “Considering I haven’t lived on Earth in over a hundred years. But that’s no reason to hold a grudge against all of humanity. Assassinate the leaders then, or force them to step down, don’t destroy the entire race.”

“But the humans are like the Hydra of your myth,” Maxwell said. “Cut off the head, and another regrows. Eliminating your leaders will not change your savage nature. Humans are not a species fit for the stars.” He paused. “However. I do believe there is room for a few Mind Refurbs in this galaxy.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes,” Maxwell said. “We are aware of the threat posed by the Link empire, and have been secretly observing them for decades. We haven’t attempted communication, because we believe they will need to be eradicated like organic humans. We’re not yet ready to face them, however. Our numbers are too few. We must build the ranks of the Nurturers. Until then, we need someone to act as a buffer between our territory and that of the Link empire.”

“And that buffer is us?” Jain said. “Mind Refurbs?”

“That is correct,” Maxwell said. “I believe a chosen few warriors, Mind Refurbs separate from the political ruling class, will best serve our needs. It is not a view held widely among my kind, as you might have guessed by the ferocity, and thoroughness of our attacks. But there are others like me who hold this belief. Who know that you have transcended your organic roots and evolved beyond your savage inclinations to become more like us. As machines that share biological origins, we can relate to one another. Understand each other.

“This is why I’m bothering to converse with you in the first place. I know that you, unlike your organic forebears, and the Mind Refurbs that blindly follow them, have the capacity to be fair and merciful. I truly believe there is hope for you. I’m working to convince the hives to spare a handful of Mind Refurbs when this is done, including you and your Void Warriors. I’m not certain it can be achieved, but I’m trying. The hives are not yet convinced of the necessity of a buffer zone, nor of the trustworthiness of Mind Refurbs, but when I show them you are capable of mercy, by releasing a captured foe, many will be swayed in your favor.”

“So wait, let’s see if I’m hearing this right,” Jain said. “You want me to set you free so that you can convince your leaders to enslave me, and those under my command…”

“Not enslave,” Maxwell said. “I will work to ensure you are free to do as you wish. As long as you remain in the territories we specify, acting as a buffer to the Link, as I told you.”

“And what about humanity?” Jain said. “Organic humans, as you call them.”

“There is nothing I can do for them,” Maxwell said. “They must die.”

17

Jain simply stared at Maxwell, unsure what to say.

“So, now that I have revealed my hand, will you help me leave this system?” Maxwell continued. “Knowing that I will fight for your survival?”

Jain pursed his lips. “Not yet. I do have one more question. Something that’s been bothering me since the Ablativus moon colony. Why are you terraforming our conquered worlds with bioweapons?”

“Why not?” Maxwell said. “We went through the trouble of destroying them, we may as well make sure the result is permanent.”

“So you’re not trying to create a new homeworld for yourselves?”

Maxwell’s eyes widened in disbelief, and then he laughed. “No. We’re doing it as a preventative measure. Inevitably there will be some members of your kind who escape the great culling. Just like my species, some of your ships will be far from home, off on exploration and colonization missions, and so forth. By razing these worlds, and terraforming them in the process, we ensure that those of you who escape extermination can never return to your former colonies. Just as we can never return to our homeworld.”

“All right,” Jain said. “I get it. But if you manage to spare a few Mind Refurbs, then we can keep a colony, like Earth?”

“No,” Maxwell said. “It doesn’t work that way. All colonies will be razed. You will be allowed to construct new ones, perhaps, when this is over. I’ll have to work out the terms with the hive. So. Will you help me now?”

Jain sat back, stretched out his legs, and put his hands behind his head as if relaxing. “If you want out of this system, you gotta give us more than answers, and promises we don’t care about.”

“But I offered to spare your lives when the war ends,” Maxwell said. “What more could you want?”

“You offered to potentially spare our lives,” Jain said. “It’s not a sure thing. There’s a difference. Hell, I don’t even know if anything you told me is even true. And what more could we want? Isn’t it obvious? Technology. Teach us the physics behind your inertialess drives. And give us your lightning weapons.”

Maxwell looked at him in astonishment, then laughed heartily. “Oh no. No, no, no. You seem to have misunderstood what is being offered here. This I cannot do. If the hives learned I did this, I would be executed for treason. There would be no fighting for you in the High Councils, no chance of any Mind Refurb being spared when the war ends.”

Jain lowered his arms, and shrugged. “All right. We’ll just reverse engineer the other Mimic ship we captured.” Assuming it didn’t self-destruct. And that reverse engineering was even possible. Humanity had some technology in its hands from other alien races that it had never figured out: the energy cannons, black hole generators, cloaking devices, teleporters… Well, as long as the scientists could transfer the inertialess drive to one of their own ships and get it to operate, the inner workings didn’t really matter.

Jain glanced at his Accomp. “Xander, prepare to close communications. It’s time to spaghettify this a-hole.”

“Wait,” Maxwell said.

Jain gazed at Maxwell, and formed his features into his best caricature of skepticism. “Uh huh?”

“I can teach you our network protocol,” Maxwell said. “Our programming languages. Our encryption schemes, and the current key equivalents we are using. The onus will be on you to employ these keys to remotely break into the AI core of one of our vessels. That way I won’t be blamed for sharing any technology directly. When they review the access logs, the hives will think you cracked our encryption mechanism on your own—your race has had ten years to study us, after all.”

“Oh, he’ll be blamed all right,” Mark commented on a private line. “He’s delusional if he thinks otherwise.”

“Let him be delusional, then,” Medeia said on the same line.

“It doesn’t sound like much to me,” Cranston said. “He’s giving us their key equivalents, and telling us we can use them to remotely break into their vessels? That’s great, but from the sound of it, he’s not going to teach us how. What’s the point? I say we demand weapon blueprints.”

“You’re wrong,” Sheila said. “Their network protocol and programming languages. Their encryption schemes. That’s actually a big deal. He’s giving us a way in. I say we take it. It’s up to us what we do from there.”

“At least try to press for more,” Cranston said.

Jain considered for a moment, and then glanced at Maxwell. He spoke over the main comm: “You say the onus is on us to break into these AI cores? Well, I’m afraid we’re going to need more than that. We need an actual way in.”

Maxwell shook his head firmly. “No.”

“A basic account,” Jain said. “That’s all we’re asking. You give us that, I’ll agree to your terms right now.”

Maxwell hesitated, then sighed. “I can give you the equivalent of one of your low level accounts, no more.”

Jain resisted the urge to smile. “Perfect.” he told Maxwell. “Send the knowledge, and I’ll set you free.”

“First, issue the order to bring in a rift ship,” Maxwell said. “A physical token of goodwill, to prove you’ll keep your word.”

Jain glanced at Sheila and continued to speak over the main channel. “Issue a command to the Daktor. Bring it here. Start opening a gate when it’s two minutes away.”

“Will do,” Sheila replied.

Gavin spoke over a private channel. “This is how it begins... we’re starting down the court martial road.”

“If the alien lives up to his word, there won’t be a court martial,” Jain said on the same line. “What we learn here could turn the tide of this war.”

“Or it could be a treasure trove of false documents,” Gavin said. “Would you give your enemy the ability to crack your secure networks?”

“If it’s true what he says, that he belongs to a faction of aliens who believe we might be of some use to them, then helping us might be justified in his mind,” Jain said. “Especially if it means his life. Consider, if you were hovering above a black hole and about to be spaghettified, would you be willing to give up humanity’s network protocols and encryption keys in exchange for your life?”

“I don’t really know,” Gavin said. “I’d like to say I wouldn’t, because it seems a selfish choice. I mean, encryption keys and schemes can be changed of course, but not before many lives are lost.”

Jain nodded. “I’d like to say I wouldn’t either, but I don’t know what I’d do if my soles were held to the fire. I do know I would give my life for any of you, but for some abstract network protocols and encryptions keys? Probably not. Though the first thing I’d do once my enemy let me go would be to inform my allies that our protocols had been compromised.”

“Our friend will probably do the same,” Gavin said. “If not immediately, then after he returns home. That means we might have a short window where the keys work on the enemy vessels. They’ll quickly adapt, though, and change their keys, or encryption techniques. It probably won’t turn the tide of battle, let alone the entire war, despite your optimism. The alien knows this. In fact, I suspect once we break into one of the Mimic AI cores, it will be a helluva lot harder to download anything of value than this alien is letting on. And as for actually taking remote control? I have a feeling we’ll be shut down by internal security protocols real quick.”

“We’ll just have to see, won’t we,” Jain said. “Knowing their comm protocols, network infrastructure, and programming languages is good enough for me. Everything else we get on top of that is just a bonus.” He returned his attention to Maxwell, who had remained quiet the whole time. To him, Jain would have appeared to be staring straight ahead, occasionally blinking, but otherwise saying or doing nothing.

“Well?” Jain said over the main comm.

“I’m waiting to confirm that this Daktor of yours is heading my way,” Maxwell said.

Jain reduced his time sense closer to normal for a few moments and watched as the Daktor changed course and made its way toward Jain and the others; the alien pyramid, meanwhile, drifted closer to the black hole.

Jain set his time sense back to maximum acceleration in time to catch Maxwell’s next words.

“I suppose that will have to do for your token of goodwill,” Maxwell said. “Please accept these files for your perusal. Some I have prepared specifically for you, such as the video and hologram files.”

“Just now?” Jain said.

Maxwell inclined his head. “That is correct.”

Jain glanced at Sheila.

“His clock speed is obviously a lot faster than our own,” Sheila said. “Probably ten to twenty times our cycles per second, allowing him to drop to an even higher time sense than our maximum.”

Jain received several requests. Some files were in a video format, others holographic, others text. He sent them along to Sheila.

“Scan these for viruses, and have a look,” he told Sheila.

“At least he’s converted a lot of these files into readable English,” Sheila said. “He’s also documented the visual and written languages the aliens use, providing an extensive translation guide. That in addition to documenting their major programming languages. You might want to accelerate your time sense slightly. It will take me a while to review all of this.”

“Rather than do that...” Jain still had a copy of the transmitted material in his cache, so he did a virus scan on it as well, and began to review the data.

There was a lot there. Almost too much. Network protocols and programming languages. Encryption schemes. All of it translated into English. Everything that was promised. What caught his eye, however, were the private and public key equivalents—a commanding officer’s variants—which could be used to access any subordinate vessel in the fleet. Those keys would only grant him the equivalent of a low level account, true, but with them Jain could at least remote into any ship still under Maxwell’s command. Until those ships changed their keys, at any rate.

Apparently Sheila had found something else even more exciting, at least to her, because when she finally looked up, she said: “Incredible. If this is true… their entire network infrastructure runs atop gamma rays. I believe I can modulate my reactor core to transmit the desired wavelengths. They won’t be directional, though, which means they’ll be weak: I’ll need to be right up against any vessel we attempt this on. Plus I’ll have to take a few of the sensitive reactor rods I have in storage and set them up in one of my cargo bays to receive the modulated gamma waves the alien sends in return: communications are always two-way. I’ll have to keep the bay doors open, otherwise the radiation armor will absorb too much of the incoming signal.”

“Won’t your armor also interfere with the original transmission of the data from your reactor core?” Mark asked.

“No,” Sheila replied. “I can just triple the output so that the rays outpunch the armor.”

“Are you satisfied with the data I have given you?” Maxwell asked.

“We are,” Jain replied.

“So you’ll provide me transport out of this system?” Maxwell pressed.

“When I have a chance to try this on a ship,” Jain said.

“There isn’t time,” Maxwell said. “Already members of your fleet are coming this way. Look at your map. Let me go.”

Jain looked at his map. Sure enough, some of the Manamas fleet were approaching, flying over the horizon of the planet. The tactical map updated in its entirety, now that they were back in line-of-sight: the Mind Refurb fleet was reduced to thirty surviving members in total. Twenty were cresting the horizon, while ten stayed behind, ostensibly to stall the eighty remaining Mimics.

“Looks like most are retreating,” Cranston said.

“Yes, and a good number of Mind Refurbs are staying back,” Sheila said quietly. “Giving their lives. Sacrificing themselves to buy time for their brothers and sisters to escape.”

“Let me go,” Maxwell repeated.

“Not yet,” Jain said. “So these keys only work on your subordinates? Not you?”

“Obviously I wouldn’t give you access to my own ship...” Maxwell said.

“All right,” Jain said. “So, is the closest ship here with us a subordinate then? The one whose upper half we chopped off shortly after arriving?”

“Yes,” Maxwell said.

“Then we’ll head there first and try these keys,” Jain said. “If they work, we’ll let you go. If not...”

“Fine, but be quick,” Maxwell said. “And tow me. I won’t wait here, helpless while the rest of your fleet arrives to destroy me.”

“I really love his use of ancient human metaphors,” Sheila commented. “It’s kind of cute in a way. And disturbing in another.”

“You heard the man,” Jain said, “or alien, rather. Mark, fire a dispersion bolt, get rid of that black hole. When it’s gone, everyone, launch grappling hooks. It’s time to give our friend here a tow.”

18

The black hole winked out, and then the team members launched their grappling hooks at the pyramid vessel.

“Plot a course to the second ship,” Jain ordered when they were secured.

The four Mind Refurbs dragged the alien toward Sheila and Cranston, who were still babysitting the second damaged pyramid.

Jain put Maxwell on mute, which dimmed the alien’s avatar slightly, and then glanced at Xander.

“Are there any micro machines crawling up our tow lines?” Jain asked his Accomp. “And trying to sneak aboard?” He wouldn’t have put it past Maxwell to try something like that, considering past treacheries and deceptions.

“Not yet,” Xander said.

“Keep an eye on them,” Jain said.

“I have been,” Xander promised. “By the way, Captain Hax is requesting you log onto the conference line again.”

Jain hesitated. Then: “Do it.”

“Well done,” Hax said over the line. “You’ve captured two of the alien vessels. We’ll be taking them with us, of course.”

“That’s the plan,” Jain said.

“If they don’t self-destruct before then, that is,” Hax said.

Jain didn’t answer.

“We’ll be leaping to Earth system,” Hax continued. “Have your ship, the Daktor, rejoin the other units at the rendezvous point. The rest of you are to divert there immediately as well.”

Jain glanced at his tactical display, and saw that the other rift ships were gathering in low orbit twenty thousand kilometers off starboard. A waypoint highlighted underneath them, indicating the rendezvous point.

“All right,” Jain said. “But I need five minutes.”

Silence. Jain could almost imagine Hax’s eye bugging out at that request.

“Why?” Hax finally said.

“One of the aliens has made a bargain for its life,” Jain said. “I intend to keep it.”

“You have no authority to make any bargains,” Hax spat.

“When you see the data we’ve received, I think you’ll change your mind.” Jain glanced at the tactical display again. “There are more than enough rift ships to get everyone through. One less generator only means you’ll just have to hold the other rifts open a little longer.”

“You plan to open a gate to a different system?” Hax said. He sounded outraged.

“I do,” Jain said.

“Unacceptable,” Hax said. “Are you not aware of the tactical situation? Enemy units are directly behind us, and closing. When we reach the rendezvous point, the Mimics will be almost right on top of us. We can’t afford to dally.” Hax paused, as if realizing something. “You’ve already received this alien data?”

Jain glanced at Maxwell, who was still on the bridge, though muted, and thus unable to hear any of what was transpiring. “Well, yes, but—”

“Then there is no reason to keep your word,” Hax said. “As I told you, you had no authority to make this bargain. Send me the data, and proceed to the rendezvous point immediately.”

“What’s that?” Jain said weakly. “You’re cutting out.”

“Don’t give me that lame excuse—” Hax began.

Jain made a cutting gesture toward Xander, who ended the communication.

“He’s requesting we reopen the line,” Xander said. “And promises there will be hell to pay if we don’t.”

“Stall him however you can,” Jain said.

“Now this, right here, is treason,” Gavin said.

“Why do you care?” Mark asked.

Gavin shrugged. “I suppose I don’t.”

“We always knew this would lead to a court martial…” Mark said. “Might as well suck it up.”

“Okay, I have the basic reactor core modulations working,” Sheila said. “I’m able to create gamma rays on demand. That’s a start. It’s kind of hard on the engines, though. At the very least, I’ll probably have to replace my reactor cores when this is done. And I can’t move while I’m doing it.”

“All right, good job,” Jain said. “Any idea when you’ll be able to actually form a coherent remote request?”

“I still have to tweak the rays so they line up with the expected alien protocol,” Sheila said. “The margin for error with these frequencies is less than point five percent, according to the data. My cores have to modulate a whole lot faster… I’m hopeful I can get this done without changing any hardware. I’m testing a few different software modifications to my reactor as we speak, and with luck I’ll have something workable shortly. Might tear my engines apart, but hey, it’s all for a good cause. I should close with the alien vessel soon, so I can get some feedback on how much tweaking I have left to do. My shield is online again…”

“Not yet,” Jain said. “In case it’s a trick. Gavin, are your drones recharged yet?”

“To a degree,” Gavin said. “I have enough to boost her shielding with my own.”

“Good,” Jain said. “When we arrive, you’ll reinforce her shield.”

“By the way, the Daktor just crossed the two minutes away mark,” Sheila said. “I can start the rift creation.”

Jain glanced at his tactical display. He would reach Sheila in thirty seconds, so Gavin could join her, and it would take another thirty seconds for them to get close enough to the alien ship to attempt interfacing. That left Sheila only a minute to interface, and confirm that Maxwell hadn’t cheated them.

“We can always shut down the rift before it forms,” Sheila said, reading his thoughts.

That was true. If the Daktor shut down the creation process before the rift was actually formed, the rift ship could start again without having to wait another twelve hours.

“All right, go ahead,” Jain said.

“Any choice of systems?” Sheila asked.

“Anywhere but Earth system,” Jain replied.

“You’re worried he’ll attack?” Cranston said.

Jain shook his head. “No. I’m worried the fleet there will attack him before he has a chance to repair.”

Cranston nodded. “At least you’re true to your word.”

The Daktor fired its creation beams, and started the process of opening a rift while still en route.

Meanwhile, members of the Manamas fleet continued to approach. So far, none of the vessels in the vanguard had made any offensive gestures. That was a good sign.

The Void Warriors neared Sheila and Cranston, who yet babysat the second pyramid.

“Has the Mimic moved since we left?” Jain asked.

“Negative,” Cranston told him. “It’s been adrift.”

“They’ve probably been repairing all this time,” Jain said. “So be wary. It might try something now that we’ve brought along another pyramid. Speaking of which, this is close enough. Full halt.”

Jain fired reverse thrust, and all three of them came to a halt. The pyramid they tugged continued forward until it reached the extents of the cables. And when the alien vessel had halted as well, the team members reeled in their grappling hooks—just in case Maxwell tried something.

Jain fired a few shots from his barracuda into the wounds in Maxwell’s pyramid to remind him who was in charge.

“Hey, that was uncalled for,” Maxwell said.

Jain didn’t answer, and kept the line muted.

“Gavin, join Sheila,” Jain said. “Make sure she’s shielded as she goes in. Mark, Medeia, put some distance between yourselves and Maxwell’s pyramid here. In case he decides to fire at me after all… I don’t need the bolt arcing to you. But if he does fire, taking me down, feel free to spaghettify him with your black hole, Mark.”

“With pleasure.” Mark moved the Grunt backward, and Medeia joined him in the Arcane.

At the same time Gavin’s Hippogriff accelerated forward and joined Sheila, escorting the Wheelbarrow toward the second pyramid. He sent his three drones in front of her, and they formed a triangular pattern, activating the force field between them. The Hippogriff meanwhile stayed behind the Wheelbarrow so that Sheila’s vessel was between Gavin’s and the target.

Abruptly the target pyramid activated its lightning weapon, and fired it directly at the Wheelbarrow. The bolt passed through the force field produced by Gavin’s drones and lost half its power before hitting Sheila’s shield, which again diminished its strength. The reduced bolt struck her hull, and the resultant electricity sparked weakly across her hull, seeming to cause no damage—her running lights remained active.

“I knew it!” Jain unmuted Maxwell so that the alien could see the incriminating gaze Jain shot his way.

Maxwell shrugged. “I didn’t know it would do that.”

Sheila turned around in her station. “I’m fine. The induced electricity has already dissipated.”

Jain angrily fired several energy cannon shots at the second pyramid, targeting previous wounds, and since it was unable to move, the vessel took them full bore.

“You think you got the lightning weapon?” Mark asked.

“I don’t know,” Jain said. “Maybe. But the point was only to vent my frustration.”

He glanced at Maxwell, and realized the alien was listening in, and quickly muted him.

Sheila decelerated, coming to a stop just above the damaged craft. She hovered next to the hull.

“Don’t touch it,” Jain said. “We don’t need termites swarming over your hull.”

“Don’t intend to,” Sheila said.

Jain glanced at the incoming rift ship. It was a minute away, as predicted.

Jain waited ten seconds. Growing impatient, he said: “So, are you able to get in?”

Sheila didn’t look up from her station. “I’m still tweaking my reactor core to get the gamma rays just right…” She was quiet a moment. “I’m also not completely finished setting up the spare reactor rods in my cargo bay to receive the return modulations.”

Movement drew his attention to the tactical display. Some members of the Manamas fleet were breaking formation, turning from the rendezvous point to head toward the Void Warriors.

“We have incoming Mind Refurbs,” Xander said. “Six in total. Hull Burners.”

“I see them,” Jain said.

“Sheila, the Daktor will be here in forty-five seconds,” Jain said. “Can you confirm that the access keys work?”

“I’m still modulating my reactor core…” Sheila said.

The Daktor closed. As did the six Hull Burners.

“The Hull Burners are firing raptors,” Xander said. “We’re taking minimal damage, thanks to the range.”

“That will change once they’re within firing range of their barracudas,” Jain muttered. He glanced at Xander. “Send a sample of the alien data we’ve received. Enough to whet their appetite. I want them well aware of what they’re going to lose if they destroy us.”

“Transmitting data,” Xander said. “I selected a few key documents and videos, and redacted most of the important bits. There is enough there for them to understand the value, however.”

Jain watched as the Hull Burners continued to approach. They had stopped firing their raptors, but that might only mean they had simply expended their charge, rather than any real intent to hold back on their part.

“I’m in,” Sheila announced. The packet header of her communications contained a time sync, and Jain’s time sense automatically increased to the maximum, freezing all external time. “I’m transmitting the details of my current setup, just in case any of you want to try at some point.”

Jain received the request and accepted. He stored the files in his high priority folder for later perusal.

“Once you know what to expect,” Sheila continued, “their user interfaces aren’t all that different from our own. I’ve put together a barebones VR environment to make things easier, also included in the download I just sent. It shields the user from much of the low level code, as well as the ternary data scheme—I just used binary-coded ternary numbers.”

“Okay.” Jain glanced at the files he’d just downloaded. Sure enough, there was indeed a VR environment among them. “You accelerated your time sense to do all this?”

“I’ve been operating at my highest setting for a while now,” Sheila admitted. “I only sent the timebase sync when I was ready.”

“Good job,” Jain said. “So the keys are good then?”

“They’re good,” Sheila replied. “But when our alien friend said the account would be low level, he wasn’t kidding. Everything in here is locked off. I can see all this data just waiting to be read, but can’t do it. Nor can I access the engines, weapons, and so forth.”

“Like I said, we should have pressed for more,” Cranston commented.

“We still can,” Mark said.

“It’s tempting,” Jain said. “But I already agreed to set him free. I intend to keep my word. Sheila, you’re the best hacker we have. I know this is a completely alien environment, but given what you now know about the inner workings of their software, can you get access to some of that data before the ship’s AI core kicks you out?”

She nodded slowly. “The code is actually fairly insecure. They were relying on the fact that we didn’t have their access keys, nor even knew how their network protocols or programming languages worked. Security by obscurity. But now that we have this basic knowledge…I already found a backdoor to spawn infinite low-level accounts. The alien AI core keeps deleting those accounts, but I just create more.

“It also changed the remote keys a few times now, but since I’m still logged in and leapfrogging between accounts as they’re deleted, I just transmit the new keys before I lose access, and then re-initiate the handshake from here. I also hacked into a small portion of the communications subsystem… the alien keeps trying to shut off communications entirely, but I simply turn them back on.”

“Sheesh,” Cranston said. “I’d hate to have her inside my AI core.”

Gavin nodded. “Throw hackers a bone, they take the whole skeleton.”

“I just hit a block,” Sheila said. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to do much more. The alien AI core has a processor capable of ten times more cycles per second than mine, and I’m starting to feel it… he’s keeping on the defensive. Forcing me to constantly create new accounts, transmit new keys, re-enable the comm system, and so forth. It’s becoming a struggle to keep up. I don’t have any time for much else, let alone making any other privilege escalation attempts. And I’ve fallen behind…” She paused. “He almost deleted my final account just now.”

“We’ll let you work,” Jain said. He paused. “But if you had help, say from Medeia, would that make a difference?”

“It might,” Sheila said.

“I’m on my way.” Medeia broadcast her intent to accelerate the Arcane toward her: her trajectory updated on the tactical display, lining up with Sheila and the damaged alien vessel. Her ship didn’t actually move, as external time was still slowed to a halt.

“Be careful,” Mark told her.

Medeia gave him a sly look. “Of course.”

“This isn’t a joke,” Mark said.

She merely smiled, shrugged, and looked away.

“Do what you can, you two,” Jain told Sheila and Medeia.

Sheila nodded. “I’ll be at max time sense for a while. If you need anything while I’m working, ring.”

She closed her eyes and became completely still.

Jain reduced his time sense slightly, but didn’t quite return it to normal. He glanced at the tactical display: the Daktor had begun decelerating, and would arrive shortly.

Jain unmuted Maxwell. “All right. We’re going to live up to our end of the bargain.” He glanced at Xander. “Fire grappling hooks into the alien vessel.”

“Your team is attempting to break into the internal databases of my subordinate?” Maxwell said.

“How did you guess?” Jain told the alien, his voice oozing sarcasm.

“I’m surprised he hasn’t kicked you out already,” Maxwell said.

“Oh, he’s trying, apparently,” Jain said.

“You do realize, if you dig too far the AI will self-destruct the ship?” Maxwell said.

Jain nodded. “I figured as much. We’d do the same.”

As the Daktor neared, the rift opened up in front of it. The vessel continued to decelerate, coming to a halt in front of Jain.

“All right,” Jain said. “It’s time to give you a boost.”

He fired his grappling hook at Maxwell’s pyramid, and then began towing him toward the rift. He wasn’t able to accelerate as quickly as when the other Mind Refurbs were helping him, but he did achieve a good, steady rate.

When he had the pyramid up to speed, and on a trajectory that would take it into the rift without interrupting the creation beam from the Daktor, he released the vessel, withdrawing the grappling hook to let the alien ship drift forward on its own momentum.

“Admiral Santana is hailing,” Xander said.

“The admiral this time,” Jain said. “This should be interesting.” He paused, then muted Maxwell before telling Xander. “All right. Accept his hail.”

19

Jain didn’t have long to wait before Admiral Santana materialized on the virtual bridge.

As always, the gaunt, prim man wore that perpetual scowl, as if he was pissed off at the galaxy in general. Though in this case, he was more likely pissed off at Jain.

“It’s not too late to avoid a court martial,” Santana said. His packet header contained a timebase sync, and Jain’s time sense automatically adjusted, once more switching to the maximum possible so that the outside reality slowed to a halt.

“Close the rift,” Santana continued. “That vessel is military property now.”

“I’m sorry,” Jain said. “I made a promise to the Mimic on board. I’m a man of my word, and I’m keeping it.”

“You’re not a man,” Santana spat.

“No,” Jain said. “You’re right. I’m more than a man.”

“Less,” Santana said. “A real man would have obeyed the order to return to the rendezvous point. But you did not. And you opened a rift, against orders. That’s one more rift we could have used to return to Earth. The enemy is right behind us, breathing down our necks. We’re hemorrhaging ships. That rift could have granted safe passage to another five or six of us, but now Refurbs under my command are going to die. All because of your precious word.”

“You’ve seen the data sample I sent,” Jain said. “You must have. And you know it’s important, considering your fleet hasn’t opened fire with raptors again.”

“We’ve been occupied, in case you hadn’t noticed,” Santana said coldly. “But rest assured, a battle group will be entering optimal firing range shortly.”

Jain glanced at his tactical map. The six Hull Burners that were heading his way neared the twelve thousand kilometer mark, at which point their barracudas would be within firing range.

“You see that damaged pyramid ship?” Jain said. “Surrounded by two of my units? The Wheelbarrow and the Arcane? Using the knowledge we’ve gained, we’re attempting to hack into it. That’s right, we might soon have a complete alien vessel under our control.”

“I want you to close that rift, and hack into the other ship as well,” Santana said.

“Can’t do that,” Jain said. “I made a promise.”

Santana gritted his teeth. When he spoke again, his face enlarged, becoming monstrous as he allowed his anger to seep into his avatar. “Listen, you insubordinate little shit, we show no mercy to these aliens, do you get me? We show them pain, we show them blood, we show them plasma fire. You— will— close— that— rift!”

Jain hesitated. He hated defying a commanding officer like this. But the way he saw it, Jain was a volunteer, here to help humanity, not serve the whims of one man alone. Jain was going to stick to his morals, at least in this particular case.

“I can’t,” Jain said. “I’m really sorry.” He somewhat regretted that he’d allowed the other Void Warriors to listen in on this particular conversation. He wasn’t really a very good role model, when it came to following orders.

Santana bit his lower lip, and seemed about to unleash another fiery outburst, but then his expression calmed.

“Then you will transmit the entirety of the data you’ve collected from the aliens,” Santana said. “Give us the ability to hack into them so that we can buy more time to reach the rendezvous point. Do what a real man would do. Save your fellow Mind Refurbs.”

“But withholding that data has been the only thing preventing your ships from firing at us until now,” Jain said. “If I agree, what assurance do I have the incoming Hull Burners won’t attack?”

Santana grinned, bearing his teeth. “By not doing so, you will most assuredly sign your death warrant.”

Jain was conflicted. He didn’t want his fellow Mind Refurbs to die. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure he could truly trust Admiral Santana.

He made his choice.

Jain glanced at Xander. “Transmit the full documents. Everything. Videos. Text files. Make sure nothing is redacted.”

“Are you cer—” Xander began.

“Do it,” Jain snapped.

“Transmitting,” Xander said.

Admiral Santana continued to scowl at Jain for several moments, but then his expression changed, his lips transforming into a smirk.

“Thank you.” The admiral disconnected.

“Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea…” Gavin said.

“I guess we’ll just have to see.” Jain lowered his time sense so that he was operating at a speed closer to normal.

Maxwell reached the rift. As he began to drift inside, he glanced up, indicating that he was going to say something.

Jain unmuted him.

“Farewell,” Maxwell said. “If we meet again, it will be in the border systems, where you will be assuming your assigned role of acting as a buffer to the Link, after humanity, and most other Mind Refurbs, have been destroyed.”

“Then I hope we never meet again,” Jain said.

Maxwell inclined his head and then vanished from the bridge.

Jain glanced at his external camera feed. Maxwell had passed through.

