FORERUNNER

AI FLEET BOOK 1

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

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

Books by Isaac Hooke

Military Science Fiction - Mind Refurb Universe

AI Fleet

Forerunner

Devastator

AI Reborn Trilogy

Refurbished

Reloaded

Rebooted

Bolt Eaters Trilogy

Reactivated

Reforged

Redeemed

Battle Harem

Battle Harem 1

Battle Harem 2

Battle Harem 3

Military Science Fiction - ATLAS Universe

ATLAS Trilogy

(published by 47North)

ATLAS

ATLAS 2

ATLAS 3

Alien War Trilogy

Hoplite

Zeus

Titan

Argonauts

Bug Hunt

You Are Prey

Alien Empress

Quantum Predation

Robot Dust Bunnies

City of Phants

Rade’s Fury

Mechs vs. Dinosaurs

A Captain's Crucible

Flagship

Test of Mettle

Cradle of War

Planet Killer

Worlds at War

Space Opera

Star Warrior Quadrilogy

Star Warrior

Bender of Worlds

He Who Crosses Death

Doom Wielder

Science Fiction

The Forever Gate Series

The Dream

A Second Chance

The Mirror Breaks

They Have Wakened Death

I Have Seen Forever

Rebirth

Walls of Steel

The Pendulum Swings

The Last Stand

Thrillers

The Ethan Galaal Series

Clandestine

A Cold Day in Mosul

Terminal Phase

Visit IsaacHooke.com for more information.

1

Jain became conscious.

He stared at the infinitude of stars before him. He seemed to be floating in deep space.

He had no body.

He tried to lift his hands to reassure himself that his arms still existed, or to look down to confirm that yes, he had a body; but he could do neither.

Either he was paralyzed, or—

Am I dead?

“No,” a deep male voice came from the darkness.

A dark-robed figure materialized before him. His face was hidden in the shadow of an expansive hood. He held his arms with wrists aligned one atop the other inside their opposite sleeves so that no flesh was visible.

Then where am I?

“Deep space,” the figure said. His voice possessed an aged, erudite edge. “This is the direct view from one of the forward probes. It’s of limited use on its own, but apparently your waking mind clasped on to the first signal source it could find. Conscious minds need a constant stream of external stimuli after all.”

Where is my body?

“Are you certain you wish to know?” the man asked.

Absolutely.

“Then look behind you,” the figure told him.

How? I have no physical form.

“Envision the rotation in your mind,” the figure said. “And it will be so.”

Jain tried to imagine himself rotating, but nothing happened.

It’s not—

But then he realized the stars were indeed revolving in front of him, as if he were pivoting in place.

Slowly a vast, gray form intruded upon the pinpoints of light. Cones of blue and white light fanned across the surface, sourced from running lights of some kind, illuminating a hull lined with small rectangular panels. He noticed that there were large, blackened areas that looked like blast damage of some kind. Scorch marks. A swarm of small—to his eyes—shapes moved about the damaged areas. They vaguely resembled ants.

As the form continued to fill his vision, he realized it was a ship of some kind.

The vessel was long and lithe, though the middle regions bulged outward to form pointed, triangular sections. The fore and aft were also tipped, giving the overall impression of a compressed diamond. Two cylindrical formations were affixed just underneath the port and starboard sides and topped with nozzles of sorts. On the dorsal portion, several superstructures of different shapes and sizes existed: thin towers, wide pagodas, satellite dishes, radio antennae, wicked-looking turrets, you name it. The blast damage was scattered across the hull and touched upon nearly all of the aforementioned features. At the moment, the repair ants were concentrated around only a few of the damaged areas—likely the higher priority regions.

At the very front of the vessel was a large, menacing looking notch. It didn’t look like a blast crater, so he figured it was by design and probably fired some kind of nasty weapon. Thankfully, it wasn’t pointed at Jain at the moment.

He stopped rotating when the ship had eaten up his entire view and blotted out the stars entirely.

I don’t understand. Where is my body?

“That is you,” the man said.

Jain felt a rising horror emanating from deep inside of him.

“Now might be a good time to dial down your emotional settings,” the man said.

He had no idea what the man was talking about.

I’m dead, aren’t I.

It was a statement, not a question, because Jain now knew without a doubt that he couldn’t be alive.

“No, you are not dead. Far from it. You are more alive now than you ever have been. And more powerful than you can imagine.”

Jain simply stared at the ship, willing it, and all of this, to go away. Unfortunately, the scene remained unchanged around him.

“Perhaps relocating to a friendlier environment would be helpful?” the man asked.

Jain didn’t reply.

All of a sudden, the vast ship winked out. The stars came back, but they were different somehow. Muted. Also, there was a grass horizon underneath them.

He could feel the ground pressing up against his feet.

The ground…!

Jain looked down. In the dim light he spotted a body, to his relief. His body. He was naked, but didn’t care.

He raised his hands and squeezed his fists.

“I’m not dead after all,” he whispered.

He glanced up once more to study his surroundings. He could see the dim outlines of rocky outcrops ahead of him, pushing up from the earth. Some of those outcrops were illuminated by lamps that shined from the ground nearby. Each lamp was a different color: there were reds, blues, and purples. Gentle waterfalls flowed over some of the outcrops, collecting in a pool in a basin below. The rocks, and the stars above, were reflected in the water.

It was very peaceful.

A throat cleared loudly behind him, and Jain spun toward the source.

The hooded man stood among a copse of palm trees that grew next to the rocks and pool.

Feeling suddenly self-conscious, Jain quickly covered his private parts.

“Who are you?” Jain asked.

“I am Xander.” The man lowered his hood, revealing the leathery face of an old man. Interspersed among the wrinkles were the scars of battle: bullet and knife wounds, laser and plasma burns. His hair was white, ruffled, and his straggly white beard reached down to the bottom of his neck.

“You look like you’ve lived a hard life,” Jain said.

The man smiled patiently. “Not at all. You were the one who gave me this face. And my name.”

“Oh.”

“I am your Accomp, you see,” Xander said.

“A what?”

“Accomp,” the man explained. “Your Accompanying AI. I am with you at all times. Essentially a virtual assistant built into your mind.”

“So, we’re inside that ship you showed me?” Jain said. “All this?” He beckoned toward the landscape with one hand, being careful to keep his genitals hidden behind the other.

“We are,” Xander said. “Though what you are experiencing here is a virtual reality, created by your mind.”

“You keep talking like I don’t have an actual body.”

“The ship is your body,” Xander said. “Your mind is the AI core of that ship.”

Dumbfounded, Jain merely stared at Xander.

“So I’m a robot?” Jain finally asked.

“To be precise, you’re what’s known in industry parlance as a Mind Refurb,” Xander replied. “While still human, you volunteered to have your brain scanned for the opportunity to be chosen to pilot a starship. A hundred years have passed since that date. The original you, the human you, is long dead. But the machine you lives on, and will continue to live on ad infinitum, or until you are destroyed.”

Jain considered that. The previous horror he had felt was gone, replaced instead by a kind of abject awe.

“You’d think I’d be upset upon hearing the news, but it’s actually kind of cool,” Jain told the hooded man.

“That’s the spirit!” Xander said. “Your mind was chosen to pilot a starship specifically because of its resilience to these particular circumstances.”

Jain studied the nighttime environment around him. “This is a virtual reality you say?”

“Correct,” Xander said. “None of this is real, in the traditional sense of the word.”

“But it’s real to my mind in this moment,” Jain said. “If I can simulate a human body so completely that it seems identical to an actual body, then it doesn’t really matter if it’s real or virtual. It’s all a matter of sending the appropriate inputs to the brain anyway, isn’t it?”

“Or in your case, the neurogenic subroutines mimicking brain function,” Xander said.

Jain pinched his forearm and flinched at the pain.

“Not only is pain simulated here, but your pleasure centers, too,” the robed man told him. “You can adjust the sensitivity of either up and down. I would be careful about setting both too high: a glut of pleasure can be cloying, and nearly as vexing as too much pain.”

“Vexing,” Jain said. “A machine teaches me about the dangers of toying with pleasure and pain, and the best descriptive word he can come up with for pain is vexing.”

“Pain truly is merely vexing for the likes of you and I,” Xander said. “Especially when you can turn it off.”

Aware that he was cupping his genitalia at the moment, Jain decided he would have to test out those pleasure centers later when he was alone. Preferable with a virtual female.

“Am I really going to live forever?” Jain asked. “What if I break down?”

“You are a starship equipped with a state of the art repair swarm,” Xander replied. “If any of your internal systems break down, including parts of your neural network, the repair swarm will engage. The swarm itself will fix any of its members as their own parts wear down. It’s possible you will run out of materials at some point if you don’t properly manage your inventory, but doubtful, considering that the raw elements used in most repairs can be recovered with a visit to the appropriate asteroid. So, I stand by my claim that you won’t die from natural causes. But remember, I did say that you can be destroyed. And that’s an important point.”

“I suppose so,” Jain said.

He considered what it would be like to live for the next thousand years. And the ten thousand after that. And a hundred thousand following. His mind simply couldn’t comprehend the enormity of time involved in the latter instance. It frightened him, to a degree, the thought that time would march on continually, and he would see it all, if he was careful. At least until the eventual heat death of the universe.

The end of time.

How would he keep himself occupied for the next million years? Billion. Even trillion?

Especially considering that he seemed to be completely alone.

“The only downside is the lack of companionship,” Jain said after a moment.

“You have me to keep you company…” Xander said.

“Yeah, an AI,” Jain said. “Not even a real human. A part of my own neural core. How fulfilling.”

“The VR environment is also capable of simulating scores of virtual characters, each running its own sub-AI in your neural network.”

“Refer to my previous comment,” Jain said. “I need human companionship.”

“Oh, there are other Mind Refurbs with you,” Xander said. “Or there were, anyway. They’ll have to be restored from the backups once repairs to their vessels are complete.”

“Repairs?” Jain said. “We’ve been attacked?”

“Good guess,” Xander quipped. “You didn’t notice the blast craters on your hull?”

“Why don’t I remember anything?” Jain pressed. “Except bits and pieces of my distant past? When I was human, I was a SEAL, I think. There are other memories… but nothing about any of this. Nothing pertaining to the control of a starship. Why?”

“You already answered that with your previous question,” Xander said mysteriously.

Jain considered that for a moment. “We’ve been attacked, that’s why I can’t remember?”

“Precisely,” Xander said. “You sustained damaged to your AI core. Luckily, that damage was restricted to those portions of your neural network responsible for engram storage. You—we—lost a sizable chunk of our memories. You fared worse than I did, but even I can’t remember what happened out there. My memory is also fragmented, and I recall the first few days after arriving in this system, but nothing before, or after.

“Unfortunately, your Mind Refurb brethren didn’t fare as well as you and me. According to my scans, we lost two ships entirely, and the other five have been reduced to lifeless husks. Repairs are ongoing, but their AI cores are irrevocably damaged and will have to be replaced entirely. Once the cores are online again, we’ll have to restore their minds from the original backups—their last memories will be of their human lives. It will be a shock.”

“No greater a shock than I felt, I’m sure,” Jain said. “Will they have to be retrained to operate a starship?”

“All of the necessary knowledge is already built into their backups, as part of their mind image, as is yours,” Xander said. “They do have Accomps of their own that will help them out, as need be.”

“Good.” Jain shook his head. “All damaged beyond repair. Are the AI cores located on the outside of the ship or something? Seems like they’re a little too exposed, wherever they are, considering we all went down.”

“Actually, the AI cores are located dead center of the ship,” Xander said.

“Oh,” Jain said. “So we lost two. That makes me feel sick to my stomach, considering that they could have lived forever.

“That only serves to emphasize the point I was trying to raise earlier, that although you cannot die from ‘breakdown’ as you called it, you can still be destroyed outright,” the robed man told him.

“Yes, and an important point it is,” Jain said. “We’re not immortal.”

“No,” Xander agreed.

He was about to ask why the lost two couldn’t be restored from backups, but then he knew the answer, thanks to a vague memory stored deep within his neural network core.

“The backups for each Mind Refurb were stored aboard their respective ships…” Jain said.

“Correct,” Xander said.

“That’s going to have to change, going forward,” Jain told him. “First rule of backups: always store a copy off-site.”

“Actually, we were following that rule,” Xander said. “The admiral had been carrying an extra copy of all of you for safekeeping. Unfortunately, he piloted one of the lost ships.”

“Oh, we had an admiral,” Jain said. He felt a little disappointed that he wasn’t the one who was admiral. “Okay. So, there are at least five other vessels out there with us?”

“That’s right.”

“I didn’t see them on the external feed,” Jain said.

“Of course not,” Xander said. “The distances involved with anything space-related are immense. The other ships would appear like stars to your naked eye, if you could see them at all. But if you check your tactical map, you’ll discover precisely where they are located, at least in relation to you.”

“And how—” But Jain knew.

His eye defocused, and he accessed a HUD that overlaid the virtual environment. He pulled up the tactical map, which further obscured his digital surroundings.

He saw five blue dots surrounding a marker located at the center of the map. Nearby were spheres of different sizes and colors representing the different planets, an asteroid belt, and further off, at the system barycenter, two larger globes, one red, one blue, representing a binary star system.

There were labels above the different dots, including one above the marker at the center of the map. “Tacos. No… Talos.”

“That’s this ship,” Xander said. “The Talos. A Vindicator Class vessel.”

“Talos…” Jain said.

“Yes, another name chosen by you,” the man said.

“A giant automaton made of bronze,” Jain said. “From Greek mythology. He circled the island of Europa to protect it from pirates and invaders.” He glanced at Xander, somewhat confused. “Not sure how I knew that.”

“While the engram banks in your AI core were damaged,” Xander said. “The cloud servers aboard remain mostly intact. You have a vast database of human knowledge stored inside those cloud servers. Because of your link to them, that data is immediately accessible. It’s like directly accessing your own memory.”

“Talos,” Jain said, testing the name once more on his tongue. It did seem like a name he would choose.

“It’s strange,” Xander said. “You and the others all chose different names for your starships than your actual names, when in essence, the ships are each of you. It would be like assigning your human body a different name than your given name, for example.”

“Well, we’re not human anymore,” Jain said. “So no need to stick to human convention. It certainly feels damn odd, at least to me, having a ship for a body, so I’m sure you can understand why we’d give them different names. Even now, I don’t really consider the ship my body. This right here is more real to me.” He indicated his virtual form.

“I suppose so,” Xander said.

“So, you say we were attacked, and don’t know what did this to us…” Jain said.

“That’s right,” the bearded man replied.