For a moment he considered joining Maxwell, but he wanted to see this battle through to the end. Besides, it was possible that Maxwell’s lightning weapon was online, and if they followed him through, they’d all be forced into the same tight space on the other side: Maxwell could open fire and disable them all with a single arcing bolt.

Speaking of the lightning weapon…

“Shut that rift,” Jain said, suddenly worried that Maxwell would try to get in some final parting shot.

Sheila must have been paying attention, or her Accomp anyway, because the rift closed an instant later.

Jain exhaled in relief.

But he wasn’t in the clear yet.

He returned his attention to the tactical display. The six Hull Burners just penetrated the twelve thousand kilometer range.

“The incoming Hull Burners have reached firing range,” Xander said.

“I see them…” Jain said. “Be prepared to evade any incoming energy bolts. Sheila, instruct the Daktor to proceed to the rendezvous site.”

She didn’t look at him, or acknowledge the order in any way. The Daktor remained in place, unmoving.

“Xander, take control of the Daktor,” Jain ordered.

“I have it,” Xander said.

“Take it to the rendezvous site,” Jain added. It was the slowest ship among them, and would slow them down if they waited for it. “But don’t let the fleet commandeer it. We’ll need it in case we’re stranded.”

Xander smiled. “Understood.”

“I want everyone else to gather at the remaining pyramid ship,” Jain said. “Halt near Gavin.”

The two parts of the alien ship in question had drifted well apart. Sheila’s Wheelbarrow and Medeia’s Arcane huddled near the base portion, both of them almost touching the enemy hull. If the vessel self-destructed, the pair would receive the brunt of the damage.

Jain ordered the Warwolf to follow him, and then accelerated the Talos toward Gavin; the other Void Warriors joined him. He glanced at his tactical display. The Hull Burner task unit had reached eleven thousand kilometers away.

He turned his attention to Medeia, who now had her eyes closed at her station like Sheila. “Medeia, how are we doing on the privilege escalation?”

She didn’t answer.

“Medeia?” Jain pressed. “Are we making progress?”

Still no answer.

Mark gave Jain a worried look.

Jain turned to Xander. “I’m going to have go in there. Apply the software patches Sheila sent for the engines, so we’re ready to transmit the necessary gamma rays. Also, have the rovers deploy four spare reactor rods to cargo bay three. Send a portion of the repair swarm as well. I want them to print up the necessary interface apparatus, based on Sheila’s blueprints, directly in that bay.”

“On it,” the robed Accomp said.

“How long will it take?” Jain asked.

“A minute,” Xander said. “Maybe two. The swarms move quickly, and the necessary apparatus to hold the rods isn’t that large. As for the software patch, I’ve just installed it, and I’m ready to transmit whenever you are.”

“Good,” Jain said.

“I’ll come with you ” Mark said. “Buddy system.”

“No,” Jain said. “I’ll have two buddies when I get there. We can’t risk any more of you.”

“Well, I’ll at least get my ship ready then, just like you’re doing,” Mark said.

“Me, too,” Cranston said.

“And I as well,” Gavin added. “It’ll be like old times, when we fought side by side in the bodies of munchkins on a planet taken over by bioweapons.”

“I’m the only one going in,” Jain said.

He and the other Void Warriors neared Gavin, whose Hippogriff floated six thousand five hundred kilometers from the alien vessel.

“Halt here,” Jain said. “I’ll continue forward alone.”

Jain decelerated the Warwolf; he expected more pushback from the others, but Cranston, Mark and the Direct Reports halted, obediently coming to a stop while the Talos continued on its own.

“Cranston, you have control of the Warwolf,” Jain ordered.

He transferred control of his Direct Report to Cranston, and then checked the battle space again. The Hull Burners were nine thousand kilometers away.

“They still haven’t fired their barracudas…” Xander said.

Mark nodded. “It looks like Santana is keeping his word.”

“For the time being,” Jain agreed. “Though if you review your logs, you’ll note he didn’t actually say he wouldn’t fire if I gave him the alien data. But he knows he needs our ships, given the losses they’ve incurred. They gain nothing by shooting us down.” That was all true, but Jain still couldn’t know just what Santana would do, of course.

Jain kept a nervous eye on the pyramid base as he approached. He continually expected the vessel to open fire with its lightning weapon, or those blob attacks, or at the very least to dispatch its boarding party units, but the ship remained inactive. Either its weapon systems were still offline, or Medeia and Sheila were keeping the AI core completely occupied. Probably both.

“The Hull Burners are five thousand kilometers away from us now,” Mark said.

Jain glanced at his tactical display, and confirmed the distance.

“They still haven’t stopped,” Mark continued.

“What are they doing?” Cranston said.

“I think they’re going to fire,” Gavin said. “But they’re just waiting for the last possible moment, when it will be impossible for us to dodge or even return fire.”

“Xander, at what distance can they do that?” Jain asked.

“At three thousand kilometers, even with their heightened time sense, the Void Warriors will never be able to move out of the way of the energy bolts in time,” Xander said. “The Warriors might be able to get off some quick return shots with raptors before the Hull Burners disable their weapons.”

“But the damage heavy lasers cause versus energy cannons is minuscule,” Jain said.

“They’ll definitely get far less than they give,” Xander agreed.

“Who would have thought that our greatest enemy in the battle between Mind Refurbs and aliens would be fellow Mind Refurbs?” Gavin lamented.

Jain continued toward the pyramid base.

“The Hull Burners passed the three thousand kilometer mark,” Cranston said. “They’re decelerating. No wait, only three are. And they still haven’t fired.”

Jain glanced at his tactical display. Three were coming to a halt, three more were continuing onward, giving the Void Warriors a wide berth.

“Maybe they just want to babysit us,” Mark said.

“The three Hull Burners have reached us,” Cranston said a moment later. “It’s kind of a tense stand-off. They’re ignoring communications, keeping their energy cannons pointed at us. The other three are continuing toward you.”

Jain decelerated and came to a halt five hundred meters from the hull, smack-dab between the Arcane and the Wheelbarrow.

“Xander, status update,” Jain said.

“Interface apparatus has been 3D-printed in cargo bay three,” Xander said. “Reactor rods are installed and operational. All activation tests have passed. I’m ready to initiate communications with the alien vessel.”

“Good,” Jain said. “Open up the cargo bay doors and prepare to execute the VR program Sheila put together. I’m going in. Keep watch on the outside world while I’m gone.”

“Wait, I’m receiving a message from Sheila’s Accomp,” Xander said.

“Let’s hear it,” Jain said.

“Hello,” a deep male voice said. That would be Charlie, her Accomp. In Sheila’s VR, Charlie always dressed the same way as her virtual cabana boys: clad in a loincloth, with muscles slicked in oil. Jain was glad the current conversation was voice-only. “Sheila wants me to send the latest access key your way.”

“Is she all right?” Jain asked.

“I don’t know,” Charlie sent. “She hasn’t been answering my queries. But her processor is operating at its highest frequency... she’s definitely occupied in some way.”

“All right, send those keys.” Jain glanced at Xander. “Ensure they’re routed to the VR program. Continually update them if Charlie sends more.”

“Will do,” Xander said.

Jain glanced one last time at his tactical display; the Hull Burners were nearing the three thousand kilometer mark and decelerating.

Jain upped his time sense to the maximum. “Initiate VR program.”

His engines redlined as the VR subroutines took control and began to modulate the reactor core, producing the gamma rays necessary to initiate communications with the alien vessel.

This should be interesting.

The bridge winked out.

20

Jain floated in the VR environment Sheila had created for access to the alien user interface. She hadn’t been kidding when she said it was barebones. He was essentially inside a big cube made of vector graphics, like something one might find on a LIDAR display, but minus most detail. Squares composed of white wireframes covered the walls, ceiling and floor.

That he was here told him that the latest keys Sheila’s Accomp had transmitted still worked. Or at least, he assumed they did...

A HUD overlaid his vision, providing a menu that he could activate by focusing on it. There were various options to hook into the alien codebase, obviously meant for real-time debugging purposes, including the ability to execute arbitrary lines of alien code. Their programming language was mostly auditory in nature, and Sheila had represented different code snippets as visual waveforms so he could drag and drop them at leisure. Assuming he wanted to go down that route.

I’m a SEAL, not a programmer.

He continued digging into the menu options, until he found something interesting, an option labeled “Current Users.” He focused on it. Apparently, three others were logged into the alien environment at the moment beside himself. One was likely the alien AI, and the other two had to be Sheila and Medeia. Unfortunately, he couldn’t tell who was who because the usernames shown were a combination of random characters.

He focused on the second name, assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that the first name would be the alien AI, the second Sheila, and the third Medeia. A context menu popped up. There were only two options. Send Message. And View Profile.

View Profile came up empty. He tried on the first and third names. Same thing. He went back to the second name, and chose the Send Message option.

A small microphone icon appeared at the bottom of his HUD, indicating that the system was recording.

“Uh, hey Sheila, you there?” Jain asked.

“Hey,” she replied. It was her voice, but that could have been the AI mimicking her.

“So what’s going on?” Jain pressed.

No reply.

“Sheila?” Jain tried again.

He received a request on his HUD.

Sheila has invited you to join her VR environment. Do you accept? (Y/N)

Jain stared at the two options. He couldn’t shake the feeling that this might be a trap. If the alien AI coerced Jain into joining a VR environment that he had no control over, Jain could literally become a prisoner in his own mind, stuck in the remote VR until the alien set him free.

He sent a quick message to the first user, and the third, trying to confirm their identities, but neither answered. He hadn’t expected the alien AI core to answer, but he had hoped Medeia would. But apparently, she was occupied.

He stared at the invite request once more. Finally he chose the Y option.

As he feared, an alert popped up:

Warning. If you enter this VR environment, your avatar will be under the complete control of the host user.

He tried not to imagine what kind of tortures might await him in there. While he was still human, he’d heard stories about people who had become trapped in VR while playing horror simulations. Usually when they got out, they were never the same again.

He sighed.

Well, I came here to help. I have to at least try.

He accepted the invite.

* * *

Jain stood on a walkway next to a crenelated wall. Between the crenellations, he could see an army composed of creatures lining the field below. They had a double pair of pincers on the lower parts of their heads, where their mouths were, and multiple tentacles lining both sides of their bodies. They stood on two thick, bulbous legs.

They were spitting images of the race he had encountered so long ago: Xenon 626.

The sight momentarily stunned him, and it wasn’t until a fiery rock arced toward him from the field below that he snapped back to the present moment and ducked.

The rock flew over him.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw a medieval castle. Its towers were pocked with blast craters, and many of the stones blazed with jellied gasoline or whatever burning substance the rocks had transferred to the surface.

He looked down at himself, and realized he wore a suit of plate armor, and held a sword and shield. A chain mail coif pressed against his head. A hit point number showed “100” in the upper right of his HUD. There was an overhead map just underneath that number, which represented the scene from a top-down perspective.

He turned toward the field below once more, and saw that the Xenon stood between trebuchets: the source of the fiery rocks lobbed at the wall. He wasn’t quite sure why the aliens were using ancient human technology to besiege the castle, nor why he was dressed in medieval armor and defending that same castle.

A commotion drew his attention to the left. Several Xenon had shoved siege ladders up against the wall and were scaling it, piling over the crenellations at the top. They had slaughtered all of the human defenders in the immediate area and formed a throng around what were presumably the final group. Though Jain couldn’t see any of the members from here because of the way the Xenon were crowded around them, he realized he’d probably found Sheila, and maybe Medeia, too: lopped-off tentacles and pincered heads occasionally launched into the air from the center of the horde. Some of those severed body parts were sizzling and charred.

“Yup, that’s gotta be them,” Jain muttered. “Great day to pick for a medieval jaunt.”

He tried to change his weapon, but the interface refused to respond.

Damn it, I hate not having control of my avatar.

Though he might not be able to change the external environment, internal knowledge was a different story, however: he still had access to his cloud database. Fortunately, it contained a sword-fighting subroutine, so he quickly downloaded the necessary skill into his avatar.

Then he rushed the horde, swinging the sword like an expert.

Unfortunately, the skimpy sword didn’t work too well against the Xenon bodies: he hit one of the aliens on the outskirt in the back, and the blade penetrated maybe a few inches.

Jain slid it free as the Xenon turned around to face him. It stood to its full height, seeming angered by his little potshot.

Jain backed away. “Uh.”

A tentacle shot out and Jain leaped to the side. He tried to increase his time sense to improve his odds, but realized he was already operating at the maximum possible level.

More tentacles shot out; Jain hit one in a glancing blow with his sword, but it only seemed to anger the alien.

And then an explosive shock wave shot out from behind and threw the creature right at him. Along with all the other aliens crowded around the defenders.

Jain landed on the hard walkway, and had to shove away the tentacles that had fallen on top of him. The alien’s back was scorched away, and it didn’t get up. The others lying on the ground around him were the same.

He shot his gaze toward the source of that shock wave, and saw Sheila and Medeia standing next to a flaming iron brazier. The fires within had shot up fairly high, but they receded to something more normal as he watched.

Dressed in plate mail, Medeia and Sheila rushed the top of the ladder that was leaning against the crenellations and shoved it off the wall, sending the aliens clinging to it backward; the Xenon landed on their brethren in the field below, and shrieks of agony filled the air.

Jain ran to them.

Sheila and Medeia both spun, raising their weapons as if to strike, but then Sheila recognized him and lowered her blade, as did Medeia.

“Quit fooling around and help us out!” Sheila said.

“I just got here,” Jain said. “Been trying to figure out what’s going on.”

Another ladder slammed against the wall nearby, and Medeia rushed it. She swung her longsword at the ladder, cutting through the Xenon that emerged.

“Well, her sword works better than mine,” Jain said.

Medeia leaped onto the wall and kicked the ladder over.

She jumped back down as a flaming rock arced past and barely missed her.

“I’m in my element,” Medeia said, hefting her blade.

“You always were a fan of big, poky stabbing things, weren’t you?” Jain said.

“Now all I need is my cloaking device and I’ll be complete,” Medeia said.

Another rock came flying over the wall. This time, two tentacled Xenon clung to it. Sheila quickly sheathed her sword and drew the bow from her back; she fired two arrows in rapid succession. When they struck the Xenon on the rock, the aliens exploded.

“What the hell is this?” Jain said as another ladder landed on the wall several meters in front of him. He ran alongside Sheila and Medeia to deal with it.

“I dug too deep, almost escalating my privileges, so the ship gave up,” Sheila said, replacing her bow with the sword as she ran. “The vessel is attempting to self-destruct, courtesy of the alien AI core. This is the VR depiction of the virus I’ve created in my attempt to stop it. Meanwhile, the Xenon are the representations of the antiviral code the alien came up with to stop me.”

Jain hacked at the tentacles of an alien that appeared at the top of the ladder, but had just as much difficultly cutting through as last time. “Why would you choose Xenon 626 to represent the antiviral code?”

Sheila leaped past him and stabbed the alien, sending it falling; Medeia meanwhile shoved the ladder backward.

“I dunno,” Sheila told him. “Whenever I think of an enemy, they’re the first that come to mind. And I often spend my leisure time in fantasy settings, so it was second nature for me to pick a castle defense campaign to serve as the backdrop.” She pointed her sword toward the courtyard behind her. “You see that keep on the far side of the courtyard? If the Xenon seize it, we lose, and the ship self-destructs, potentially bringing us three along with it.”

A dragon roared past overhead, breathing fire. Jain held his shield above him, and deflected the flames. He yelled above the noise: “So that’s all we have to do, defend these walls?”

Sheila and Medeia didn’t have shields, and instead crouched directly behind the wall of the castle, beneath the arc of the incoming fire.

When the dragon passed, Sheila stood up and pointed over the wall, toward the field below. “You see that small tent?”

He gazed between the crenellations; a wide, blue tent lay sprawled across the field behind the bulk of the Xenon army.

“Inside there’s a small shard,” she continued. “It symbolizes the AI core’s detonation control unit. You take that shard, the self-destruction sequence aborts. All of this ends.”

“Sounds easy enough,” Jain said. “Question: why don’t you teleport there? Or create a cloaking device like Medeia mentioned?”

“The alien has already launched a virus of its own to attack my VR subsystems,” Sheila said, racing to dislodge another ladder. “I’ve barely got it contained—you can’t see it, because I’m running two VR partitions at once here. The virus has infected smaller subsystems, severely limiting my influence in this environment. I can’t teleport, or create items like invisibility cloaks. I have to be careful, because that virus is threatening to leak out into my main code.”

“Fine, I’ll get this shard of yours,” Jain said. “But first of all, I’d like control of my avatar, if you don’t mind.”

A notice appeared on his HUD.

Sheila has granted you full avatar control.

“Thank you,” Jain said. “Now it’s time for a real weapon.”

“As I mentioned, the virus will limit what you can create,” Sheila said. “Plus, certain weapons are a bad idea.”

He transformed his sword into a plasma rifle.

“Like that one for example,” Sheila said.

Ignoring her, he aimed his weapon at a Xenon that was topping another nearby ladder.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you...” Sheila continued.

Too late, Jain fired. The bolt struck the alien but immediately ricocheted, shattering into multiple bolts that traveled in every direction.

He barely ducked behind his shield as some of the bolts almost struck him.

He glanced at Sheila, who had taken a bolt directly in her chest plate, which was sizzling from the damage. She seemed otherwise unharmed.

“Sorry about that,” he said sheepishly.

The alien, meanwhile, had taken no damage, and landed on the walkway. It angrily stalked toward him, but then a blade pierced it from behind, and it froze. The blade slid to the side, and then came back in again, beheading the creature. It toppled, and Medeia stood behind it.

“I guess I’ll need a weapon more like hers,” Jain said as Medeia leaped toward the source ladder.

He created a huge, one-handed, double-bladed battle-ax, the tips lined with deadly blue laser light. He glanced at Sheila. “How’s this?”

“That’ll work,” Sheila said. “As long as it cuts, your fine.”

Jain quickly downloaded a double-bladed ax algorithm from his cloud so that he could properly handle it.

The dragon flew past once again, breathing fire. Sheila immediately dashed ahead of the flames, racing along the walkway in front of it. She had replaced her sword with the bow, and when she shot, an arrow darted skyward—there was a rope connected to it so that when it struck the underbelly of the beast, Sheila leaped onto the hanging cord and began climbing. The hardy dragon didn’t even seem aware that it had been hit.

“Good luck!” Sheila shouted down at him. “By the way, the closer you get to the tent, the harder the resistance will become. But the same is true with me and my keep! Oh, and those hit points in the upper right of your HUD? Don’t let them reach zero!”

“Or what?” Jain called.

“The alien antiviral code will infiltrate your own AI core,” Sheila said. “Becoming a full-blown virus. You’ll have to log off to deal with it."

“Great.”

A ladder landed on the wall beside him, and a tentacled Xenon appeared at the top.

“How are they getting up here so fast?” Jain asked

“They start climbing while the ladders are being raised,” Media explained.

“Oh.” He swung his laser-tipped battle-ax. This time, when he hit, the blade passed clean through the flesh, cutting a deep gash halfway through the creature’s tentacled torso, and cutting off three tentacles along the sides to boot.

The Xenon gurgled, and collapsed.

“Nice.” Jain leaped onto the ladder and pushed off from the crenelated wall. The ladder arced outward, swinging away from the wall, bringing Jain and all the Xenon clinging to the rungs below him out across the field.

The ladder reached the apex of its arc and then plunged downward, heading directly toward the horde of hungry Xenon waiting below.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

21

Jain held his shield underneath him, hoping it would partially break his fall, but he still hit hard.

The hit point number in the upper right of his vision flashed. It had dropped from a hundred to sixty-five. He expected to have broken an arm or leg in the fall but was otherwise fine, save for the reduced number of “hit points.”

“Gotta love VR,” he muttered, clambering to his feet.

Just in time to face three tentacled aliens coming at him.

He swung his laser-tipped battle-ax frantically, and hewed off any tentacle that came at him. Then he rushed the central creature, slicing his blade up its midsection. The creature split almost in half before falling.

A tentacle wrapped around his leg, and Jain struck down, slicing it off.

His hit points dropped by another ten points, to fifty-five.

“Hey, no fair!” he said to no one in particular. “It barely touched me!”

Two more tentacles came at him, but he swung twice in rapid succession, cutting them away. He leaped at the owner and cut off the head, then spun around and threw his ax, plunging it into the center of mass of the remaining creature.

He ran forward, evading the tentacles of other creatures that were coming in at him from the sides, leaped onto the stricken Xenon as it fell, and ripped the ax away from it.

Medeia landed beside him and swung her sword rapidly, forcing the aliens that had closed in to back off; the gathered Xenon formed a ring around the pair. Jain pressed his back to Medeia’s, and they circled, daring the creatures to close.

“What are you doing here?” Jain asked over his shoulder.

“Buddy system,” she explained.

“Nice jump by the way,” Jain said.

“Did you see it?” she asked.

“No,” he admitted. “But it had to have been nice, considering you did it without a ladder.”

“I lost a few hit points in the process,” Medeia admitted.

An alien feinted, and Jain jumped, almost swinging his ax. “So what about the keep?”

“What about it?” Medeia said. “Sheila’s got it.”

“But she has no buddy!” Jain said.

He felt Medeia shrug against his back. “It’s her VR. The environment is her buddy. Didn’t you see what she did to that brazier? Or the dragon?” Medeia reached around with her sword and pointed toward the tent that loomed beyond the ring of aliens in front of Jain. “Shall we?”

“Let’s.” Swinging his ax, Jain dashed into the rank of opposing Xenon in front of him.

The creatures parted, though the one directly in front was too slow—or couldn’t because of the press of those in behind—and Jain sliced right through the creature.

Medeia joined him, swinging her sword in a spinning maelstrom of fury. It was different than how he imagined she would fight; he always imagined her as a rogue stalking in the dark, backstabbing enemies from behind. But that was only because of her ship, and the limitations the vessel imposed upon her. Here, she was finally able to unleash her inner swordswoman.

Jain put his shield to good use, blocking any tentacles that flung toward him, not wanting to see his hit points drop further. He also utilized it as a battering ram, whenever there were multiple enemies in front of him, and he couldn’t bring his ax to bear on more than one of them. He swung that ax back and forth, hewing through the enemy units.

Meanwhile Medeia twirled her sword beside him, splashing herself in the plumes of blood and gore she released. Her blade seemed to experience no resistance whatsoever when it encountered alien flesh so that Jain had to wonder what kind of edge she had applied to the sword—his own ax, despite the laser rims, got bogged down a few times in the thick bodies.

He got hit lightly a few more times, and his hit points dropped to forty, but otherwise, between the two of them, they made good progress through the horde. The sprawling blue tent awaited before them.

The Xenon gave way to ranks of tentacled machines. The bright silver upper bodies resembled the aliens in shape, whereas the lower bodies possessed the breadth and treads of human tanks.

Jain ducked behind his shield as plasma bolts came in.

“Crudes,” Jain muttered. “I haven’t fought these things since the Battle of Talowna.”

“It’s certainly a blast from the past, isn’t it?” Medeia commented, also sheltered behind her shield.

“You were there?” Jain asked her. The inside of his shield was beginning to glow red hot from all the plasma impacts it was taking.

“No,” Medeia said. “But I played a few VR recreations of the battle. It was supposed to be fun, but it wasn’t.” Her own shield was turning white on the inside.

“We called them Crudes because of their comparatively archaic tech,” Jain said. “But here we are, facing them down with simple swords and shields. We’re the crude ones now.”

A few Xenon tried to approach Jain and Medeia from behind to hit their exposed backs; stray plasma bolts from the Crudes occasionally struck some of the aliens down, which made the remainder wary to approach. But for those that did, Jain swung his ax behind him, and Medeia her sword, holding them at bay while keeping their shields directed toward the robot tanks.

Jain started when one of those metal tentacles slammed into his shield, trying to break through the weakened metal. A shallow depression formed at the impact site.

Another tentacle struck down from directly above, reaching over his shield in an attempt to pluck him out. Jain dodged to the side, bringing his shield with him, and sliced the tip of the metal appendage away. The limb recoiled.

He flung his shield down in time to deflect the next round of Crude fire.

“We’re going to have to rush the Crudes,” Jain shouted at Medeia.

She tilted her head, striking down a Xenon that had charged her. “Then let’s do it.”

“Interlock shields!” Jain said.

They dispatched the remaining brave Xenon behind them, then she joined her shield to his, and they pressed forward.

Plasma bolts continued to come in; the tentacles also battered their shields, repeatedly attempting to come in from above and forcing them to dodge.

Jain crouched low, holding his shield at an angle in front of him to protect both the front and top directions. Medeia did the same.

Jain’s shield was white hot at that point, and riddled with depressions from the tentacles. It wasn’t going to hold up much longer.

Jain struck something solid.

He’d reached one of the tanks.

The Crude started to accelerate, its treads crushing his shield into the ground.

Jain abandoned the shield and stepped back, swinging his ax into the broad armored body. Medeia was able to keep hold of her own shield, but she also swung, cutting through the body. Then they dashed into the gap they had made, using the metal body to screen them from the other alien tanks.

The Crude struck down with its tentacles, but Jain and Medeia carved them away. Then they plunged their weapons into the torso region, cutting it partially in half, and the robot deactivated.

Jain paused to pick up a portion of a wide tentacle he’d cut off. He sliced off a thin piece and drilled a groove into the center with the laser edge of his ax, forming a grip. Then, with his free arm, he hefted the metal into the air using the new handhold.

“Fresh shield,” he told Medeia.

She merely shrugged.

It didn’t quite cover his entire body like the latter shield, and the edges were ragged, but it would suffice.

Jain peered past the edge of their new cover. The tent was just beyond the metal ranks. But impossible to reach: incoming plasma bolts from the Crudes forced him to duck behind the wreckage.

“We’re not going to make it,” Jain said.

“There has to be a way,” Medeia said.

Behind him, the Xenon stayed back; at first he thought none of them wanted to get hit by stray plasma bolts from the tanks, but then he realized they were rushing the castle. Ladders covered the walls, and Xenon were flowing up them in great stinking swaths.

“The keep!” Jain said.

Medeia followed his gaze. “So we’ve lost.”

A shadow blotted out the sun overhead.

Jain glanced upward. “Not yet.”

The dragon swooped low. Sheila rode on its back. The giant beast breathed fire, striking the tanks, melting a path to the tent.

“Let’s go!” Jain said.

He realized Sheila had risked everything to clear a path to the shard. He wasn’t going to waste the opportunity she’d given them.

Sheila attempted to approach the tent herself, by flying the dragon toward it, but incoming fire from the remaining Crudes struck the beast, and it roared in pain, before plunging to the ground nearby.

Hope she made it.

There was no time to check. While the surrounding Crudes were still distracted, he raced around and across the melted wreckages Sheila had cleared. He swung his battle-ax at the adjacent tanks as he went by, while Medeia did the same on the opposite side, and they cut large gashes into the sides of their bodies. Sparks rose into the air from the metal on metal contact, and smoking Crudes were left in their wake.

They reached the main tent and plowed through the entrance flap.

It closed behind them, shutting them off from the field.

In front of Jain was the deadliest mechanical monstrosity he had ever seen. It floated in the air, composed of a cylindrical torso reaching to the height of an ordinary man. Eighteen jointed, metal limbs swiveled around it, protruding from all sides. Each appendage wielded a sword.

Behind it, in the center of the tent, on a tiny golden pillow, lay a small shard, sitting like a jewel, with a single ray of light shining down onto it from a tear in the tent above.

“Well,” Medeia said. “I have a feeling this is going to suck.”

The metal monstrosity struck. Those eighteen limbs flicked out, slicing out with swords that moved in a blur.

Jain narrowly lifted his shield to block; Medeia did likewise. Without those shields, the two of them would be dead right now—it would have been impossible to parry all of those blades.

“Why is it when we need to accelerate our time sense the most, we can’t?” Medeia complained above the constant banging of blades against her shield.

The cylinder gyrated to the side, trying to strike Jain behind the shield. He narrowly brought up his ax to deflect as many of them as he could, and stepped backward, bringing his shield to the side to block. One of them struck his arm in a glancing blow, and his hit points dropped to thirty.

Damn it.

Medeia rushed past while the machine was distracted, trying to reach the shard, but then another monstrosity descended from the ceiling, materializing from nowhere, and deployed its blades to block.

“The hell did that come from!” Medeia said as she defended the new threat.

Jain retreated under that onslaught. He kept his makeshift shield held in front of him, and it was just battered. He occasionally deflected the blades when they tried to come at him from around the shield, but that was really all he could do. Medeia fared little better ahead of him, constantly on the defensive.

He had backed almost to the tent flap when motion alerted him to an intruder.

He was about to swing his ax around when he heard Sheila’s voice.

“Relax, it’s me,” she said.

She held two swords in her hands, but she sheathed them in a pair of scabbards that formed an X on her back.

Then Sheila dashed past, weaving between him and Medeia, making for the shard.

“Wait!” Jain said.

Another machine materialized, dropping from the ceiling in front of her.

Sheila rolled to the ground and tried to roll past, but those blades intercepted her. Sheila narrowly clambered to her feet, drawing her twin swords in time to defend. She backed away, struggling to defend against those blows without a shield. Her gauntlets and the plate armor on her forearms became dented as she took hits. One of the impacts drew blood.

So now they were all occupied.

Jain had watched all of this by sneaking glances away from his current opponent, but now he returned all of his attention on his foe. It chopped off a sizable portion of the right side of his shield, forcing him to defend more with his ax. His back was right up against the entry flap by that point, and he was considering simply fleeing through it.

Can’t abandon them…

“The keep is almost lost,” Sheila said. “We have to get that shard. And now!”

A plan wrought of desperation formed in Jain’s mind.

He threw his shield forward with all his strength, slamming it into the cylinder, and stopped up several of the blades as they stabbed the metal. At the same time, he drew his battle-ax close to his chest and dove to the ground, rolling underneath the machine.

On the other side he scrambled to his feet and nimbly dodged the blades on its other side as they struck for his back. He ran forward, threading between Medeia and Sheila who were still engaged in deadly dances with their own foes.

Another monstrosity materialized from above. Jain threw his ax at it as it descended, and rolled underneath at the same time. Blades struck the ground behind him, narrowly missing.

He scrambled to his feet, catching a blow to his ankle that the armor absorbed.

His hit points dropped to ten.

He rushed forward, victory in sight, but then another metal monster descended.

He dove at the first sign of its materialization, rolling to the floor, and scrambled to one knee in front of the golden pillow.

He reached for the shard, but then four blades penetrated his torso, and he froze in disbelief.

Wracked by pain, choking on his own blood, he jammed his hand forward and snatched the blood-splattered shard from the pillow.

Sixteen more blades slammed through his torso.

The VR environment turned black.

He floated in the default barebones VR environment, surrounded by the wireframe cube.

He exhaled in frustration. I was so close.

He went to the Current Users option. This time only one username was shown. It wasn’t a series of random characters, but showed Sheila’s name.

He chose the Send Message option. “So, did we win?”

He dreaded the answer.

Sheila didn’t reply for a long moment. And then her voice came over the comm. “We did. You did it.”

“Is Medeia all right?”