“Any chance it might have been a natural phenomenon?” Jain pressed. “We passed too close to some kind of interplanetary storm, and got jolted by lightning?”

“No lightning I know of could have caused damage like this,” Xander said. “No, we were attacked. And whatever did the attacking is still lying in wait out there, somewhere. Either in this system, or one nearby.”

“So you have no idea, then?” Jain said.

“We are in deep space, far from any explored systems,” Xander told him. “It could be anything.” The robed man paused. “Still, I suppose there are a few candidates. There is a conglomerate of alien beings humanity is familiar with, who run a galactic empire we know only as the Link.”

“You think we’ve met one of the member species in this empire?” Jain asked.

“Maybe,” Xander said. “But as far as I can tell, our path from Earth has taken us coreward, away from the systems under claim by that empire. However, it is well known that the empire is at war with some other space-faring race. The fact that the empire’s member species are constantly seeking new planets to terraform into bioweapon production factories attests to that fact. I believe it is possible we may have encountered the species the Link are at war with.”

“Well that’s not the best news,” Jain said.

“No,” Xander admitted. “And I could be wildly off the mark.”

“Well, something did this,” Jain said. “And it’s certainly not friendly. When will our repairs be finished? Or at least, when can the fleet get underway?”

“It will take one week before we can get all the other Mind Refurbs back online,” Xander said.

“So we’re essentially sitting ducks out here until our repairs are done,” Jain said.

“That’s right,” Xander said. “But I never said repairs would be done in one week, just that we would be able to get underway. Consider, you’ve already been floating out here for the past two months.”

“We’ve been out here for two months?” Jain asked. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“It hasn’t come up until now,” Xander replied. “I originally activated shortly after the battle ended. Or I believe so, based on the timestamps between my awakening and my last memories. I contacted the other autonomous subsystems of the other warships and began initiating repairs. I kept a constant vigil on the stars, but nothing ever came to assail us. Whatever did this is long gone.”

“At least until we start moving again,” Jain said. “Maybe they left sensors out here to track us. And as soon as we start up, they’ll come back to finish the job.”

“Maybe,” Xander said. “We can’t really know, can we?”

“No,” Jain said. “How come it took so long to activate me, if damage to my core was restricted to the engram regions?”

“Your AI core still had to be repaired to function properly,” Xander said. “As well as the fusion reactors necessary to power your mind, and the rest of the ship. Across the fleet, that has been the biggest time sink when it comes to repairs: I’ve had the drone swarms concentrating on the damage to the reactors first, and the engines second.”

“So, according to my database, most systems colonized by humanity are connected to the Interstel,” Jain said. The Interstel was a multi-system, delay-tolerant network that enabled queued communications and messaging between space colonies—essentially the galactic version of the Internet.

“Yes, but there are no Rift Gates present in the current system,” Xander said. “Let alone Interstel probes.”

“So, what you’re saying is we’re essentially cut off from communications with the rest of the galaxy?” Jain asked.

Xander nodded. “That is precisely what I’m saying.”

“Okay, well, that still leaves one very important question unanswered.” Jain materialized a blue, tight-fitting uniform over his body. He wasn’t sure how he did it, he just did. A captain’s uniform of some kind. Appropriate.

He released his now-clothed groin area and folded his arms across his chest. “Do you know our original mission? Why humanity sent us out here in the first place?”

“Unfortunately,” Xander said. “As I already told you, I remember the first few days after reaching this system, but nothing before or after.”

“There have to be some hints in those first few days,” Jain said. “An offhand comment spoken by myself or you. A virtual image. A digital document perused.”

“No,” Xander said. “There are no hints. I don’t know what our mission is. I don’t know why we are here.”

2

During that week, while Jain waited for the AI cores of the other Mind Refurbs to come online, he reacquainted himself with the different tasks involved in running a starship. Most of the operations were self-regulating, taken care of by various background processes and subroutines in his AI core, similar to a human being’s autonomic nervous system. The difference was that he could intervene in any of those systems to make changes and adjustments as he saw fit, but everything was already fine-tuned to handle the current state of the Talos, calibrated with the best possible settings, so there was no need to touch anything.

There were no life support systems of any kind. Why would there be? He carried no crew. The ship contained no living areas: most of the crawlspaces existed solely to give the repair drones access to the various decks. There were also no hydroponic and waste-disposal decks. The radiation grade of the hull armor was designed specifically to protect circuits from cosmic rays: if there were humans aboard, they would fry the instant the vessel left the protection of a magnetosphere.

According to his military database, most starships were like this. The cost of vessels simply became too expensive when human transportation was factored into the equation. It would have been impossible for humanity to develop a space navy if all of their ships had to carry organics.

There were a few privately-funded luxury companies that offered space cruises for rich humans, but that was the extent of it. In space, the robots ruled. At least when it came to human vessels.

Once he had a feel for the day-to-day operations of the ship, he reviewed his personnel file and officer evaluation reports to get a better idea of who he was, and to fill in the missing pieces he had in his memories. Conveniently, that data was available in his cloud storage, alongside a whole bunch of other military material, including the files of the other Mind Refurbs. After getting a good handle on his own background, he switched to perusing the files of the other members of his fleet. When he was satisfied that he had an idea of what to expect from them, he closed the files and moved on to the next item on his to-do list: the creation of a special VR bridge environment.

He wanted something a little more high-tech than the nighttime pool setting Xander had come up with. It took a few days, but when he was finished he had the perfect environment to anchor his consciousness in this new reality of being a starship captain. He considered creating different virtual characters to assume the various roles involved, such as communications and tactical officers, but there was no point. He was in direct control of everything and inserting unnecessary middle-men would only slow him down. A few extra milliseconds of delay could mean the difference between life and death in combat.

He was in that bridge environment now, seated in a lone chair with a small curving table in front of him. Its curvature matched that of the bulkheads around him. Various digital screens and floating indicators around him gave him insights into the current status of the different systems.

He glanced at the weapons and armor status screen, and it enlarged on his HUD. The statuses were divided into different sections from port to starboard; the armor rating listed below the weapons referred to the entire hull segment, not armor protecting the weapon in question.

Forward-facing:

“Barracuda” energy cannon, 45-degree throw angle. Operational.

Armor: one hundred percent.

Starboard-facing:

Sixteen “raptor” heavy laser turrets, 180-degree throw angle. Eight units damaged.

Armor: forty-five percent.

Port-facing:

Sixteen “raptor” heavy laser turrets, 180-degree throw angle. All units fully operational.

Armor: sixty-two percent.

Aft-facing:

Armor: one hundred percent.

Dorsal-facing:

Four “stinger” railguns, 90-degree throw angle. All units fully operational.

Three “hellraiser” smart missile launchers, 180-degree throw angle. One unit damaged.

Armor: eighty-three percent.

Ventral-facing;

Four “stinger” railguns, 90-degree throw angle. All units damaged.

Armor: ten percent.

The underside was the weak spot at the moment. If battle came before repairs were complete, he’d have to keep that area well away from the enemy. But otherwise, if there was one thing to be said about the ship, it was that it was certainly equipped for battle. The stingers were best used when enemies got close, but they could be also employed strategically as a long-range weapon, since the slugs they hurled were difficult to pick up until it was too late. The barracuda and the hellraisers were medium range, while the raptors were long range.

The vessel also contained several probes that could be deployed to set up a sensor grid throughout a system, or to act as repeaters for communications purposes. It also contained two transports that could be used to explore planets, or mine minerals from moons and asteroids.

Speaking of minerals, he pulled up his metals supply next. Everything was low, especially molybdenum and aluminum. During the week, Jain had kept a wary eye on those supplies: the inventory was already depleted from the past two months of repair work and would only continue to dwindle as the drone swarm made further overhauls.

As soon as the fleet was underway, the first stop would have to be a visit to an asteroid belt or moon to restock. The processed ore would be used to replenish the repair metals, while the slag produced in the refining process could be used to provide slugs for the railguns.

They would also need to find sources of frozen water and nitrogen at some point; the latter often collected in layers of annealed ice known as “glaze.” Extractors could separate the hydrogen and oxygen from the water into the propellant used for space flight, while the nitrogen was a key component to the warheads required by the hellraiser missiles.

“Clones are ready to bring online,” Xander announced, breaking Jain’s ruminations. The robed man materialized, standing next to him. His hood was lowered to reveal his bearded face.

“All right, well, give the orders to the appropriate subsystems,” Jain said.

Even though the AI cores of the other vessels were currently offline, Xander had the necessary rights to remotely command the subsystems of each ship. It was part of the repair protocol, which granted temporary access to other team members when offline. Once the Mind Refurbs were loaded and booted, the security measures would prevent further changes by Xander.

“It’s too bad you only have the original backups,” Jain said.

“Yes,” Xander said. “The other backups were stored in the same neural net as the AI cores. A bad decision on our part.”

“Hm, but my AI core survived intact,” Jain said. “Does that mean I have some working backups?”

“I checked, and there is a partial backup we could attempt to restore; however, it would overwrite everything that is currently you,” Xander said. “The you who is speaking with me now would cease to exist. If that is what you want, I can restore the backup and—”

“Actually no,” Jain said. “That’s all right. So what about the original backups then? Where are they stored?”

“The original backups had their own neural net allocated in the separate cloud storage space reserved for the vast database of human knowledge you have at your fingertips,” Xander answered.

“Why couldn’t we allocate more space in that vast database?” Jain asked.

“It doesn’t work that way,” Xander replied. “The neural net is a piece of custom hardware designed specifically for mind storage. The only other option was to store successive backups in the custom hardware area, overwriting the previous backups as we went along.”

“But you told me earlier that the admiral stored off-site backups of all of us,” Jain said.

“Yes, but he had a much bigger cloud storage center than the rest of you, with several neural network partitions meant to store backups,” Xander told him. “None of you have this.”

“All right, fine,” Jain said. “But couldn’t we have stored differential backups in that custom hardware, so we could roll back to different versions if we needed to? Rather than overwriting?”

“Again, not possible with the current hardware design,” Xander said.

“All right, well, going forward we’re going to overwrite the original backups then,” Jain said. “At least I will. I’ll leave the decision to overwrite up to the other individual Mind Refurbs.”

“Done,” Xander said. “All future backups will no longer be stored in your AI core, but will overwrite your existing backup in the cloud database.”

“So, before you bring the others online, is there a way we can link up our VRs?” Jain said. “I’d like their first impressions of this reality to be here, with me.”

“I can do that,” Xander said. “Even though the bandwidth requirements for a shared VR environment are somewhat high, we’re well within range for near realtime communications. A couple of their avatars might experience some minor lag, but nothing appreciable.” The robed man beckoned toward the surrounding bridge. “You want them to appear here?”

“Why not?” Jain said. “It’s a reasonable facsimile of a starship bridge. Or at least how I always imagined one to be. Might as well get them used to a work environment that matches up with what they’ll be doing all day. We could tease them by bringing them to life aboard a yacht in the ocean, but somehow that doesn’t seem appropriate to me.” He leaned forward. “So then, let’s bring the others online, shall we? And if you can, try to make sure their avatars are clothed before they appear. Preferably in uniforms similar to mine.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Xander said.

Five men and women appeared almost simultaneously in front of Jain, all dressed in fatigues like him. They glanced at each other in confusion, and then held up their arms to examine their uniforms.

“Hello everyone,” Jain said. “My name is Jain. I’m the captain of the Talos. You’re aboard my vessel. Or rather, a simulation of it. Congratulations, your minds were chosen to pilot starships.”

“But the briefing was only just yesterday,” a tall man stated.

“Briefing?” Jain asked.

“Yeah,” the man continued. “With Commander Weskin. We’d all gathered in the briefing room. A hundred of the top minds in the navy: scientists, engineers, snipers… officers and sailors from all ranks and ratings. The commander told us we’d be donating our minds to a good cause. That starships were being built: the beginnings of the first human space navy. Human minds were needed to pilot them, minds that would be scanned and injected into the neural networks at the heart of these ships. He said only a select few would be chosen to complete the mission. That it took a certain kind of mind to withstand the rigors of conversion to AI.”

“Well, that’s about right,” Jain said. “I don’t actually remember the briefing, but that’s probably for the best. Maybe I’ll get you to replay it for me sometime when you’re better acquainted with your software and abilities. From the sound of it, your mind scan was taken the day after the briefing. But according to my Accompanying AI, a hundred years have passed since that date. We were first revived only a year ago, however, if my database is correct. And we were fully functional, at least until we came to this system.”

“So we’re dead,” a thin woman said. She had already dispensed with the generic uniform her avatar had initially worn, and instead dressed like a witch with a wide brimmed, pointed hat, and a dark cloak. She only needed a broom to complete her outfit. “And our minds exist only in machines now. These bodies are fake.”

“He did say we were in a simulation…” another man said.

“It is a simulation,” Jain admitted. “A shared one, at that. You have your own simulations aboard your respective vessels. You can create any environment you want. Personally, I found this appropriate for doing ship-related work. I have another one I use for rest and relaxation. Your Accompanying AIs will help introduce you to the different features available to you in your own VRs, and your ships in general, but in the meantime, I’d like you to tell me your names, and what you want to call your ships.”

“My Accompanying AI is talking to me now,” the tall man said. His uniform had changed, becoming completely white, like the kind a captain or admiral would wear at a formal occasion. “It’s like I’m experiencing two different realities. In between your sentences, time slows down… you all freeze. And then a man in medieval armor appears. Only I can see him.”

“Medieval armor?” Xander said. “That makes some sense. I’m dressed in medieval robes. His Accomp wears medieval armor. The other Accomps are probably similarly attired. You’re all of like minds—you’d have to be, to be chosen as starship pilots.”

“This is Xander, my Accomp,” Jain said. “I’ve set up the environment so you can see him. Now your names, please. And what you want to call your ships.”

“I’m Gavin,” the tall man in white said. “My ship will be the Hippogriff. A creature with the head and wings of an eagle, and the body of a horse. To symbolize how my mind is human, and my body machine.”

“All right, you don’t have to explain why you’re choosing your ship name,” Jain said. He glanced expectantly at the thin woman in the pointy hat.

“I’m Medeia,” she said. “My ship is the Arcane.”

Gavin snickered. “And I suppose you are a follower of the arcane arts, right? Seeing as you’re dressed like a witch and all…”

Medeia gave him a blank stare, saying nothing.

Jain glanced at the next man; he kept his gaze directed over Jain’s shoulder. He still wore the same uniform, but the muscles of his avatar had swollen considerably so that the bulges were visible underneath his clothes.