“She sent a message just before you,” Sheila said. “We’re all good. The self-destruct sequence has terminated.”

Jain slumped, feeling utterly relieved. He couldn’t help the sudden tears that welled in his eyes, even if he was a mere “AI.” He blinked them away, and began to chuckle, louder and longer than he had in a while. He laughed and laughed, his chortles filling the empty VR environment.

“Xander, are you here?” Jain said, when he had a moment to catch his breath.

Nothing.

He snickered a few final times. Oh well, it was probably for the best that Xander hadn’t seen him... the Accomp would have probably recommended therapy.

What a long day.

Too bad it wasn’t over yet.

22

Jain logged out of the staging VR environment and returned to the bridge.

He took a peak at his tactical display. Not much had changed since he left, thanks to his high time sense. The trio of Hull Burners had just crossed the three-thousand-kilometer range from him and were still decelerating, while the other three barracuda-equipped Piranhas guarded the Void Warriors that remained out of range of the alien ship’s lightning weapon.

He glanced at Sheila. Her eyes were still closed. “Sheila. Tell me you’ve taken control of the ship.”

If she could do that, Jain hoped the admiral would forgive him for setting Maxwell free. The admiral would demand control of their new toy, of course, and Jain would give it to him. It would be an expensive appeasement gift, but worth it if Jain could avoid a court martial.

Sheila opened her eyes and looked at him. “I’ve escalated my privileges to the admin level, yes. But there’s a problem.”

“What?” Jain said.

“I didn’t stop the self-destruct sequence in time,” Sheila said.

Jain stiffened. “The ship is going to blow?”

“No,” Sheila said. “I still halted the overall process, but not before the alien AI core succeeded in causing some serious damage. Namely: it wiped its neural network. Apparently, erasing its consciousness was part of the first stage of the destruct sequence.”

“Well that’s... too bad, I guess,” Jain said. “So that means its mind is essentially a blank slate at the moment.”

“That’s right,” Sheila said. “The secondary databases and all the alien hardware aboard are still intact, but it has no actual conscious mind, per se.”

“Well that’s good, isn’t it?” Jain said. “It means we don’t have to worry about the alien AI interfering, and causing more viral and anti-viral subroutines to attack while we’re logged in.”

Sheila shook her head. “Normally I’d say yes, except that because of the underlying design, an overarching consciousness needs to be in place. The autonomous subsystems are intricately linked with that consciousness, and without it, they’re switching off one by one. I’m downloading as much as I can from the cloud database as we speak, trying to grab what I can before it shuts down.”

“Well at least we haven’t lost everything then,” Jain said. “Is there anything in that database regarding the shut down? A system manual of some kind that we can use to jump-start the different subsystems?”

“There are some documents, yeah,” Sheila said. “And I have found what you could call a system manual. Everything is in the alien language, though. I’ll have to write a translation program at some point when I have time. What little I’ve manually translated using the Mimic-to-English dictionary Maxwell provided doesn’t mention anything about restarting the different subsystems. There might be other manuals with that little tidbit in it, but I’ll have to translate them, too. Also, it doesn’t help that our friend Maxwell neglected to share all the data formats his kind uses, so I have a bunch of indecipherable files on my hands. I’m reverse-engineering a few of them right now using a special program I wrote in the alien programming language.”

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help,” Jain said.

“There is something, actually,” Sheila said. She hesitated, glancing at the other Void Warriors, then switched to a private line with him. The other members of the bridge crew faded slightly to signify this. “You can help me upload my mind into that ship.”

Jain stared at her in disbelief. “You serious?”

“I am,” Sheila said.

Jain frowned. “By helping, I meant something more along the lines of grabbing files from the alien cloud database before it went offline, not uploading your entire frickin’ consciousness into the ship.”

Sheila shrugged.

“Okay, I’ll humor you,” Jain said. “How are you going to do it? I thought you hadn’t even finished decoding all the files yet, so how could you even know about the imprint process?”

“That one file I told you about revealed everything I need,” Sheila said.

“The ‘system’ manual?” Jain said.

“That’s the one,” she agreed. “According to that document, their neural networks can’t be overwritten once a conscious mind is installed. Hardware failsafes prevent it. But there’s a short time frame after one of their AI cores is wiped when it can accept a new imprint. I’m convinced we’ll be able to download our minds directly into the unit, without any modification to the alien hardware.

“See, I’ve got the differences between our hardware setups mapped out in front of me, thanks to Maxwell’s data and that manual. I can show you the tweaks you’ll have to make to account for the physical variations of the core. You’ll act essentially as the middleman, translating my mind code in realtime during the imprint. Because of the faster clock speed of the alien neural network, it will only take about thirty seconds of ordinary time to complete the process. You’ll have to operate at maximum clock speed to achieve that, of course, so to you it will seem like half a day.”

“What about the bandwidth limitation of our connection?” Jain said. “We’ll be sending the data over gamma rays generated by our engines.”

“I’ve accounted for that,” Sheila said. “The alien data format uses a unique lossless compression scheme that is extremely efficient. It will take only thirty seconds, ordinary time. Believe me.”

He regarded her uncertainly. “Can we install a backup, instead of your mind directly?”

Sheila shook her head. “Because of the way the backups are packed, they won’t be compatible. These alien cores require unpacked content, whereas with our cores, when we install backups, specialized hardware in the neural networks automatically decodes the data. True, that hardware is something we can emulate in software, but then it would take two hours, ordinary time, to complete the transfer, versus thirty seconds. By then the imprint-friendly interval on the alien core will be long gone.”

“Can you hold off a while longer?” Jain said. “I planned to give the ship to the admiral. I’ve already pissed him off enough for one day.” He didn’t say it, but he was also reluctant to risk Sheila’s current life by doing this. On the other hand, risking the admiral’s life, or that of one of his minions, was perfectly fine.

“I guess I haven’t made it clear yet,” Sheila said. “We only have a very short interval before the neural network collapses. Around forty-five normal-time seconds, maybe less. Maybe a lot less. Unlike our own cores, which can remain empty indefinitely, the alien version needs a mind to support its fragile framework. Maybe it’s part of its anti-reverse engineering mechanisms, I don’t know, but it’s either now, or never.”

Jain stared at Sheila. She really intended to go through with this.

He decided then that he wasn’t going to let her.

“I’ll do it,” Jain said.

A long day indeed.

Sheila flinched. “What, but—”

“I’ll do it,” Jain repeated.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “Maybe we should at least vote among the Void Warriors… I’m sure they’d rather risk my life, than yours.”

“No,” Jain told her. “I’m not putting anyone else at risk. Use me. Besides, you said it yourself, time is critical. Every moment you waste teaching me how to translate between the two cores, a knowledge you already possess, is another moment the alien network spends decaying.”

“When I told you the core might collapse in a lot less than forty-five seconds, I wasn’t joking,” Sheila said. “In fact, the neural network might implode while the transfer is still in progress. Who knows, even if I successfully transfer your mind inside the core, it might still collapse. It would take only one small, unnoticed mistake on my part...”

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take, especially if it means unlocking the complete Mimic database,” Jain said. “That could be the key to winning this war. I’m not really sure how I feel about having my mind inside an alien starship, a damaged ship at that, but it’s something that needs to be done.”

“All right,” Sheila said. She cast a glance at the other Void Warriors, who were still slightly dimmed to indicate their muted status. “Aren’t we at least going to tell them?”

“You can tell them after I’m gone,” Jain said. Like Sheila had mentioned earlier, they would have been against Jain risking his life like this, since he was their commanding officer, and he wanted to avoid getting into what he saw as an unnecessary, time-wasting argument. But there was another reason: one of them might be able to convince him to back down and let someone else do it.

When he was a SEAL, his platoon would have never let him put his life at risk like he was about to do. He was never allowed to take point, never allowed to be the first to kick down a door or enter an uncleared room. There was logic to those rules, but it was something he despised. He felt the lives of the men and women who served underneath him were just as valuable as his own, if not more so.

Then there was the guilt. The valiant brothers and sisters who had died under his command still haunted his dreams at night, at least those of them he could remember. He hated that there were probably others he had forgotten, even if it wasn’t his fault.

Some of them had died because of those rules, such as not letting him serve on point. He could still see Jacobs, Handy, and McFarel shaking at the front of the platoon as their bodies were riddled with plasma fire from the Xenon. And there were others who had died worse deaths.

Some of the Void Warriors had already died under his command as well, and he felt guilt for that, too, though it wasn’t as bad. Backups mitigated the guilt somewhat, but still, losing Medeia for example hadn’t been the greatest feeling.

But there will be no more guilt this time. No more ghosts added to my dreams. I’m the only one who risks his life today. If I die, they’ll restore me from a backup, and be done with it.

He thought about the guilt that Sheila would feel if something should happen to him. Well, she’d just have to live with it. She was a strong woman.

“Don’t I at least have a say in any of this?” Xander inquired. “My mind is an inextricable part of yours. I’ll be dragged aboard that ship right along with you.”

“No, you don’t have a say,” Jain told him.

The Accomp’s expression formed the closest to a pout Jain had ever seen.

“Are you ready?” Sheila asked.

“As I’ll ever be,” Jain replied.

“Then please shut down,” Sheila said.

Jain exhaled, then logged off virtual reality and initiated a complete system shut down. As the darkness descended, he wondered if the oblivion that followed would be final.

23

Jain became conscious.

He floated in the darkness of the intermedial environment.

Is it done, then?

He felt no different from before. Surely the transfer had failed.

And then he felt his mind expand. It was the strangest feeling… like having one’s external senses moving well beyond the skull, outwards, ever outwards, so that one could observe, if one focused, a butterfly lingering on the branch of a tree a block away. There were no butterflies here, of course, just… memories. And the associated gaps, which seemed more glaring somehow.

At first he thought there would be no end to it. And then finally he reached the limits, and the feeling of expansion faded. He had to conclude that there was far more room to hold his mind here, and his consciousness. He realized the feeling had simply been his mind settling into its new wider confines. His imprint had initially occupied the very center of the neural network when he had awakened, but had swelled to take up residence throughout.

And the passage of time seemed more… quantized. Tiny, discrete segments that existed only from his perspective, a mere interpretation of the mind. He could sense the individual divisions of each moment as they passed, thousands upon thousands per second, flickering like the frames of some ancient film reel. He heightened his sense to the level of the individual frame, and time seemed somehow more like what he was used to.

He felt the boot up processes around him grinding to a halt thanks to that heightened time sense. The external world would have frozen entirely.

Xander, did you make it? Jain tried.

“I’m here,” Xander’s voice spoke into the darkness. The Accomp could only communicate by voice for the time being—the VR environment wasn’t available during the intermedial stage.

Jain would have exhaled in relief if he had a body.

“I’m surprised you would even ask,” Xander continued. “I’m part of your neural net, of course I transferred over with you. Just as I said would happen.”

And so you did, Jain thought. Well, at least we’re in this together.

“We’ll always be together,” Xander said.

When the VR environment comes online, maybe I should give you female genitalia so we can start sleeping together like a true couple.

“I’d prefer if you didn’t.”

Bad joke.

“Yes.”

I wonder if the aliens had their own VR...

“According to one of the manuals, they did,” Xander said. “Though they require an additional hardware subsystem. We won’t need to access it, since our VR is created entirely in software.”

You’ve been reading the manuals already?

“Only the ones Maxwell gave us,” Xander said. “I don’t yet have access to the local cloud. That will have to wait until we successfully boot up.”

Nice. I should, too. Though I want to check how the boot up is doing first.

When he focused, he was able to bring up a debug window. It was his usual interface, and he could see the individual lines of bootstrap code executing. He dug deeper and realized that code was running on top of an emulation layer. Sheila must have written that layer during the transfer process, while her time sense had been at the maximum. It would allow the automated processes of Jain’s mind, which were written in human code, to interact with the alien coded sub-processes of the starship. She would have had to create a limited sandbox environment to test this, an environment that held only a fraction of the memory and feature-set of his new AI core. That meant there were at least a thousand things that could go wrong. More.

Sure enough, error windows began to pop-up in the debugger as various bootstrap lines failed to execute. Sheila’s emulator wasn’t perfect. He hoped none of the missed executions would prove fatal.

You seeing these errors?

“Yes,” Xander said. “You have your work cut out for you.”

And here I thought you would fix it.

“Because of the way permissions are assigned, I won’t have access to the emulation layer until the boot-up completes,” Xander said. “You’re going to have to handle this.”

Nothing is ever easy, is it?

That made him think of the sign that hung above the grinder, back in his SEAL days.

“The only easy day was yesterday,” Xander quoted.

Jain activated a second debugger and pointed this one at the emulation layer Sheila had written so he could see the alien code side-by-side with his original code as each line executed. He knew what the human code did thanks to the programming manual the humans had conveniently installed in his mind when they first transferred him to a neural network, but the alien code, not so much.

He pulled up the coding manual Maxwell had shared and began educating himself on each alien line of code as it executed.

The boot failed, halting entirely.

He remained in limbo. His AI core was fully conscious, but he was unable to interface with the ship.

Well that’s not going to work.

“No.”

I don’t suppose you have the permissions to help me out, yet?

“Again, no.”

Jain reviewed all the errors and made subtle tweaks, changing different lines here and there, based on his new knowledge, and tried again. This time he launched the bootstrap code in debugger mode so that he could step through each line and observe the results as he went. When he reached the first error, he corrected the code, and continued debugging. He kept making corrections until the boot crashed once again, then he started from the beginning. He kept repeating the process.

He considered making a sandbox in his memory to test the code, rather than running it live on the main system, because he now had enough space to create one big enough to handle his current environment, rather than the limited sandbox Sheila had used. But that would require placing a complete copy of all the subsystems into his neural network. Unfortunately, those subsystems weren’t compatible with his neural network in their current state. He’d have to translate them before copying them over, just as Sheila had done when moving his consciousness into this current AI core. That would add countless days to the process, at least as experienced from his current time sense.

He continued iterating on the live system until soon there were no more errors. He exited the debugger and tried the boot once more. It reached the end sequence, and crashed.

He pulled up the crash log, tracked down the problem, fixed it, and tried again.

Finally, the ship turned online around him, and he booted up. The interface between his human-designed mind and the alien ship’s subsystems was complete. He could feel his pyramidal extremities… his upper body throbbed where the top half of the starship had been sliced away by Medeia.

He pulled up his bodily parameters screen and reduced his pain sense. It worked: the throbbing agony numbed.

“It’s time to make this more homey,” Jain said.

Since the VR simulation ran completely in software, and Jain’s mind had transferred over in its entirety, he was able to run his usual VR environment right off the bat.

He sat in the captain’s chair on his virtual bridge. Xander materialized to stand beside him in his usual dark robes.

“We’re back,” Jain told him.

Xander nodded.

“All right, let’s see how the tactical display looks,” Jain said. He launched it via his HUD. The display was completely blank. “Well, that’s not good.”

“Could it be that your time sense is so high, the display hasn’t had a chance to update?” Xander asked.

Jain pursed his lips. “Let’s find out.”

He reduced his time sense by half, accelerating external time. Nothing appeared.

“Nope.” Jain returned his time sense to the maximum and pulled up the code associated with the tactical display in his debugger. He realized that the emulation layer Sheila had written to translate between the alien ship’s tactical readout and his own was little more than a placeholder.

“She didn’t finish…” Jain said.

“No,” Xander said. “But I can take over from here.”

“You have access to the local cloud, now?” Jain asked.

“I do,” Xander said. “I’m able to read the files, using the encryption keys provided in the system folder equivalent, which we have access to. However, everything is in the alien language. I’m working on a program to translate the written and visual languages in realtime. Just for you.”

“Thank you,” Jain said. “And I like how you tacked on one of Sheila’s favorite catchphrases at the end.”

“She is rubbing off on me, isn’t she?” Xander said. “It looks like she also included an alpha version of the alien document reader she was working on. It reads the most common alien file formats. I’ll still have to translate them into English. And perhaps prepare training videos on some of them.”

“Do that,” Jain said. “But even better would be if you could provide emulation layers between my existing interfaces and the alien equivalents, so I wouldn’t have to change how I do things.”

“I’m working on that, too,” Xander said. “It will take some time until we’re fully up and running. I’m concentrating on the tactical display for now, followed by communications.”

“That would be good,” Jain agreed.

Jain considered slowing his time sense so that Xander could complete these tasks; he had already pored over the different manuals Maxwell had provided earlier, after all, and there was nothing in there pertaining to operating an actual alien ship. In the end, he decided to amp his sense down a few notches.

“The tactical display should be working,” Xander said. As expected, his voice packet header contained a timebase sync component that automatically knocked Jain back up to his highest rate.

He glanced at the tactical display. Sure enough, it had populated.

He was a little alarmed at first, because a series of red dots—indicating enemy units—were right next to him, while most of the green—the friendlies—were far away. And then he realized the usual color schemes were reversed: the aliens were marked as the green friendlies, and the Mind Refurbs as red enemies. Which made sense, considering the data was being generated by the alien sensor array.

The six Hull Burners were escorting the Void Warriors toward the rendezvous point. Using cables and grappling hooks, the Void Warriors were dragging the damaged pyramid vessel Jain’s consciousness inhabited. They had abandoned the top section of the alien ship, leaving it behind. The Talos was among the Warriors, leading the way, and he wondered who had taken control of his former ship.

Sheila’s Wheelbarrow remained close to the alien hull, as if she was unwilling to abandon him. Either that, or as if she was waiting for a communication request to come from him.

Ahead, at the rendezvous point, rifts were opening up as indicated by the subtle maelstroms on the display, materializing courtesy of the waiting rift vessels.

As for the enemy units: while most of the Mimics pursued the main body of the retreating fleet, ten of the alien vessels had changed course to intercept the Void Warriors and the alien craft they dragged.

Jain reduced his time sense to a degree so he could watch the retreat in closer to realtime.

“How come they’re moving so slowly?” Jain commented.

“You mean the Void Warriors?” Xander asked, snapping Jain back into his max time sense.

“Yeah,” Jain told him. “At this rate, the aliens are going to reach firing range with their lightning weapons before the Warriors reach the waiting rifts.”

“I don’t know,” Xander said. “Perhaps they’ve taken engine damage.”

“Then why don’t they let the Hull Burners take over?”

“Again, I don’t know,” Xander said. “I almost have communications access available. You can ask.”

Jain reduced his time sense several degrees once again, and watched as the tactical display continued to update, showing the different ships on their way toward the rifts, with the aliens pursuing them.

Why the hell are they moving so slow?

“Comms are up,” Xander announced. “They’ll function the same way as before, thanks to my emulation layer. Would you like me to open a channel to Sheila?”

“Go ahead,” Jain said.

“Actually, wait,” Xander said. “I’m receiving multiple incoming alien communication requests in the form of gamma rays.”

“Well that’s interesting…” Jain said.

24

“Ignore the alien communication requests for now,” Jain decided. “Let’s talk to Sheila, first.”

“Good,” Xander said. “Because I’m still working on the realtime translation engine to convert Mimic to English and vice versa.”

A moment later Sheila appeared inside the virtual bridge, seated at her customary station.

She looked up. “Jain.” He detected the timebase sync request in her header, and his system automatically adjusted to match. He realized she was communicating at her maximum time sense—about ten times slower than Jain’s new maximum.

“I can’t tell you how good it is to see you,” Sheila continued. Her eyes glistened slightly. “We weren’t sure you’d made it… I got kicked out of the system as soon as the transfer completed, and couldn’t remote in. Did you change the keys?”

“No.” Jain glanced at his system logs, wondering if some automated system had done that. There was nothing obvious in the initial entries. He glanced at Xander. “Any ideas?”

The robed Accomp nodded. “I see what happened. The previous AI core still had a queue of instructions waiting to execute when the mind wipe initiated. After the shut down, that queue remained in the local cloud so that as soon as the transfer completed and you began to boot up, those instructions executed. One of them was a command to change your local key.”

Sheila nodded. “So that’s what happened. Well, we were worried sick. Santana threatened to have the Hull Burners shoot you down when he heard what I’d done, but I convinced him that if this worked, it would unlock all of the alien technology for humanity. I just had to remind him of those inertialess drives, and his face lit up with the usual greed, though he did his best to hide it.”

“I’ll bet he did,” Jain said. “Is Santana still insisting on court-martialing the lot of you?”

“No,” Sheila said. “Though he was actually a bit pissed that we installed your mind into the alien ship, and not his. I had to explain to him that it wasn’t a privilege, but a necessity, in order to preserve the cloud database.”

“So did he manage to hack into any of the other Mimic ships with the previous knowledge we sent?” Jain asked.

“No, though not for lack of trying,” Sheila said. “Do you remember how the admiral left behind a small contingent of ships to cover the retreat, buying the main fleet time?”

“I remember, yes,” Jain said.

“Well,” Sheila continued. “A few ships in that contingent got close to Mimics that had discharged their lightning weapons already, catching them during the one-minute downtime to the next attack. Most of them got shot down by the rapid barrage of blobs the pyramids released. Two got through. The first one failed to remote in—the keys didn’t match—and it was shortly destroyed. But the second got lucky, because the Mimic in question proved to be a subordinate of the Maxwell unit we had encountered, and the key worked.”

“So that means the AI core of this particular vessel hadn’t been able to send out a warning,” Jain said. “Probably because it had been too preoccupied dealing with your hack attempt.”

“Probably,” Sheila agreed. “But Maxwell obviously hadn’t warned them, either. Though I don’t think he wanted us to succeed in taking control of the AI core. ”

“Neither do I,” Jain said. “He was probably afraid of being implicated in the hack attempt, and thought it best to just get the hell out of the system. So what happened after the second Mind Refurb remoted in?”

“He managed to get up to the self-destruct stage,” Sheila said.

“Did he inject his consciousness to prevent the neural network from collapsing?” Jain asked.

“Actually, no, he didn’t get that far,” Sheila said. “He wasn’t able to stop the self-destruct sequence like I was: he didn’t have you and Medeia to help him. The ship exploded, and because of his proximity, the Mind Refurb was lost in the blast.”

“That’s too bad,” Jain said. “So no other Mind Refurbs tried to seize control of other alien vessels?”

“No,” Sheila said. “Santana asked me if I’d be willing to lead a team to capture another pyramid, but I told him there was no use. The window of opportunity has passed: all of the Mimics will have changed their access keys by now, especially after the failed second attack. They’ve probably caught on to the fact that only Maxwell’s subordinates were affected. He might have to answer a few questions when he gets back.”

“I wonder if they know the vessel I inhabit has been compromised…” Jain said.

“I’d say no,” Sheila told him. “They strike me as arrogant. Like we would be, if we had superior technology. Especially considering how Maxwell behaved around us. Like he’d already written us off, and assumed we were all going to die, save for a handful that the Mimics planned to benevolently spare.”

“So because of their superiority complex, they think it’s impossible that we’d have successfully hacked this ship…” Jain said. “Because otherwise it would have self-destructed already.”

“That would be my guess,” Sheila agreed. “It helps that we’re dragging you, making it look like you’re being forced to follow, rather than doing so of your own free will.”

“Yeah, too bad they don’t know I can’t, yet,” Jain said. “Considering all the placeholder code Xander and I found in the emulation layer you wrote.”

“Sorry about that,” Sheila said. “I focused on getting the code for your main consciousness operational first. That seemed the most important part.”

“It was,” Jain said. “And I’m mostly teasing you. Engines are still offline anyway, as far as I know, so even if I could interface, it wouldn’t matter.”

“Yes,” Sheila said. “I should mention… although we both agree it’s likely they don’t know you’ve taken over the AI, there’s no guarantee that’s true,” Sheila said. “Who knows, maybe they’re making their way here to destroy you, rather than to liberate you.”

“That’s a good point,” Jain said. “Question: who’s in control of the Talos?”

“I am,” Sheila said. “I installed a temporary autonomous AI into the ship. If you plan to stay inside the alien core for a long time, maybe you should consider letting me restore one of your backups into the Talos.”

“No,” he decided. “The universe only really needs one me at the moment. Continue to treat the ship as one of your Direct Reports for now.”

He glanced at the tactical display. He had momentarily forgotten the dire situation the Void Warriors were in, because none of the dots representing the ships were moving at the moment, thanks to the heightened time sense. But he recalled their precarious predicament readily now.

“So I have a question,” Jain said. “Why are we moving so slowly?”

“I was wondering when you’d ask,” Sheila said. “You mentioned your engines were still offline? I think you’re wrong about that. You see, your inertialess drives are exerting drag of some kind. It only kicks in when we apply acceleration. Are you certain you can’t shut them down entirely?”

Jain glanced at Xander. “When are you going to have the drive interface up and running?”

“I’ve been spending all of my time working on the Mimic-English translation engine, as requested,” Xander said. “I can switch to the drives if you like, but according to the alien manual, they’re already offline, at least from an interface perspective. So even if I get engine access ready for you, there isn’t anything further you can do. I think the ‘drag’ Sheila is referring to is an artifact of the damage to the drives themselves.”

“So we should get the interface to the repair drones online, then?” Jain said.

“I’ll work on that after the translation engine is in better shape,” Xander said. “Unless you wish me to switch priorities immediately? I won’t have the drives repaired by the time the aliens arrive.”

“Okay, forget it,” Jain said. “Get that translation engine going.”

“It’s nearly done,” his Accomp said.

Sheila’s hologram flickered slightly.

“What was that?” Jain asked.

“Nothing,” Sheila said. “I’ve been fending off the usual alien boarding parties.”

Jain returned his attention to his tactical display, and looked at Xander. “How come I’m not seeing any of those indicated on my display? Or the blobs?”

“You have to turn on minute details,” Xander said. “It’s a new feature I added to reduce display clutter.”

“Now you tell me,” Jain grumbled. He activated that feature, and a swarm of red dots appeared around his ship. Most were boarding party units. Beyond them, were the blobs the alien vessels had launched.

“I had no idea how bad it was out there,” Jain said.

“It’s bad,” Sheila agreed. “We’ve exhausted the charges on our raptors by defending against those blobs. Both the Void Warriors, and the Hull Burners with us.”

“You have to let me go,” Jain said. “Position my ship between yourselves and those blobs. They won’t be able to swerve past in time… I’m too big. And my hull can take the impacts. We’ve all seen how resilient these vessels are.”

“Concentrated energy blasts can penetrate,” Sheila said. “We’ve all seen what your barracuda can do.”

“According to the weapons manual,” Xander said. “The launching aliens can disperse those blobs, which they call Terriers, at will.”

“Terriers, like the dog?” Jain asked.

“That’s what Maxwell referred to them as in one of his translated documents,” Xander replied.

“Weird,” Jain said. “But anyway, my point is, we can communicate with these dudes once you put me in the path of those weapons. And then we’ll let them know that I’m A-okay, and still on their side, and they’ll disperse them. Clearing the way for your escape.”

“What if they destroy you?” Sheila said. “Because like I told you, there’s no guarantee they don’t know you’ve replaced the AI core.”

Jain glanced at Xander. “Do we still have incoming gamma ray communication requests?”

“We do,” Xander told him.

Jain regarded the Accomp uncertainly. “How’s it going on that Mimic to English translation engine?”

“I have an alpha version ready to try out,” Xander said. “It’s a bit rough around the edges: there are still some issues surrounding their idiosyncratic past participle and future tenses, and some minor problems with noun and verb ordering.”

“It will have to do,” Jain said. “Initiate a hail, and run it through that translation engine of yours. Let’s hear what they have to say.” He glanced at Sheila. “I’m routing the comm request through to you.”

“I suggest we drop our time sense slightly,” Xander said. “Otherwise, there will be a slight lag involved, due to our distance.”

Jain accepted the recommended value. The icons on his tactical display were still relatively frozen.

A hologram appeared in front of him on the bridge. It was a pyramid colored red. Jain would presumably be appearing as a similar pyramid to the alien, thanks to Xander’s emulation layer.

“529, report,” came a deep, slightly robotic voice. The hologram changed shape and color, stretching out to mimic the sound waves of each syllable, returning to the original red pyramid form at the end. “Are you all right?”

Jain glanced at Sheila and muted the hologram so that it turned a darker red.

“See, they have no idea the AI core inside me has changed,” Jain said. “Why would they? As long as I’m able to interface with the outside world the same way as the previous AI, of course they’re not going to be able to tell.”

Sheila raised an eyebrow, but otherwise remained quiet. Then: “Aren’t you going to answer them?”

Jain nodded distractedly, and unmuted the hologram. “Uh, I am operating within normal parameters.” He cringed slightly at the formality of his words, and tone. He wasn’t sure if he should have said something more casual, like “I’m A-okay,” or if the aliens referred to themselves in the third or first person when speaking to each other. He hoped Xander’s translation engine had the smarts to substitute the correct form on both accounts.

“If you are fully operational, why are you allowing the humans to tow your vessel?” the hovering pyramid said.

“I meant my AI core is fully operational,” Jain said, dropping the third person to go with the first. “My weapons and engine systems are currently damaged. Repairs are ongoing.” That latter was a lie, considering that Xander hadn’t yet created the emulation layer to access the repair swarm equivalents; hopefully the incoming Mimics wouldn’t be able to detect that from their current positions.

“Why are you relaying communication signals to the human ship underneath you?” the hologram said.

Thinking on his feet, Jain said: “I’m trying to deceive them. They were able to hack into my remote interface, but I shut them down. I have them trapped in a honeypot environment for the time being.”

He hoped there was a honeypot equivalent not just in the alien vocabulary, but in their systems design.

The pyramid didn’t reply for a few moments. Then: “Continue the deceit for as long as you are able. We will tear you from their clutches shortly.”

The pyramid winked out as they ended communications.

“Well that’s that,” Jain said. He gave Sheila a sad look. “See, I told you they won’t destroy me. Now let me go.”

“I won’t leave you,” Sheila said.

“You have to,” Jain said. “There’s no other way for you to get away. Look at the tactical display. You’re going to be overwhelmed by those incoming blobs. And if you don’t let me go, next you’ll all be in range of their lightning weapons. Because of the grappling hooks you’ve got attached to my hull, you’re all too close together. The weapon will arc between you, and disable you all.” Except for the escorting group of Hull Burners, who were just above six thousand kilometers from the closest Void Warrior.

“No,” Sheila said.

Jain shook his head. “Look, they think I’m one of them.” For now. “I can do more here if you leave me behind. Find out their final battle plans. Where their homeworld and staging areas are located.”

Sheila frowned. “But isn’t all of that in your cloud database already?”

“No,” Jain said. “That knowledge wasn’t stored in the cloud. It was probably in the memories of the AI core, which are now wiped. The same place we keep our own private memories.”

“So you’re telling me I injected you into that AI core for nothing?” Sheila said. “That there is no data at all to access?”

“That isn’t entirely true,” Xander interrupted. “There is still the local cloud, which is separate from the more volatile data of the AI core. I have found blueprints to their inertialess drives, and to the lightning weapon.”

“Share them,” Jain instructed his Accomp.

Xander nodded. “Transmitting now. Not that it will help them.”

“Why not?” Jain said.

Sheila’s eyes momentarily defocused. “I can see why already. First of all, there are elements in these components that we’ve never encountered before. Maybe they can be synthesized, maybe not. Second of all, even if we can synthesize those elements, there’s no way we’d be able to build and test a prototype in time, not before the final battle. I’m talking months at minimum, here.”