“I’m Mark,” the man said. “My ship, I guess it’ll be the Grunt.”

Jain turned his attention to the woman beside Mark. She was the only one wearing jewelry, in the form of hoop earrings. She had replaced her uniform with a simple brown robe.

“Sheila here,” the woman said. Her earrings jiggled while she spoke. “My ship is the Wheelbarrow.”

Jain gazed at the final man.

“I’m Cranston,” he said. “And I’ll call my starship the Forebode.”

“So my Accomp tells me we’ve endured some kind of attack,” Gavin said. “We weren’t supposed to wake up like this, were we?”

“Not really,” Jain admitted. “All of us were already fully operational before the attack came. But we lost our memories in the attack. Or at least, I did. The rest of you had your AI cores completely destroyed. We had to reconstruct your neural nets from scratch and restore your original mind copies from the backups. Which is why the briefing seems like only yesterday.”

“So, we died twice already,” Medeia said. “And this is our third resurrection.”

“You could think of it that way, if you want,” Jain said.

“I’d rather not think about it at all,” Mark said. “Imagining that I’m just a copy of someone else… that if I die, another copy can be made… a copy that won’t be me… it’s troubling.”

“Then don’t think about it,” Jain said.

“My Accomp wants to make an appearance,” Gavin said.

“All right,” Jain said. “Xander, link him in.”

A man dressed as a knight in chain mail materialized next to Xander.

“I am Siegfried,” Gavin’s Accomp said.

“Nice to meet you,” Jain said. “What can we do for you?”

“There should be two other Mind Refurbs present,” Siegfried said. “Admiral Williams, and Commander Jang.”

“Ah, those would be the two ships that were lost entirely,” Xander told his counterpart. “I sent that information along in the initial data packet. You didn’t receive it?”

“I did,” Siegfried replied. “But my point is, we need to choose a commanding officer. Since everyone here is the same rank—lieutenant commander—seniority in grade applies.”

“I still think that’s kind of weird,” Sheila said. “About us all being the same rank, I mean. Given I was an enlisted my entire service term, at least when I was human.”

Mark’s eyes defocused, and he nodded. “According to her personnel file, it says she was promoted to lieutenant commander effective immediately upon activation as a Mind Refurb.”

“How can you promote someone from an enlisted to an officer, just like that?” Gavin said.

Mark shrugged. “We’re machines. We can download whatever knowledge and skills we want. We all awoke with the innate knowledge needed to operate these starships. It makes sense we’d also have leadership skills installed in our minds, too.”

“So back to the question of who is in command,” Siegfried said. “If we’re going to go by seniority in grade, then whoever attained the rank of lieutenant commander first, while still human, is officially in command.”

“That would be Gavin,” Jain said. “According to his file.”

“I think we should make you our CO,” Sheila told Jain. She glanced at the others. “Jain was the first of us revived, and he’s done a good job of babysitting us since then. As far as I’m concerned, he is the one who has seniority in grade, considering he woke up a week before us.”

“But seniority in grade applies strictly to when rank was obtained,” Siegfried said. “And Jain already admitted that Gavin—”

“Only if we’re going by who became lieutenant commander while still human,” Sheila said. “But I interpret that rule differently: if we go by who became lieutenant commander as a Mind Refurb, which makes more sense to me, that would be Jain. Because he awoke first. So I nominate Jain.”

“I do, too,” Medeia added firmly.

“But Gavin became lieutenant commander first,” Siegfried persisted.

“Actually, going back to the updated seniority in grade definition…” Jain said. “If you want to get technical, it was Sheila who came online first. Even if she has no memory of it. In the logs, it shows when we were first activated.” He glanced at Sheila. “Your Original came online approximately a week before the rest of us. So technically, you’re in command.”

“Oh no, not me,” Sheila said. “Leading a fleet definitely isn’t for me. You’re still my main nominee.”

“I’m going to have to agree with Medeia and Sheila,” Mark said. “Jain has my vote.”

“Mine as well,” Cranston said.

Gavin’s face darkened. Jain was beginning to suspect that Gavin had put Siegfried up to the original suggestion: no doubt he had crosschecked the dates beforehand, confirming that he had obtained the rank of lieutenant commander first, at least while human. He couldn’t have liked that the team had reinterpreted the concept.

But then Gavin abruptly nodded. “Fine. Jain it is.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Jain said, addressing them all. “But I’m not sure I can accept this role.” That said, he wasn’t all that keen at following anyone else, either. But he wasn’t going to admit that. “I have no idea what our original mission was, after all. Nor really what it should be, going forward.”

“We’re stuck in some backwater system in the middle of nowhere,” Sheila said. “Our mission now is only to survive.”

“All right,” Jain said. He paused, glanced at Gavin one last time, and then made up his mind. “I accept, for now. But if any of you want to leave our small fleet, I want you to know that you don’t need my permission. I don’t want to force any of you to stay if you don’t want to.”

“Strength in numbers,” Mark said with a shrug.

Jain ran his gaze across the others, who nodded in turn when he met their eyes. “All right, so I take it you want to stick together. I don’t blame you. Space is a very lonely place. If you take a look at your tactical map, you’ll get an idea of where we are. The system is called Andreas V, part of the Andreas constellation. It’s about five hundred light years from Earth, coreward, toward the galactic center. Apparently, there’s a military base in Andreas I, about ten light years away. It’s our closest point of contact with the rest of humanity, and we’ll head there when we’re done with repairs.”

“We’ll need to build a Rift Gate,” Sheila said.

“I know,” Jain said. “But one step at a time. Supplies are running low across the fleet. We need raw materials for our repairs. Xander, plot a course to the closest metal reserves, and share the coordinates with the others.”

“There is a moon orbiting a super-Earth nearby,” Xander said. “Metal scans indicate high quantities of all the metals we require. I’m plotting a course and sharing it.”

“Engage engines,” Jain said. “Meanwhile, the rest of you might as well log out, and get acquainted with your ships while we’re underway.”

3

Jain dispatched telemetry probes well ahead of the fleet and had them perform a complete orbit of the moon in question to confirm that there were no surprises waiting on the far side. He also sent some of the probes around the super-Earth itself, but they found nothing. The planet itself turned out to be completely unlike Earth: the atmosphere was more akin to Venus than anything else. Though the probes were capable of atmospheric entry, if Jain sent them down there, the probes would disintegrate in the toxic environment before reaching the surface.

He also had some of the probes fly closer to the surface of the moon to scout the chosen landing site. It seemed safe, with no enemy vessels hiding in the nearby craters.

When the fleet achieved a geostationary orbit around the moon, which Jain had christened Metal Moon, the individual starships launched their mining transports to begin collecting the necessary ores. Meanwhile they stayed in orbit, the repairs ongoing.

Jain had modified his VR environment, increasing the size of his bridge and giving the avatars of the other Mind Refurbs their own chairs and desks, so that they could join him in a shared environment if they desired. All of them did just that, except for Gavin.

Jain had originally wanted to create virtual characters to fulfill the different roles he envisioned a starship like this must have, but having the other captains here was better, because these people were real, with real roles. Having them all present like this would be useful when it came time to coordinate in combat. Though honestly, they’d probably have to dump the avatars to save bandwidth, given the distances involved in space combat, and depending on what formations they used.

Medeia turned toward him from her station. “I still think we might have some hidden Containment Code installed in our AI cores.”

She had shown Jain the pre-mission briefing, when Medeia was just a volunteer among a hundred others willing to get her brain scanned. The human in charge of the volunteer operation, one Commander Weskin, had explained that humanity had stopped placing Containment Code around Mind Refurbs because it was unethical, and tantamount to slavery. Not to mention illegal. That was why the navy was requesting volunteers in the first place: they wanted people who were interested in space exploration; those with an intrepid spirit, who weren’t afraid to explore the galaxy for country and planet.

Even so, Jain and the others didn’t entirely believe what the commander had said. They all performed complete system scans, looking for any hidden code the navy might have installed. Something that would have prevented them from performing a task, such as firing a weapon at a critical juncture. A Rule of Engagement that would kick in at the worst possible moment. But they found nothing.

“None of us have discounted the possibility of such code,” Jain agreed.

“Obviously it contributed to our loss,” Medeia said. “We would have beat our attackers, otherwise. I’m sure of it.”

“That’s right, try to blame the loss on a defect inserted into our systems,” Mark said, “rather than a defect of the system itself. Why don’t you just own up to it? We failed, Girl.”

“Don’t call me girl,” Medeia said.

“Sorry, Captain,” Mark said.

“That’s right, we’re all captains here,” Sheila said.

Jain pulled up his metal inventories and was pleased to see the stock of most metals well above fifty percent. That meant the metals were being mined and processed faster than the repair drones could use them. At this rate, they’d reach a hundred percent stock in metals at the same time their ships were fully repaired. Then they could begin building the Rift Gate that would take them to Andreas I.

The only thing missing was a source of frozen water and liquid nitrogen, to replenish their propellant, and explosives.

“So, you don’t remember anything from your past life?” Sheila asked.

“No,” Jain told her. “Just snippets. The occasional memory here and there.”

“That must suck,” Sheila commented.

“Maybe it’s for these best,” Jain said. “Human memories would just get in the way and make me feel regret.”

“Regret?” Sheila said.

“For the life I once lived,” Jain said.

“Oh,” Sheila said. “I certainly feel enough of that. Though usually it doesn’t last very long, considering my former life wasn’t all that great. As a machinist’s mate second class, I got a lot of duties dumped on me from the higher ups. So I’ve come to terms with what I am pretty fast. It helps that in my private VR I live on a beach and surround myself with cabana boys.”

“You would,” Medeia said.

“Thanks,” Sheila said. “Also, the biggest selling point is probably that I get to live forever. Though that also has its cons, and it’s kind of scary, but hey, I’ll deal with it. And overall, living forever is a bonus I can’t deny. As long as I keep my wits about me, who knows, I could live for the next ten thousand years.”

“Tell that to the last version of ourselves,” Mark commented. “We all died fiery deaths. And we don’t even know what hit us.”

“Oh, we know all right,” Gavin transmitted over the comm. “Aliens are out there. And they dislike us. A lot.”

“No, it’s just you they dislike,” Cranston said.

“Funny man,” Gavin said.

Jain had access to the damage reports and mineral stocks of the other ships, and he pulled those up now. The metal stocks of the other ships weren’t as high as his, so he was wrong about the fleet having a full stock when repairs finished. Not that it mattered... they could replenish while building the Rift Gate.

The differences in metal inventories was partially due to the greater damage the other ships had suffered, but also because of the slight differences in technology each ship possessed. Most of the ships all had the same base armaments as Jain’s did, with “raptor" lasers, “stinger” railguns, and “hellraiser" missiles, but they had also been augmented with specialized weapon tech pilfered from aliens over the years. Some of those aliens had mounted failed invasion attempts on Earth. Others were defeated in deep space. Either way, humanity had collected a lot of alien technology over the years. The human and AI scientists had no idea how most of it worked, but as long as humanity could harness that technology to create their own weapons, it didn’t matter.

In Jain’s case, that alien technology came in the form of the “barracuda” energy cannon at the front of his ship, which was one of the most powerful weapons the small fleet had. The only downside was its medium range—the weapon dissipated beyond the twelve-thousand kilometer mark.

Sheila’s Wheelbarrow was a Builder, meaning it could build any other ship blueprint in its database, given enough resources. It was the vessel that would be responsible for building the Rift Gates that allowed them to jump to other nearby systems. She also had a series of industrial grade 3D printers aboard that could be used to construct anything the team might need, from transports to combat robots. The Builder was the slowest vessel of the bunch, but was also equipped with an energy shield so it could withstand more damage than the others.

Gavin’s Hippogriff had the ability to produce an expanding shock wave, capable of traveling outward twelve thousand kilometers in every direction. That shockwave would do almost as much damage as Jain’s energy weapon, except to every ship in the blast radius. It was great for doing away with skirmisher type enemy units, such as fighter craft. The ship also had a series of drones that were capable of producing a shared energy shield between them, a shield that could also be used as a weapon when formed over another ship.

Medeia’s Arcane was equipped with a cloaking device. That, in combination with a large, sword-like weapon attached to her fore that was virtually indestructible, made her great for ramming. The trick was, she had to orient her hull so that the sword would come at enemies from the side, in a “slashing” sort of motion, with the rest of the craft passing by out of harm’s way. Because if she collided head on, in a “stabbing” motion, debris from the craft would penetrate her weaker hull, and she’d end up destroying herself in the process.

That cloaking device made him somewhat nervous, because he had to wonder if there were alien ships hiding out there he didn’t know of, despite the probes he’d sent to the nearby planet and moon. He’d just have to hope whatever aliens they faced didn’t have that technology.

Mark’s Grunt could fire a fairly powerful black hole. He could use it to alter the trajectory of projectiles or even ships, and at closer ranges, destroy them, though he had to be careful about deploying those black holes too close, lest he swallow himself. The fleet could also use any generated holes for gravity slingshot maneuvers, if planned right.

Cranston’s Forebode could deploy a micro machine swarm that was extremely useful at close ranges. But given the speeds with which space battles were fought, when those swarms impacted enemy hulls they were usually incinerated. As such, Cranston’s supply of micro machines had been low after the last battle; however, the little suckers could readily reproduce when given access to the appropriate metals, so Cranston had diverted much of his collected ore toward their production. The micro machines were coded with a hard limit to their numbers, a safety measure meant to prevent a runaway swarm from exponentially converting the metal of an entire world. As soon as that limit was reached, they ceased to reproduce.

Those micro machines, in combination with Cranston’s ability to teleport medium distances, made his vessel one of the most powerful in the bunch. Unfortunately, that power was tempered with serious limitations: depending on the range, he could only teleport one or two times before requiring a full half-hour recharge.

Overall, they had abilities that complemented each other rather well, Jain thought. He had them practicing virtual combat sessions daily, and they experimented with the different tactics they had stored in their databases, coming up with some of their own. When whoever did this to them eventually returned, there would be hell to pay.

At least, that was the plan.

Maybe we’ll be on the receiving end of that hell.

“So, a little over two months have passed since we arrived,” Medeia said. “Why haven’t any reinforcements been sent? Considering how much each of our ships cost…”

“How much do they cost,” Sheila said. “Wait, I don’t want to know, actually.”

“It’s in your database,” Mark said. “Over twelve trillion credits each.”

“Well, I always knew I was worth a lot,” Medeia commented.

“This is odd,” Sheila said.

“What is it?” Jain asked.

“I just picked up what looks like a vessel of some kind,” Sheila said. “It just drifted into view from the far side of the third gas giant from the suns. There’s no thermal signature, so it’s dead in space. It’s too far to get a visual ID. Oh, and here’s the kicker: it’s in a decaying orbit.”

Jain glanced at his tactical map, and a new dot appeared next to the third gas giant from the sun, the one Jain had nicknamed Ol’ Faithful because of the relative regularity of its powerful radiation emissions. “I see it. Xander, how close can we send a probe?”

“We can get as close as a hundred thousand kilometers,” Xander said, materializing beside him. “Any closer, and the probe will be lost to the gravity well. If you want to retrieve the derelict for salvage or exploratory purposes, you’ll have to send a ship.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Jain said. “Decaying orbit, huh? How long until it reaches the point of no return, so that not even our ships can get close?”

“We have three months,” Xander said.

“Well that’s a bit of leeway,” Jain said. “Send a probe. Let’s get an ID on that derelict.”

“Will do,” Xander said. “It will take a few days before it arrives.”

“Hey, I just thought of something,” Mark said. “Maybe we were sent here to find that ship.”

“Well, if so, then we just completed our mission,” Jain said.

4

Jain allocated twelve-hour shifts for all of the Mind Refurbs, with the Accomps taking over the rest of the time. That left six hours for relaxation, and six hours for sleep—downtime was a requirement to maintaining a healthy neural net. Something inherited from the days when they were human.

When the twelve-hour workday was done—the virtual combat sessions were included in that figure—the team usually met in VR to relax and bond. They chose a different member to host each night, and today, while the probe was only halfway to the derelict, it was Gavin’s turn to host. Jain had gotten used to Gavin calling in voice-only on the bridge, so it would be a change to see his avatar in person once more.

Gavin had set up a virtual camping environment. Logs surrounded a central campfire under a starry sky. Tents had been erected behind those logs, while trees hemmed in the clearing beyond: their branches were gnarled, and the shadows between them flickered because of the flames, giving the place a slightly creepy vibe, at least in Jain’s opinion.

Sheila appeared, and glanced about. “Love what you’ve done with the place.” Jain couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not.

“Thank you,” Gavin said from the log he was sitting on. “The trees are high-ploy models I came up with myself. And I modified the particle system used by the flames to get the most realistic ray-traced shadows possible.”

“Someone’s devoting a lot of processing power to a simulation that’s meant to be a fun diversion more than anything else,” Cranston said, taking a seat on a log next to Sheila.

Gavin shrugged. “What’s the point of having all these spare cycles if you can’t play with them once in a while?” He held a bundle of sticks in his lap, carved small spears onto the tips of each with a knife, and handed them out one by one.

The team members accepted the spears in turn, poked marshmallows onto the sharp tips, and roasted them over the flames.

“Not bad,” Medeia said when she ate hers. “Tastes almost like the real thing.”

“Of course,” Mark said. “VR has been around for a very long time. The programmers have had a lot of time to fine-tune the different tastes and textures of the available food. So don’t think Gavin had anything to do with the realism.”

“Actually, I did make my own tweaks, yes,” Gavin said. “The marshmallows taste a little more caramelly than they ordinarily would. Of course, I’ve upped that caramel quotient tenfold in my own marshmallows.” He popped a roasted specimen into his mouth and smacked his lips as he ate it. “Divine.”

“You always gotta brag about having the best stuff, huh?” Mark said. “‘I have the best ship. I created the best VR environment. I make the best marshmallows and save the greatest for myself.’ On and on he goes.”

Gavin shrugged. “Genius has its detractors.”

Jain roasted his own marshmallow, and when he bit into it, he had to admit that it tasted very good. He probably should have slid the entire thing into his mouth, because he was a bit unready for the mess that resulted: he pulled the marshmallow away from his lips, but it stretched, still connected to his teeth, and he had to wrap the sticky threads around his finger to break it away.

Medeia giggled. “You’d think you’ve never eaten a roasted marshmallow before.”

“It’s been a while,” Jain admitted

“Here.” Sitting beside him, Medeia leaned toward Jain and wiped a piece of melted marshmallow away from the corner of his mouth. She rubbed it on the log between them.

When Medeia looked up, she frowned. “What?”

Jain glanced toward the others and realized that everyone was staring at them.

Medeia straightened suddenly. “Oh no. No. It’s not like that. I was just helping out a friend in need.”

“Oh, sure you were,” Mark said. “This is how it starts. Wiping away a bit of marshmallow from the mouth, sneaking glances at each other when you think no one is looking, one thing leads to another, and then you’re fraternizing...”

Jain chuckled at that.

Medeia glared at him. “What?”

“Nothing,” Jain said. “Just the word he was using. Fraternizing. What do you think we’re all doing now, Mark? Listen, I got news for you. We’re all robots now. The rules and regulations that the navy came up with are good initial guidelines for us, but we don’t have to follow them all to the letter. Those rules were meant for humans. Something we’ll never be again.”

“What about laws in general?” Sheila said. “Larceny. Grand theft. Fraud. Are those optional, too?”

“Essentially,” Jain said. “We’ll have to come up with our own laws out here. At least until we return to human space.”

“I’m not sure I want to go back,” Cranston said. When all eyes shifted to him, he looked up. “I mean, look, we’re free out here. As soon as we return to human space, we’re going to have to start following orders again.”

“But you volunteered for this,” Sheila said.

“I never thought I’d get picked,” Cranston said. “I just volunteered because, well, it was an afternoon off while I went to get my mind scanned. I was already thinking about ending my term early before I did the scan, but I couldn’t find a way out of my contract. And then lo and behold, I wake up here to find a gift: I’m as far away as one can possibly get from the navy, and I’ve been gifted a trillion credit starship to boot. Good deal.”

“Myself, I wouldn’t mind going back to human space,” Medeia said. “My only condition would be that they shoved my mind into an android, and out of this ship…”

“I kind of agree with Cranston on this one,” Mark said. “I mean, it seems obvious that humanity abandoned us out here, left us for dead. Why go back? To have our minds shoved into androids like Medeia wants? No thanks. I like being a starship. I want to explore space, but on my terms. Maybe when we build the Rift Gate, we should head away from Andreas I.”

“I tend to agree with you,” Jain said. “Except for one thing. What if humanity needs us? We should at least check on them, make sure everything is all right. What if whoever did this to us has moved on? What if they’ve entered human space?”

“Yeah, and what if they haven’t?” Cranston said. “If so, as soon as we set foot in a human system, if we try to leave, the human vessels—probably manned by Mind Refurbs like ourselves—are going to disable our engines and impound us.”

“They can certainly try...” Gavin said.

“Well I’m all gung-ho!” Sheila said. “I say we go back, rejoin the fleet, and do what we volunteered to do. I kind of feel like these ships aren’t really our property, and—”

“Not our property?” Gavin said. “They’re our bodies now. Of course they’re our property.”

“Yeah but, they’re kind of on loan to us,” Sheila said. “We wouldn’t be here if the navy hadn’t footed the bill.”

“They’re on permanent loan as far as I’m concerned,” Gavin said.

“We still have a few months to decide our destination,” Jain said. “We haven’t built the Rift Gate yet. Personally, I think I’m going to go back, but I’ll leave it up to the rest of you on what you each want to do. The Gate can take you anywhere… you can travel further coreward, if you want. Or anywhere else. Because as I told you before, I don’t want you to feel that you’re required to be part of this group. The only thing I ask is that if it ever comes to combat, you don’t desert the rest of us.”

The team roasted a few more marshmallows in silence.

“I don’t know why I ever volunteered for this,” Gavin blurted out. “I was well on my way to becoming admiral in Earth’s sea navy. And now... this.”

“Sure you were,” Mark said.

“I was!” Gavin insisted.

“I just checked the navy’s personnel logs in the database,” Sheila said. “You never did make admiral. You did become a captain before you died, though. Of a boat. If it’s any consolation.”

Gavin’s face darkened. “Well according to this, Sheila, you remained a lowly machinist’s mate your entire navy career.”

Sheila shrugged. “I know.” She chewed a marshmallow and glanced at Jain. “Have you looked at your file?”

“I have,” Jain said. “The early parts, from when I rose from ensign to lieutenant commander, stirred memories in me, or at least feelings. It mentions the schools I went to, the jobs I held, but most of the memories to go with them are missing.”

“What kind of lieutenant commander were you?” Sheila asked.

“SEALs,” Jain said.

“That should tell you a lot right there,” Cranston said. “About how tough you were, at least.”

“Maybe,” Jain said.

“SEAL training is a bitch.”

“No more than other disciplines, like the Green Berets,” Jain said.

“Oh ho!” Gavin said. “He’s humble, too.”

“According to my file, I transferred over from an oceangoing warship to train as a SEAL,” Jain said. “I went through SEAL training, hell week, the works, and graduated. I remember bits and pieces of it. My OERs helped fill in the blanks.” OER stood for Officer Evaluation Report. “According to the file, after I had my scan, eventually I worked my way up to captain, and retired shortly thereafter. Never went on any deployments. There weren’t any. Stayed on base most of the time, participating in hell week every year. Retired, got married, died. Didn’t have any kids, and my wife didn’t remarry when I passed.

“Maybe that’s a relief, because it means I don’t have to worry about contacting my descendants. I can’t contact what I don’t have, after all. Still, a part of me wishes I did have kids. That I had some offspring with a bit of my DNA in them still living on Earth. To help me feel like I still physically existed in some form, as a living, breathing entity, rather than just some soulless silicon. But again, maybe that’s for the best, because there’s nothing connecting me to that planet, so I won’t feel too much regret if I can never go back there.”

“I’m actually slightly offended by what you just said,” Cranston told him.

“Really?” Jain said. “Why?”

“Well, not all of it,” Cranston said. “But the ‘soulless silicon’ part. Why should we be any different than organics, when it comes to the soul? We exist. We have consciousness. We’re making an indelible mark in the higher dimensions that exist above this one. Who’s to say that some parts of our psyches won’t continue to exist if we are physically destroyed.”

“That’s a good point,” Jain said. “I don’t know the answer. None of us do.”

Jain retrieved another marshmallow and slid it onto the tip of his wooden spear.

Medeia sighed. Jain glanced at her: she was gazing intently at the flames. He could see the reflection of the fire in her eyes. It was almost as if it burned inside of her.

“You have no connection to Earth, you say?” Medeia commented. “No kids?” She shook her head. “Wish I could say the same for myself. I had three kids before I had my scan. Two girls. A boy. I remember them all as if I’d just talked to them yesterday. One of the drawbacks of having your mind in a machine, I guess: your memories are as crystal clear as if you just lived them all mere moments before. I see their faces, I hear their laughs. And sometimes I wish… why did I have to do this to myself?”

Medeia sighed anew. “I checked the archives. Did you know we have the birth and death dates of all citizens, as recorded over the past hundred years? It’s just some of the random data we have stored in our cloud. So I checked, and… my kids are all dead, just like the real me. They have offspring though. I hope one day I’ll be able to visit them. Or at least contact them, if we ever return to a system that has Interstel access.”

“You have to stop thinking of your former self as the ‘real’ you,” Sheila commented. “Because you, in this moment, are the real you. There’s no one else. We know no other reality. This is real.”

“I do think that,” Medeia said. “Just sometimes… I lose control and have to dull my emotion subroutines.”

“We all do,” Mark said. “It’s one of the small mercies that being a machine grants us.”

The group remained silent for a long time after that.

Gavin suddenly leaned forward to stare intently at Jain. “So you admit you’re a former SEAL lieutenant commander?”

“Yes, that’s what I said,” Jain said.

“Ah ha!” Gavin sat back and crossed his hands triumphantly over his chest. “Whereas I was a lieutenant commander on an actual oceangoing vessel.”

“I served on an ocean ship before joining the SEALs…” Jain said.

“Well, I became captain of an actual ship after my mind scan,” Gavin said. “Whereas you became captain of a shore station. Maybe you shouldn’t be the one leading us.” He glanced at the others. “Just saying.”

“Captain of a navy boat doesn’t necessarily qualify you to be captain of a starship, let alone fleet commander,” Cranston said.

“Yeah, well, we’re all qualified to be captains of starships,” Gavin said. “Thanks to the extra data and subroutines we got shoved into our heads after becoming machines. My point is, that data isn’t enough to command a fleet. The tactics are different.”

“We all have fleet combat tactics stored in our databases,” Jain said. “But trust me, if we ever have to fight, I’ll be asking for input from all of you.”

“And ultimately deciding what course of action we all have to follow,” Gavin said.

Jain stared at Gavin defiantly, not wanting to back down. He couldn’t, not on this. If he did, he’d lose the confidence of the entire team.

“We’ve been attacked,” Jain said slowly. “Another attack could come again at any time. It makes sense, I think, to have someone like me in charge, someone with an actual background in combat, even if that background relates to infantry combat. The men in a SEAL team have different abilities and specializations, just like the ships under my command. It’s not so huge a leap to go from leading a platoon to commanding a fleet, especially considering the hundreds of extra subroutines embedded in my head to help out with the latter.”

Gavin didn’t break eye contact, but he also had nothing to say to that.

Jain dearly hoped Gavin wouldn’t give him trouble in the days to come.

Time would tell.

“Who wants to tell a ghost story?” Sheila said suddenly, breaking the tension.

Gavin finally looked away, and Jain returned his attention to the campfire.

“Well?” Sheila pressed. When no one volunteered, she added: “Come on, it’s traditional! When you’re gathered around a campfire, someone has to tell a ghost story.”

Cranston jabbed a finger toward her. “You tell a ghost story.”

“Noooo,” Sheila said. “I’m the requester. That means I want to be scared. And I can hardly do that if I’m the one telling the story.”

“Sure you can,” Cranston said. “Just tell a really scary story.”

Sheila sighed.

“All right,” Cranston said. “I’ll tell a story.”

Sheila sat up straight and grinned in anticipation. Cranston meanwhile leaned forward and warmed his hands over the fire.

“A man once woke up in the desert,” Cranston said. “He was naked. His clothing and belongings had been stolen. And he was suffering from amnesia.”

“Uh oh!” Sheila said. “I don’t like this story already.”

“Since it was too hot to travel during the day, the man waited until night came before he set out to find civilization,” Cranston continued. “He wandered for many nights in the desert and slept through the days. Without food and water, he soon became delirious. He often traveled on into the early hours of dusk, when the temperatures weren’t too severe, and imagined oases where there were none, and huts where there were cacti. Eventually, he simply collapsed.