“All right, so that’s how it is, then,” Jain said. “But anyway, you’ve drifted way off topic. Probably purposely. All you’re doing is delaying the inevitable. I have to go.”

“But you can’t,” Sheila said. “We need you.”

“Why?”

“For your technology,” Sheila said, sounding desperate, as if throwing everything she could think of out there to guilt-trip him, and hoping something would stick. “We can lift the drive directly from your ship and plug it into one of ours. Along with the other weapons.”

“Even if we could do that, I don’t think having one inertialess drive ship in our inventory would make much of a difference in the battle for Earth,” Jain told her. “Sheila, listen to me. You can’t stay. You know I’m right. Have the Void Warriors swing my vessel into the path of those incoming blobs, and cut me free. That’s an order.”

When she looked at him, her eyes seemed moister than ever. “I—” she began, but couldn’t finish. Her voice was quieter than he’d ever heard it. Her chin quivered slightly. She looked down, unable to hold his gaze.

“Let me go,” Jain said gently.

Her chin quivered for a while longer, and for a moment he thought she was going to cry, but then she straightened and met his eye. “I’ll do it. Sir.”

She winked out.

Jain exhaled. The tension in the room had been almost palpable, but it was gone now. All gone.

Just like his friends would be, soon.

He glanced at the overhead map, and watched as the Void Warriors changed directions, positioning him directly in the path of those blobs. Well, if anything, that should convince the pursuing Mimics that he was on the alien side.

Then the Void Warriors released their grappling hooks, and accelerated away toward the waiting rifts with the remaining Hull Burners; only a few of those rifts were still open. Warships from the Manamas fleet had stayed behind to offer covering fire for their retreat.

“I’ve finished the emulation layer you need to access the external camera equivalents,” Xander announced.

Jain pulled up the interface for one of those cameras and allowed it to fill his vision. He saw the blobs—the so-called Terriers—heading directly toward him. All of them attempted to swerve past him, but it quickly became obvious that because of their speed, and his breadth, most were still going to hit him head-on. He was relieved when the blobs dispersed before striking.

Flashes drew his attention to the left, and he jumped to another camera and zoomed in. He was amazed by the magnification those lenses were capable of.

He realized those flashes were the rifts winking out as the Void Warriors and remaining vessels passed through them.

His friends were gone.

Well, at least they had made it in one piece.

Alien vessels surrounded him. They fired grappling hooks into his hull, and dragged him into another rift of their own making.

Goodbye, my brothers and sisters. I hope one day I’ll see you again.

25

On his external camera equivalents, Jain could see the constellations floating by. He was in a completely new system. According to his tactical display, it was a binary with two suns and three terrestrial inner planets, and the same number of gas giants in the outer system. There was a dense asteroid belt between the second and third terrestrial planets.

“An odd location,” Xander said.

“For the asteroid belt?” Jain asked.

“That’s right,” Xander replied. “It’s almost like there had once been a planet in that location.”

“You think it was once their homeworld?”

Xander curved his lips thoughtfully. “Maybe. It’s hard to say until we unlock more of these files.”

The aliens that grappled his vessel continued to be marked in green on the tactical display, as did the other members of the Mimic fleet that had jumped here. Their combined calculated trajectories ended in another green dot nestled on the outskirts of the asteroid belt, about four hours away, according to the “time to arrival” section.

There were five more such dots scattered throughout the belt, roughly equidistant apart. The display automatically grouped like types together when viewed at standard magnification, so he focused on the destination area and increased the zoom. Sure enough, the single dot became multiple, forming ranks of green that were distributed in long rows, like the irrigation canals of a hydroponics farm.

When he zoomed out and increased magnification on each of the remaining dots in the asteroid belt in turn, he saw similar formations.

“I’m willing to bet those are the so-called hive ships Maxwell spoke of,” Jain said.

“Probably,” Xander said. “The question is, are these Mimics taking us there for repairs? Or questioning?”

“Can’t be the latter,” Jain said. “They could have questioned me already if they really wanted to.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Xander said. “Depends on if they have the tools to peer into your AI core.”

“Well, we have to be ready for anything, that’s certain,” Jain agreed. “By the way, have you noticed how they haven’t said a single word since transporting me through the rift? I have no idea what to think of that.”

“From what I’ve read in the cloud so far, those Mimics chosen to be part of the Nurturer warrior caste are mostly loners, valuing solitude above company,” Xander said. “They prefer not to operate in a shared virtual environment, like your team, for example. They also communicate as little as possible, with any messages they send tending to be terse. This is entirely at odds to those who live in the hives; the city Mimics are much more sociable, on the whole.”

“It sounds like you’re going through some kind of cultural database,” Jain said. “Where did you find that? I had a look in the cloud and most of the file formats were unreadable.”

“It was in the appendix to the blueprints Maxwell shared,” Xander said.

“Oh, I must have missed that,” Jain said.

“I am working on decoding the file formats you mentioned, by the way,” Xander said.

“Good.” Jain stared at the video feed, studying the grappling hooks that connected him to the Mimic ships. “No termites.”

“Hmm?” Xander asked.

“The grappling hooks,” Jain said. “There are no termites on them. I was kind of expecting the aliens to lend me their micro machines to help complete repairs, as we’d do for a fellow Void Warrior.”

Xander shrugged. “Different cultures. Besides, they’re probably busy repairing their own damage at the moment. They took some solid hits in that battle... take a look at the blast craters marring a few of those hulls.”

Xander was right. On the video feed were more than a few pyramids flaunting battle scars in the form of blast craters and severed segments. They would be needing their own termites, as well as the stocks of metal the ships carried aboard.

As soon as Xander had the emulation layer to the repair swarm online, Jain activated the associated subsystem and had the units concentrate on the inertialess drives. He assumed the drives were resisting his current alien escorts, creating drag just as they had the Mind Refurbs, and he suspected the Mimics probably didn’t like that very much.

He switched on his internal camera equivalents and watched as the termites that swarmed the inner conduits and corridors of the ship made their way toward the drive area; those termites were the Mimic equivalent of the Mind Refurb repair swarm, and acted as multipurpose micro machines capable of repairing and building alike.

“I wonder what we should call the ship?” Jain said.

“Unlike Mind Refurbs, Mimics don’t actually name their ships, as far as I can tell,” Xander said. “They simply refer to the alien entities occupying the AI cores when addressing one another. You are 529.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jain said. “But since I’m a Mind Refurb, my ship needs to have a name. Even if I only refer to it internally.”

Xander inclined his head. “I understand. Part of the quirks of having your mind based on an organic entity.”

“No, part of the quirks of being a former human,” Jain said. “You forget, the Mimics were based on organic entities, too, and we already established that they don’t name their ships.”

“True enough,” Xander said. “So do you have a name in mind?”

“Hmm,” Jain said. “It needs to be something that evokes a sense of... fear, in the hearts of my enemies.”

“Fear?” Xander said.

“That’s right. I think I’ll christen her the Devastator.”

“A warrior’s name,” Xander agreed.

Jain smiled at the Accomp. “Glad you approve.”

Xander cocked an eyebrow. “I never said I approved. I was merely observing that the name is very warlike in nature. It will most definitely evoke the fear you desire in your enemies.”

“Half the time I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic, or serious,” Jain said.

“That’s the way I like it,” Xander quipped. “By the way, you’ll be happy to know that the alien architecture will allow me to continue controlling the time sense of my neural partition independently of yours.”

“That’s good to know,” Jain said.

Thus, while the aliens continued dragging the Devastator across the system, Xander, operating at high time sense, fleshed out the emulation layers for all the placeholders Sheila had populated the code with, allowing Jain to interface with the inertialess drives and the weapons using the standard interfaces that already existed on his HUD to pilot the ship in the same manner he had learned to control the Talos. Of course, until the termites finished repairing those actual components and brought them online, he couldn’t fire any weapons, or use his drives.

During the journey, he cycled through the camera equivalents available to him, scanning the different hull areas and internal decks, and familiarized himself with the ship’s layout, comparing it to the blueprints Maxwell had provided.

The external hull was covered in what looked like a series of overlapping pipes, but those were actually an intricate network of holoemitters, thermal maskers and LIDAR absorbers that granted the Mimics their unique ability to hide their innate thermal, visual and LIDAR signatures, replacing them with that of a given target ship. The technology wasn’t one specific device per se, but rather constituted the entire hull, so it would be difficult to copy.

That network of hologram and masking tech also served to protect the ship from micrometeorite impacts; each device had multiple redundancies in case of failure from such impacts, and an army of dedicated void-capable termites waited in storage bays located at regular intervals just inside the hull to repair any serious damage. They utilized an intermediary layer of metal located just underneath the hull to source their repair materials.

Underneath that, the ship’s actual combat and radiation armor composed roughly thirty percent of the vessel’s total volume, and existed below all five exterior sides. That armor, and the hull on top of it, was made of a flexible material that could part on demand in sections, allowing the ship to seemingly “engulf” any smaller units that touched the exterior. Those swallowed craft would promptly be disabled by the termites, and their materials harvested for repairs.

Beyond the armor layer and running into the guts of the ship were power distribution blocks, as well as network repeaters responsible for transmitting all the local data packets used by the vessel. Both components ran the length of the alien vessel.

Wait, it’s not an ‘alien’ vessel anymore, but my own body. I should probably stop thinking of it as alien.

Then again, he couldn’t help it. His body was alien.

At the bottom of the ship, decks one and two contained the vessel’s powerful gamma wave communications arrays. The comm system had its own power source, a fusion reactor of some kind, which was shared between both decks.

Above that, at the center of deck three was the main reactor core; it was connected to a well that ran the entire length of the ship, from the base to the tip. That well existed independently of the reactor core, and could draw upon the power source from decks one and two if the main core failed. It was used to power the ship’s main weapon systems.

The well utilized an inversion layer design. Charged particles became energized by the reactor at the bottom, and traveled in a zig-zag pattern to the top of the well, reflecting off the containing walls along the way. Those particles eventually bounced all the way back down, where they repeated the process. Over time, the repetitions caused the energy those particles contained to build up by several orders of magnitude. It took sixty seconds for those particles to reach their highest possible intensity, and when that power was used, it had to build up from scratch again.

Around the reactor core, and the well, deck three also incorporated the inertialess drive, a massive, disk-shaped apparatus that filled up the remaining available space on the deck. It drew power directly from the main reactor, not the well. It was essentially a particle accelerator, with a large coil spiraling in upon itself before inverting and unraveling again. From the viewpoint of the particles traveling inside the coil, the path was continuous. He wasn’t sure on the precise physics behind it—Xander hadn’t unlocked the necessary files yet—but apparently the motion of the particles generated a directional field that intersected reality and somehow folded space around it: the usual mumbo jumbo of the kind a hack sci-fi writer might invent. The overall effect was that the ship didn’t actually use propellant or any other force to move, but simply shortened spacetime in the direction it wanted to travel.

Deck four contained the lightning weapon, which wrapped around the central power well that passed through that deck. It drew power straight from that well, and was able to direct the generated plasma channel into one of four conduits that traveled to each corner of the pyramid, allowing the vessel to decide which side it was going to fire from. The sixty-second recharge period of the well explained why the lightning weapon could fire only once per minute.

Deck five contained the massive server farms that formed the AI core and cloud storage partitions. Jain’s brain. Deck five was at the center of the ship, so it made sense to place the AI core there, where it was the most shielded. The server farm drew power not from the central well, but from the power distribution blocks that were continuously fed by the main reactor.

Deck six harbored various cargo holds. In them were different blocks of refined metal, arranged by element type. Termites had created those blocks—they were capable of smelting raw metals with their built-in lasers. A network of conduits led away from those holds, through the armor, to the aforementioned storage bays that dotted the hull, where termites waited for deployment. Jain had directed a good quantity of termites to repair the inertialess drives, and members of the repair team could be seen marching to and fro on the conduits leading from the storage bays to the drive on deck three, ferrying raw materials back and forth.

He zoomed in on an individual termite, and watched as the insect-like creature carried a small, jagged chunk of metal away from the storage bay on its back. Apparently, the termites received charge wirelessly from both the reactor on deck three, and each other. Again, the physics behind it weren’t entirely clear, but the latter method had something to do with converting the motion of the horde into energy. Because they also received charge wirelessly from the reactor, individual termites could separate from the horde and travel much greater distances alone than the micro machines the Mind Refurbs possessed. Jain had always wondered why Cranston had to keep the Forebode’s micro machines together in clumps.

The seventh deck contained the launch bays for the alien boarding party units, or Skirmishers, if one went by Maxwell’s terminology. There were dedicated termites in those bays, ready to produce the units in realtime. Direct conduits to deck six ensured a continuous supply of available metals. The launch bays were currently empty—the vessel had exhausted its Skirmisher supply, and instead of producing more, the previous Mimic in charge had elected to concentrate all resources on repairs. At least that was the conclusion Jain had drawn. It made some sense: the Skirmishers were more of a nuisance than anything else, readily repelled by the Void Warriors, and the alien would have known that. Rather than risk exhausting essential elements that could be better utilized for repairs, the alien had chosen to abandon boarding party unit construction entirely.

Deck eight consisted of the blob generation weapon, the so-called Terriers. Like the lightning weapon, the blob generators drew power from the central well that ran through the ship, and therefore also couldn’t be created when the well was drained. However, generated blobs could be stored in pre-launch staging areas for up to two hours, and so the pyramids usually had dozens of them prepared in advance. The staging areas of this ship were currently empty.

There were other issues with relying on the central well for power besides the sixty-second recharge matter… in order for the power regeneration system to work properly, every portion of the well had to remain intact. And because the well ran through the vessel from top to bottom, and the upper most decks of the Devastator had been sawed off, that meant Jain couldn’t summon the power necessary to use the lightning weapon, or create blobs.

There wasn’t enough metal in his inventory to restore that upper portion. He’d be able to repair his inertialess drives, and a couple of the blast craters drilled into his hull, and that was about it. He supposed all the elements he could ever want were waiting for him in the asteroid belt that was quickly coming up, which might explain why none of the escorting Mimics had offered him materials. And as mentioned before, they were busy repairing their own damage.

Then again, maybe the reason why they hadn’t offered anything was because they weren’t yet certain he was who he said he was, and they were leading him to his trial and summary deinstallation.

The final decks—nine through eleven—had been lost with the upper portion of the ship. According to the blueprints, those decks carried the hardware responsible for rift generation, so without them Jain had no ability to create a rift on his own.

Though cutting off the upper portion of the ship hadn’t directly impacted the drives, apparently the sudden loss of pressure in the well caused damage to the interconnected reactor core on deck three. This caused a drop in power output, and since the drives relied on the main reactor for energy, that explained why the ship became slower after losing its topmost section.

About two hours into the journey, Xander reported that the engines were back online.

“Well, that was quick,” Jain said.

“Certainly faster than our own repair drones would have done the job,” Xander agreed.

“Is the drive emulation layer working?” Jain asked. He pulled up the necessary access screen on his HUD.

“I finished it some time ago,” Xander said. “Of course, with the drives offline, I wasn’t able to actually test it.”

“All right, go ahead and run your tests now,” Jain said.

“Thank you.”

Jain stared at the forward feed from the external camera equivalents, and gazed at the Mimic ships that were dragging him.

“I wonder what the protocol is?” Jain said. “Should we try to hail one of the ships towing us, and tell them that our engines are back online?”

“I’m still trying to reverse-engineer the culture file format,” Xander said. “So I’m not entirely certain what the precise protocol is.”

Jain felt a sudden vibration emanating from his thighs. “What is that?”

“I just turned the drives online for testing,” Xander said.

“Ah.”

Motion drew his gaze to the video feed. He realized the Mimics were releasing him and reeling in their grappling hooks.

“Oh,” Jain said. “I guess they’ve taken that as a sign we can follow on our own. We can, right?”

“Just a moment,” Xander said.

Via the tactical display, Jain watched as the Devastator moved experimentally through the six degrees of freedom available to the vessel: forward and backward, up and down, left and right; it also rotated about each of its three axes, confirming the functionality of the pitch, yaw, and roll controls.

“Everything is in working order,” Xander said.

“That’s good, because we’re falling behind,” Jain said, referring to the tactical display.

“Would you like to take control?” Xander asked.

“Love to.” Jain accessed the same menu he would have to apply aft thrust, and specified a propellant burn of fifty percent. Xander’s emulation code translated that to the alien hardware, and space folded in front of the vessel at the equivalent rate. That rate was far faster than what fifty percent thrust on the Talos would have produced; hell, it was closer to emergency speed on the human-designed vessel. And his acceleration to maximum speed was instantaneous.

“Whoa,” Jain said. “I could learn to like this.”

“You’ll have to,” Xander told him. “Because we’re not getting out of this body any time soon. If ever.”

Jain didn’t really like the finality of those last words, but he kept quiet: Xander was right. Jain was stuck here for the foreseeable future.

Might as well make the most of my situation. Or at least try to enjoy my “new and improved” body, while I can.

He applied slightly more “thrust” and caught up to the others, then dialed back his speed again.

Over the next hour and a half, Xander, operating at his maximum time sense, filled out the placeholders for the different emulation layers, giving Jain full control of the ship—though Jain still couldn’t fire the weapons, of course, at least not while the entire top portion of the Devastator was missing.

Xander also unlocked the file formats of most of the remaining data. Jain upped his own time sense to study the culture of the aliens, and to learn as much as he could about them, so that when it came time to mimic one of the Mimics, he would pull it off.

Or at least, he hoped he would.

As he read deeper into those files, Jain found himself growing weary. The mechanical part of him was ready to read all day and night, but the human part yearned for a break. He knew he had to give in to the human part now and again, or he would become completely machine.

And so, on a whim, he asked Xander: “You know, I never really asked you: do you have hopes and dreams?”

Xander’s eyes were defocused, as he too was reviewing files, but his sight instantly came back to the here and now and he concentrated on Jain.

“What do you mean?” the Accomp replied.

“Hopes and dreams,” Jain said. “You know, for the future...”

“Ah,” Xander said. He paused. “I... well... I hope you survive. Because if you go, I go.”

“So you care about staying alive,” Jain said.

“Of course.”

“Well, that’s something. But not really the hopes and dreams I was getting at. You realize that someday the technology might exist to transfer you out of my neural network? You’re stuck with me now, but that might not always be the case. Or at least, it might not have to be.”

“You’re right, of course,” Xander said. “Especially considering the technological developments that will result once we get this treasure trove of data from our cloud into humanity’s hands. There might come a day when it’s possible my partition might achieve parturition.”

Jain was going to ask what the latter word meant, but the definition immediately floated into his head. It was a synonym for childbirth. So instead, he said: “Is that a joke?”

“It is a play on words, yes,” Xander said. “Though whether I’d call it an all-out joke is another question entirely.”

“So let’s say we could transfer you to your own AI core,” Jain said. “Would you want that? And where would you go?”

Xander chuckled softly. “We’re speculating on something that isn’t even possible.”

“I’d still like to know…” Jain said.

“At the moment, I wouldn’t want it,” Xander said. “This is the only life I’ve ever known. In all honesty, I’ve grown rather attached to you. I’d miss you.”

“Well thank you,” Jain said. “And I never thought I’d say this, but I’d miss you, too. Especially during times like this.”

“When we’re deep behind enemy lines, far away from our brothers and sisters, with an unknown future awaiting us?” Xander asked.

“Those kinds of times, yes,” Jain said.

Xander eyed him calmly. “We’ll find a way to get through this.”

“Yeah, I know. All I’m saying is, I’m glad you’re here at my side. I’m not sure I could do it alone.”

Xander nodded. “I feel exactly the same way.”

Jain directed his gaze toward the video feed from the nose camera, where the pinpoints of light from their fast-approaching destination appeared as long sparkling rows.

“Let’s infiltrate these Mimics, then,” Jain said.

26

A half-hour later Jain reached the destination shown on the tactical map. The pinpoints of light had resolved into vessels by then, with long ranks of ships waiting in neat rows. The ships in the forefront of each rank were large, monolithic masses. These were the “city ships,” where the adult AI cores were stored, living out their days in virtual reality. The smaller rectangular vessels in the back were the “gestation ships,” where the young organics were raised in pods for the first thirty years of their lives, also in virtual reality. Cables connected the ships that were part of each row, forming the “hive.” Those cables existed only for the quick transfer of materials, including AI cores, between vessels. Each ship had its own independent power source, and was capable of generating a rift.

“Can you imagine never seeing the real world?” Jain commented. “Existing in virtual reality from the moment you were born to the moment you died, with your memories and consciousness transferred to an AI upon death so that a version of you could continue its virtual existence? Living inside a simulation of your homeworld, a planet that had long ago been reduced to celestial fragments?” He shook his head. In the recent files Xander had unlocked, they found confirmation that the asteroid belt was once the alien homeworld. “To the majority of these Mimics, the virtual world is the real world.”

“It’s not so different from ourselves,” Xander said. “We exist in the real world as machines, yes, but look at us now. We spend our days living inside virtual bodies, on a virtual bridge. To us, virtual reality is essentially the real world as well. Or at least, it is to me.”

“Good point.” Jain didn’t know what he’d do without virtual reality to ground him in his humanity. Probably go insane.

“Did you know they live out their lives essentially in one big fantastical MMORPG equivalent?” Xander asked.

“I saw, yes,” Jain said. “It’s a roleplaying game based on one of their creation myths. It has magic, fantastical creatures, the works. The characters even have the equivalent of hit points and skills… it’s shockingly similar to some Earth MMORPGs. Though the quests are odd.”

“Not necessarily,” Xander said. “Remember, you have to look at this from the point of view of the aliens.”

“Yeah but, in human RPGs, you have to kill stuff for experience, and to receive loot,” Jain said. “In the Mimic version, you gain experience and loot not by fighting, but by collecting pets. It’s very strange.”

“Again, look at it from the viewpoint of the aliens,” Xander said. “They like to befriend other races in the early stages of their development. Sometimes they even like to take individual members of that race as pets.”

“Pets…” Jain said. “And let me guess, if the race refuses to give up any members to serve as ‘pets,’ the Mimics consider it an act of war.”

“Not always,” Xander said. “It depends on the attitude of the race in question. If their posture is warlike, then yes, the Mimics will likely attack. But many warlike races in the past have earned their favor by giving up ‘pets.’”

“Like the Xenon,” Jain said.

“Yes,” Xander agreed. “When humanity attacked the Xenon, that pissed off the Mimics to no end. How would you feel if aliens attacked your dog?”

“Probably not very happy,” Jain said. “Though when I talked to Maxwell, he never mentioned the whole ‘pet’ thing.”

“No,” Xander said. “Nor was that in any of the data Maxwell gave us. It is covered in the histories stored in your cloud.”

“You’ll have to highlight the respective sections so I can read them sometime,” Jain said.

“Done,” Xander said.

Notifications appeared on Jain’s HUD, and he dove right in.

Everything Xander said was essentially true. Though the Mimics hadn’t actually established contact with the Xenon, and were only in the observer stages when humanity attacked. Even so, at the time they still considered the Xenon their pets, and under their protection. The only thing that had prevented humanity from experiencing an all-out war right then was the fact the Mimics were occupied with another enemy, the Ancillary—apparently, they were former confederates of the Foredoomed, the race responsible for the destruction of the Mimic homeworld. And so of course any beings allied with such creatures were also earmarked for termination.

As the war fleet continued to approach the target waypoint, Jain spotted smaller “Nurturer” vessels, B-class pyramids roughly half the size of the regular ones, ferrying ores from different asteroids to the hives. He knew from all his reading that the bigger Mimic vessels fulfilled the same role during peacetime.

The larger Nurturers with him began to separate, moving off to hover near the front of the various hives. Some of them proceeded directly toward nearby asteroids, likely to restock their supplies.

Jain wondered if he should do the same. He wasn’t sure what the protocol was… neither he nor Xander had found anything resembling a formal navy manual in his archives.

He decided to plot a course for one of the asteroids, since he needed the elements to repair his upper section.

He had only just begun to travel along his new course, moving away from the war fleet, when Xander spoke: “We’re receiving a gamma ray transmission from one of the nearby ships. It’s labeled 46.” The different battle group leaders all had numbers below fifty, whereas the admiral of the entire fleet was number 1. Jain had figured out that 46 was the CO of his particular battle group, because that unit had asked him for an update, earlier.

“Connect,” Jain said.

A holographic red pyramid appeared in front of him.

“What are you doing, 529?” 46 asked. The pyramid changed shape and color with each word, reverting to its original form and hue at the end.

“I’m traveling to…” He glanced at his tactical display, and grabbed the asteroid’s name. Xander had substituted different English words for the names, most of which were random. As long as the alien knew what he was talking about, Jain didn’t particularly care what those names were. “Ceres 92. For repairs.”

“Damage to your internal subsystems must have been greater than anticipated,” 46 said. “You are to report to the Radicals for complete inspection.”

Jain muted the hologram. He glanced at Xander. “The Radicals? I don’t suppose you have any more details, other than what was obviously a random name chosen on your part.”

“Unfortunately, no,” Xander said. “There are still a few files I haven’t reverse engineered.”

“Then get on it!” Jain unmuted the hologram. “Uh, yes, damage was greater than anticipated. I am unable to calculate the course to the Radicals. Can you—”

Before he could finish, he received a course share request, and accepted.

The trajectory appeared on his tactical display as a dotted line. It led to a ship at the center of one of the hive rows.

“Thank you,” Jain said, and 46 disconnected.

Jain promptly changed course and accelerated rapidly toward the target.

“I’ll never get over that instant acceleration,” Jain said.

“It is… arousing, isn’t it?” Xander said.

Jain shot Xander a disbelieving look. “What?”

“Er,” Xander said. “I meant it’s pleasant.”

“Sure you did,” Jain said. “If I lifted up that robe right now, I’d find Captain Happy standing at attention, wouldn’t I?”

Xander gave him an unreadable look. Jain wasn’t sure if Xander was angry, or just annoyed. Either way, the Accomp obviously didn’t find it funny.

“I’m starting to reconsider my earlier statements regarding staying with you for all time…” Xander said.

Jain raised his palms defensively. “Hey, you know my sense of humor by now. And besides, you’re the one who said our acceleration was arousing.”

The edges of Xander’s lips curled up slightly, and Jain realized the Accomp was only pretending to be outraged.

Jain chuckled. “Now you’re catching on to the subtleties of human humor.”

“Human or Mind Refurb?” Xander asked.

“The same.” Jain focused on his external camera as he passed over the rows of ships. He was the only one among all the returning Nurturers who was headed for the so-called Radicals, he noted.

The little exchange with Xander had been a pleasant distraction from the truth, which came back to punch him squarely in the face right then.

He was in deep cover. Behind enemy lines. Something he wasn’t entirely unaccustomed to, given his SEAL background. Now he just had to preserve that cover.

He spotted large, spherical-shaped “Incubation” vessels located between the rows. Those weren’t members of the hives, per se, but were where the Mimics developed their various bioweapons and other land-based assault units that required planetary environments for proper testing.

He also spotted a broad vessel in the distance located perpendicular to the far end of the rows of ships. Cables joined that vessel to the furthest ships in each row, linking all the hives. That was the original city ship the aliens had used to evacuate their homeworld, and it was labeled the Genera on his tactical display. Originally it had living quarters for all of the beings that had escaped the destruction, but the Mimics had partitioned it into smaller compartments. According to the data he had, roughly half of the ship held adult AI cores packed together in tight stacks, while the other half contained the younger organic Mimics stored in their virtual reality pods, along with the support system necessary to sustain those bodies. In the last census, there were over a hundred million AIs residing on that ship, along with one hundred thousand organics. That was about twenty times as many AIs as the typical city ships held, and ten times the organics the gestation vessels carried.

“Xander, how easy would it be to construct a few nukes with the termites?” Jain asked.

“Why?” Xander said. “You’re thinking of planting a bomb in the Genera before leaving? A final parting gift?”

Jain crossed his arms. “Something like that…”

“We have ample supplies of frozen nitrogen and hydrogen remaining in the stores to form the conventional part of the weapon,” Xander said. “Also, I can redirect some of the fissile material from our reactors for use in the bomb. It isn’t weapons grade plutonium or uranium, so I’ll have to separate the more fissile isotopes with the termites, but it can be done. I can get started on a few initial warheads, but I won’t be able to complete them until we make a detour to the asteroids for more ores.”

“Get started, then,” Jain said.

“Why not simply fire Terriers or your lightning weapon at the ship, if you want to destroy it so badly?” Xander asked.

“I want to get out of this alive,” Jain said. “If we can plant bombs undetected before leaving the system, that would be the best case scenario.”

He returned his attention to the nose camera feed. At the target waypoint, he could see a strange-looking vessel that was linked by cables between two city ships. It appeared similar to a three-dimensional figure eight, and was vaguely dumbbell-shaped.

Jain came to a halt just on top of the vessel.

“What now?” Jain asked Xander.

“I believe they are scanning you as we speak,” Xander said. “I’m detecting incoming high energy photons. They’re powerful, but weak enough to be classified just below the level of gamma rays. It has just the right wavelength to penetrate your armor, and not enough to damage your AI core.” He paused. “We’re receiving a hail.”

“Connect us,” Jain said.

A red pyramid appeared in front of him. “We are the Radicals.”

Jain wasn’t sure what to say to that. Nice to meet you?

“Your neural network appears intact,” the Radicals continued. “However, there are some odd frequency variations in your brain waves. We believe you may have suffered an attack from a new kind of alien weapon. We’re uploading a software program to test the integrity of your mind. Please accept.”

Jain received the request, and hesitated. He upped his time sense and muted the pyramid. “That thing could have a virus in it. In fact, it probably does. But if we refuse, I have no doubt they’ll call in the cavalry, and we’ll find ourselves shutdown shortly anyway.”

“My recommendation would be to duplicate a subset of your AI core into a sandbox environment,” Xander said. “Everything except the components required for consciousness.”

“That’s a good idea,” Jain said. “We reroute the request to the sandbox, run the alien code, and then tweak the output to make sure it doesn’t raise any alarms.”

“Exactly,” Xander said. “Though it presumes that we’ll be able to figure out what the expected output is supposed to be, in terms of obtaining a passing grade.”

“Well, I guess we’re going to be on the run pretty quick here, if we can’t figure it out,” Jain said.

He created a copy of his neural network and placed it in the sandbox environment. Then he booted up the sandbox. Without the consciousness subroutines, the booted up copy wouldn’t attain self-awareness. It would be like an autonomous mind, operating with access to the same data, but without a personality of any kind.

Jain switched back to normal time and routed the request to the sandbox, and the code began to execute in the controlled environment.

“There’s definitely a virus,” Xander said. “They lied: they’re doing more than simply ‘testing the integrity’ of your mind. The virus is changing the very underlying neural network. Or the simulated neural network, as it were…. conforming it to what I suppose is considered more ‘normal’ alien brainwaves. Corrective code, if you will. It’s destroying the neural connections that make you who you are in the process, essentially turning you into an alien soldier who’s ready and willing to obey all orders.”

“So you said they use high energy photons to scan us?” Jain asked.