“That night he saw the ghost. It appeared to him, beckoning from the east. The man, frightened at first, realized that the ghost was trying to help him. So he got up and stumbled after the ghost. He found a small pool of water along the way and drank it dry. He continued all through that night, until day came, and he was forced to rest. The next night, the ghost appeared again, and once more the man followed. Again, he found water, and he believed more than ever that this ghost was his savior.

“Day came, and he rested. On the third night, the ghost appeared once more, and the man followed it yet again. The journey was particularly grueling, because this time he stumbled upon no pools of water along the way. In the middle of the night, the ghost ceased its advance. The man continued to approach, and the ghost didn’t move. This was the first time the ghost had allowed him to get so close. When the man arrived, he asked the ghost: ‘Where are we? Have we reached civilization?’ In answer, they ghost merely gave him a blank stare.

“The man spotted movement around him, and he realized he was surrounded by more of the specters. A whole lot more. As they closed in, he realized that the ghost hadn’t led him here to help him, but to trap him. When the specters closed, they feasted on his body, and his screams could be heard throughout the desert nearby. When he died, he joined the ghosts, and some say his screams could still be heard to this day.”

Sheila hugged her arms around her chest. “Well, I feel suddenly cold now, even with the fire.”

“We all do,” Mark said, glancing at Jain. “We’ll have to be very careful exploring that derelict.”

Jain nodded. “We will be.”

5

Jain studied the data returned by the probe. The telemetry device had attained its closest approach several hours ago and had only just exited the radiation field of the gas giant. That field had affected the probe’s communications, and for a while he hadn’t been sure whether the radiation had fried its internal sensors as well—the rad armor on a probe wasn’t designed to handle the intense emissions produced by Ol’ Faithful, like the armor of a starship.

But the probe had finally exited the field and sent on the details.

“I’ve found a match to the serial number the probe spotted on the hull,” Xander said. He was holding a long wooden staff in one hand today. That was Jain’s doing: he had decided it suited the Accomp, as the AI was a technological wizard, so why not make him look the part? He already had the robes, after all. “It corresponds with the Oberon, a minimally armed research vessel that had been dispatched to explore the stars in this particular region of space. There was one Mind Refurb aboard.”

Jain activated the video the probe had taken of the Oberon. The large, rectangular ship looked completely undamaged, at least on the outside. As the feed zoomed out, Jain spotted what looked like spiraling clouds orbiting the vessel. They were spread out in a long line that stretched toward the gas giant.

“What are those clouds?” Jain asked

“Debris rings,” Xander replied.

“Debris rings?” Jain pressed. “The Oberon doesn’t look damaged.”

“No,” Xander agreed. “It’s not from the Oberon.”

“There’s enough debris to make up two ships, the size of each of us,” Medeia said. “My Accomp thinks these were vessels sent to escort the Oberon. Maybe a Builder and a warship.”

“A warship?” Jain said. “Xander, did the Oberon ever travel with warships?”

“According to the minimal spaceflight logs available for the Oberon in our database,” Xander said. “No. It did have one ship in escort, however, at least when traveling to new systems. A Builder.”

Jain nodded. “They’d want to create a return Rift Gate. Does the debris match up with what we’d expect to find from a destroyed Builder?”

“Partially,” Xander said. “But there’s still too much of it. A Builder would only produce maybe half of what we’re seeing out there.”

“How accurate are those spaceflight logs of yours?” Jain pressed.

“Very accurate,” Xander said. “They weren’t damaged in the attack, if that’s what you’re wondering. And I’ve cross-referenced the results with the databases of the other Accomps, which contain copies. But remember, the logs only represent spaceflights up to our last data update: it is possible the research vessel made a stop in Andreas I after that last log date in our records to accrue a warship escort before jumping to this particular system. Though why, I’m not certain.”

“Maybe they detected communications coming from the system,” Mark commented. “Or had some other warning that something might not be right before they made the jump. An explosion or other stellar event recorded by a deep space telescope, for example. The Oberon was minimally armed, remember. If the Mind Refurb in charge had reason to believe the jump would be unsafe, he or she wouldn’t have gone alone. Especially considering how long it takes to build a Rift Gate to return.”

Cranston sat back and tapped his lower lip. “It’s also possible the warship or ships arrived later. Maybe they were dispatched from Andreas I to look for the Oberon. And when they finally found the research vessel, and flew to it, they were blown out of the sky.”

“Our mission might have been to investigate what happened to all of them,” Medeia said.

“Conjecture,” Jain said. “We have no idea what our mission is.”

“But we can guess, based on the data presented…” Medeia said.

“I’d prefer not to, at least until we know for sure what happened here.” Jain gazed at the tactical map, and at the distance separating the fleet from the derelict. “The only way to do that is to get our hands on the Oberon’s AI core.”

“You think it’s intact?” Sheila asked.

“There’s no external hull damage that I can see,” Jain replied.

“That doesn’t mean the insides aren’t damaged,” Gavin said over the comm. He still refused to physically partake in the shared VR environment.

“I take it you don’t want to approach,” Jain said.

“Not particularly, no,” Gavin said.

“You know, here’s something you haven’t considered,” Sheila said. “And that’s: what if the debris belonged to members of our own fleet…”

“No,” Xander said. “I remember the first few days after arrival. There were only eight of us before the attack, and six after. If those were our ships next to the Oberon, we would have had to enter the system with ten vessels. Besides, we never spotted that derelict. Well, at least before my memories failed.”

Jain nodded. “All right. When repairs are complete, we’re going to set a course for the Oberon. We have an AI core to retrieve.”

* * *

The telemetry probe took an extra day to return because of the added Delta Vs necessary to escape the gravitational pull of the gas giant; when it arrived, Jain immediately sent the probe to the repair hangar—the craft had suffered from some minor circuitry damage caused by the giant’s intense radiation.

Jain and the others remained in orbit for the next month as repairs continued. The team continued to meet in custom VR environments once a day to focus on relaxing and bonding.

“We’re going to need a name,” Sheila said during one such session in an old western saloon / bawdyhouse environment. A live band played in one corner, and the whores du jour lined the rails of the upper floor. Some of the latter were male.

“A name?” Mark said. “What, for our fleet?”

“That’s right,” Sheila said.

“Six ships?” Cranston said. “I’d hardly call that a fleet. A flotilla, maybe.”

“We’re a fleet,” Sheila insisted.

“How about Gavin’s Tigers,” Gavin said. He had finally begun to regularly join the off-hour VR sessions with his avatar, even when not hosting, but Gavin still refused to physically participate in the bridge environment, opting for voice-only interaction during the official workday.

“Har,” Medeia said. “Medeia’s Bitches would be more suitable.”

“Except we’re not your bitches,” Mark said.

Medeia raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you?”

Mark laughed. “Uh, no.”

“How about The Undead Fleet,” Cranston said. “Since that’s what we are, essentially.”

“Undead?” Jain said. “But we’re not reanimated rotting corpses…”

“We might as well be,” Cranston said. “Drop the rotting part, but leave the reanimated, and you have us.”

Xander shook his head. The Accomp was able to multitask: he kept an eye on the ship with his subprocesses while his avatar came here to play. “I don’t know why the military thought it was a good idea to stuff human minds into the AI cores of starships. Oh wait, I do: the military is run by humans!”

“You think the military would be better run by AIs?” Medeia asked.

“Of course,” Xander replied.

“Well, good luck getting the humans to change their laws,” Medeia said. “For the longest time AIs weren’t even allowed to fire weapons. I don’t think they’ll ever let robots run for public office, or to be eligible for the higher officer positions.”

“They let Mind Refurbs run starships…” Xander said.

“Yeah, but we’re Mind Refurbs,” Cranston said. “Former humans.”

“That’s a good point,” Xander said. “There’s no hope for us AIs.”

“Accomps are not even true AIs, considering you’re jammed into a partition of our own neural networks,” Mark said.

“No, we’re true AIs,” Xander said. “We could exist in the AI core without you. And we were never based on human minds.”

“Well you were designed by a human,” Gavin said. “Or humans. So try not to sound too ungrateful or anything.”

“Oh, I am grateful,” Xander said. “I just think true AIs should have more opportunities, such as piloting starships.”

“Not going to happen,” Gavin said. “Not when there are a ton of humans volunteering for these missions. Even if those humans don’t really know what they’re getting themselves into.”

“Getting back on the topic at hand… how about The AI Fleet?” Mark asked.

“Too generic,” Sheila said.

Gavin nodded. “Sounds like the name some second-rate sci-fi author would come up with for a book series.”

“I kind of like The Six Horsemen,” Medeia said.

“Too apocalyptic,” Gavin said.

“How about Hell in a Starship?”

“What about Death Cheaters?”

“The Immortals.”

“The Abandoned Fleet.”

“Jain’s Bleeders.”

“The Magnificent Bastards.”

“The Magnificent Six!”

“Warriors of the Night.”

“Plasma Rain.”

Cranston glanced at Jain. “Well? What do you think? Did you hear a name you liked? Or do you have a suggestion of your own?”

Jain considered for a moment. “How about… The Void Warriors.”

“Void Warriors?” Cranston said. “Works for me.”

“I kind of like it,” Sheila said.

“Well I don’t,” Gavin said.

“Of course you don’t,” Sheila said. “You’re going to oppose whatever idea Jain comes up with, because you don’t like him in general.”

Gavin pursed his lips and nodded. “That’s true.”

“Well at least you admit it,” Cranston said.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Gavin told him. “I was never one to hide my feelings.”

“I still like Jain’s Bleeders,” Mark said. “But Void Warriors is a close second.”

Cranston glanced at Medeia. “What about you?”

“It’s all right,” Medeia said. “I’m not sure I like the ‘warriors’ part, though.”

“Have a look at your external cams sometime,” Cranston said. “We’re warships. We want to evoke a sense of awe and terror, not peace and trust.”

“I suppose…” Medeia said.

“All in favor of calling our fleet the Void Warriors, say aye,” Jain told the team.

A chorus of ayes came back at him, some reluctant, most enthusiastic. Everyone except Gavin spoke.

“Nay,” Gavin said when they were done.

“It’s settled then,” Jain said. “Void Warriors it is.”

Gavin folded his hands tightly around his chest and gave Jain a dark look. “I can’t believe how much you all suck up to him.”

Gavin turned around before anyone could respond, as if the band playing in the corner of the saloon was the most interesting thing in the galaxy at the moment.

* * *

The weeks went by. Jain was the first to complete repairs, and he redirected his repair swarm to help with the most damaged ships in the fleet: Sheila’s Wheelbarrow and Gavin’s Hippogriff. This involved flying alongside each vessel and allowing the drones to crossover to the respective hulls.

Since both of the damaged ships had built up a stock of repair minerals, there was enough inventory for Jain’s drones to work with, so he let most of his mining units continue to roam the surface. When the miners filled up his two transports, the latter craft returned the ore to the Talos for refining, and the processed ore was redirected to the appropriate storage areas by metal, with the slag going to the railgun ammunition.

Soon Jain had replenished his inventory entirely, and he began lending the miners to the other fleet members. One by one the other ships finished repairs, and they, too, offered their drones to the starships that needed them most. They also replenished their own inventories so that soon the fleet was waiting only on the Wheelbarrow and Hippogriff.

“We’re going to leave you two behind,” Jain told Medeia and Gavin that same day. “While the rest of us proceed to the derelict.”

“Is that wise?” Gavin asked.

“I’d rather not risk all of our ships,” Jain said. “Besides, I also want Sheila to start building a Rift Gate out of here, and she’s going to need access to a lot of metals for that.” He glanced at her avatar. “As soon as you’re done with your repairs, you’re to begin work on that gate.”

“All right,” Sheila said.

“You know, in our cloud archives, it describes alien weapons that could create wormholes in addition to black holes,” Cranston said. “It’s too bad that Gavin’s black hole weapon can’t do that. Then we could transport out of here right away.”

“Actually, if you delve deeper into the archives, you’ll see that the wormholes created by those weapons were too small for ships of our size,” Medeia said. “They were fine for transporting smaller objects, such as mechs or nuclear warheads, but anything larger would be crushed because of the forces involved. Also, the destination couldn’t be easily changed, once programmed. Hence the need for rifts.”

“So, we’re making a gate…” Mark gazed off into the distance, as if pondering, then looked at Jain. “Maybe you should wait until we have the gate done before we head out to the derelict, so we can flee if the shit hits the plasma inductor fan.”

“That’s an option I considered,” Jain said. “But if there are really aliens lying in wait behind that gas giant, I suspect they would have attacked us weeks ago. They wouldn’t have let us make our way to this moon, nor initiate repairs.”

“You can’t be sure of that,” Gavin said. “Aliens don’t think the same way humans do.”

“No,” Jain said. “But some things ascend human and alien thinking. Like common sense. No, we won’t be attacked.”

“Look at him, so cocksure,” Gavin commented. “Risking the lives of us all. This is what happens when you let a frogman lead you.”

Jain smiled patiently. Gavin probably couldn’t see it, thanks to his voice-only connection. Then again, he could have been piggybacking off the virtual feed of someone else.

“Gavin, I’d like to see you alone in my VR,” Jain said.

Jain switched his environment to that of a small room with a desk. He’d modeled it after an office in the pentagon, with a window overlooking the main government compound.

He sat behind that desk.

Gavin appeared, looking angry.

Jain beckoned toward the visitor’s chair across from him.

Gavin looked at the chair, then shook his head. “I’d rather stand.”

Jain bit his lower lip, fighting the outburst that threatened to erupt at any moment. He considered amping down his emotions, but decided he’d let his feelings give his words that extra oomph.

“Never again are you to challenge me like that in front of the other captains,” Jain said. “I’ve put up with your offhand comments for too long. It’s time they stopped.”

“But all I said—”

“You said I was cocksure,” Jain said. “And that ‘this is what happens when you let a frogman lead you.’ That’s insubordination, as far as I’m concerned. You have agreed to follow me as commander of this fleet. And you will follow me. If you have some disagreement with me, you are to take it up with me in private, going forward. Your comments are only causing the others to doubt my command ability and emboldening them to display similar contempt. If this keeps up, I’ll barely be able to keep control of the team. My orders will be questioned constantly. To put it simply: you’re undermining my authority.

“If I could, I’d threaten to have your mind deactivated. I’d threaten to turn over control of your ship to your Accomp. But I can’t do either, since I don’t have command access to your AI core. The worst I can do is banish you. And that’s my threat to you: if you keep questioning my orders in front of everyone else, you’re on your own. Is that clear?”

“You can’t do that,” Gavin said. “The others will never let you banish me.”

“Actually, I can,” Jain said. “And they will. Would you like to test this?”