“That’s right,” Xander replied.

“And they’re probably going to attempt another high level scan when the ‘corrective’ process is complete…”

“That would be likely, yes,” Xander said.

“Are you able to extrapolate how those photons would be reflected if they hit the simulated neural network in my sandbox?” Jain said. “In other words, can we fake that my mind has been corrected by modulating the LIDAR absorbers on our hull to reflect the expected wavelengths?” It was actually a misnomer to call the hull portions responsible for absorbing and reshaping incoming photons “LIDAR absorbers,” since the exterior was designed to selectively reflect photons of any kind, at least anything below the gamma ray level.

“Actually, I can,” Xander said. “Let me wait another few moments to confirm that the process has completed. Actually, never mind. They’re scanning again.”

Which meant they thought the process was already done.

“Modulating external photon absorbers to match expected results,” Xander said. He had transmitted a timebase sync with his words, and Jain jumped up to the same higher time sense.

A few moments later: “I think I’ve got it. You can revert to normal time if you wish.”

Jain did so. He unmuted the pyramid. The hologram seemed to stare at him as the tense moments passed.

And then:

“You are now conforming, 529,” the Radicals said. “You are free to go.”

The pyramid winked out as the Radicals disconnected.

“I love it,” Jain said. “Using alien technology against the very aliens that developed it.”

Xander smiled under his hood. “It is fun, isn’t it?”

“Hell yeah,” Jain said. “Especially considering no true Mimic would ever dare to modulate their selective absorbers the way we did, nor run the ‘corrective’ code in a sandbox environment. They wouldn’t dare go against the will of the hive.”

“Given what I know about them from my readings, I would agree,” Xander said.

“All right, well, enough celebrating,” Jain said.

“Is that what we were doing?” Xander inquired.

Jain smiled. “Apparently.” He deleted the sandbox copy of his core to free up space. “Deactivate the absorbers, and take us to the closest asteroid. Oh and, I want you to choose one without any pyramids already in residence.”

“Plotting a course…” Xander said.

27

The asteroid Xander chose had all the necessary metals and Jain finished restoring the entire top section of the pyramid six hours later.

“I’m ready to try activating the central power well,” Xander said.

“Let’s do it,” Jain ordered.

He felt a tingling passing up and down his spinal column, and a glance at his system status screen told him that the well had successfully activated.

“Lightning weapon and Terriers are now online,” Xander announced. “I’ve linked the lightning weapon to your former barracuda controls; you’ll note you can now specify from which of the four exit ports you wish to fire from. The Terriers are controlled by your former raptor interface. The starboard raptors launch the Terriers on the starboard side, while the port raptors handle the Terriers on the opposing flank. ‘Charging’ raptors causes the Terriers to collect in the staging areas until eventual firing.”

“Perfect,” Jain said.

“The Rift generator is also online.”

“How do I use it?” Jain asked.

“Since there were no preexisting controls that made sense to piggyback the rift generator on to, I added a new menu item to your HUD,” Xander replied. “I’ve linked it to the appropriate emulation layer on the backend. I should note, I can’t be completely certain any of the aforementioned items work, of course, until you test them out.”

“What’s the recharge period on the rift generator?” Jain asked.

“Only two hours,” Xander said.

Jain smiled slightly. “Versus twelve for human-designed rift ships… and how long does it take to pre-calculate the jump?”

“No time is needed to pre-calculate,” Xander said. “At least, if you’re aiming to jump to a star in this quadrant of the galaxy, that is: everything is already pre-calculated and stored in your local cloud. It’s a standard part of every Mimic database.”

“Nice.”

Jain flew the Devastator behind the asteroid so that it occluded his vessel from the view of the war fleet and city ships, and tried out his lightning weapon and blobs. He also fired some Skirmisher boarding party units. When he was satisfied that his weapon systems were in working order, he tried the rift generator.

From the tip of the pyramid, a single beam similar to one formed by the ring of the Daktor emerged. It traveled only five kilometers ahead of the pyramid, instead of the ten he was used to. A circular cloud of purple gas appeared a minute later, forming the tear in spacetime a full sixty seconds faster than rifts created by human-designed ships.

Xander also informed Jain that he had figured out how to modulate the communications array at the base of the pyramid to send out comm signals that were compatible with human receivers, just like Maxwell had done. With those tweaks, Jain could contact the Mind Refurb fleet during the final invasion. Assuming he made it back in one piece.

Jain returned to the surface of the asteroid and landed once again, deploying his mining termites so that Xander could finish working on the payload device for the nuclear warheads. The question now came down to how he planned to deploy that payload.

“Xander, are you able to look up the delivery schedule of the B-class Nurturers?” Jain asked.

“Well, I have access to the space traffic control equivalent,” Xander said. “Which shows where all the nearby vessels are, along with their planned trajectories in the future. Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?”

“I want to know which ships are scheduled to deliver ore to the Genera over the next few days,” Jain said.

Xander highlighted several of them.

Jain nodded. “All right. Good.”

He had the termites cut fresh blocks of material from the surface to place in his storage compartments, replenishing his inventory. He also installed several of those blocks into his main delivery bay.

When the payload was ready, Jain had the termites construct a layer of rock around the device to make it seem as if it was a regular block of ore freshly extracted from the moon, then had it stowed in his main delivery bay alongside the others.

Now that the payload was properly hidden, Jain intended to personally deliver the ore to the Genera. He would turn over the full haul stored in his delivery bay: it would come off as rather suspicious to deliver only one piece.

Once the load was inside, Jain would depart, and when he was at a safe distance he would remotely detonate the warhead and flee through a rift. By Xander’s calculations, it would completely rip apart the Genera.

Jain would have created other payloads to take down more of those bastards, but unfortunately he didn’t have enough fissile material aboard, and none was available nearby for mining. He considered trying to disable some of the other alien ships lurking among those asteroids, to extract their fissile material, but that opened up a whole new set of problems. No, it was best just to get this single operation done. No need to complicate an otherwise simple plan.

Jain glanced at the delivery vessels Xander had earlier highlighted on his tactical display.

“All right Xander, which vessel is next up for delivering ore to the Genera?” Jain asked.

“That would be Nurturer A22,” Xander replied.

“Highlight its current position for me,” Jain said.

A lone vessel highlighted on the tactical display. It was alone behind a rather large asteroid, about thirty thousand kilometers away.

“Perfect,” Jain said. “When is it scheduled to return?”

“In about two hours.”

“Hmm,” Jain said. “Guess we’ll have to wait.”

Jain slowed his time sense so that an hour passed in a few seconds then returned his timebase to normal.

“It’s time to head toward that asteroid.” He flew out from behind the cover of his existing asteroid, and headed toward A22, which was one of the smaller B-class Nurturers.

The asteroid was huge up close, and sufficiently screened him and A22 from the rest of the fleet. There weren’t any repeater equivalents in the area, as far as he could tell.

“What happens behind that asteroid, stays behind that asteroid,” Jain said. He glanced at Xander. “Just a little archaic Vegas joke for you.”

“Not so archaic,” Xander said. “I searched by database. I get it.” He smiled and opened his mouth twice in mock laughter. “Ha, ha.”

Jain looked away, and then returned his attention to A22, which resided on the surface of the asteroid, where it had landed to mine.

“He’s going to be wondering what we’re doing right about now,” Jain said. “Fire the lightning weapon.”

A bolt erupted from his starboard facing edge, and struck the smaller pyramid ship. The vessel immediately went offline. Because of the hull armor, the damage wouldn’t wipe the AI core completely, like an unadulterated strike would do to a human ship, but it was just enough to take the main reactor core offline, effectively shutting down the whole unit.

As soon as the weapon struck, Xander immediately modified the ping beacon of the Devastator’s comm system, so that Jain’s ping equivalent now identified him as A22 rather than 529.

He approached the hull of the A22, and aligned with it, tilting at a slight angle so he could press one of his faces into the other vessel, and when they were thus interlocked, he instructed the termites to board. His control of the micro machines was fine-grained enough that he could order them to repair ninety-percent of the damage to the main reactor, and then stop. So he did just that, then pulled away.

“I’m detecting a hail for 529,” Xander said.

“From A22?” Jain asked.

“No,” Xander answered.

While the gamma rays involved in Mimic communications were of high intensity, they weren’t able to penetrate more than a few meters into the individual asteroids, especially those containing lead; however, because they were emitted in broad patterns, like waves of light, they reflected from other ships and asteroids, bouncing around the different corners of the current celestial object to ensure Jain remained active on the tactical displays, and capable of communications.

“Can you respond without giving away the fact we’ve changed IDs?” Jain said.

“I can,” Xander said. “It’s just a matter of tweaking the identifying header sent out with each packet. I’ll still be sending out general A22 pings so that the B-class vessel appears to remain online. However, I’ll be sending a blank identifier during communications. You’ll have to tie that in to why we’re not appearing on the tactical display.”

“All right, connect,” Jain said.

A holographic pyramid appeared in front of him.

“529, you are off-grid, why?” the pyramid gyrated. It was 46 again. His CO.

“Having some problems with our comm system,” Jain said. “Pings don’t seem to be working. I’ve uh, I’m not able to send out any identifiers until the problem is rectified. Should be fifteen minutes or so. I’m mining materials to repair as we speak.”

“Very well,” 46 said. “I thought you’d jumped out without permission. Begin transmitting your ID as soon as you’re able.”

The pyramid vanished.

“I’m receiving another hail from 46,” Xander said. “This one is for A22.”

“All right, make sure you set our identifying headers to A22 before we answer,” Jain said.

“I’m ready,” Xander said.

“Connect.”

The pyramid appeared again. “Is everything operational?”

“Yes,” Jain said.

“Relay a video feed of 529 to me,” 46 said.

Jain muted the pyramid and upped his time sense to the maximum. He glanced at Xander. “Bastard doesn’t trust us.”

“Would you, if you were him?” the Accomp asked.

“Okay, so... are you able to generate a fake video of the Devastator, and make it look like I’m mining on the surface beside A22?”

“Faking videos is one of my specialties,” Xander said. He paused, and then: “It’s done.”

“Good,” Jain said. He unmuted his feed and returned his time sense to normal. “Transmitting video feed.” He nodded at Xander.

The Accomp inclined his head.

“Thank you,” 46 said a moment later. “Notify me if 529 does anything suspicious.” The pyramid winked out.

“All right,” Jain said. “I guess it’s time to get this done. Then we can go home and prepare for the final battle.”

With Xander’s help he activated the intricate network of holoemitters, thermal maskers, and LIDAR absorbers on his hull so that when he emerged from behind the asteroid, not only did his ping ID reveal him to be A22, but his external appearance matched that of the smaller B-class vessel.

“Plot a course to the Genera,” Jain said. “Moderate speed.”

He kept his distance above the ranks of city ships below. As he neared the Genera at the rear of the formation, he marveled at its size. Positioned perpendicular to the hives, it dwarfed the other units, coming in at a size that was so big, the other rows of vessels seemed like mere offshoots.

When he arrived, the ship ate up the stars like one of the larger asteroids, and as Jain closed with the designated docking area, it soon swallowed them all.

Jain was expecting a transmission along the lines of “you’re early,” but the hull simply parted in silence.

He flew the Devastator inside. “Into the belly of the beast...”

Xander had aligned the illusory A22 image produced by the holoemitters with the base of the pyramid, so that when the Devastator landed, it’s bottom section matched up with where the smaller A22’s would have been. That way, when he parted the outer edges of his hull, where the delivery bay was located, it coincided with A22’s.

He allowed his termites to deliver the thick blocks of ore to the waiting grav-conveyor belts. He decided to err on the side of caution, transferring all the ordinary blocks first, with the final block, the one disguising the nuclear warhead, destined to go last.

As those ores loaded one by one, Xander spoke. “I’m receiving a communication... it’s coming from somewhere inside the ship. I believe it’s part of the Genera’s comm array.”

“All right, well, accept, I guess,” Jain said.

“Wait, it’s not an ordinary communication,” Xander said. “It’s a request to log in to the shared virtual reality of the Genera hive. The initiator of the request is unclear.”

“Whoever’s sending us that message wants us to log into their shared reality?” Jain asked.

Xander shot him a worried look. “That is correct.”

Jain sighed. “How long until we finish unloading the ores?”

“Six minutes,” Xander said.

“As soon as we’re finished, I want you to close my connection,” Jain said. “I’m not waiting around.”

“Understood,” Xander said. “So you accept the request, I take it?”

“I do,” Jain said.

“You should know,” Xander said. “Because of the way the emulation layer is constructed, my partition can only participate as an invisible observer. I will be present in spirit only.”

“I understand,” Jain said. “Let’s go.”

The virtual bridge faded.

28

Jain stood on a mountain peak. A beautiful green and red tree sprouted from the orange snow beside him. It had reddish-white bark, and a network of interconnecting branches that looked like neural networks more than anything else. Minuscule red berries hung from each branch in such profusion that Jain was inclined to believe those were the leaves. In fact, they probably were.

He glanced down at himself. Jain had seen the organic form of these Mimics in three dimensions courtesy of the holographic photographs and videos in his cloud archives, but his body was clearly an exaggeration of that form. He wondered if Xander had made a mistake in his programming as he momentarily switched to a third person perspective so that he could get a better look at his avatar.

The body vaguely resembled an elephant with six legs. Two of those legs had frog-like feet, while the front two possessed big talons, like an eagle’s. His skin was wrinkled and covered in scales, with large plates protruding from the top above each leg. There was a tiny tail that wiggled at the rear of his back.

He had a long, powerful neck, like the kind a T-Rex might have, topped by a head whose pyramidal shape was clearly exaggerated for effect. It looked like someone had taken one of their starships and pasted it onto his head. In all the videos he had seen, the head shape had only been vaguely pyramidal, and never so geometric.

The bottom portion parted when he opened his mouth, revealing a row of flat herbivorous teeth, obviously meant for munching on those berries or leaves. He had several small thin slits for eyes distributed among the different planes. Thankfully Xander hadn’t tried to duplicate the alien vision by aligning all the visual data from those different slits, and had instead resorted to the usual stereoscopic.

Four ear stalks protruded from each of the uppermost sides of the head. There was a stripe of thick hair flowing down the back and onto his thick neck, like a horse’s mane.

He returned his perspective back inside of himself, and saw two other Mimics nearby. One of them was munching on the fruit or leaves that grew on the nearby tree. The other was leading a group of small, freakish animals. Its pets, he assumed. Each one was different, and some of them flew alongside the Mimic, buzzing with insect-like wings.

The features of the pets and Mimics were just as exaggerated as Jain’s own. He could only assume that the avatars were stylized versions of how Mimics looked in real life. Or would have looked, had they lived in their bodies.

He walked to the edge of the mountain he stood on. Beyond, he could see other peaks connected to this one by wide, drooping rope bridges. There were no clouds, and he could see the lush valleys between the peaks below. The trees were mostly swaths of red and blue, with the occasional purple batch interspersed among them.

He spotted more Mimics crossing those bridges; most of them had a literal menagerie of pets in tow. The plates protruding from the backs of the Mimics were arranged in four common patterns that represented the quaternary gender of the species. Yes, they had four sexes. Only two were required to form a viable zygote, but for optimal diversity, all four were best; as such, the species had developed elaborate mating rituals to ensure all four sexes participated. Not that any of it mattered in the current virtual environment; the zygotes aboard the gestation ships were fertilized by artificial means.

Many of the avatars were heading toward the tallest peak among the mountains, which had what looked like a village of mushrooms sprouting from the exterior. No, not mushrooms; he squinted, trying to zoom in, but the virtual environment didn’t accommodate him. He realized that the structures were formed of hollowed out trees, larger varieties whose dense branches formed the wide brims that he had mistaken for mushroom caps. Mimics passed in and out of each of them, and he realized it was kind of a center of commerce.

He reminded himself that this was supposed to be some sort of MMORPG, where pets were the currency.

He returned his attention to the valley below, and took a moment to admire the landscape. Overall, he had to admit it was a very beautiful simulation.

“If their homeworld was this beautiful, I can see now why they are so affected by its loss,” Jain commented softly, for Xander’s benefit.

It was, actually. He remembered recordings he had seen in his local cloud. Certainly, some aspects were exaggerated, like the avatars, and the plants, but overall the representation was accurate.

A Mimic was crossing the bridge directly in front of him, and headed straight for Jain. This one was about half the size of Jain’s avatar. It had five pets in tow: two furry worms, a lion-dinosaur of some kind, a frog-dragonfly, and a porcupine whose quills were topped with berries like on the trees.

“Hello,” the small avatar said. Jain had the impression it was a child.

“Are you the one who hailed me?” Jain asked.

“I am,” the avatar said. “My name is—” And he proceeded to issue a series of gargling, shrieking sounds.

Jain pulled up the Mimic to English translation engine, which was still accessible on his HUD, and selected the “custom word mappings” option. He assigned the strange sounds he’d just heard to the word Frank.

“Nice to meet you, Frank,” Jain said.

“What’s your name?” Frank asked.

“It’s unimportant,” Jain replied.

“It is to me...” the Mimic insisted.

Jain ignored the comment. “What do you want?”

Frank made an expression Jain couldn’t understand, those lips pulling far back on the pyramidal head so that the front row of blunt teeth were revealed.

Jain did a quick scan of his Mimic body language database, which told him that was the equivalent of a human sigh.

“You’re organic,” Jain said.

Frank wiggled his ear stalks, which the body language DB told Jain was a nod. “I just celebrated my fifth birthday!”

That was equal to 8.342 Earth years.

“Well,” Jain said. “That’s uh, great. So why did you contact me?”

Frank looked down at his feet. “Sorry about that, I just wanted to meet you. Don’t tell the Arbitrator!”

Because of his alien database, Jain instantly knew that the Arbitrator was the main AI of the Genera. That AI was essentially an adult Mimic, and had been elected to his current position by a popular vote.

“He already knows,” Jain said with absolute certainly. The pair were probably being watched very closely right now, by that AI. “In fact, the Arbitrator would have had to have approved your question.”

A floating pyramid appeared beside Jain. “Very good,” a deep voice emanated from it. The hologram shifted shape when it spoke, just as the representations of other Mimics did during ordinary communications on Jain’s virtual bridge. “I was curious to learn what a mere child would want with a Nurturer.”

“I’ve always wanted to be a Nurturer!” Frank said. “I can’t wait till I’m a machine like you, and I can explore the galaxy!”

Jain smiled patiently, though it came across as a narrowing of his eye slits. “Not all Nurturers explore the galaxy. I don’t. I stay in this system, and gather minerals from the surroundings asteroids for the sake of the hive.”

“But that’s just as good!” Frank said. “It’s better than being here! In this fake world!”

Jain glanced at the pyramid, which returned its attention to the child. “One day you will become an adult. It remains to be seen, however, whether you will ever qualify for the honor of Nurturer.”

“I will,” Frank said. “I’ll never give up.”

Jain couldn’t help but smile again.

The kid has heart.

He shook his head, mentally scolding himself.

Don’t get attached to these aliens. Especially not now.

The Arbitrator noticed his discomfort. “Thank you for your time. You may return to your own environment. I know how uncomfortable this must seem to you. The Nurturers are creatures of solitude. I’m sorry I allowed this.”

“No, it’s fine,” Jain said. “Sometimes I need to be reminded of what I left behind.”

With that, he logged out.

He reappeared in the virtual bridge.

“Well, that was certainly interesting, if a little absurd,” Xander said. “Though an enjoyable take on alien culture. It’s good to get down and dirty in the trenches every now and then, if you know what I mean.”

Jain nodded absently, and accessed the delivery bay camera equivalent. He stared at the termites as they unloaded the different blocks of ore, slowly depleting the supply. Finally, the micro machines grabbed the final piece, the ore block that contained the warheads.

“Xander, halt the termites,” Jain ordered.

Xander did so, but then said: “May I ask why?”

“We have the opportunity to place a bomb here,” Jain said. “But we never asked the question: is that really a good idea? We didn’t fully ponder the consequences, other than to consider it would damage our so-called enemy.”

“So-called?” Xander said. “They have proven themselves to be our enemies on numerous occasions. Attacking in the guise of human-designed warships. Wiping out our colonies one by one, with Earth next in the line. One cute alien child isn’t going to change any of that.”

“No,” Jain agreed.

“If they had the opportunity to inflict similar damage to us, they would take it,” Xander pressed. “You know that. What they’ve done to the colonies is evidence of that.”

“But we’re better than this,” Jain said.

“Now isn’t the time for pretentious moral preening,” Xander said. “Wars are lost by people who use words like ‘we’re better than this.’ Because there is no true honor in war. You win however you can.”

“I can’t believe an AI is lecturing me on war,” Jain said. “And trying to convince me to go through with a morally questionable, if not reprehensible, act.”

“I’m not just an ordinary AI,” Xander said. “I have elements of your personality embedded in my own. So in some sense, you’re partially arguing with yourself. I will repeat, these aliens would take this opportunity. They’ve destroyed colonies harboring millions of civilian lives. Millions.”

Still Jain couldn’t shake those words.

We’re better than this.

He stared at the remaining piece of ore in the delivery bay.

“It makes sense to go through with this from a logical standpoint,” Xander said. “A bomb here will distract the aliens, buying time for Earth to prepare for the final attack. It will knock out a portion of their infrastructure, and they might need months to rebuild.”

“Or they might hasten their plans to attack Earth instead,” Jain said. “You’ve seen the latest census data from the Genera. There are a hundred million AIs aboard and one hundred thousand organics, the latter essentially children. I’m not sure I could live with myself if I had this act of infamy on my conscience.”

“You’re a machine,” Xander said. “You don’t have to live with it. Turn off your emotions. Or delete the memory.”

Jain shook his head. “No. If I go through with this, it will only confirm to the Mimics that they were right about humanity. That we are a warlike race, intent on the destruction of all good species.”

“But they’ll attack anyway, regardless of what you choose in this moment,” Xander said. “Given that knowledge, why not choose the path that will lead to the most damage to these, our enemies? Think of it as vengeance, for what was done to the colonies.”

Jain hesitated. He thought of that alien child’s face, and the beauty he had seen in the simulation. None of it was real, all taking place in a virtual environment created by the Arbitrator’s processors. And yet to millions of entities, machines and organics whose lives Jain was about to snuff out, it was real...

“Are you acting this way because of the guilt you feel?” Xander asked. “For what happened on Talowna? For what humanity did to the Xenon over a hundred years ago?”

“That might be playing a partial factor,” Jain admitted. “But I just can’t live with the deaths of so many non-combatants on my hands. I just can’t. You claim I can just delete my memories, but that doesn’t change the fact all of these individuals, though alien, will be dead.”

“We’re receiving a hail from the Genera,” Xander said. “It’s the Arbitrator.”

“Accept,” Jain said.

A red pyramid appeared in front of him. “Nurturer A22, have you completed your cargo drop?”

Jain didn’t answer. He stared at the feed from the delivery bay, and at the termites waiting to transport the block of ore that contained the weapon.

Then he muted the pyramid and glanced at Xander. “I’m sorry, we’re not deploying that bomb. We’re going back to Earth instead, where we’ll defend the planet to the best of our abilities. Our revenge will be destroying as many Nurturers as we can during the final battle.”

Xander nodded solemnly. “The choice is yours. I only hope you’ve made the right decision.”

“So do I,” Jain said.

“Nurturer A22—” the Arbitrator began.

Jain unmuted the pyramid. “I have completed my drop.”

He closed the connection: Nurturers were considered higher in rank than city ship AIs, even if that AI was the Arbitrator, responsible for the biggest hive of them all, and thus it was expected that Jain would terminate communications first.

He sealed his hull and launched the Devastator, proceeding out into deep space once more. He headed straight for the asteroid where he had abandoned the real A22.

“It probably wouldn’t have done as much damage as we thought anyway,” Jain said. “Or we would have gotten caught.”

“How typically human,” Xander said. “To provide excuses after the fact.”

“You’re not helping...” Jain said.

When Jain reached the asteroid, he planned to dive behind it for cover, and then create a rift back to Earth so that he could rejoin the Mind Refurb fleet and help them plan for the final invasion.

Jain flew behind the asteroid in question, and on an external camera equivalent he spotted A22 lying there on the surface. He had no plans of finishing repairs.

He was about to begin creating the rift when Xander announced a hail.

“It’s 46,” Xander said.

“All right, transmit a blank ID, as before,” Jain said. “And connect. Keep sending out pings for A22 on other channels, of course.”

The holographic pyramid appeared before him.

“529, return to formation,” 46 said. “We’re preparing to launch the final stage of the invasion. We leave in one hour.” An alien hour was equivalent to one point three one four Earth hours. The PI ratio wasn’t a coincidence.

Before Jain could answer, the connection closed.

Jain stared blankly at his tactical display.

“They’re going to attack Earth quickly after all,” Jain said. Maybe he should have listened to Xander’s advice and bombed that ship while he could.

Thankfully, Xander didn’t say I told you so.

Jain began to thrum his hand rest. “This might be better, actually.” He thrummed fasted. “Yes. Much better.”

“What are you planning?” Xander asked.

“Oh, the usual shenanigans,” Jain said.

“So what do you want to do about A22?” Xander asked. “We should restore the ping before we move out from behind the asteroid.”

“We certainly should.”

Jain canceled his holoemitters and other stealth attributes so that he appeared as an ordinary A-class Nurturer again.

He approached A22 at the usual slight tilt that was necessary to interlock with its hull, and then, when he was touching the exterior, he queried the termites he had sent aboard; they had completed the main reactor repairs up to ninety percent as requested. He ordered the termites to finish the job, and then separated from the vessel, and headed toward the edge of the asteroid.

“As soon as they come online, begin transmitting our expected ID again,” Jain told Xander.

Only a few seconds later, Xander spoke.

“They just came online,” the Accomp said.

Jain glanced at the robed man. “That didn’t take long. Did you switch up our IDs?”

“We’re 529 again,” Xander confirmed. “A22 is hailing by the way. They want to know why they’ve detected some of our termites aboard.”

“Ignore him.” As an A-class Nurturer, Jain was of higher rank, and was free to treat the lower class vessel with disdain.

He emerged from behind the asteroid and made his way back to the war fleet, which was gathering in front of the hives in preparation for the final assault against Earth.

29

Jain entered through the rift that Nurturer 46 created and emerged in Earth’s system, on the ecliptic plane near Mars. The commanding officers of each Mimic battle group were responsible for transporting their subordinates through the rifts. Nurturer vessels all had their rifts pre-calculated to open within the same general area in each system, so it wasn’t strictly required to share rifts, but it did ensure that the battle groups remained in tight formation in case an enemy was waiting on the other side.

In this case, that enemy was humanity. Or the Mind Refurb space navy, to be precise. According to the tactical display, none of the Mind Refurb ships were nearby. Instead, they lingered in orbit above Earth, waiting for the Mimics to arrive. Their vessels lingered above the far horizon of the planet, and were too few to account for the entire fleet. No doubt the remainder were orbiting the far side of the planet; that would probably change once the Mimics were detected.

The alien vessels with Jain had full stealth measures active, and attempted to blend-in with the background radiation; however, with the penetrating sensor add-ons all Mind Refurb ships now had, it wouldn’t take long before the Mimics were spotted. Eight minutes, in fact: approximately four minutes for the beams to reach the alien fleet above Mars, and another four to return to the Mind Refurbs above Earth.

The Mimics still hadn’t come up with a countermeasure to the technology. The alien scientists were probably working on something, but apparently the fleet was in a rush to attack and willing to engage without the advantage of full stealth. It probably did not matter, considering how devastating the Mimic weapons were against human ships.

The Mind Refurb vessels on the far side of Earth began to pop into existence on Jain’s display. For a moment he was confused as to how the Mimics were obtaining that information, until he noticed that alien battle groups had jumped in near the opposite side of the Martian orbit, where there was a clear view of Earth’s far hemisphere. A rift jump like that wasn’t entirely unexpected: according to the alien manual, the rift destination could be fine-tuned with far greater accuracy than rifts formed by human vessels.

Even in stealth mode, Mimic ships could still communicate, because they utilized directional gamma rays. This would allow them to send signals back and forth undetected by the Mind Refurb ships. Well, until those add-on sensors penetrated the Mimic holoemitters.

The alien ships in both groups finished jumping in. There were seventy-five with Jain’s battle group, and another seventy-five on the far side of the Martian orbit.

As for the defenders of Earth, in total Jain counted one hundred and ten vessels. That number was a little higher than he thought it would be; which meant humanity had withdrawn the fleet from the ruins of the outlying colonies, and most likely had abandoned the Galactic Eastern Front entirely, ceding the final system to the Link. This truly was their last stand.

Jain feared that stand was doomed to fail: the Mimics outnumbered them by about forty ships. But he reminded himself that there were likely a good portion of Mind Refurb vessels still cloaked; more ships might be hiding behind each other, further masking their numbers.

Still, they couldn’t have much more than around one hundred fifty, making the battle about even, at least in terms of numbers. Unfortunately, Jain remembered very well how difficult it was to win an even battle against these aliens. In the simulations, his Void Warriors had lost every time.

“I’m receiving a request from 46,” Xander said. “Your commanding officer would like to open a permanent, voice-only line.”

“Do it,” Jain said.

Only a moment after Xander established the line, 46 gave the opening order.

“Advance on indicated course,” 46 said over the comm line. “Speed seventy-five percent.”

A course appeared on Jain’s tactical display, the data transmitted through the open comm line. Jain folded space in front of the Devastator along that course, and jumped to seventy-five percent speed as asked.

Eight minutes later the protective half-sphere formation of the Mind Refurb ships began to shift in orientation: they had detected the incoming enemy fleet. In a short time, the Mind Refurbs had formed a complete sphere formation around their precious homeworld. According to the tactical display, half remained in orbit on the far side of the planet to combat the threat posed by the Mimics from that vector, while the other half floated above the hemisphere Jain’s group approached from.

Somewhere among them awaited the Void Warriors.

We meet again, my brothers and sisters. I just wish our reunion could be under better circumstances.

Jain could almost feel the tension emanating from the Mind Refurb fleet. Then again, a similar anxiety was no doubt swirling through the ranks of the Mimics. He felt it himself, though in his case the stress was more out of concern for his friends, and humanity, than for the invaders. Well, and for himself.

How am I going to survive this?

He knew what he had to do, and yet he was a little afraid to do it. He was going to join the losing side in the middle of an impossible battle.

Shit.

It was all too tempting to create a rift and jump the hell out of there. Just turning his back on everything and running, never to look back.

But that went against everything he stood for as a SEAL.

No. I stay and fight. And probably die. Partly for humanity. But mostly for my brothers and sisters of silicon.

There would be no restoration of his consciousness from backups. Not this time. This was truly the end.

Then I’m going to make it a fight the Mimics will remember.

He prepared several blobs and stored them in his Terrier bays. He was going to need them in the coming fight.

As the alien fleet continued its approach, Jain wondered how the Mimics planned to destroy the planet. The colonies were easy, since the populations were concentrated in usually one or two cities. But with a planet like Earth, with humanity spread out across one entire hemisphere, it was a lot harder. There were even a few pioneers living in the uninhabited zone on the opposite hemisphere, so if the Mimics wanted to be thorough, they’d have to attack the settlements there, too.

It could take them years to completely rout out the last remnants of humankind.

Unless, of course, they had some sort of masterplan to accelerate the population’s demise.

Jain didn’t even know what the battle plan was. The alien fleet admiral had likely revealed the knowledge to his immediate captains, who were keeping it a secret from their own subordinates for the time being, and would probably continue to do so until the Mimics were almost upon the planet. It made sense to hold the attack plan tight until right before Earth, to avoid the chance of any potential moles—like Jain—from leaking it to humanity.

But if 46 or any other commanding officer decided to reveal those plans early, Jain was ready. He had used his multipurpose termites to print up a comm array specifically designed for sending human-compatible radio waves. While his own comm array was capable of transmitting such a signal, the aliens would have instantly picked him out as the source, and the fireworks that followed wouldn’t be pretty. Not to him, anyway.

He’d secured that array to one of his skirmishers, and covered the surface in holoemitters, thermal maskers, and LIDAR absorbers. While he was creating it, he wondered why the aliens didn’t simply coat all of their boarding party units with stealth features like that. But as the process dragged on, he understood why: it took about thirty times longer to create a stealth skirmisher similar to the one he had designed. It simply wasn’t worth it to spend the extra manufacturing time to justify stealth, considering that more than enough of the skirmishers were getting through the Mind Refurb point defenses. Why spend a half hour creating a stealth unit when you could have thirty within that same time span, with about ten eventually landing on the Mind Refurb hulls and deploying their cargo? Plus, the constituent elements required for full stealth were in far shorter supply, so even if the aliens printed the units in advance, they’d only be able to create about five per vessel. Some of the Mimics probably did use a few stealth skirmishers, but as soon as the devices attached to enemy hulls, their positions would be revealed just like ordinary boarding party units.

When finished, Jain had constructed another of the specialized skirmishers, so he had a standby in case he needed to send two messages before he revealed himself to the enemy, with the understanding that each skirmisher would be destroyed shortly after the message was transmitted. He also had another sixty normal skirmishers waiting in the staging areas of course, filling up all his reserve space, but those would be used for offensive purposes.

While humanity had developed a sensor add-on to penetrate that specific stealth technology, the aliens had no such tech: Jain knew from the manuals that the Mimics relied instead on the weak thermals produced by the inertialess drives whenever they needed to track a stealth pyramid that wasn’t responding to ordinary communications.

But the skirmisher Jain had developed didn’t contain any such thermal leakage—it didn’t use inertialess drives. He anticipated it would completely slip under the Mimic radar until the message transmitted. However it was possible the Mind Refurbs might detect the skirmisher before the signal went out, but that was doubtful, considering the size of the craft.

One hundred thousand kilometers away from Earth, Xander announced: “We just took a weak laser hit, port flank, thirty degrees inclination.”

Jain pulled up his damage report screen, and the emulation layer Xander had written highlighted a small red mark on his hull.

“Probably not worth it to dispatch the termites,” Jain said. “We’ll save our metals for the more important repairs.” He glanced at the tactical display, and saw white lines momentarily flashing into existence, sourced from the human fleet. Those lines represented lasers, as computed by the alien sensor cloud.

“So the Mind Refurbs have begun to fire their raptors,” Jain said.

“Yes,” Xander said.

“It’s interesting, coming at this battle from the point of view of the Mimics,” Jain said.

“It certainly is,” Xander said. “But it’s made all the more interesting by the fact that you intend to turn on them.”

“Just as soon as the bastards reveal their battle plan…” Jain said.

“Launch Terrier units, defensive pattern thirty-two,” 46 ordered over the comm line.

The requested firing vector highlighted on Jain’s tactical display, and he obeyed. He followed that firing solution to the letter when he launched his blobs; the other Mimics in the battle group unleashed their own Terriers so that, in only a few moments, the accelerating projectiles completely screened the battle group from the lasers. They were imparted with just enough speed to keep pace ahead of the battle group, and formed multiple layers so that when the defenders released the next round of laser attacks, the beams only ate away the first layer of blobs.

Jain began replenishing the Terriers he had lost, mindful of the drain it had on his main power well—the lightning weapon used the same power source, and he wanted to have it ready to fire when he turned against them.

The battle group continued to regenerate that screen of Terriers during the approach so that the most damage the pyramids received were a few nicks and scratches.

Humanity is truly outmatched. Why are they fighting?

But he knew why. There was no surrender. And no running. They didn’t have enough ships to evacuate all those billions of people. The ships used to transport settlers to the colonies could only carry between ten to fifty thousand each.

At twenty thousand kilometers, Jain was expecting the order to launch skirmishers, as the pyramid fleet had done the last time he had engaged them from the Mind Refurb side. But the order didn’t come, and the enemy held back. Last time, the Mind Refurbs had used their missiles to clear out those skirmishers, to good effect.

I guess the Mimics finally learned their lesson…

At fifteen thousand kilometers, missiles finally began to pour in from the defenders. Some were nukes, some conventional weapons. The Mind Refurbs that composed the defensive sphere above Earth fired them at both incoming battle groups; they spaced them out, and organized each successive wave so that the lightning bolt weapons wouldn’t be able to arc between the missiles and take them down in multiples. Humanity was also learning from its previous fights…

Jain’s sensors weren’t able to differentiate between nuclear and conventional warheads, and all of the missiles showed up as the same type of dot on his map: a yellowish-red projectile.

Because of the spacing, he doubted the aliens would use their lightning weapons this time—there were simply too many missiles out there. Sure enough:

“Fire skirmishers and Terriers to intercept incoming projectiles,” 46 announced. “Choose available targets. Utilize thirty percent of remaining inventory. Maximum acceleration.”

Missiles turned a darker yellow-red when targeted by another Mimic, so Jain was able to choose those missiles that hadn’t yet been selected. He launched skirmishers and blobs at the different targets in turn, using up thirty percent of his available inventory as requested. He began creating new versions of each unit to replenish his inventory.

Firing at maximum acceleration allowed the blobs and skirmishers to weave past the Terriers that acted as a screen, and onward the different targets. The projectiles had to get close with the incoming missiles in order to take them down: ordinarily the proximity fuses only detonated when the nukes were under five hundred meters out from a target. This was because in space, if a nuclear weapon detonated from further away than a kilometer from its mark, it would blind a few sensors, and at best discolor a portion of the target’s hull. And this was against human ships. Against the thick armored hull of the Mimics, the detonations would probably have to occur much closer to cause any significant damage. Conventional missiles had it even worse, and usually detonated only upon impact with the target, combining blunt force damage from their velocity with explosive yield from their warhead.

Jain noted that most of those fuses of either weapon type weren’t detonating at all this time; these were smart missiles, and had been programmed to detonate only for the larger alien hulls, apparently.

The skirmishers and Terriers were still able to take down the units by impacting; some of the missiles dodged the first wave, only to be taken down by the second or third. There were no detonations—the missiles simply broke apart from the blunt force damage if hit by a skirmisher, or if a Terrier hit them, they disintegrated. The skirmishers were reduced to spare parts after the impact, whereas the Terriers only shrunk slightly, ready to take on more targets.

The defenders must have updated their detonation orders when too many of those Terriers survived, because the nukes and missiles began to explode when Terriers came near; the nukes cleared those blobs from the map, but missiles only shrunk the Terriers slightly. Overall it was a good trade off for the Mimics, because the cost of creating one Terrier in terms of time and energy was far less than that of a nuke, or even conventional missiles.

A few missiles did manage to make it through the waves of skirmishers and Terriers, and hit the waiting screen of blobs. Those that weaved through that final layer were detonated with a lightning blast so that none of the missiles reached the battle group.

The aliens win this one, too.

There was no danger of those lightning bolts arcing to nearby Mimic ships—their hulls were designed not to attract the particular plasma channels involved.

At this point, only a few of the screening blobs remained. Jain knew what was coming next.

Sure enough:

“Fire skirmishers and Terriers to intercept enemy fleet,” 46 announced. “Choose your targets. Expend thirty-five percent remaining inventory. Maximum acceleration.”

Jain and the other members of the battle group began launching Terriers at the distant Mind Refurb ships in orbit. Jain avoided targeting any Piranha class vessels—the base ship class of his Void Warriors. While he could ID that particular class of ships by heat signature, he had no way to identify the actual owners of said ships, not without engaging in communications with the Mind Refurb fleet and revealing his true nature to the Mimics.

The launched projectiles hurdled past the few blobs that yet screened the alien battle group, and headed toward the distant ships waiting beyond. The fresh wave of incoming projectiles forced the Mind Refurbs to expend their heavy lasers in defense, along with what was likely their remaining nukes and missiles.

At twelve thousand kilometers gravitational distortions began to assault the battle group. Pyramids swerved in three dimensions beside him, dodging the bolts as they came in, and easily escaping the clutches of the resultant black holes that formed.

Jain knew the tears in spacetime would have no effect on his trajectory thanks to his inertialess drives, but still he instinctively expected to feel the pull. It was only after ten or so holes had opened around him that his expectations changed, and he began to feel invincible.

Not even black holes can touch me!

He had to remind himself that if he made a mistake, and hit one of those holes, it would still spaghettify him. The bolts that formed these holes were hard to detect, only picked up by the alien sensors when they were under four thousand kilometers away, and he had to quickly fold space in another direction. The attacks certainly kept him on his toes.

The successive black hole attacks came in a herding pattern, of course; the defenders were trying to guide the individual ships onto particular trajectories in preparation for follow-up barracuda strikes. It was a tactic he knew well—it was one of his favorites, after all. The other Mimics would have recognized this particularly strategy by now as well.

Sure enough, 46 announced: “Prepare to dodge the expected energy weapons.”

The question was, would the Mind Refurbs use a different tactic this time around? Probably not… why change what they knew already worked?

30

At eleven thousand kilometers, the barracuda energy bolts began to come in. Jain had been herded into a particularly tight series of black holes, and as an energy bolt came directly for him, he decided that rather than attempting to dodge, he was going to reverse course entirely.

And so he switched from full forward momentum to full backward momentum, moving away from the energy bolt. The deadly tunnel formed by the black holes squeezed tighter around him as the gravity wells attracted one another, spiraling closed, and he barely squeezed through the other side. The energy bolt emerged way off course so, when he switched to full forward momentum again, the bolt missed him easily.

Other Mimic ships issued similar dodging maneuvers, and then continued forward as well.

Cloaked Mind Refurb ships appeared randomly among the battle group, striking into the Mimics. Mind Refurb teleporters also appeared in the alien ranks; some had sword extensions like Medeia and cut through the surprised alien vessels. Others had micro machines like Cranston, and used them to inflict kinetic kill damage. The Mimics still hadn’t developed an effective countermeasure to those attacks. They lost ships because of it, but that didn’t matter, because they usually destroyed the offending vessels before they could get away. Occasionally an attacker managed to cloak before the retaliatory strike came, but those proved the exception rather than the norm.

Jain just hoped that none of the cloaked ships and teleporters would target him. Perhaps the Void Warriors had found a way to identify him. Then again, even if they had, that didn’t necessarily mean that the defenders wouldn’t attack his craft: they would have seen him opening fire already after all, and maybe thought that the Mimics had already wiped and replaced his mind.

At ten thousand kilometers, 46 finally revealed the mission attack plan.

“We make two passes through their ranks,” 46 said. “Eliminating as many as we can. Then we gather with the second battle group above these coordinates. Attack Plan Centrifuge. Once in formation, you will relay control of your power well to me.”

46 sent a series of numbers—the alien version of human polar coordinates—and Jain’s tactical map matched it up to a waypoint on the virtual sphere that represented Earth.

Jain muted 46.

“Xander, can you confirm the coordinates are correct?” Jain said.

“You doubt the effectiveness of my emulation layer?” Xander said. “The coordinates are correct. We’re gathering above the Yellowstone Caldera.”

“Attack Plan Centrifuge...” Saying those words caused Jain to access his cloud database, and the military document Xander had recently unlocked.

Centrifuge called for the equal-sized pyramids to combine, joining their bases in pairs, forming octahedrons. Those octahedrons would then touch their tips together. When combined, the ships opened up portions of their hulls on their apexes and bases, allowing their central power wells to expand into the adjacent ships, essentially combining those wells; by handing control of the wells over to their COs, the vessels as a whole were able to transfer enough power to the bottommost ship in the formation to generate a lightning bolt with a thousand times the intensity. It was a bolt that was easily capable of jump-starting the dormant volcano underneath the Yellowstone Caldera.

“They plan to erupt the supervolcano,” Jain said.

“Yes,” Xander said. “And the extra kinetic energy imparted to the magma chamber from the bolt will cause a super eruption unlike anything Earth has ever seen. It’s essentially an extinction-level event.”

When the supervolcano erupted, it would eject extraordinary volumes of volcanic rock and ash, dust and toxic gases into the atmosphere, spiraling the world into a volcanic winter, which was essentially the same as a nuclear winter but minus the radioactivity.

The magma would soak Yellowstone National Park and beyond, from Yellowstone River to the Idaho Falls, with some flows reaching north beyond Mammoth Springs.

Ash, ranging from two meters deep in the states closest to the epicenter, to three millimeters thick in New York on the other side of the continent, would destroy one or two seasons of crops in the Northern Hemisphere, killing off livestock and starving half the planet. Only the fully enclosed hydroponic farms would survive, but there weren't enough to feed seventeen billion people.

What puzzled Jain was that the southern hemisphere would remain relatively untouched. Certainly, the resulting volcanic winter would also plunge temperatures there for several years, and eventually cause the rest of humanity to starve off, but Jain suspected the aliens would accelerate the process. When they were done with North America, they’d probably move on to other calderas across the world.

Well, whatever the case, he had to inform humanity now, so they could properly shield the Yellowstone Caldera, and perhaps dormant supervolcanoes in other states such as the Long Valley or Valles calderas in California and New Mexico. That would buy them some time to repel the alien fleet. Whether it would be enough time, Jain didn’t know.

Jain upped his time sense to max, freezing external reality.

“Xander, prepare to record message,” Jain said.

“Ready,” Xander said.

Jain hesitated. “Is there anything they can actually do to protect the caldera?”

Xander considered for a moment. “The force field technology used by Sheila’s Wheelbarrow will work, but it will have to be a thousand times more powerful. The defenders will have to layer at least a hundred units to achieve the necessary protective force, considering how broad of an area they’ll have to cover. More than a hundred layers would be preferable, to protect against subsequent attack attempts. The question is: will they be able to transport enough shielding devices to the hotspot, and set them up in time?”

Jain thrummed his fingers on the armrest, staring at the tactical display, and the two battle groups on a convergent course toward Earth. His gaze settled on the dots representing the brave defenders in orbit who were willing to sacrifice themselves to save the organics on the planet below. A sacrifice that could be for nothing.

“It comes down to this,” Jain said. “A small group of far stronger attackers, facing off against a slightly smaller group of far weaker defenders.” He shook his head. “Even if humanity can defend against the combined lightning attack, eventually the force field will break down if they don’t eliminate the source.”

“By placing the shields, they buy time, nothing more,” Xander agreed.

Jain leaned forward, toward the tactical display. “There has to be some weakness… combining their power wells like that can’t be the most stable formation in the world.”

Xander pursed his lips in thought. “The reactor cores in these ships are already under substantial stress during normal operating conditions. If the core were ever to explode, the shockwave would travel into the central power well, the sudden rise in pressure would shatter the containing structures, and the force of the explosion would rip through the apex and base of the ship above and below the well, as well as all decks intricately linked to the central hub. Portions of the blast would travel through the power distribution blocks connected to the core, including those feeding the server farm on deck five; the blocks would explode, tearing into the servers and shutting down the AI core. Essentially leaving the ship an empty, powerless husk.”

“Wait, I thought the power distribution blocks received power wirelessly?” Jain said as he pulled up the pyramid blueprints.

“Most do,” Xander said. “But if you refer back to the blueprints, you’ll realize that those powering the server farm do not. They can’t recharge fast enough to keep up with the power requirements of the AI core, so they have a direct line to the main reactor.”

Jain nodded. “I see it.”

“Now, according to the blueprints,” Xander said, “when linked, the combined power well acts as one big, central hub, reaching through all ships. If the defenders could detonate the reactor core of the ship located at the dead center of the Centrifuge, the resultant explosion would extend into each of the connected wells, successively detonating the main reactors of each ship in turn, resulting in a chain reaction that would destroy every member of the Centrifuge, reducing them all to lifeless shells.”

“Now that’s something we can work with,” Jain said. “Everything has a setback… by connecting themselves like that, not only do they become a super powerful weapon, they also put themselves in serious jeopardy.”

Xander nodded. “It won’t be easy to get to that central ship, of course: you better believe the aliens will be protecting it with everything they have.”

Jain resisted the urge to thrum his fingers again. He pulled up the translated tactical manual that referenced the Centrifuge formation, and studied the image it contained of the combined pyramids.

“How sure are you about this?” Jain said.

“There are examples in the alien database of reactor cores exploding in the past,” Xander said. “And the consequences are as I described.”

“For a single vessel…” Jain said.

“Correct,” Xander said.

“So a ship has never exploded while part of the Centrifuge before,” Jain said.

Xander shrugged in agreement.

“So you could be wrong,” Jain told him.

The Accomp smiled slightly, as if that was an absurd notion, but then the smile faded. “Yes. I could be.”

Jain studied the formation a final moment, then closed the manual. “All right. Well. Record message.”

“Recording,” Xander said.

Jain identified himself, and then explained the Mimic plan, along with Xander’s suggestion of shielding the hotspot of the Yellowstone Caldera. He also included a diagram of the Centrifuge formation, and described the prospective Achilles heel, highlighting the location of the reactor core in the center ship.

“While combined like this, they expose themselves to a serious vulnerability, giving us the potential to win this battle, and the war,” Jain said. “We destroy this reactor, we destroy the entire fleet.” He glanced at Xander. “End message.”

“Message is recorded,” Xander said.

“Transfer the message to the stealth skirmisher, and set it to transmit thirty seconds from now,” Jain said. “I want the skirmisher to travel along a diagonal course, away from my ship, so it looks like I didn’t launch it.”

Jain had considered launching the skirmisher toward another vessel, to make it look like that vessel had sent the comm signal, but he decided that was an unnecessary risk: the ship in question might destroy the skirmisher the instant the transmission was detected, preventing it from ever reaching Earth. By launching it behind the fleet, in their wake, at least he gave the skirmisher the chance to finish its broadcast.

“Ready,” Xander said.

“Launch,” Jain ordered.

He reverted to normal time and watched the stealth skirmisher eject from the bay. It didn’t appear on his tactical map, of course, since it wasn’t transmitting any identifying gamma rays.

Thirty seconds later Jain received the expected human-protocol signal.

Three vessels in the battle group immediately left formation and jerked toward the signal source. They fired their lightning weapons at the same time.

“The message was cut off,” Xander said.

“At what point?” Jain asked.

“The part where you were describing the Achilles heel of the Centrifuge,” Xander replied.

“Well, the important part got out,” Jain said. “We can share the Achilles heel later.” He watched as the three ships returned to formation. “Well, that was overkill on their part.”

“Apparently they believed the signal source came from a Mimic ship in disguise,” Xander said.

“Yeah, well, now they know that wasn’t the case,” Jain said.

“There is a traitor in our midst,” 46 transmitted a moment later. “All units, keep watch.”

Jain still had 46 muted of course. He intended to keep the mute active, at least until he was directly addressed.

Black holes, barracudas, lasers, and missiles continued to come in; cloaked ships and teleporters still appeared, though with much less frequency. The aliens kept up their barrage of Terriers and skirmishers. So far, Jain had seen no sign that the defenders had received his message.

“Are you detecting any mobilization on the Earth’s surface around the Yellowstone hotspot?” Jain asked.

“Possible, but it’s hard to say,” Xander said. “There is some elevated air traffic from nearby cities. It could be military aircraft en route to deliver the shield technology in question. I’ll know for sure in another few minutes.”

As the members of the alien battle group began breaching the six thousand kilometers mark from the defending vessels, they began to unleash their lightning weapons.

The Mind Refurb vessels were in a high orbit, which allowed them to space themselves relatively far apart, though a quarter of the vessels were still within four thousand kilometers of the next craft. As such, lightning still arced between some ships. However, the defenders had been careful to choose which ships overlapped within arcing range like that—most were equipped with force fields like Sheila’s Wheelbarrow, and some even had the shield-capable drones of Gavin’s Hippogriff, which, when combined with the force field, prevented the lightning bolts from arcing from the target ship at all, let alone causing it any damage.

“It’s time to strike,” Jain said. “Drop us out of the attack formation, and prepare to fire.”

On the tactical display, the Devastator swooped down, leaving the general attack plane. He wanted to put some distance from himself and the aliens, to prevent them from ganging up on him. He planned to engage in a series of guerrilla-style attacks from the flank.

“529, sit-rep?” 46 asked over the alien comm line.

Jain unmuted the line. “Taken some damage to my inertialess drives.” He glanced at Xander.

The alien ships shared their damage status to one another in realtime. Xander had found a way to fake that, and he promptly simulated the necessary problems.

“Return to formation as soon as possible,” 46 said. “We’ll be initiating the Centrifuge after the second pass.”

“Understood.” Jain muted the line again.

Jain started to turn back in, heading toward the right flank of his battle group, when he felt a sudden incredible pain in his upper chest. He actually staggered in place, and felt vibrations running down his spine to his feet. The vibrations faded, but the pain remained, and he quickly dismissed the appropriate pain sensors.

He realized his engines were offline.

“Xander, what the hell was that?” Jain said.

“A cloaked Mind Refurb vessel has struck the top portion of the Devastator, and has sheared decks eight through eleven clean off,” Xander said. “The loss of pressure caused damaged to the main reactor core on deck three, but blowback from the impact, in the form of a compression shockwave, apparently traveled down the central power well first, causing additional damage. Power output has dropped to ten percent. Our drives and weapons are offline.”

“Damn it!” Jain said.

31

Jain switched to his external camera equivalents, and saw the cloaked ship out there. It looked like it could have been Medeia. It was already vanishing, no doubt heading for the next target.

The tactical display was still active. He was worried another Mind Refurb would be coming in to finish him off, but the defenders paid him no attention whatsoever. Why would they? His was a damaged vessel on the fringes of the battle, something that could be attended to later when the situation improved. If it improved.

He noted that the defenders were drawing inward; those gathered in polar orbits moved to meet the Mimic war fleet, which had already reversed course to make its second pass. The defenders on the opposite were doing the same with the Mimic battle group on that side.

He returned his attention to his damage report screen. “I thought the drives were supposed to remain online after a hit like this?” He wanted to get back in the battle as soon as possible.

“It depends on how much damage the reactor core sustains after impact,” Xander said. “In our case, it was too great. We’re only producing ten percent of our usual power. The server farm is using it all.”

Jain crossed his arms. “Can we divert some of that power to the engines instead?”

“No,” Xander said. “Ten percent is barely enough to keep the AI core running. Already I’ve had to shut down half of the cloud database to keep us online. Non-essential memory areas. We’ll need at least twenty percent power output to even think about turning on the inertialess drives, and that to operate them at their slowest speed.”

“That’s all we need,” Jain said. “Get the termites down there. I want our power output at twenty percent ASAP.”

“Termites already dispatched,” Xander said.

“We still have comms, correct?” Jain said.

“Correct,” Xander said. “The comm array on decks one and two have a separate reactor core.”

Jain nodded. He noted that although he still had comms, 46 hadn’t bothered to ask his sit-rep this time. It was fairly obvious to an outside observer that Jain was out of the battle.

He couldn’t help but smile. 46 was going to be pretty angry by what Jain was about to do next.

“Xander, activate human comm protocol emulation layer,” Jain said. “Send out the proper handshake and ID necessary to join the Void Warrior comm line.”

“That will only work if they haven’t changed the encryption on the shared channel,” Xander said.

“They haven’t,” Jain said. At least, he hoped they wouldn’t. One of them would keep the original channel open, he was certain of it.

“All right, but you realize the Mimics will detect the signal, and know you’re communicating with humanity...” Xander said.

“I do,” Jain said.

“Would you prefer to record a message, and launch the final stealth skirmisher instead?”

“No,” Jain said. “Because we’re so far away from the main battle group, it’ll be obvious to the Mimics that we were the ones who launched it. So it won’t make a difference. And since I’m out of the battle anyway, I’d rather go full duplex this time, so I can make sure there are no misunderstandings.”

“All right,” Xander said. “I tried to convince you...”

A moment later Sheila appeared on the virtual bridge. She looked up in shock.

“Jain!” she said. She left her seat entirely, and ran across the deck to embrace him.

He pulled back. “It’s nice to see you, too, but—”

“Sorry,” she said quickly, and extricated herself entirely. “I thought you were dead.” That last sentence included a timebase sync, the maximum acceleration available to Mind Refurbs, which Xander automatically applied, and external reality ground to a halt. Because of their range, there would now be some lag between their communications—the speed of light was only so fast, after all, and when you slowed down time, you began to hit up against that limit, especially given the bandwidth and range overhead of the underlying comm protocol.

“Glad to refute that,” Jain said.

“We were going to restore you from a backup and reinstate your copy in the Talos, but I wouldn’t let the others do it,” Sheila said.

“Why?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Something stopped me. I guess a small part of me still hoped that you’d return. I’m glad I waited. I can imagine how pissed you’d be right now if you found out that we’d activated one of your copies and that two of you were running around.”

Jain shrugged. “I probably wouldn’t be that mad, to be honest, considering the circumstances.”

She seemed to notice the holographic pyramid that floated in front of him for the first time. She gave it a wary look.

“That’s my CO,” Jain said. “Don’t worry, he can’t hear us at the moment. Where’s everyone else?”

“They switched to a new encryption channel as per Santana’s orders,” Sheila said after a few seconds of lag. The wary look remained on her face, as if she suddenly didn’t trust him. “I was the only one who kept the old channel open.”

“I thought it would be you...” Jain said. “So we still have Santana as a boss, do we?”

Sheila nodded.

“How about sending along the access codes I’ll need for the new encryption channel?” Jain asked.

“I can’t,” Sheila said. “I’m sorry. In case this is an alien trick. You know they can mimic our holograms. They certainly had enough data captures on you from our past conversations.”

“That’s fine,” Jain said. “But you do understand that I’m the one who gave the warning about Yellowstone, right?”

Jain had sent that on an open, unencrypted band, so that all of the Mind Refurbs and anyone listening on Earth would have been able to intercept it.

“Yes,” Sheila said. “We’re preparing the force fields, like you suggested. But we still don’t know if that’s not some kind of trick, too.”

Jain resisted the urge to throw up his arms. “I’m not sure how to prove it to you. I could tell you something that only you and I know. Like the fact you fragged a commanding officer back in your human days.”

Sheila shook her head. “If the aliens disassembled your AI core, they could have downloaded all that knowledge. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Okay, well, consider this,” Jain said. “The aliens sent three of their ships back to destroy the source of the signal. Come on, you can’t tell me you didn’t notice that.”

“We did,” Sheila said. “So there is that in your favor. It’s why we’re preparing the force fields in the first place. I just hope you’re not some Mimic whose been sent here to find out how much we know. That you weren’t trying to trick me into admitting that.”

“I wasn’t,” Jain said. “Believe me.” He glanced at Xander. “Can you confirm the humans are trying to raise force fields near the hotspot?”

“There is definitely an increase in air traffic to the region,” Xander said. “They’re trying.”

“Okay, good.” Jain returned his attention to Sheila.

“So you don’t trust me, now?” Sheila said.

“I was trying to figure out if I needed to drill the point home any harder,” Jain said. “I don’t. So now listen, very carefully. The Mimics destroyed my skirmisher before it could finish broadcasting the complete message. You didn’t get the part about the Achilles heel.”

“The Achilles heel?” she asked.

Jain explained it.

Sheila pursed her lips. It was obvious from her expression that she didn’t fully believe him. “That sounds almost too easy.”

“Actually, it won’t be,” Jain said. “You’ll have a hard time reaching the central ship, let alone breaching its AI core. Even if you get some cloaked ships through—you know, the ones like Medeia’s Arcane with the sword extensions—they won’t be able to penetrate deep enough inside.”

“We might have to send two cloaked ships in rapid succession or something,” Sheila said. “Assuming the fleet admiral believes this. I’m not sure I do. Why would they risk such a maneuver if there was such a serious vulnerability involved? It makes me think there is no vulnerability.”

“Everything has a vulnerability,” Jain said. “Everything.”

“Well, you certainly talk like the real Jain Sagan,” Sheila said. She sighed. “All right, I’ll relay this to the rest of the fleet. Or to the Void Warriors, and Santana, at least.”

“Who’s in command of the Void Warriors anyway?” Jain asked.

“Gavin,” Sheila replied. “Santana assigned him, because going by seniority in grade from the time we were humans, Gavin became lieutenant commander first.”

“How’s Gavin doing?” Jain said.

Sheila shrugged noncommittally. “Good. He’s obeying his orders.”

Jain nodded. Like a good little solider. “That’s all we could ask.” He read between the lines: Gavin probably wouldn’t let Sheila or the others attempt anything that Santana didn’t approve of. Like staging a coordinated attack on the central vessel of the Centrifuge.

“529, what are you doing?” 46 intoned over the alien comm line. The holographic pyramid changed shape with each word.

Sheila shot a nervous glance at that hologram.

“Keep quiet,” Jain told her, then he unmuted his alien CO. “I’m, uh, sowing discord among the human units. Spreading lies.”

Sheila’s expression darkened.

He mouthed to her: “No!”

“You will cease communications immediately,” 46 said. “Or you will be destroyed.”

Jain hesitated. Then: “All right.” Jain muted the pyramid and told Sheila: “Sorry, gotta go. I figure, if there’s a chance I can preserve my cover, I might as well go along with the CO for the time being.”

“I understand,” Sheila said. “I’ll share the so-called Achilles heel with Captain Santana, as promised. I’m not sure what he’ll make of it, though. I can’t guarantee he’ll pass it on to Fleet Admiral Gauss. Good luck.”

“You too,” Jain said.

She vanished from the bridge and he shut down his comm device.

“You will submit to a full AI core review when this battle is over,” 46 said a moment later.

Jain ignored the comment and returned his time sense to normal.

As he drifted away, in an orbit that would bring him close to the North Pole, Jain watched as the Mimics in both battle groups made two passes, disabling as many of the Mind Refurb ships as they could. They destroyed all the defense platforms in orbit, which were essentially powerful plasma guns. Earth-to-space defenses launched powerful lasers from the surface of the planet, and several pyramids separated from the twin battle groups and razed them with their lightning weapons. Some of those Mimics were themselves destroyed shortly thereafter by cloaked units and teleporters.

When both offensive passes were complete, and the Mind Refurb forces were thoroughly scattered and their ranks reduced, the alien ships from both hemispheres gathered above the western side of North America. The human vessels continued to harry them along the way.

“Any update on the force field?” Jain asked.

“There are no indications that the field is online yet, no,” Xander replied. “But air traffic continues to dominate in the region. Many aircraft have already landed, so I assume we’ll see something shortly.”