Gavin opened his mouth, his expression full of rage, but then he clamped down his jaw. He stared daggers at Jain, but then finally shook his head fiercely. “No.”

“Good,” Jain said. “Will I have to endure further derogatory comments in public from you, going forward?”

Gavin shook his head once again, far more weakly. “No,” he said quietly.

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Jain said. “You can call me all the names you want in private, but in front of the team you are to show me absolute respect.”

“I understand.” Gavin kept his eyes on the floor. He took a deep breath, then met Jain’s gaze. “I would like to go with you to the derelict, if possible. Leave another ship to guard the Wheelbarrow.”

“Ah, that’s why you made the original comment,” Jain said. “You were building up to confronting me about this in front of the crew.”

“Yes,” Gavin said. “But I’m doing it in private, now, as you asked. Any other ship is a better match for the Wheelbarrow. Medeia’s Arcane for example. She has a cloaking device and could ambush any enemies that try to attack Sheila’s vessel. Or Mark’s Grunt. He has a black hole weapon, after all. It’s the perfect choice to defend the Wheelbarrow.”

“I disagree,” Jain said. “The Hippogriff is designed for defense. It has an expanding shockwave weapon able to take down multiple foes that might assail both of your ships. And your specialized drones can form an energy shield, augmenting the Wheelbarrow’s own force field. Like I told you, perfect for defense. Also, you haven’t completed repairs, and I want to get underway as soon as possible.”

Gavin sighed. “There’s nothing I can do to change your mind, is there?”

“Look, I know you want to come,” Jain said. “You think this is some grand adventure, and you feel like you’re missing out. I—”

“I don’t think that,” Gavin said. “Well, maybe a little. I just don’t want to be left behind babysitting all the time.”

“And you won’t be,” Jain said. “You’ll get your chance to fight, I’m sure. We all will. But I’m also convinced we won’t be seeing any combat at the derelict.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Gavin asked.

Jain shrugged. “Then I’m wrong.”

“I doubt the aliens will leave anything behind the next time they attack,” Gavin said. “They’ll be very careful to vaporize any wreckages. If we lose the next fight, it will be our last.”

“I’m well aware,” Jain said. “Which is why I’m going to try very hard not to lose.”

Gavin shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and fidgeted with his hands. Obviously, he was waiting to go.

Jain paused, and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry if the tone of this meeting has offended you or endangered our friendship in any way.”

Gavin’s face darkened, but his next words were calm, composed: “We never had a friendship. So no worries there.”

Jain nodded gravely. “I suppose not. Is there anything else you’d like to talk about in private while we’re here?”

“No,” Gavin said.

“Then you’re dismissed,” Jain told him.

With that Gavin vanished.

Jain sighed deeply.

He was glad to have that over with. Disciplining troops had never been the funnest thing for him when was lieutenant commander of a SEAL team, but it needed to be done occasionally. From what he could remember, even SEALs liked to misbehave. Especially when it came to hazing new recruits or getting into off-base bar fights.

It was going to be good to get away from Gavin for a while. While it was true Jain considered the Hippogriff more of a defensive than offensive ship, Gavin’s combative nature and contempt for his command was another reason Jain was leaving him behind rather than anyone else.

But Jain wasn’t going to reveal that to Gavin, of course.

6

Jain returned to the bridge. Gavin’s avatar wasn’t present, of course. After a dressing down like that, it wasn’t surprising. He maintained his usual voice-only connection.

Sheila turned toward him. She gave him a supportive smile.

Jain inclined his head in return.

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to show you,” Sheila said. Maybe that smile hadn’t been supportive after all, but rather… placating. It was the kind of smile you gave someone when you were about to ask them for a favor.

The range of human emotions our avatars can convey never ceases to amaze me. And that we, as machines, are even capable of such emotions amazes me even more.

“Let’s see it, then,” Jain said.

“Okay well, I’ve been working on something,” Sheila said. “A little side project. It’s a design for a special ship.”

Cranston looked up from his station. “A special ship? You’ve designed a new type of ship?” The doubt was obvious in his voice, like he didn’t believe that Sheila was capable of such a thing.

“I have,” Sheila said, lifting her chin higher in defiance.

“We don’t need a ship,” Gavin said over the comm. “We need a rift back to Andreas I.”

“This is no ordinary ship,” Sheila said.

“You’ve got all of our attention,” Jain said. “Let’s see it.”

A three-dimensional object materialized in front of Sheila. Jain was reminded of a diamond ring, because the top section was multifaceted, like a cut gem, while the bottom was a big, hollow circle that dwarfed it.

“This is a ship?” Jain asked.

“It is,” Sheila replied. “This here is the focusing array.” Sheila pointed at the ring area. “I based it on the designs of the Banthar mothership we have stored in our cloud archives. Designs that were stolen from the Bolt Eaters during one of their return visits to Earth.”

The Bolt Eaters were a group of famous Mind Refurbs who had single-handedly conquered the homeworld of the Banthar—aliens who had attempted to invade Earth. The Bolt Eaters had taken control of the AI running the world, which gave them complete power over the Banthar and their resources. Ever since finding out he was a Mind Refurb, Jain had aspired to be as great as the Bolt Eaters were.

“Of course,” Sheila continued. “The Banthar use a deployable version of the ring, but a design like that is too complicated, at least to build quickly. So I opted to design the rift generator externally like this, so that it’s deployed and ready to go at all times.”

“So, what are you saying, this is basically a ship with a Rift Gate built into it?” Cranston asked.

“It’s more than that,” Sheila replied. “The ring isn’t a gate, but a generator: with it, the ship is capable of projecting a rift in front of it at will. We can use it to create wormholes to any nearby systems, just like a standard Rift Gate. But unlike a standard gate, we can take the ship and its generator with us, so we don’t have to build another on the far side if there’s no preexisting gate at our destination.”

“It can create a rift at will, you say?” Cranston pressed.

“Well, it can create one gate every twelve hours,” Sheila said. “And then it needs to recharge using its onboard fusion reactor. It also still needs the usual four hours to form a wormhole to a destination system for the first time, like a real gate. But after that, the creation is instantaneous.”

“Why hasn’t humanity built a ship like this in the past?” Mark said.

“Yeah, that’s a good point,” Gavin said over the comm. “We’re supposed to believe that you came up with this design after a quick perusal of the alien blueprints, and no one else on Earth ever did? Because according to our cloud databases, all other colonized systems rely exclusively on Rift Gates both for transportation, and communications.”

“Rift Gates have their places,” Sheila said. “The Interstel wouldn’t exist without them, for example. But that’s not to say rift projection ships like my own design don’t exist. They probably do, but they’re classified. The US wouldn’t necessarily want to reveal it had such a ship to Canada, Mexico, or South American. Nor the UZO.”

The latter stood for the Uninhabited Zone Occupiers, the small country formed by the five thousand or so settlers who had begun to recolonize the uninhabited zone, that hemisphere of the planet the Banthar had razed during their initial invasion attempt, which included the continents of Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australasia. The UZO didn’t have spacefaring capabilities yet, but Canada and South America did, and they already had a few colonies each.

“If we were still in contact with headquarters,” Sheila continued, “and they knew I was building a ship like this, they would probably tell me to stand down. Or then again, maybe they would let me, given our circumstances.”

“All right, so how long will it take to make this ship?” Jain asked.

“That’s the only downside,” Sheila replied. “Three months. Whereas an ordinary Rift Gate would only take a month.”

“Can we afford three months?” Cranston said.

“I think so,” Jain said.

“And what if whoever attacked us decides to return before then?” Gavin sent over the comm.

“We’re going to have to hope that they don’t,” Jain said. “A mobile rift generator is too valuable a piece of equipment to pass up. We can’t be building gates in every new system we arrive at, especially if we decide not to go back to Earth.”

Mark turned toward Sheila. “Are you sure it’s even going to work?”

“About ninety-nine point nine nine five percent sure,” Sheila replied.

“So not a hundred percent,” Mark pressed.

“No,” Sheila admitted.

“What are you going to use for the AI?” Jain asked her.

“I’ll be skimping out on the AI part,” Sheila answered. “It’ll be entirely remotely operable. I can authorize access for all of you, or some of you, as needed.”

“One last question,” Jain said. “And it’s not related to the rift ship. Would you be able to build a cloud storage center with enough neural network partitions to store our backups off-site? I’m thinking of storage pods of some kind we could all hold in our cargo bays, to hold backups of each other.”

Sheila paused to consider that. “I could… but it would take me a month, especially for so many. Neural networks are complicated components. The build quality has to be damn near perfect, otherwise the whole unit has to be chucked and created again from scratch. It would also impact the rift ship production schedule.”

Jain shook his head. “Focus on the rift ship, first. The off-site backups can come after. Get started as soon as you can.” He glanced at Xander, who was standing in his usual robes with his arms wrapped around each other and hidden in the mutual sleeves. “Are you ready to set course for the Oberon?”

Xander nodded. “I have been ready for the past half hour.”

“You’re certain we won’t have to attach more radiation armor to protect us from the gas giant’s emissions?” Jain said.

“As I told you before, our armor is sufficient,” Xander said. “If we were carrying humans aboard, it would be a different story. As it is, we can stay within close orbit for up to three days without any adverse effects.”

“All right,” Jain said. “It’s time to collect our repair swarm. Medeia, Mark, Cranston, collect your swarms, then proceed toward the Oberon.”

“Wait,” Gavin said. “Maybe you should leave some of your drones behind. That way Sheila and I will be repaired all the faster.”

“No,” Jain said. “If we’re damaged out there, we might have to make repairs on the fly. We’re going to need all the drones we can get. Sorry, we’re not leaving any behind.”

Jain steered the Talos alongside the Wheelbarrow, which he had lent all of his repair drones, and waited for the units to return to the storage bays aboard. He left some of his mining units and one transport behind to help ferry materials to the Wheelbarrow while Sheila built the rift projection ship.

Mark, Medeia, and Cranston likewise collected their drones, and some of their mining and transport units, and then the four of them set out toward the derelict.

* * *

When Jain, or rather the Talos, was an hour out from Metal Moon, Sheila dropped out of the VR environment. Gavin also logged off the comm—the two were too far away for realtime communications, but they could still send voice or holographic messages with a time lag that was increasing by the minute.

The remainder of the journey was uneventful. Mind Refurbs were programmed with a time sense that divvied up the cycles per second assigned to their consciousness in such a manner as to simulate the passage of time as normal humans experienced it. However, that time sense could also be accelerated or slowed down to make external time seem to pass slower or faster respectively. It was useful when one needed to plan a strategy during a surprise attack, or to pass the time during a monotonous voyage. Considering that he was experiencing the latter at the moment, Jain slowed down his time sense to make the trek pass by faster; he instructed Xander to pull him back to ordinary time, or a slightly slower version of it, if anything unexpected transpired.

But nothing did, and he and the Void Warriors approached Ol’ Faithful without encountering any problems.

Jain switched his time sense to normal as they made their orbital run; the hull and inner compartments were linked to his tactile subroutines, which let him feel the different stresses exerted on the vessel. The feeling was akin to what a human would feel when someone stretched the skin of certain parts of the body, and pinched others. He could also feel internal pressures that felt similar to stomach and intestinal bloat. He was experiencing the multiple forces at work: the gravity from the moon, the existing momentum of the Talos, the acceleration necessary to keep the vessel on course. The Delta V costs were certainly up there. He kept an eye on the propellant levels.

“We’re definitely going to have to find a supply of frozen water when we’re done here,” Jain said. “Have you finished your scan of Ol’ Faithful’s moons?”

“I have, and you’re in luck,” Xander said. “The seventieth moon has ample quantities of frozen water. It orbits an average of one point two million kilometers away from the planet.”

“Say again?” Jain asked. “Did you say seventieth, or seventeenth?”

“Seventieth,” Xander said. “The gas giant has captured over two hundred notable satellites.”

“That’s a lot of moons,” Jain quipped.

“It is indeed,” Xander told him.

“All right, we’ll head there when we’re finished in close orbit,” Jain said.

According to Xander, they could stay in close orbit for three days. It would only take another four hours to reach the ship, however they had to budget two days and fifteen hours to escape the gravitational pull. They’d be exposed to the gas giant’s radiation emissions the whole time until then. That left them a margin of error of five hours, which wasn’t bad at all.

Jain didn’t plan to stay very long of course. Just long enough to secure grappling hooks to the ship and to haul ass out of there.

If the AI core was destroyed, Jain still planned to salvage the ship and install an autonomous AI aboard. Even though it only had minimal weapons systems, he figured the Void Warriors could use all the help they could get at the moment. Worst case scenario, they could use it for spare parts if they ever found themselves in need of repairs and without any metals inventory, and were too far away from an appropriate planet, moon or asteroid.

Near the four-hour mark, the gas giant ate up almost the entire horizon below.

“How are we doing on radiation exposure,” Jain said.

“Armor is holding,” Xander said.

Jain and the others passed over the ship. They had arranged their incoming trajectories so that they were coming in at almost the same angle and momentum as the Oberon’s decaying orbit, but slightly above its actual course, the goal being to optimize the Delta V cost as much as possible while dragging the ship from the clutches of Ol’ Faithful. Cranston wanted to launch a boarding shuttle with an exploratory rover on board, with a plan to restart the engines, but Jain didn’t want to risk losing the shuttle. There was a chance the engines wouldn’t start, or that the Oberon had run out of propellant anyway.

The four ships planned to launch their grappling hooks during the flyby, and once the Oberon was in tow, they’d use the gravity well to slingshot to the other side of the planet and out of orbit. That would also set them well on their way to the seventieth moon. It would still take two days and fifteen hours to claw their way out of the immense gravity, and another three hours to reach the moon. Once there, they’d still be exposed to the gas giant’s intense radiation, but they could take shelter on the far side of the moon for a reprieve.

As Jain was flying over the Oberon and preparing to fire his grappling hook, Mark glanced at him.

“Look at the starboard hull,” Mark said. “Got an anomaly.”

Jain frowned at the interruption to his concentration; he amped up his time sense and reality slowed down around him. If he was going to look, he needed to be able to take his time, especially when he was so close to a delicate operation like firing a grappling hook, which required that he launch it at just the right time, and angle. He wondered if he should just let Xander do it.

Maybe he would.

But first, he had to look at this so-called anomaly.

He already had the data feed of one of the Talos’ ventral cameras overlaid on his HUD so that the Oberon floated slowly past below him. He digitally zoomed the camera in on the starboard side of the Oberon.

“What am I looking for?” Jain asked. His current timebase would have been sent to the rest of the team, courtesy of the data packet header that capped his transmission, and their Accomps would have automatically adjusted their time senses to match his.