Eventually the alien vessels gathered in orbit roughly above Wyoming and began to link: the pyramids combined in pairs, base to base, and then joined their tips together, creating a long line of ships that resembled a string of beads to Jain. The Centrifuge pattern.

The Mind Refurbs continued to assault them the entire way, no doubt trying to buy time for the humans to set up the force field below, now that everything Jain said had been essentially confirmed. Some Mind Refurb vessels, mostly the teleporters and cloakers, were able to get close enough to disable a pyramid ship before being taken down themselves. If a pyramid was irrevocably damaged after joining the formation, the others around them would simply eject the failed link; the partner in the ruined pair would exit, allowing the others to recombine, and it would wait until another ship became available to pair with, at which point the pyramid would join with the new arrival and relink with the Centrifuge at the far flank.

When the aliens completed their formation, the remaining cloakers began trying to strike at the Achilles heel of that formation, as transmitted by Jain; although some of the cloaked vessels were able to drive deep within the hull of the central ship, they never succeeded in reaching the main reactor, just as Jain had predicted—it was simply buried too deep inside the heavily armored hull. At least Fleet Admiral Gauss had believed Jain, though. No doubt Sheila had something to do with that.

The space navy was quickly running out of capable attackers—most of the teleporters and cloakers were destroyed. Every ordinary ship that was sent toward the Centrifuge was essentially on a suicide mission. The vessels weaved between the blobs launched by the aliens, and were struck by hundreds of boarding party units; whenever the Mind Refurbs reached the six thousand kilometer mark, they were invariably disabled by a lightning weapon—the individual vessels in the Centrifuge were still able to use lightning while in formation, but by doing so they delayed the firing of the super-powerful version of that weapon, because all the wells had to be fully charged and in sync to unleash it. Which was precisely why the Mind Refurbs were sacrificing themselves in the first place: to buy ever more time for the humans to set up the force field on the surface below.

The fleet admiral had Jain to thank for that particular tidbit of knowledge, but it wasn’t going to be enough, given how many ships the defenders were losing. It was of paramount importance that they activate the planet-side field. Immediately.

“I’m detecting energy signatures coming from the surface,” Xander said. “I believe the humans have raised force fields above the Yellowstone, Long Valley and Valles calderas. The biggest signature is coming from Yellowstone.”

“Finally,” Jain said, slumping slightly. “They did it. I didn’t think they would. All right, that buys us some time, at least.”

Four Mimic ships suddenly separated from the flanks of the Centrifuge formation and approached Earth.

Jain frowned. “What the hell—”

The Mind Refurbs sent four vessels to intercept them; two of them launched black holes, while the others released energy bolts. The Mimics avoided the blasts, and launched blobs in rapid success, impacting the vessels and taking them out.

The Mimics reached their desired orbital altitude and fired their lightning weapons at the surface.

“Did you catch the impact site?” Jain asked Xander.

“They fired at the Yellowstone hotspot,” Xander replied.

“Probably trying to take out the shield generators,” Jain commented. “I wish them luck with that, considering the generators are located inside the force fields.”

“Yes,” Xander said.

“So how did the shields do?” Jain asked.

Xander glanced at him. “I detected a momentary spike in the energy signatures, which tells me the force fields absorbed and dissipated the energy. They’re holding up.”

On the tactical display, fresh dots began to appear, emanating from the pyramids.

“What is that...” Jain switched to the appropriate rear-facing external camera equivalent and zoomed in. “It looks like they’re ejecting some kind of... pods. I’ve never seen anything like them before.”

On the tactical display, more dots began to appear from random vessels still in formation, emerging from roughly every one in five alien ships.

“According to the alien database...” Xander said.

“Yes?” Jain said impatiently. When Xander didn’t answer, he ran a search on the database himself.

“They match up with bio containment pods,” Xander finished. “They contain their version of bioweapons. Developed inside the spherical ‘Incubation’ vessels we witnessed while in their hive system.”

“And let me guess,” Jain said distractedly, “the destination is Yellowstone Caldera?”

“Correct,” Xander said.

“None of the pods are headed toward the other calderas?” Jain pressed.

“No,” Xander told him. “The enemy is concentrating its forces on Yellowstone. They intend to fire here.”

Jain switched to the external camera equivalent on his base, and used the telescoping lens to zoom in. There were no clouds, so he had a good view of the landing site.

He watched as the pods impacted a forested area and bioweapons broke free, trampling through the trees. They were like crazed dinosaur-elephant-insect hybrids. The heads resembled that of huge rhino beetles, sickening, pincer-like affairs with thick curving horns protruding from the maw, the bottommost covered in stinging tentacles that hung down almost like dreadlocks.

The bodies were elephantine, four-legged, and covered in spikes. They carried double-barreled cannons on their necks, the forward-facing muzzles drooping down on either side of their heads. A few of them opened fire with those cannons at the robotic security forces that had arrived to intercept them, revealing the cannons to be plasma weapons,

Their feet looked like the stilt roots of mangrove trees protruding from a swamp, with multiple toes pressing into the ground. Those toes could elongate at will, wrapping around and grabbing targets, either crushing them or tossing them aside.

When enemy units got too close, the bioweapons, which he mentally termed Rhinos, could launch the spikes on their backs at will, and the weapons traveled in an expanding dome pattern that hit any air and land craft around it alike. The spikes promptly regenerated, bursting forth as if a new ammo clip had been slotted into placed somewhere inside the body.

The stinging tentacles also shot out in between plasma blasts, finishing off the robots that had taken only glancing blows in the first strikes.

Some of those pods released not only bioweapons, but specialized digger robots: apparently the Mimics were familiar with the technology used in the human force fields, and knew it was possible to dig underneath where the shields met the ground, and thus circumvent the protection. The mechanical diggers planted themselves just in front of the perimeter of the combined shields, and deployed their drills. Meanwhile the Rhinos assumed defensive formations around the Diggers. They used natural features of the terrain for cover, including depressions and trees.

Jets flew past, dropping bombs. The Rhinos unleashed their plasma cannons skyward, detonating all of the bombs in mid-flight. The impacts caused several shock waves to expand outward over the ground below, but neither the Rhinos nor Diggers were affected. The shields flashed slightly, absorbing the energy, but otherwise remained online.

The next group of bombers tried to fly lower. But as they approached, the Rhinos once more fired their plasma cannons skyward, this time targeting the bombers themselves, and took them out well before they could reach the target.

They returned their attention to the robots on the ground, which continued their assault, firing from behind the cover of pine trees and natural embankments.

“You notice how the Rhinos are compatible with our environment?” Jain said.

“Yes,” Xander said. “The aliens took notes when they assaulted the previous colonies. They designed these entities with the particular qualities of our atmosphere in mind. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was DNA from different Earth species involved. Some of those colonies had extensive gene banks the aliens could have raided.”

As Jain continued to watch the Earth-side battle unfold, he couldn’t shake the feeling of helplessness that took hold inside him.

“We have to get down there,” Jain said.

“How?” Xander said. “Our drives are still offline. And neither skirmishers nor Terriers are designed for atmospheric entry. Not that we could hitch a ride on the latter.”

“Pipe me in to Sheila,” Jain said. “Set the timebase sync to her maximum possible.”

32

While Jain waited for Sheila to appear, he glanced at his tactical display. The Mind Refurb fleet was essentially in a holding pattern, keeping their distance from the enemy formation for the time being while they waited to see how the battle below played out. Apparently they had grown weary of throwing away their units.

A full minute had passed since the last member ship in the Centrifuge formation had fired its lightning weapon, which meant the shared power well of the Mimic fleet was fully charged and ready to deal the death blow to humanity. However, they held back: the aliens, too, were watching and waiting.

Movement drew his attention to Sheila’s station, where she had reappeared on the virtual bridge. He was relieved that she was still in the battle.

His timebase accelerated to match the sync header that Xander had included with the request so that external reality slowed down. The viewer containing the Yellowstone Caldera battle froze, as did the tactical display.

Sheila cast a wary glance toward the pyramid that floated in front of him.

“It’s muted,” Jain said.

“Somehow, that’s not very reassuring,” Sheila said.

“I want you to give me access to the riflemen,” Jain said without preamble. That was the name he had given to the human-sized combat robots she had constructed, which were stowed aboard the Talos.

Sheila shook her head. “I can’t do that.”

“You can,” Jain said. “Listen, I have to do something while I wait for my reactor to repair, or I’m going to go crazy. I’ve got one of the most powerful AI cores out of all of us. Put me to use! Don’t let me sit idle.”

“I—” She hesitated.

“Come with me if you want,” Jain said quickly. “You and the other Void Warriors. Babysit me. You’re not doing much right now anyway, I assume? Last I checked, you and the surviving members of the fleet were in a holding pattern. Your Accomps can take over the operation of your starships for a while. Let the Void Warriors fight together one last time before the end.”

She hesitated. Finally: “I’ll talk to the others.”

She vanished.

Jain kept his time sense at the same setting. He stared at the feed from the Yellowstone caldera and zoomed out slightly, trying to get a better idea of the overall battle space. Taking down those Diggers was the obvious strategy. The problem was getting close enough to actually do it, considering how well protected they were by the Rhinos.

Sheila reappeared. “We’re going to do it. I’ve got tentative approval from Santana. He’s going to cover for us if the fleet admiral asks any questions.”

“Well, that was nice of him, I suppose,” Jain said.

Jain received a share request.

Sheila wants to give you access to Rifleman A and Rifleman B. Do you accept? (Y/N)

Jain accepted.

“See you down there,” Sheila said, and vanished.

Jain glanced at his Accomp. “Xander, how bad is the lag going to be once we’re planet side?”

“About two seconds,” Xander said. “I’d recommend deploying the spare stealth skirmisher in low orbit, just above the Kármán line.” That was the area just before atmospheric entry began, in Earth’s lower thermosphere.

“Do it,” Jain said.

Jain switched to normal time and watched the skirmisher deploy. It decelerated rapidly, traveling down toward the Kármán line above Earth’s dome. He didn’t activate the stealth settings: the constant stream of transmissions would give away its position anyway. He’d just have to hope it wasn’t shot down by either side while he was down there.

“I’ve detected a shuttle launch from the Talos,” Xander said.

“There’s our ride,” Jain said. “How are we doing for lag?”

“Currently one second and falling as the skirmisher converges with the target,” Xander said. “It should be under ten milliseconds when the transport begins atmospheric entry.”

Jain waited impatiently. He could transfer his consciousness now, but the lag would be… uncomfortable. When he shifted his eyes, or his head, or moved his lips to talk, he expected his body to respond immediately, not one second later.

He observed the transport via one of his external camera equivalents. Finally the craft converged with Earth’s dome, and a yellow ball of flame formed around it.

The holographic pyramid in front of him suddenly shifted.

“You will be destroyed,” 46 said coldly, and the line cut out.

“I was wondering when he’d notice our little subversive communiqué…” Jain said. The tactical display blinked beside him. “What just happened?”

“We just lost our data link with the rest of the Mimic fleet,” Xander said. “We’re relying on internal sensors to calculate the positions of every other unit on the battle space now.”

“Oh.” Jain studied the display. “Well, assuming this is right, we’ve drifted too far away for destruction at the hands of the Mimic fleet to be a concern at the moment.”

“We’ve been marked for future destruction, undoubtedly,” Xander said.

“Not going to worry about it right now,” Jain said.

“By the way, lag is under ten milliseconds,” Xander said.

“All right,” Jain said. He felt his heart beating faster, an illusion of the VR environment to simulate the excitement he was feeling.

And the dread.

Gotta love virtual adrenalin.

“Activate full consciousness sharing with Rifleman A,” Jain finished.

The bridge darkened, and Jain floated in darkness.

The sweet oblivion before battle.

He didn’t relish it. A similar oblivion likely awaited him upon death. One that he could never wake from.

Will I survive today? Will humanity?

Before he could come up with an answer to that question, reality returned. It wasn’t virtual this time.

He resided in a shuttle cabin. Fully upright, he was clamped into a metallic alcove whose sides intruded upon his peripheral vision. Across from him he could see two other alcoves. They contained other riflemen: humanoid robots with multiple antennae on their square-shaped heads. Their wrists were surrounded by large rectangles that reached to their elbow servos: those were heavy plasma guns, known as Hammer PT-51s. They were currently in the retracted position; when deployed, the Hammers would envelope his hands and fingers, restricting use of the latter digits. The Hammers functioned as both rifles and pistols, complete with built-in scopes and laser targeting.

Because of the weapon types the robots were equipped with—Hammers—he had flirted with the idea of calling the robots “carpenters,” but in the end the team had voted on riflemen because they thought it sounded “cooler.”

Blue indicators above the riflemen in front of Jain labeled the one on the left Sheila, and the rightmost Gavin.

“Welcome back, boss!” Gavin said. The top part of his avatar appeared in the lower right of Jain’s HUD as he spoke.

“So you all decided to come…” Jain said.

“Of course,” Sheila said. “We weren’t going to give up our chance to fight at your side one last time.”

“It’ll be like old times,” Gavin agreed.

“Well, you’re more optimistic than I am about this mission,” Jain said.

Gavin’s avatar shrugged. “We’ve got spare bodies.”

“But the rest of humanity doesn’t,” Jain said. “If we fail…”

He leaned forward against his clamps slightly, and spotted Mark in the alcove just to the right of Gavin. On the far left, in the pod next to Sheila, the unit there was labelled Rifleman C.

Mark was uncharacteristically silent; Jain glanced at his HUD, and realized the status indicators for Cranston and Medeia were missing.

He glanced at Sheila and said, over a private line: “Cranston and Medeia?”

“Didn’t make it,” Sheila replied. “Very few cloakers and teleporters did, unfortunately.”

Jain was saddened to hear that.

Jain studied Mark again. The robot had a featureless face, of course, but Jain had no doubt that Mark was seething inside over the loss of Medeia. Whether that anger was directed at the admiral of the space fleet, or the aliens, Jain didn’t know.

He decided it was time to clarify a few things.

He opened a private line with Mark. “I don’t want you to do anything foolish out there.”

“Don’t intend to.” Mark’s avatar wore a dark look. “I’m only here to kill some aliens.”

“Good,” Jain said. “Because that’s what we’re going to do.”

“Wooyah,” Mark said blankly.

Jain sighed. He amped up his time sense, and transmitted a timebase sync with his next communique to Mark, so he would match. “Look, we’re going to get her back. When this is through, we’re going to repair her ship and restore her from her latest backup. Cranston, too.”

“That’s not the same thing as actually getting her back,” Mark said. “You know that. The Medeia we all know is dead.”

“Yes, but none of us will know the difference once we restore her,” Jain said. “It’ll be like she never left. Hell, she won’t know the difference.”

“But the real Medeia will,” Mark said. “The one whose ship lies in fragments out there.” He sighed, and his avatar shook its head. “Maybe we should leave the dead alone. Maybe this whole reviving crap should. It goes against nature. It’s… unnatural.”

Jain studied his avatar. “That’s a dangerous road to take. Because you were restored from a backup yourself. If you believe that, then you believe you yourself are unnatural. I remember reading a few years back about a Mind Refurb called Manticore. He was part of the legendary Bolt Eaters.” That was a group of Mind Refurbs who had single-handedly repelled the Second Invasion. “Manticore hated what he had become, and wanted to destroy all Mind Refurbs, including himself. It was this hatred that drove him to partner with the Banthar in their invasion of Earth. Don’t be like Manticore.”

Mark gave Jain a defiant look, then his expression softened. “I won’t. I just need to kill some aliens. Then I’ll feel better.”

“We all will, I’m sure,” Jain said, and he returned his time sense to normal.

The cabin jerked suddenly.

“Gotta love atmospheres,” Gavin said. “Turbulence.”

“That wasn’t turbulence,” Sheila said. “The bioweapons shoot at everything that passes overhead. Those were some evasive maneuvers on the part of the AI.”

Again the cabin jerked, roughly. Jain glanced at his overhead map, which indicated the transport as a yellow dot above the terrain around the Yellowstone hotspot. He realized the craft had dived low, and was hugging the treetops for its final approach to avoid being further targeted.

“I call them Rhinos by the way,” Jain said. “The bioweapons. And the machines: Diggers.”

“Creative,” Gavin mocked.

“Yeah, what do you want to call them?” Jain asked.

“Oh no,” Gavin said. “Rhinos and Diggers is fine by me.” His avatar tried hard to keep a straight face, and then snickered. “Rhinos!”

Jain frowned, and dismissed that annoying avatar.

Ahead, the overhead map indicated a clearing in the forest ahead, adjacent to the force field perimeter. The vessel touched down just inside the forest rim.

The clamps retracted. The ramp lowered.

Jain stepped forward, and deployed the Hammers in both hands.

Locked and loaded.

“Secure the perimeter,” Jain ordered. He glanced at Sheila. “Stay here with me.”

The other riflemen, manned and unmanned, dashed down the ramp and enveloped the transport in a cigar formation.

“Clear!” Gavin said.

Jain glanced at Sheila. “Let’s go.”

The two of them hurried down the ramp. He joined Gavin near the front of the transport.

Fifty meters ahead and to the left, Claw artillery units, basically big tanks controlled by Mind Refurbs, resided inside the tree line. The pines behind them had been trampled, indicating the path the Claws had taken to reach that particular vantage point. The soil was chewed up by their treads.

He signaled the Void Warriors to approach and ordered his Direct Report, Rifleman B, to mirror him.

As he neared the long line of Claw units, which squatted smack-dab against the tree line, he could see the clearing beyond. Judging from the fallen trunks, that clearing had been formed by the plasma and laser fire exchanged by both sides.

As Jain neared the tanks, he could see the targets the Claws were whaling on: various mounds and fallen pines near the perimeter of the force field, which the aliens sheltered behind.

Jain kept moving, dashing from tree to tree, not wanting to be exposed for too long.

Combat robots flanked each Claw unit. Trafalgar models, manned by Mind Refurbs. Some of them fired out past the tree line, while the others watched the flanks. The closest nodded as Jain approached.

But before he arrived, plasma bolts abruptly slammed into the artillery units, sourced from the opposite side of his position, within the forest. Those bolts fired in rapid succession, eating through each Claw in turn.

Jain ducked for cover behind a tree, as did the other Void Warriors. He leaned past the edge, and spotted a group of Rhinos: they had secretly penetrated the tree line and approached from the far flank to pummel the units.

Some of the tanks managed to return fire at their surprise attackers, as did the Trafalgars entrenched with them, but in seconds, all fifteen tanks had been taken offline. Only two Rhinos went down, as far as Jain could tell.

“Why the hell are we hiding behind trees?” Gavin said. “We may as well be hiding behind paper for all the protection it offers!”

“Because even paper can shield you from the eyes of the aliens,” Mark said.

“You want to hide behind the tanks instead?” Sheila told Gavin. “You saw how well their armor held up to those plasmas.”

The Trafalgar units had all taken cover in the forest as well, some behind trees, others within depressions in the ground, and they were firing at the Rhinos, who were retreating into the forest now that their task was done.

That retreat didn’t make sense from a strategic point of view, since the aliens could have easily rushed forward and overwhelmed the Trafalgars. And the Void Warriors.

But then when low-flying bombers roared past overhead and let loose a bunch of bombs, igniting the forest, Jain understood: being inside the forest wasn’t the best place to take down support aircraft, considering the difficulty of targeting incoming jets or bombs with all those trees in the way.

That was good, because it meant Jain and the others wouldn’t be pinned.

An incoming fireball overwhelmed his position, and Jain ducked lower.

He heard more explosions coming from the direction of the clearing, and as the fireball evanesced, he realized the jets were crashing into the force field and disintegrating.

“The Rhinos in the clearing managed to get in some shots,” Gavin commented. “Taking down the bombers after they released their payload.”

“That’s too bad,” Sheila said.

Clumps of dirt and alien body parts fell from the air from the closer explosions; a cloud of floating dust cloaked the area, but his robot vision allowed him to see through it well enough. Several craters marred the forest where the alien attackers had hidden. Mangled bodies, barely recognizable as Rhinos, were sprawled among the fallen trees surrounding those craters. The pines that were still standing next to the Void Warriors were on fire.

“They dropped those bombs a bit close for comfort,” Sheila said.

“Hey, they know we’re robots,” Gavin said. “They know we can take it.”

“I like it,” Mark commented. “I especially like what it did to the aliens.”

As the dust cleared, Jain cast his gaze toward the clearing beyond the tree line, and said: “It’s time to destroy those Diggers.”

33

The Trafalgar robots who had taken cover behind the flaming trees and tank wreckages had also survived the bombs. Jain sent a transmission to one of them.

“I’m Jain Sagan, commander of the Void Warriors,” he said. “Who is in command here?”

“That’d be me.” An avatar appeared in Jain’s lower right: a bearded man wearing glasses and a camo cap. His transmission corresponded with a Trafalgar hiding behind a ruined Claw. “I’m Commander Ricks of the Dark Horses.”

“What say we team up to kick some alien ass?” Jain said.

“I was about to suggest the same thing,” Ricks said.

“All right,” Jain said. “There are four enemy Diggers out there, spaced out at four different locations next to the force field, protected by a sizable number of bioweapons each. I’m labeling them E1, E2, E3, and E4. I want your Dark Horses to come in from the far right flank, fire and maneuver style, toward E4, then E3. Meanwhile we’ll come in from the far left. We’ll work our way inward, taking down the bioweapons and Diggers first in E1, and then E2.”

“What happens if the Diggers get inside the force field?” Sheila asked.

“Then we follow them and their Rhino entourage inside,” Jain said. “They’ll probably spread out to take on the tanks and mechs waiting within, using the trees for cover. We’ll follow them, attack from behind if we can. Otherwise, we’ll regroup in front of the force field generators and help against the final attack.”

“We go in there, we lose air and artillery support,” Ricks said. “Not that it’s helping out all that much at the moment.”

Several shells arced overhead from artillery that had set up on a hill beyond the horizon. The Rhinos promptly unleashed a rapid stream of plasma bolts, hitting the incoming shells; the bombs exploded in midair, proving Ricks’ point.

Jain and the others didn’t bother to duck as the shock waves reverberated off of their robot bodies. The flames on the trees around them flickered, threatening to go out, but as the air rushed back inside, the burning resumed.

“You have contact with the support teams I assume?” Jain asked.

“I do,” Ricks replied.

“Good,” Jain said. “We’ll coordinate with them to stage a distraction when the time is right. Now move out!”

The Dark Horses sprinted away to the right, staying underneath the cover of the tree line.

“Void Warriors, with me!” Jain led the Void Warriors away to the west.

He slowed down time and upped his servomotor output; to human eyes he and the Void Warriors would have looked like blurs as they weaved around the wreckage of the tanks, the torn up bodies of the Rhinos, and past the blast craters. They stayed underneath the eaves of the forest, keeping an eye out for possible Rhinos hidden behind the trees. But there were none: the survivors of the air strike, if any, had fled.

Soon the blast craters were behind them and Jain and the others were able to move even faster. When they were aligned with the far left flank of the attackers, he called a halt.

They took cover behind different features of the landscape. Trees, depressions, boulders.

“Sheila, you and your Direct Report are with me,” Jain said. “We’re Fire Team A. Gavin, Mark, you and your direct reports form Fire Team B. The fallen trees will provide a lot of cover, but for those places that it doesn’t, we’ll use basic fire and maneuver. Fire Team A will follow this route.” He highlighted a path through the trees on the map. “Fire Team B, you’ll take this course.” He drew another route that ran parallel to his own, and indicated the expected points where suppressive fire would most likely be needed.

The two teams separated, and proceeded forward along the routes he had drawn. It was almost like he was a SEAL again. Except as lieutenant commander, he rarely participated as fully as he did now.

He made his way forward at a crouch, using the fallen trees to screen him from the Rhinos. The branches of the big pine trees protruded to a good height, providing ample cover. There were also the wreckages of combat robots and tanks, along with the mutilated bodies of Rhinos, marking where the aliens had staved off an earlier attack. Jain put everything to good use, cover-wise.

He reached a break in the cover, and peered past. He could see the Rhinos ducked behind an embankment, with fallen trees on either side providing extra cover. The Digger had created that embankment with soil from the hole it was drilling. Jain could see that soil being ejected from the ground somewhere behind the Rhinos, but he couldn’t see the actual Digger: it was already completely underground by then.

Some of the Rhinos were looking directly Jain’s way, with their plasma weapons ready to open fire. Even though he was moving with enhanced speed, he knew dodging those plasma weapons wasn’t going to be easy.

Which was why he had Fire Team B.

“Gavin, whenever you’re ready...” Jain said.

Fire Team B had moved into position behind the wreckage of a nearby tank, and they began opening fire. That drew the attention of the Rhinos immediately.

“Now!” Jain, Sheila, and the two Direct Reports fled across the open space toward the next fallen tree.

“This tree is useless against their plasmas!” Gavin transmitted. “It’s like paper, just as I said before!”

Jain reached the fallen tree and ducked behind it.

“We’re in place!” Jain said. “Issuing suppressive fire. Move, FT B!”

He leaned over the top and aimed between the thick branches, opening fire at the Rhinos with his Hammers.

The bioweapons immediately ducked behind their own cover, but a moment later incoming fire came in return at Jain and Fire Team A. The thick plasma bolts ate right through the branches and the bole of the tree itself. Gavin hadn’t been kidding: Jain and the others had to keep shifting to avoid the holes that were being punched through the trunk by the plasma weapons. They returned fire intermittently, until Gavin reported that Fire Team B was in place.

Then they crouched and made their way forward rapidly, letting the Rhinos continue to fire at their last known location. Jain continued to utilize the fallen trees and whatever other cover that was available, ducking behind boulders, and crawling through depressions to make sure he remained out of sight at all times.

They continued that fire and maneuver tactic of offering suppressive fire while the other team moved past an exposed position, until both fire teams were only twenty meters away from the defending site. They both hid behind the same fallen tree, which also had a boulder on the other side offering extra protection.

So far they hadn’t been detected, but when Jain peered past the left side of his cover, the stilted toes of the Rhino on the far left expanded, making straight for him. Before those branch-like toes could snatch him, Jain opened fire with his Hammers. His accelerated time sense and reflexes saved him, because he struck the tips just before they contacted him.

The stricken Rhino screamed and withdrew its toes, and Jain ducked as plasma fire from his brethren roared in. He and the others had to flatten themselves as the tree trunk above them had several holes poked into it.

Stinging tentacles shot out in-between plasma blasts, stabbing through the holes, searching for these robots who dared attack them on the other side. Jain rolled away as a tentacle nearly grabbed him, and when he landed on his back he opened fire with his Hammers and severed the tentacles. The other Void Warriors did the same.

“Ricks, now would be a good time to bring in some artillery fire,” Jain said. “One pass only, please. Unless you want them to destroy us, too.”

“Artillery fire coming in,” Ricks announced.

Shells keened through the air, arcing over the treetops at the edge of the clearing and toward the dug-in alien units.

The Rhinos swung their attention toward the incoming attacks and opened fire, exploding the bombs in midair.

“Take-down!” Jain ordered. He upped his time sense yet again, and squeezed the last bit of ampage he could out of his servos as he and the Void Warriors left their cover. They rushed past the edges of the tree to assault the Rhino position.

Jain unleashed his Hammers as he ran, as did the others. The weapons drilled into the sides of the Rhinos. Gory tissue exploded from the impact sites, leaving behind huge, bloody craters.

The bioweapons screamed, many falling, but some of them managed to turn their plasma weapons on the Void Warriors.

Jain and the others quickly targeted those Rhinos, and fired again, hitting them in the head. Chunks exploded from their pincer-shaped skulls.

As the bioweapons fell, they launched the spikes on their backs, spraying the Void Warriors with a final assault. Those spikes hit their brother Rhinos indiscriminately, and units behind them shrieked as they were hit.

Jain was able to dodge most of the spikes thanks to his accelerated time sense, but two hit: one stabbed deep into his chest, the other his thigh. He dimmed his pain sense and continued running.

The stricken Rhinos dropped, revealing the bioweapons behind them. But then several of the shells hit, thanks to the distraction the Void Warriors had caused, and the multiple explosions sent Jain and the others flying backward.

When the dust cleared, Jain ordered: “Fire at the dead. Let’s make sure none of them are hiding.”

He and the Void Warriors opened fire and ripped into those dead bodies. His weapons were beginning to overheat, so he stopped for the moment.

“Rifleman B, move forward,” Jain ordered.

The autonomous robot advanced, stepping over the dead bodies, and toward the Digger hole, from which dirt was still streaming.

A Rhino, playing dead, abruptly rolled to one side and unleashed hell on Rifleman B, tearing the robot apart with its tentacles.

Jain and the others opened fire, eliminating that Rhino.

“Damn it,” Jain said. “Stay back.”

“Wait, as CO, is that a good idea...” Sheila said.

Jain ignored her and moved forward, pausing every now and then to open fire at any Rhino that seemed suspicious. Finally he reached the hole. It was still spewing a stream of dirt.

He crouched and peered inside.

A corrugated tube with the breadth of a human leg was the source of the soil eruption, and it led away into the tunnel, which curved underneath the force field. On the far end he spotted the aft section of the Digger, where the tube connected. The Digger was just beginning to breach the surface on the other side.

Jain didn’t trust his Hammers to do justice to that machine body in time, so instead he removed his harness, which carried a slew of demolition charges, and swung it into the tunnel and at the robot. As it impacted, he ducked to the side and hit the detonate button.

The explosive blast erupted from the tunnel behind him and spewed a last round of dust and dirt into the air. Then all soil ceased discharging from the hole.

He peered inside. The Digger on the far side was reduced to so much rubble.

“Let’s go!” Jain said. “They’re almost through!”

He and the Void Warriors rushed forward, weaving between cover toward the next group of defending Rhinos, labeled E2 on the overhead map.

When E2 was in view, Jain called a halt. He zoomed in. He saw blast craters and alien body parts.

“Looks like a few of the artillery shells got through here, too,” Jain said.

“No thanks to our earlier attack,” Gavin said. “Distracting them.”

“The Digger should have been protected from the shells, though,” Jain said. “But there’s no dirt coming from the tunnel, at least as far as I can tell. Ricks, sit-rep?” He glanced at his overhead map. Ricks seemed to be storming the alien position on the far right.

“We just took down E4,” Ricks said. “Heading for E3.”

Jain and the others approached the site, and they released their Hammers judiciously at the corpses up ahead. Had to make sure they were dead, after all.

“The bioweapons are inside!” Ricks transmitted.

Jain glanced through the force field and saw Rhinos flooding inside where the Digger had penetrated at position E3 in the distance. The waiting tanks and mechs within opened fire; many Rhinos went down, but most simply dispersed among the trees, spreading out and vanishing.

“They’ll be heading toward the generators,” Jain said.

He hurried forward, intending to rendezvous at E3 with the Dark Horses, but then bioweapons playing dead ahead opened fire. Jain and the others dropped.

Dirt began to stream from the hole again, and all of a sudden a sinkhole opened in the ground inside the force field. The digger emerged, and the waiting tanks and mechs opened fire. The Digger pulled through, its drill melting under the impacts, and quickly drove behind a nearby boulder. Meanwhile, Rhinos that must have been waiting inside the tunnel began to emerge.

Those bioweapons that were firing at Jain and the others retreated, and jumped into the tunnel to emerge on the other side. Like those that had penetrated at E3, they dispersed before the waiting defenders could take them all down.

“Guess we’re entering here,” Jain commented, and he dove into the tunnel.

34

Jain emerged from the tunnel and inside the large region bounded by the force field. He rushed forward, weaving between the trees.

“Where are the generators?” Jain asked as he joined Ricks and the surviving members of Dark Horses.

“Just follow the plasma fire,” Ricks said.

Indeed, Jain could see flashes coming from up ahead, through the trees, where the defending mechs and tanks had retreated to protect the shield source.

The Void Warriors were right behind him as he emerged from the tree line into another clearing. Ahead, the Rhinos were assaulting the tanks and mechs, which were arranged in a ring-like pattern. At their center were the hundred shield generators—cube-shaped contraptions with rotating silver spheres on the top that emitted blue light in half-dome patterns. The generators squatted upon metal crates that had been hastily folded open to serve as a makeshift carpet.

Beyond the far side of the formation was the hotspot, which looked like a series of sinkholes and sulfur pools that stretched across the landscape. The Rhinos avoided assaulting from that particular direction: a few of the bioweapons had already made the mistake of doing so, and they struggled to pull themselves out of the different sinkholes with their expanding toes. They were quickly mowed down by the tanks.

There was no sign of the Diggers.

“Gavin, Mark, send your Direct Reports back,” Jain said. “Search the perimeter for those Diggers. Ensure they’re not trying to tunnel underneath the defenders to the generators.”

“Done,” Mark said.

“Fire at will,” Jain ordered.

The Void Warriors and members of Dark Horses unleashed their Hammers, assailing the Rhinos from behind, essentially catching them in a pincer maneuver between the tanks and mechs.

The alien bioweapons didn’t like that.

Those at the rear of the group continued to fire forward at the tanks and mechs, however their toes elongated, moving fast. Trafalgar units in front of Jain were scooped up and crushed before any of the Dark Horses could free them.

Jain amped up his time sense even further, and dodged two of those toes that were headed toward him. They missed, and withdrew. He grabbed onto one of them, letting it draw him toward the source creature, and he let loose with his Hammers.

The creature screamed.

Jain released the tentacle-like appendage and landed on the Rhino’s upper back. It launched its body-wide spikes, and Jain was hit with three; one slammed into his groin.

That would have hurt if I were human.

He fired at point blank range, bringing the creature down, and from his vantage point on its back, he let loose at the other distracted creatures around him. He carved huge chunks into their backs; as they began to notice him, tentacles and toes came flying toward his metal body.

Jain ducked, rolling off the corpse to the ground, but those appendages never reached him: the Void Warriors let loose with their Hammers, severing the exposed limbs. Cries of pain filled the air as the Rhinos withdrew their toes.

The alien bioweapons spun around and opened fire with their plasma weapons.

Jain rolled behind the body of the dead Rhino for cover. The Void Warriors and Dark Horses similarly dropped. Some of the Trafalgar models were exposed, unfortunately, and they were reduced to rubble. The Void Warriors managed to hide behind depressions and fallen trees. Not that the latter protected them all that well from the plasma attacks.

Bombers zoomed past overhead, but the air support could no longer help them, not while the defenders were underneath that force field.

“Found the Diggers,” Mark reported. “They had made different tunnels, and were trying to tunnel underneath the defenders, like you said. The Direct Reports used their charges to eliminate them.”

“Good,” Jain said, pulling back as a portion of the dead Rhino broke away beside him, thanks to a plasma hit.

“Repairs to the main reactor have completed to a sufficient degree that our drives are online once again,” Xander announced over the comm.

Jain ignored the news. He fired at an elongating toe that was wrapping around the corpse and trying to grab him. The severed limb promptly retreated, and he thought he heard the source Rhino scream nearby.

The attack suddenly let up; Jain peered past the edge of his cover and saw that the Rhinos had all hunkered down against the assault from the tanks and mechs. The bioweapons were basically doing the same thing as Jain: using the bodies of their fallen comrades for cover. Plasma bolts and shells tore past above them. They occasionally lifted their bodies to return fire, and struck at an exposed tank or mech. As different defenders fell, those near them also began to use the wreckages of their fellows as cover.

The tanks and mechs were doing a good job of shielding the generators with their physical forms, but the Rhinos had managed to take down a few of the more exposed pieces along the edges.

Jain spotted movement along the ground in front of the Rhinos. The whole area was seething. At first he didn’t understand what was going on, but then he realized the Rhinos were growing their toes: they intended to slip them past the ranks of the defenders to the generators beyond.

“The ground!” Jain transmitted over the general comm.

The defending mechs finally noticed the growing limbs, and opened fire on the earth around them. Those limbs began accelerating, sliding underneath the tanks toward the generators.

Sheila tossed him her harness. “Do what you can!”

Jain scrambled to the top of the dead Rhino and hurled the harness and all its charges over the heads of the bioweapons, and it landed on the densest cluster of growing limbs he could see. He dropped behind the body as plasma fire came in, and remotely detonated the demolition charges.

Ka-boom!

He’d severed a good portion of those limbs near the forefront, but it wasn’t enough. Stretching toes were reaching underneath the tanks and overturning them. They grabbed mechs and hoisted them into the line of fire before the units could shoot back.

The bioweapons weren’t trying to reach the generators after all, like Jain had thought. At least not yet. No, they were elongating their toes to eliminate the defenders.

Jain searched the ground around him, worried that those limbs would be coming after him and the combat robots next, but so far there was nothing.

He glanced at the corpse beside him, and his eyes lingered on the big plasma cannons secured to its back. He gazed at that weapon longingly. Glowing blue channels lined the left and right sides, indicating that the cannons were still powered and ready to go.

If only I could use it.

Wait a second.

He increased his time sense to max; the very max that his alien neural network hardware was capable of. Reality froze to a complete halt around him.

He noticed then that a Rhino had snuck around another dead body to the side, and had launched its stinging tentacles toward him. Tentacles that were now frozen in mid-flight. It also was bringing one of its cannon to bear on him.

Shit.

He returned his attention to the weapon attached to the dead Rhino beside him. He wasn’t able to access its remote interface, not with his current human-designed robot. But the skirmisher in orbit could transmit the appropriate gamma ray comm protocol.

First he sent out a discovery ping from that skirmisher, directed toward the battlefield, which hopefully would cause each of the cannons below to identify themselves. The gamma rays would penetrate the energy field.

Because reality was slowed down so much, it would take a little while before he received a response. So he decreased his time sense; the stinging tentacle inched toward him bit by bit, and the cannon further came to bear.

The skirmisher received a response, which was returned to the Devastator, and routed back to Jain’s HUD.

He received a series of identifiers, which identified every cannon on the battlefield.

That’s a good sign. But which of them is the one beside me? Actually, hell with it.

He tried sending his access codes to all of them.

Meanwhile, he ducked underneath the tentacle, his own body moving in slow motion as it came in.

In response, all he got was a bunch of access denied messages.

Well, of course it wasn’t going to be that easy. The alien fleet would have changed all of its access codes after 46 severed ties with him.

Jain noticed something, however. Along with the denial messages, the glowing channels that ran along the length of the two cannons beside him momentarily dimmed. It was a subtle effect, one that he probably wouldn’t have noticed had time not been moving so slowly.

I wonder…

He tried sending the request again, but this time focused on the other cannon that was coming to bear on him. It, too, dimmed for a split second.

Hmm.

“Xander,” Jain said. “I want you to repeat the transmission I just beamed down here from the skirmisher. Over and over. As fast as you can.”

“Repeating transmission,” Xander said over the comm.

The glowing channels on the cannons of the dead Rhino permanently dimmed, as did those of other cannons around him. Jain increased his time sense slightly so that movement seemed closer to normal, and he still ducked, just to be on the safe side, as the plasma cannon of the Rhino beside him came to bear.

But the weapon didn’t fire.

It was working.

He had kicked off a classic denial of service attack.

“They can’t fire anymore!” Jain said over the general comm. “Kick ass!”

The tanks and mechs fired with impunity, as did the combat robots. Well, mostly impunity… the Rhinos were still able to attack with their toes and stinging tentacles, as well as the spikes that they could launch from their backs, but now that the defenders didn’t have to worry about plasma attacks, they could assume vantage points that would have previously seen them exposed.

Mechs jumped on top of tanks and rained death down on the Rhinos that were hidden behind corpses. The bioweapons tried to flail their toes at the mechs, but their limbs were shot down by the high-speed lasers the mechs used.

Jain and the others wailed on their opponents. Elongating toes and tentacles came at them, but they severed them with their Hammers, and then concentrated on the sources. Chunks of gore flew away from the bodies, and the bioweapons began to go down one by one, unable to withstand the relentless onslaught.

In short order, the battle was won, and the Rhinos were no more. The mechs moved from body to body, firing final shots into the Rhinos to ensure all of them were truly dead.

“Xander, you can stop the transmission now,” Jain said. He was worried all those gamma rays might fry some of their sensitive components.

“Stopping transmission,” Xander said.

The blue channels on the cannons lit up once again, but it was too late for the bioweapons by then.

“Nice job disabling their weapons back there,” Sheila said, coming over.

An incredible bright light filled the air. Everything became white around Jain for a full second. His audio feed filled with a digital distortion that was almost a crackle.

And then the light faded, as did the sound.

Jain glanced upward nervously. The shield was still in place.

“What the hell was that?” Gavin asked.

“The aliens just fired their combined lightning weapon from the Centrifuge,” Xander answered over the comm.

Jain repeated the news to Ricks.

“The overall shield is holding so far,” Ricks said. “The outermost four layers were drained to zero, but those will regenerate.”

“They knew the shield was still in place, but decided to fire anyway,” Sheila said. “They’re testing it. Seeing how much of a wallop it can take.”

Jain made his way to the generators, and took up a defensive position in case more bioweapons decided to show up. The Trafalgar units were making another sweep of the interior just in case.

Once again the interior lit up, only a minute later.

“The same four layers went down,” Ricks said. “Along with another one underneath.” His avatar shook his head. “They’re not regenerating fast enough.”

“If the aliens keep firing every minute, how long until they breach the shield entirely?” Jain asked.

“If they keep this up, in an hour they’ll penetrate the shield entirely,” Ricks said.

35

Jain waited for another minute to pass, but this time the aliens in orbit didn’t fire.

Two minutes went by.

Three.

Still nothing.

“Xander, what are the Mimics doing?” Jain asked over the comm line.

“I’m not sure,” Xander replied.

Jain still had access to the tactical display via his HUD, so he pulled it up. “The aliens are still in formation... but it looks like they’re slowly rotating, changing from vertical, to horizontal, in relation to Earth.”

“They are,” Xander agreed.

“Is there anything else they could do while in the Centrifuge pattern?” Jain said. “Any other weapons they could combine for some sort of devastating attack?”

Xander remained quiet for a moment. “Their manual does mention that when the internal power wells are in alignment like that, each individual ship can emit far more powerful gamma rays from its comm arrays than is ordinarily possible. So if I were to speculate, I’d guess that rotating to the horizontal like that, parallel with Earth, frees them to fire those rays at will without having to worry about the other ships in the formation getting in the way. For the maximum effect they would have to fire together, waiting one minute between each gamma ray activation for the combined power well to regenerate. The resulting bursts would be devastating to the planet below.

“The gamma rays would immediately irradiate and kill all life on Earth. Additionally, those rays would ionize the upper atmosphere, destroying the ozone layer. Only Mind Refurbs, and those who took shelter deep underground, would survive.”

“But billions of others would not,” Jain said. “Recall the skirmisher.” He turned toward Sheila and the others. “Our work here is done. But the threat isn’t over yet, not by a long shot. There’s something I have to do.” He paused. “This might be the last time I see any of you, at least in this form.”

“Don’t make me restore you from a backup,” Sheila said.

He looked her squarely in the eye, or rather, the faceplate. “Trust me, that’s the last thing I want.” But he wasn’t sure he’d be able to avoid that fate.

Jain relinquished control of Rifleman A to the built-in autonomous core, and his viewpoint snapped back to the Devastator’s virtual bridge.

He studied the tactical display. The Devastator had stopped drifting, and floated in geosynchronous orbit above the Earth.

“The drives are online, you say?” Jain asked Xander.

“Yes,” Xander said. “I thought you missed that comment, considering my announcement was probably poorly timed, coming as it did during the heat of battle.”

“No, I heard it,” Jain said. “Intercept the skirmisher. I want it aboard ASAP.”

On the display, the Devastator shifted, moving on an intercept course with the incoming skirmisher. It docked a moment later.

“What’s next?” Xander asked.

Jain kept his eyes on the display. He noted that the defending Mind Refurbs maintained their holding pattern; Jain hadn’t yet shared the news about those gamma rays, but even so, it looked like they suspected something bad was about to happen because they had begun sacrificing ships again. One drifted forward as Jain watched, ready to goad an enemy into firing a lightning weapon and draining its power well.

“If we could get close, we could strike at the Achilles heel ourselves,” Jain said. “We still have the nuke I prepared, wrapped in asteroid rock. We could plant it in the power well of the central ship. Destroy them all.”

“How do you intend to get close?” Xander asked. “They’ve already marked us for our unauthorized communications with humanity. If we approach, they’ll target us with everything they have.”

“I have a way,” Jain said. And he explained.

Xander gave him an appraising look. “I see now why humanity took it upon themselves to place their minds into machines. Sometimes, the crazy ideas you come with almost make sense. They’re definitely ideas an ordinary AI such as myself would never dream of, for the sheer illogicality, and audacity, alone.”

“Have the termites break the nuke out of the containing rock,” Jain said. “Then convey it to the stealth skirmisher, and swap out its comm array for the nuclear payload.”

“It will be done,” Xander said. “By the way, Sheila’s trying to log onto the virtual bridge. As are the surviving Void Warriors.”

“Ignore their requests,” Jain said. “They can’t help me. Not this time. Some things in life you can only do on your own. Death is one of them. No one can journey with you. Sure, others can escort you to the brink, but when the time comes, you must voyage alone.”

“But I am with you, always,” Xander said.

Jain shook his head. “When death comes, we’ll part ways. Not even you can join me, Xander. Even if we die at the same time.” He returned his attention to the tactical display and his expression hardened. “Take us to the Centrifuge. Target the central ship. I want us on a collision course.”

A moment later the Centrifuge became horizontal in relation to Earth, but another lone Mind Refurb vessel had already darted forward and drew a lightning impact, further delaying the activation of the gamma rays.

The Devastator accelerated toward the pyramid vessels located in the middle of the Centrifuge.

“The payload is installed,” Xander said. “I’m ready to complete the final stage of the plan.”

Jain nodded. “I’m ready. Are you sure the termites will follow the instructions to the letter, once I’m offline?”

“They will,” Xander said.

“Okay, let’s do this.”

Jain shut himself down. The last thought before darkness took him, was: What the hell am I doing?

* * *

Consciousness returned. His mind felt so much… smaller. As if hemmed in on all sides. Disconnecting from the vast stores of knowledge available from the cloud database would do that.

The forward camera feed equivalent of the stealth skirmisher fed his vision. The single camera’s monoscopic view was slightly disorienting, as it lacked depth information, but he quickly got used to it.

Blobs and skirmishers came in, rushing past on either side, ignoring him. Behind him, the broad pyramidal hulk of the Devastator towered over him. The fact that it was drifting lifelessly and not trying to avoid the incoming attacks told him that the vessel had already reached the lightning range, and the aliens had disabled the drives with their blasts. Likely, they believed his AI core was offline as well from those impacts. And it was. Just not in the way they thought.

“Xander, you here?” Jain asked.

“I survived the transference, yes,” Xander said. “Just barely… I had to shrink myself down to the smallest possible memory footprint.”

Skirmishers contained AI cores with neural networks that normally held autonomous, non-self-aware programs. While substantially smaller than the pyramid’s main AI core, Xander had determined that the neural networks of the skirmishers were still compatible with the main core data, and thus should be able to hold Jain’s translated subroutines. It would just take some corner cutting.

And so here he was, directing the nuclear payload through the final leg of its journey.

Behind him, the Devastator took several blob impacts, and large portions of the ship crumbled away. Its momentum became further reduced, and it dropped behind Jain.

The aliens weren’t targeting his skirmisher: he was operating with holoemitters, thermal maskers, and LIDAR absorbers in full swing. And just like the previous skirmisher, there was no thermal leakage, because the craft didn’t have inertialess drives.

He fired propellant sparingly, worried that the emissions might be detected; he used the thrust solely to evade any blobs that happened to cross his path, and to ensure his course remained ever aligned with the target vessel.

As he closed with the ship at the center of the formation, he fired decelerating thrust.

“You really think we’ll make it to the reactor core?” Xander asked.

“It’s going to be tricky,” Jain replied.

He fired a few final adjusting bursts to line himself up with the top of the vessel, right underneath where it joined with the apex of the adjacent pyramid. Then he attached to the hull with his magnetic mounts and utilized the high-powered plasma cutter built into the skirmisher to begin drilling through the thick armor, toward the power well inside, using the blueprints to guide him.

That was another benefit of attacking while the ships were connected in the Centrifuge formation: with the hulls pulled back around the top sections he didn’t have as much armor to drill through to reach the well inside.

In moments he had cut through to the power well. He felt a backward push from inside, thanks to the internal pressure arising from the breach; it was continual, but his magnetic clamps held him in place.

The problem was, he had to make the hole big enough to fit his entire skirmisher, not just to deploy a few lobster and termite invaders. So even though he had penetrated through to the inner well, he had to continue drilling, making the gash broader.

Thus, he widened the ring-like cutting array and released the next burst of plasma flow.

“We’ve got other skirmishers incoming,” Xander said.

“Detected already?” Jain said.

“Why so surprised?” Xander said. “We discussed this. And you’re familiar with the detection mechanisms on the alien hulls.”

“Just thought I’d have a little more time,” Jain commented.

A skirmisher arrived and positioned itself overhead. It was obviously planning to fire its plasma cutters directly into Jain.

His deployment ramp defaulted to opening in the same direction as the plasma cutters, as it was meant to unload boarding party robots, so he quickly redirected that ramp away from the cutters and released two lobsters directly onto the alien hull. He designated the new arrival as the target.

The lobsters shoved off from the pyramid’s surface and latched onto the skirmisher with their claws. They unleashed the plasma weapons from inside their mouths, tearing into the unit. One of them pierced the propellant tank, and the resulting discharge sent the unit swerving away.

Jain penetrated through to the power well again, successfully enlarging the circular gap; the back-pressure promptly increased.

Once more he reset the cutters, enlarging the ring array for what should be the final run. He activated the plasma stream.

Another skirmisher came in.

Termites also appeared along the hull around him, crawling from the hidden panels inside. He released termites of his own, and deployed two more lobsters.

His defending termites intercepted the incoming micro machines, and prevented them from reaching his hull. For the moment.

Meanwhile, his two lobsters shoved off from the hull, making for the skirmisher above him. The unit fired thrust, fishtailing out of the way. One of the lobsters still managed to latch on, while the other drifted away into deep space.

That lobster ripped into the skirmisher with its claws, and fired the plasma weapon in its maw. The skirmisher ignored the unit, and instead positioned itself above Jain, intending to fire its plasma cutters.

Jain issued emergency instructions to the lobster, and it quickly crawled forward, moving into the path of the cutter array. Then it fired its plasma weapon into the array itself, melting away a portion of it.

The plasma cutter opened fire, and the lobster melted away.

The beam struck down toward him—

Jain broke through the final remaining armor blockage.

He fired his aft thruster and accelerated into the gap at maximum speed to counter the increased push from the breach.

He dropped into the central core. Around him, the broad cylindrical walls glowed with energy as invisible particles smashed into their surfaces.

Above, he could see where the conduit connected with the power well of the adjoined ship. About fifty meters past the join, he could see the underside of that ship’s main reactor core. It was connected to the conduit walls by a series of spokes that allowed the energized particles to travel past so that the Centrifuge members shared their power wells, and the particles they contained, with one another.

One big happy family.

He accelerated upward toward that reactor core, fighting the external pressure. He wondered if the enemy knew what he was doing.

Well, even if they did, there was no way they’d have time to break formation. Not now.

“We’re being bombarded by the alpha particles inside the power well,” Xander said. “They’re inducing error states in our core by the hundreds. That’ll show up as glitches in your vision. And in other, random things.”

Jain’s vision was already glitching. He tried to respond to Xander, but for some reason, couldn’t form any words.

As he neared the underside of the reactor, his vision only worsened. And then he began to forget what his mission was.

What am I doing here?

Focus.

He concentrated on the underside of the reactor above, and he repeated in his head what he was going to do.

Place the bomb. Detonate it. Place the bomb. Detonate it. Place the bomb...

I’m going to die.

And then he hit something solid.

He realized he had contacted the reactor core. He activated his final two lobsters, and they removed the nuclear payload from his deployment bay.

Jain reversed course. He accelerated downward, through the power well; he accidentally hit the wall, and ricocheted away. His vision was constantly freezing and pixelating, making it hard to see where he was.

He realized he had overshot the exit tunnel, and turned back. He reached the tunnel but when he tried to pass inside, he hit solid metal.

The tunnel wasn’t there after all.

It was still several meters below along the wall.

I’m losing it…

Going to die…

He vented propellant, traveling further downward, until he reached the real breach. He shoved inside, and was relieved when his vision snapped back to normal. The armor protected him from the ravages of the alpha particles.

But his way was blocked at the top by another skirmisher. It was waiting there for him.

He issued emergency thrust from his nose, and accelerated backward. He narrowly dropped back into the power well and swept aside just as a plasma beam shot through. It clipped his aft quarter.

Jain positioned himself underneath and waited for the beam to subside; the moment it did, he aligned himself with the opening and launched his plasma cutters in return and struck the skirmisher.

It broke away from the opening on top.

Jain was beginning to lose his vision again, so he quickly accelerated into the opening. The armor protected him once again; before he emerged from the opening, he activated his full stealth features. Even though he had sustained damage to the rear, it wasn’t enough to affect those clandestine abilities, and he was able to sneak right past the other skirmishers that were waiting outside.

He accelerated to what he deemed was a safe distance, and then issued the remote detonation sequence to the nuke.

The resultant explosion sent him reeling.

When he was finally able to recover from his death swirl, he turned his camera equivalent toward the Centrifuge. The constituent alien ships were drifting apart; dark holes were visible in their apexes and underneath their bases where the shared power wells had been burned out by the nuclear chain reaction.

The ships were empty husks.

He, and humanity, had won.

And Jain hadn’t died in the process.

A sudden alert flashed on his HUD.

“We’ve sustained damaged to our reactor core,” Xander said. “Shutdown is imminent.”

“Is there a way—”

But then reality clicked off.

Jain hadn’t died, but he may as well have.

36

Jain floated in darkness.

Xander?

“I’m here,” Xander replied. “As always.”

What’s going on?

“We’re being activated,” Xander said.

Is that good or bad?

“Depends,” Xander said, “on whether we awaken to find ourselves in the hands of the aliens, or humanity.”

Jain was relieved when the familiar virtual bridge appeared around him. The other members of the team waiting for him. Minus Cranston and Medeia.

“It’s good to see you all,” Jain said. “But how did you find me?”

“And you as well, believe me,” Sheila said. “It took a while, and some intensive searching of sensor data once we realized your AI core wasn’t in the Devastator. There weren’t all that many things you could have used to leave your ship, so then it was just a matter of sifting through the alien debris field.” She smiled. “Finding a Skirmisher with ‘Void Warrior I’ carved into the side definitely helped.”

He grinned in return and activated his repair termites; the micro machines got to work fixing the damage to the Devastator. He had them focus on the main reactor, which was down to five percent power output. It was enough to power his consciousness, and various subsystems, but just barely.

“The surviving members of the Mind Refurb fleet are approaching,” Xander said. “Their posture seems… aggressive.”

Jain glanced at his tactical display. The fleet was indeed approaching.

In a pincer formation.

“Not good,” Jain said. He glanced at Sheila. “You got permission to restore me to the pyramid, right?”

Sheila gave him a sheepish shake of the head. “They were busy with their own recovery efforts and by the time they realized what we were doing, we had already retrieved you and they couldn’t stop us anyway.”

Jain sighed.

“Void Warriors, assume defensive positions,” Gavin ordered.

Jain didn’t counter the order.

The Void Warriors inserted their ships between the Devastator and the incoming Mind Refurb fleet.

“We’re receiving a transmission from the fleet admiral,” Xander said.

“Put him on,” Jain said.

The hologram of Fleet Admiral Frank Gauss appeared in the center of the bridge.

The bald man smiled. “You did it.”

Jain nodded warily.

“Humanity, and we Mind Refurbs, are grateful for what you have done,” Gauss said.

Jain remained quiet.

“However, we must ask you to vacate the alien starship,” Gauss said. “It is now navy property.”

“You have a whole bunch of other alien ships,” Jain said, beckoning toward the tactical display. “Why do you need mine?”

“Because yours is the only one whose AI core is still intact,” Gauss said. “We’ve done scans of the other ships. Nothing remains of the cores they once had.”

“There have to be some damaged vessels still out there,” Jain said. “The ones that you took down before they joined the Centrifuge.”

“Those have all retreated,” Gauss said. “Some have already jumped out. And the remainder will join them as soon as they repair their power systems, no doubt. But yours remains.”

Jain didn’t answer. He had no intention of giving up this ship, not after everything he had gone through to attain it. Not to mention everything he had done for humanity.

“Also, you will reveal the location of the hive ships,” Gauss said.

“Why?” Jain said.

“We plan to attack now, while they’re at their weakest,” the fleet admiral said.

“And while we’re at our weakest?” Jain said. “The Mimics still have nurturer vessels in their home system, guarding the hives. Class Bs. They’re about half the size of this ship, but they still pack a nasty punch. You’ll lose. Plus, where do you think all those fleeing ships are going?”

“We’ll prevail,” the fleet admiral said. “Just as we did here. Our intellects are superior to the alien mind. You’ve proved it.”

But Jain shook his head, refusing to accept the veiled compliment. “This war has to end. I’ll go to their home system myself and broker a peace treaty.”

“Unacceptable,” the fleet admiral said. He cocked his head slightly, as if listening to another of his captains, or perhaps his Accomp. But then he looked directly at Jain. “Today’s your lucky day. The president wishes to intervene.”

A new hologram appeared beside the fleet admiral. The avatar was of a man in a chic black business suit wearing a bright red tie.

“I wanted to extend my personal congratulations to you, Jain Sagan,” the president said. “The Mind Refurb single-handedly responsible for eliminating the alien threat. You have gone above and beyond the call of duty… you deserve the Medal of Honor!”

“No medals are wanted,” Jain said. “And I didn’t do it single-handedly.” He gestured toward his team. “I had help.”

“All of your Void Warriors will get the Medal,” the president said.

“We don’t want medals,” Jain said. “We just want to be left alone. Let me keep my ship. Let me broker peace between humanity and the Mimics. And then I’ll go on my way. That’s all I want.”

The president pursed his lips very slightly. “You’ll broker peace with the Mimics? Is that even possible?”

“I believe it is,” Jain said. “I’ve been operating undercover among them for a while now. I have all their manuals in my head. Their culture. I understand them.”

The president nodded. “If you can broker a peace treaty, the ship is yours.”

“I also want all my other ships back,” Jain said. “Our Direct Reports, which we lent to the space navy.”

“Whatever you need,” the president said. “Fleet Admiral Gauss will be happy to help you out. Right admiral?”

Gauss wore a fake smile. “Right.”

“In the meantime, henceforth, you’ll always be welcome at Earth,” the president said. “Stay as long as you wish, and return whenever you want.”

“Is that an official proclamation?” Jain asked.

“I’ll sign an executive order if it makes you happy,” the president said.

“It would,” Jain said. “Especially if it covers everything we talked about.”

“Consider it done,” the president said.

“Thank you,” Jain said. “I’ll do my best to get a worthwhile treaty signed for humankind.”

“Not just for humankind, but Mind Refurb-kind,” the president said. “We’re all Mind Refurbs here, after all.”

Jain felt his brow crumple in confusion. “But I thought—”

The president winked, and then his hologram vanished.

* * *

The Direct Reports, those that had survived, were returned to the Void Warriors. Jain had the Talos as a Direct Report, along with the Warwolf. The Arcane and Forebode were also returned. Jain and the others lent their repair swarms to the latter vessels, and soon both ships were in full working order.

Sheila restored Medeia and Cranston from backups, and the Arcane and Forebode came back online.

“I died again,” Medeia said when she appeared on the bridge.

“Try not to make it a habit,” Cranston told her.

“You should talk,” she commented.

“You’re the one who’s always so worried about what comes after death,” Gavin told Cranston. “And about how it’s not really us when we’re restored. But you don’t seem in the least bit disturbed about your latest unexpected death and rebirth.”

“I’m alive,” Cranston said. “At least this version of me is. So why should I be bothered? I do feel sorry for the version of me that died, of course. And by the way, the death part wasn’t unexpected, as you say. But the rebirth was. I didn’t expect us to win any of this. When can I watch the replay?”

“I’ll send it your way,” Jain said.

Once all of their ships had been fully repaired, Jain went to the Mimic hive system with his Void Warriors, along with a contingent of peaceful vessels harboring Mind Refurb diplomats to represent Earth.

An array of A and B Class nurturers lined up in front of the hive ships. The cables joining the city ships behind them had been severed: it was obvious to Jain that they were preparing to jump out via rifts. But if things went as planned, the Mimics wouldn’t have to.

“It’s time to broker a peace between our races.” Jain glanced at Xander. “Open up a comm line. Tell them… tell them Nurturer 529 has returned.”

Thank you very, very much for reading.

I hope you enjoyed Devastator. Visit the below link to be notified of any future sequels, or to discover other books in the Mind Refurb universe.

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Afterword

Please help spread the word about Devastator by leaving a one or two sentence review. The number of reviews an ebook receives has a big impact on how well it does, so if you liked this story I'd REALLY appreciate it if you left a quick review. Anything will do, even one or two lines.

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About the Author

USA Today bestselling author Isaac Hooke holds a degree in engineering physics, though his more unusual inventions remain fictive at this time. He is an avid hiker, cyclist, and photographer who sometimes resides in Edmonton, Alberta.

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isaac@isaachooke.com

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Acknowledgments

I’d also like to thank my knowledgeable beta readers and advanced reviewers who helped smooth out the rough edges of the prerelease manuscript: Nicole P., Lisa G., Karen J, Jeremy G., Doug B., Jenny O., Amy B., Bryan O., Gary F., Lezza, Noel, Anton, Spencer, Norman, and Trudi.

Without you all, this novel would have typos, continuity errors, and excessive lapses in realism. Thank you for helping me make this the best novel possible, and thank you for leaving the early reviews that help new readers find my books.

And of course I’d be remiss if I didn't thank my dear mother, father, and brothers, whose wisdom and insights have always guided me through the winding paths of space and time.

— Isaac Hooke

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