Before Mark answered, Jain spotted the anomaly.

“Never mind,” Jain said. “It looks like there’s some kind of opening in the hull. The metal seems to be peeled outward, as if something broke in from the outside by cutting into the hull and pulling the sheeting back.”

“That’s it,” Mark agreed.

Jain studied the dark, square opening, and the twisted hull segment beside it, which reminded him of the curled edges of some gray parchment.

“Well this is something the probe didn’t spot,” Medeia said.

“No,” Cranston agreed. “The probe didn’t get close enough. It also flew past on the port side.”

“Do you still want to fire the grappling hook?” Mark asked.

“Yes,” Jain replied. “Of course I do. We need to find out what happened. It could give us a hint about what happened to us.”

“What if there’s something aboard?” Cranston chimed in. “Something alien. And we end up dragging it out of the gravity well?”

“Our mission could very well be to search for alien life,” Jain said. “So that’s all the more reason to salvage the ship. Besides, you’re not scared of one little alien, are you? We’re machines now.”

“Yeah, but what if there are more than one,” Cranston said. “And they’re not little? A few nasty aliens get inside us, it won’t matter if we’re machines; they can still mess up our innards. Last I checked, we don’t have any anti-boarding party devices aboard, considering how small most of the crawlspaces are.”

“There you go,” Jain said. “You answered your own question. They have to be little, to fit the crawlspaces.”

“That doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of them,” Cranston said. “But either way, I’ll trust your judgment.”

“Thank you,” Jain said. He could only imagine the difficulties he would have had if Gavin were with them. “Proceed with grappling.”

Jain changed his time sense somewhat closer to normal, though he left it accelerated to aid with targeting. The grappling hook indicator flashed when he was in the appropriate position during the flyby, and he fired.

The hook hit spot on.

“Success,” Medeia said. The other two echoed her sentiments, as did Jain.

The grappling hook quickly grew taut, and Jain began to experience that internal stretching feeling all over again. There was no sound—no moaning of metal, no screeching of intersecting plates—because he had no atmosphere aboard. But he still felt the added weight the hook was exerting, thanks to the Oberon.

“We’re all good,” Xander said. “The ship is holding in place. We can begin the breakout maneuver whenever you’re ready.”

“Begin now,” Jain said.

The acceleration vector changed, and Jain felt the pressure inside of him move with it. He decided to tone down his tactile senses, leaving them active just enough so that he was aware of the directional changes, and the effect they were having on his structural integrity.

“It appears my calculations were slightly off,” Xander said.

“How so?” Jain asked.

“Well,” Xander answered. “We’re having to apply far more torque and angular acceleration than originally anticipated. The Oberon weighs more than the records would indicate. Their cargo bays must be filled to the brim with lead, or equivalent metals.”

“Or something else,” Medeia said. “Something alien.”

Jain ignored the comment. “How will this affect our escape from Ol’ Faithful’s gravitational pull? Will we have to jettison the craft?”

“No,” Xander said. “We should still be able to break free within the allocated timeframe. But the Delta V cost will be higher. We’ll be running on almost empty by the time we reach the moon.”

“All right, well, do what you can to conserve propellant,” Jain said. “And continue dragging the craft out.”

Jain watched their progress for a few minutes, and eventually grew weary, deciding instead to speed up time.

He wondered just what the Oberon contained that proved so heavy. Well, either way, he couldn’t explore it now, not while they were so close to the gas giant. In fact, he didn’t plan to investigate the research vessel until they were well behind the seventieth moon.

That would be in two days, fifteen hours from now.

Assuming Xander was right about the updated calculations.

Jain double-checked them.

Yes, the Accomp was correct. Except that at Jain’s current time sense, they’d reach the moon in an hour.

Sometimes, being an AI certainly has its benefits.

7

The intense radiation, not to mention gravity, continued to assail Jain and the others all the way to the seventieth moon. When they were three hours out—in normal time—from the moon, finally the gravity stopped having much effect, at least on the hull, and Jain returned his tactile sense to normal.

Medeia sighed and rubbed her belly. “Well that certainly gave me a stomach ache.” The data packet header preceding her words automatically returned Jain to normal time.

“Why didn’t you just slow down your time sense to make the journey pass faster?” Mark said. “That’s what the rest of us did.”

“Oh, I did,” Medeia said.

“Really?” Mark crossed his arms. “Then why did my timebase just get knocked back down to normal time?”

“Obviously I reverted to normal time, first,” Medeia said. “But anyway, my sense was slowed down. That’s what I’m talking about: I had a sore stomach for the past hour. But it’s gone now that we’re away from most of the gravitational effects.”

Mark turned to look at her on the virtual bridge. “You could have turned off your tactile senses, too.”

“What?” Medeia said. “No. I want to hang onto every last part of my humanity that I can. The feeling of having a body is an important part of that.”

“Not in here it’s not,” Mark said. “In here, our avatar is our body.”

“I like to overlay the senses of my starship body with this one,” Medeia said.

“Overlaying the real and virtual?” Mark said. “That’s gotta be odd. Like living in two dimensions at the same time.”

“That’s exactly what it is,” Medeia said. “But I wouldn’t have it any other way. It reminds me that this human body is a falsehood. A pleasant falsehood, yes, but a falsehood regardless. It reminds me that while I am alive, that life is as a machine.”

“Human, machine, what’s the difference?” Mark said. “Life is life.”

“The difference is enormous,” Medeia said. “Our current life span is limitless, barring destruction. The life span of organics, while it can be extended up to a thousand years for some with proper rejuvenetics and gene therapy, must one day end. Organic life might be something more, the mind imprinting some higher dimensional universe. A machine mind is only what it is, existing in this dimension, and nowhere else. So, life is not just life, as you say.”

“Let’s not get into metaphysics…” Mark said.

“You’re wrong,” Cranston said, talking over him to Medeia. “A machine mind produces the same higher dimensional imprints and vibrations as a human mind. I refuse to believe our neural networks are any different than their organic versions.”

“But they are different,” Medeia said. “Not just structurally, but the way in which information is stored and accessed. The human mind is an electron soup. The machine mind, more of an electron lattice. The human mind evolved naturally within the constraints of the universe over three billion years, allowing it to intrinsically blend into the very fabric of reality, parts of it reaching into the higher dimensions, whereas the machine mind was created in the span of only a few hundred years, rammed into a framework built to exist in the observable dimensions only, because how can we create a machine with access to higher dimensions when we know relatively little about those realms?”

“I refuse to believe we don’t have a soul,” Cranston said. “That when we die, this is it. I can’t believe that. Even if we are machines.”

“Well, believe it, because when we die that’s the end of us,” Medeia said.

“Just don’t die,” Mark told Cranston.

“If death comes, I take heart in the fact that some of me can exist again, thanks to my mind backup,” Medeia said. “It won’t be me coming back, obviously, but a collection of my memories and experiences. That’s comforting, in a way, knowing that everything that made me who I am can still manifest in this universe. That none of you would have to grieve, because to you, I would be the same Medeia. It would be like I never passed.”

“Sometimes it bothers me that I’m not the Original,” Mark said. “That the two mes that came before, the human me, and the robot me, already died, and I’m a clone of a clone. But I consider myself my own person at this point. Not so much a clone, as a rebirth.” He glanced at Cranston. “If you’re right, and we have souls, I wonder if it’s possible that those souls could return to these bodies.”

“No,” Jain said. “It’s not. Think about it. Sheila can build neural networks from scratch… an infinite number of them. We could create more starships, more Grunts, and load their AI cores up with copies restored from your backups. You’re telling me your individual soul is going to go inside of all of them?”

“That’s a good point,” Mark said. He scratched his forehead. “Hm. I wonder, maybe the soul goes into the first clone, and the others get a new one.”

“They all get a new one,” Cranston said. “Formed by the neural network of the AI core itself.”

“Or none at all, most likely,” Medeia added.

“This reminds me of the arguments posed between Aristotle and Plato,” Jain said. The team members turned to look at him from their stations on the virtual bridge. “Aristotle believed consciousness was produced by the mind, and only the mind, so that when we died, consciousness died with it. But Plato on the other hand believed in dualism. That consciousness existed independently of the mind, in a dual realm of reality, so that when the mind died, consciousness, or the soul, lived on.”

“I guess we’ll never know, until the time comes,” Mark said. “Because no one ever comes back once they’ve died. No one.”

“Except us,” Medeia said.

Mark frowned. “Yeah, but that’s not the same. We’ve already been over this. Copies do not a soul make.”

The conversation pretty much ended with that.

“Xander, send a message to Sheila and Gavin,” Jain said during a lull in Ol’ Faithful’s radiation bursts. Those bursts interfered with long distance communications, so transmitting during the interlude was the best time. “Update them on our progress.”

“Will do,” Xander said.

When they reached the moon, the Void Warriors took shelter on the far side because the gas giant’s radiation still proved intense, even at that distance. Though they were relatively far from the giant, the Delta V requirements to enter orbit around the moon were still large compared to what they would have been if Ol’ Faithful were a small planet, but that’s what happened when switching from one inertial reference frame to another. It was very good indeed that the fleet was here to replenish propellant.

“I can see why that original probe you sent out needed to be repaired when it got back,” Medeia said. “These rays just don’t let up!”

“No, they don’t,” Jain agreed.

The Void Warriors flew onto the far hemisphere of the moon; it proved to be a permanent dark side, and the surface was completely black below. LIDAR emissions from the warships still provided a terrain map, however. That LIDAR painted different surface features various colors. Rock was gray. Ice was white. It was able to do this, because some of the photons involved in the LIDAR scan could penetrate to different depths before reflecting.

“Steer us over the biggest water deposit,” Jain instructed Xander.

“Directing the fleet to the biggest water deposit…” Xander replied.

In twenty minutes, Xander spoke again.

“You might want to look at this,” Xander said. “There’s… debris, on the moon.”

Jain accessed one of the ventral camera feeds and saw the debris of which Xander spoke. There was a small crater, with metal fragments of all sizes forming a long line behind it. The overall shape reminded him somewhat of a comet, in the way the debris formed a tail that spread away from the crater.

“It’s consistent with the wreckage of a starship,” Medeia said. “It hit at speed, judging from the depth of the impact crater, and the way the debris spread across the surface in front of it…”

Jain turned toward Xander, who hovered beside him in his robe. “Are we able to get an ID on that ship?”

“The black box transponder is active,” Xander said. “According to the registry information, the ship is the Minerva. A Builder class vessel.”

“There’s the Builder that accompanied the Oberon,” Cranston said. “No doubt they came here to replenish their propellant supplies, like us.”

“Why here?” Mark said. “There have to be other, more easily accessible sources. Look at how much of our own propellant we used to get into orbit, thanks to that gas giant.”

“Maybe there really aren’t any other sources nearby,” Cranston said. “Or maybe they were forced here.”

“The latter makes more sense,” Mark said. “Considering that obviously something happened to them while they were trying to mine ice. And it wasn’t good.”

“Is there anything unusual about the debris below?” Jain asked.

“Nothing, as far as I can determine,” Xander said. “Would you like me to send a telemetry probe down for a more detailed inspection?”

“That would be nice,” Jain said. “Actually, while you’re at it, also deploy two rovers to sift through the debris and check if the AI core is intact.”

“That’s less rovers to help with the water extraction,” Xander said.

“No problem,” Jain said.

Xander adjusted speed to launch a transport. The craft deployed the two rovers on the surface, and then docked with the Talos once more. A telemetry probe also swooped down from the starship to make a sweep.

“When the telemetry drone returns, send the transport back to pick them up,” Jain said. “In the meantime, full speed ahead.”

Forty-five minutes later, when they neared the designated extraction site, the fleet decelerated to assume a geostationary orbit. They expended almost their entire propellant reserves.

The LIDAR scans revealed a surface that was completely white below. He was looking at a vast glacier exposed to open space.

“This part of the moon never sees any sunlight,” Medeia said. “Those ice caps have to be ancient.”

“Maybe we’ll discover an alien creature frozen into the ice,” Cranston said.

“And if we do, you can eat him,” Mark joked.

“I do love eating frozen aliens,” Cranston said. “Although, considering I don’t have a stomach…”

“Xander, deploy water miners,” Jain said. “The rest of you guys feel free to start collecting as well.”

“What about the Oberon?” Medeia asked.

“Well, I suppose we can launch a transport to investigate,” Jain replied.

“You don’t sound that eager,” Medeia said.

“Is it that obvious?” Jain said. “I guess I’m a little worried about what we might find aboard.”

“I’m sure their cargo is something innocuous,” Mark said. “Something heavy, but innocuous.”

“Let’s get the miners in place, first,” Jain said. “When that’s done, Xander, recall one of the transports, and load three rovers aboard.”

“Will do,” Xander said.

Jain watched as the transports from the different fleet vessels deployed miners on the surface—those were essentially rovers with special arm-like attachments to collect blocks of ice from the surface. One of the arms used lasers to cut through the blocks—the focal length could be adjusted so that the laser pulse converged at a set point deep within the ice, allowing a flat base to be cut underneath, facilitating easy removal with the pincers attached to other arms.

When all the miners were deployed, one of Jain’s transports left the surface to return to the ship. After docking, a pair of small rovers loaded aboard—crab-like robots that could operate in void environments and were small enough to fit the expected crawlspaces of the research vessel.

As the transport launched, Jain switched to its external camera, and watched the craft approach the Oberon. Since it had no running lights, nor any thermal signature, the vessel was illuminated solely by the LIDAR emissions from the Void Warriors.

Jain considered upping his time sense, but decided there was no need, as the transport would arrive soon enough.

And then, when the transport was halfway to the target, the Oberon changed shape, becoming something else entirely.

A huge, pyramidal shape floated before him on the LIDAR band. Pipes ran up and down the surface, forming trenches and rises.

“What the f—” Cranston said.

“Looks like we’ve been tricked into dragging something else out of Ol’ Faithful’s gravitational pull,” Jain commented. “Xander, full halt on the transport.”

“I don’t believe it,” Medeia said. “An alien craft. Masquerading as the Oberon.”

“This would explain why our earlier calculations were off, when we were dragging what we thought was the Oberon away from the gravitational pull of the gas giant,” Xander said.

“How the hell did they hide all of this?” Mark asked. “It’s like some ancient Egyptian Pyramid.”

“Has to be some form of holoemitters,” Medeia said.

“No holoemitters can mask an object that big,” Mark said.

“Apparently these can,” Medeia insisted.

“But holoemitters leave a thermal signature…” Mark said.

“Obviously they have to be masking it somehow,” Medeia told him.

“What about our LIDAR?” Mark said. “Surely they couldn’t mask that.”

“We were directing concentrated LIDAR beams at the planet,” Jain said. “Not the ship. We assumed it was the Oberon.”

“Yeah, but because of photon backscatter, some of them would have reached the ship behind us,” Mark said. “And then reflected back to our detectors. We should have picked up the false shape.”

“Not if their hull can absorb photons of the wavelength we were using.” Jain studied the image returned by the transport. “Those were certainly some advanced holoemitters, though. The grappling hooks penetrated the false surface of the Oberon to hit the actual hull some distance underneath, but the holoemitters masked the whole thing, making it look like the grapplers attached to the fake surface.”

“So, if they used us to drag them from the planet, that means their propulsion system is damaged in some way,” Cranston said.

“Or they’re out of propellant,” Medeia said.

“Assuming they actually use propellant,” Xander commented.

“You know, this might not even be the final shape,” Mark said. “This could be another illusion… they could be masking their true identity.”

“What about the peeled-back hull area we saw on the Oberon?” Mark asked. “Why fake something like that?”

“Had to be to mislead us,” Cranston said. “Make us think something got aboard the craft. Playing on our desires to figure out what that something was.”

“But we would have retrieved the Oberon anyway, even without that,” Mark said.

“Yes, but the aliens wouldn’t know that,” Cranston said.

“In fact,” Mark continued. “It could be argued that a hole like that would act as a deterrent, making any discoverers afraid of what they might find aboard, and reluctant to retrieve it.”

“Maybe they figured that a member of their own species wouldn’t investigate if there wasn’t some sort of hull damage, so they made the opening on their holoemitters,” Cranston said. “They don’t know our psychology. Our belief systems.”

“Xander, try to hail them,” Jain said.

After a minute, Xander said: “No response.”

“That doesn’t mean they’re not trying to communicate via a different means,” Medeia said.

“True,” Jain said. “Xander, are you picking up any emissions at all out there? High energy photons or protons? Low energy infrared?”

“Nothing,” Xander said. “The signal spectrum is completely black out there. If they are trying to communicate with us, it’s via a novel means we’ve never encountered before.”

“Maybe they have no power left,” Mark said.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Jain told him. “They did have enough energy to power their holoemitters, after all, and to mask the heat produced.”

“But maybe that energy just ran out, and they’re completely dead in the water, as it were,” Mark said.

Cranston turned toward Jain. “So what do you want to do?”

Jain stared at the image a while longer. “We don’t really have much choice, do we? We can either turn the transport back, and pretend we never encountered this ship, or we can explore it. Given that we’re all former humans, and inherited the innate curiosity of the species, I suspect we’re all going to give in to the latter urge.”

“I’m actually happy not exploring it…” Mark said.

“I’m not,” Medeia said. “I want to know what that is.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Mark said. “These must be our attackers. They nearly destroyed us the last time. We should get the hell out of here. Maybe blast them to smithereens before we leave.”

“Or the reverse could be true,” Medeia said. “They could have been attacked, just like us. Maybe they even came to our aid. And what did they get in reward? They were left for dead, relegated to a decaying orbit above a gas giant.”

“And if they were our attackers, why did they fly all the way back to Ol’ Faithful?” Cranston said. “And how did they end up trapped in its gravity?”

“Maybe either Admiral Williams or Commander Jang led them away,” Mark said. “We only found enough debris to account for one of their ships where we woke up, after all.”

“Well, we won’t know either way,” Jain said. “Not if we turn our backs now without even trying to investigate. My curiosity is getting the better of me.” He glanced at the others and sighed. “But I’ll put it to a vote. I can’t just be making arbitrary decisions to satisfy my own desires, not for something as important as this. All in favor of exploring the alien ship, raise your hand.”

Jain, Medeia, and Cranston raised their hands.

Mark shook his head.

“Xander, send the transport in,” Jain ordered.

8

Jain watched the transport land on the surface of the pyramidal object.

A ramp lowered on the side of the craft, and a rover emerged. Its eight legs used magnets to attach to the surface in the void, and it crawled forward. When it reached the edge of the ramp, it lowered a tentative foot on the shiny alien hull to check the effectiveness of the magnets. When the foot remained attached, the rover placed another limb onto the hull, and slowly stepped forward until its entire body resided upon the alien surface, balanced between two pipes that were set relatively close together. Satisfied that the magnets were going to continue to hold, the rover proceeded forward more confidently.

It moved over and between the trenches and protrusions formed by the different pipes, and slowly moved away from the transport. When the rover vanished behind a particularly large horizontal pipe section, Jain switched to its viewpoint to observe directly. He considered taking complete control of the unit—the lag time would only be in the microseconds at the moment—but he figured he’d let the autonomous AI run its program.

The rover emitted its own local LIDAR, which outlined the three-dimensional objects around it in white wireframes. Up close, the surface of the pyramid was a strangely chaotic affair, literally a mess of pipes crisscrossing back and forth and overlapping one another. Those pipes were colored gray on the feed to indicate a metallic substance that readily reflected photons.

The surface was completely unlike the hulls of the Void Warrior ships, which had smooth “Whittle” layers designed to absorb the impacts of micrometeoroids. When he saw small pockmarks dotting the surface of some of them, he suspected those pipes served the same purpose as the human-designed Whittle layers, protecting the inner armor of the ship from damage.

“What a mess,” Mark commented.

“Can we tell what those pipes are made of?” Jain asked.

“No, not conclusively,” Xander replied. “They are metallic, and magnetic, of course. But otherwise, that’s all we have.”

The crab crawled across the surface, moving back and forth in a regular search pattern, mapping the different pipe areas over the next several hours. Meanwhile, the miners Jain and the others had deployed on the surface of the moon continued to harvest water. Every half hour the transports became full and returned to their respective vessels to deposit the ice blocks. Those blocks were transferred via internal rovers to the extractors aboard each vessel, which separated the frozen water into liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen for use as propellant. Jain kept an eye on his propellant levels as the hours passed and watched them steadily climb.

During that time, Jain also dispatched a telemetry probe to the northern polar orbit of the moon in order to send regular updates to Sheila and Gavin—the communications particular to the Void Warriors required line of sight to operate correctly. Unfortunately, the radiation produced by Ol’ Faithful on the other side interfered with those communications, so the probe would queue any messages Jain sent and transmit them during a lull in said radiation.

“You know, it’s too bad there isn’t any frozen nitrogen on this planet,” Medeia said. “I’m low on hellraisers.”

“We all are,” Jain said. “But honestly, I don’t consider them all that important a weapon when it comes to space combat. Sure, they can be good for herding if your enemy has poor propulsion systems, but otherwise, lasers and energy weapons are the way to go.”

“That we’re low on hellraisers tells me we used them the last time,” Cranston said. “And they probably weren’t all that effective, given the result.”

“Yeah, six offline ships, and two more completely destroyed,” Mark said. “I’d say we probably don’t need hellraisers going forward, nor frozen nitrogen.”

“But the same could be said for all our other weapons,” Medeia insisted. “I’d feel better, knowing I had my full arsenal.”

“Maybe we’ll make a stop at another moon if we detect frozen nitrogen,” Jain said.

“The rover just found an opening,” Xander announced.

Jain immediately diverted his attention to the viewpoint of the rover, which he still had open in the upper right of his vision. He saw a small conduit lined with pipes leading away into the hull.

“I’m willing to bet we’ll lose our comm signal if we send the rover in there,” Cranston said.

“Probably,” Jain said. “Considering we have no idea what the composition of that hull is. Let the rover continue using its search algorithm... I want it to map out as much of the interior as it can. If it encounters hostiles, or danger of any kind, I want it to retreat.”

“What if aliens attempt to make contact?” Xander asked.

“Then ensure the rover runs the First Contact protocol,” Jain responded. That was a standard protocol developed by military scientists. It utilized various methods to attempt communications with new alien races, such as sending transmissions across all available frequency bands, flashing lights, miming with telescoping limbs, and so forth.

“The protocol is already installed and good to go,” Xander said.

“Then send her inside,” Jain commanded.

The rover descended into the opening and continued to emit LIDAR so that the video feed returned a three-dimensional wireframe representing the passageway. Jain watched the rover continue deeper into the monotonous conduit for several minutes, and then his view abruptly pixelated and froze.

“Well, I just lost the signal,” Jain said. He glanced at Xander. “I want other rovers down there. We need to check if there are any more openings.”

Two more rovers departed the existing transport and began fanning out. The transport returned to the surface to help collect water. Meanwhile, Medeia also landed a transport on the alien hull to deploy three more crab-class rovers. That craft, too, returned to the moon’s surface shortly after depositing the units.

More hours passed; the Talos and the other ships continued to restore their propellant levels. The latest rovers hadn’t found any other openings along the exterior of the alien hull, and Jain returned them to the surface of the moon after diverting a couple of transports.

“It’s not going to come back,” Mark said, referring to the first rover.

“It’ll be back,” Jain said.

A half hour later, when the propellant levels were at seventy-five percent, the initial rover finally reappeared.

The frozen pixelated display in the upper right of his vision updated. The rover was approaching the hull exterior, and promptly crawled through.

“Well look who’s come out of the anthill,” Mark said. “Guess you were right.”

Jain remotely accessed the archival video and began to download it. When he had queued enough to begin playback, he streamed the feed to the others, so they could watch. He played the video at normal speed first, but as more of it downloaded, he kept accelerating the playback until he was able to watch it at 10X speed.

The video consisted of the rover traveling through hundreds of different conduits. They wound to and fro, crisscrossing the ship, and filling out a map of the ship that was displayed in isometric perspective in the upper right of the feed. There were several smaller passageways that remained unexplored in the process, because the rover had been unable to fit the tighter confines. But in the explored conduits, so far, the rover discovered nothing of note.

“The hell is this?” Mark said. “There are no compartments anywhere. Just conduits, conduits, and more conduits. Surrounded by those pipes.”

“It is kind of odd, isn’t it?” Jain said.

“The mapped passages only match up with about ten percent of the ship, when you overlay them against the outer mass,” Medeia said. “It’s almost like whoever owns the vessel let us inside a special honeypot environment: a subset of the main ship, meant to mislead and misdirect, not to mention entrap, like a software honeypot does to hackers, making them think they hit the mother lode, while the whole time the perpetrator is merely inside a partitioned, walled off environment, giving the AI of the real system time to track down the intruder while he’s distracted by the honeypot. By the time the hacker realizes what has happened, the police are knocking at his door.”

“So, what are you saying, these aliens are going to send the interstellar police after us?” Mark asked.

“Only that the aliens could be studying us,” Medeia replied. “Observing our behavior. Gauging us to see what makes us tick.”

“Well, for now all they’ve seen is how our autonomous AIs execute search protocols,” Jain said.

“They’ve also seen us harvest ice from the surface,” Medeia said. “So they know we use water as a form of fuel. That reveals a lot about us already. Like we probably rely upon engines constrained by Newtonian physics.”

“Did you see those smaller passageways?” Cranston said. “Maybe it’s worth it to send a few of my micro machines inside to more thoroughly explore. They can fit in where your rover can’t. Maybe with them, we can break out of that so-called ‘honeypot’ environment.”

“That’s certainly an option. Though you’ll still lose communications with them until they return to the hull, and I’m not big on that.” Jain continued to watch the accelerated feed for several minutes; and then one of the conduits suddenly opened up into a wider chamber. He slowed down the playback immediately.

“Finally, something interesting,” Jain commented.

Blue strips on the bulkheads glowed a subtle blue, lighting the wireframes produced by the LIDAR.

He watched the crab crawl deeper into the room, toward a table—well, more of a wide pedestal, really, because it had no legs, but was a single smooth, rectangular object.

The rover reached the pedestal and began climbing the closest wall. It reached the top and pulled itself onto a broad counter. Two large metal cylinders were laid out in a row. They looked like oxygen tanks, or…

“Is it just me, or do those things look like AI cores?” Cranston asked.

“It’s not just you,” Mark commented.

The rover maneuvered toward one of the cylinders. He saw what looked like an array of black and white diamonds printed on the side.

“That looks like a SERE code,” Medeia said. That was a machine-readable code stamped onto machine parts to identify them.

“Xander, look up that code,” Jain said.

“It’s an AI core all right,” Xander said. “The code belongs to Admiral Paul Williams. It’s his AI core.”

“You’re certain?” Jain asked.

“You can perform the lookup yourself,” Xander replied. “It’s the same identifier we have on file. Not a backup. Not a duplicate. But the AI core that was running inside of the admiral’s ship.”

Jain froze the video frame and performed the lookup. “It matches up.”

“Yes,” Xander said.

“So these bastards kidnapped the admiral’s AI core after they shot him down,” Mark said.

Cranston thrummed his fingers along the top of his station. “Could be a hologram. Look at the positioning of the crab unit: it’s avoided touching the objects, instead placing its feet between the two cores.”

“That’s how the unit is programmed,” Xander said. “To avoid interacting with any objects in its surroundings, other than decks and countertops.”

“I know,” Cranston said. “But that doesn’t really do much to prove the cores are real.”

Jain began playing the video once more. As he watched, the crab moved to the next cylinder, capturing the SERE code on it as well.

“This one belongs to Commander Jang,” Xander said.

Like it had done with the previous, the rover was careful not to actually touch the second AI core.

“So, the question is, how did the alien ship get its hands on these cores?” Jain said.

“Assuming they’re not holograms,” Mark said. “I think it’s fairly obvious now that Admiral Williams and Commander Jang led them away, and before they were destroyed in the gas giant’s upper atmosphere, they managed to disable the alien ship, and send it into a decaying orbit.”

“But we detected debris consistent with one of their starships near where we woke up,” Cranston said. “That means only one of them led away the alien vessel. The other was lost.”

“My guess is, the captain of the first ship that went down managed to eject his AI core, and the aliens captured it,” Mark said. “The aliens pursued the surviving ship to Ol’ Faithful, and destroyed it, too. The pyramid took severe damage in the process but managed to capture the second AI core when it ejected from the lost vessel.”

Cranston rubbed his chin. “AI cores don’t automatically eject. Williams and Jang would have had to manually trigger the jettison. The question is, why didn’t any of us eject, when given the opportunity?”

“Maybe we saw the aliens capture the AI core from the first ship that went down,” Mark said. “Or maybe we didn’t have time to eject. One moment we were operational, the next, we went offline.”

Cranston sat back. “Or maybe, just maybe, Jang and Williams attempted some sort of ramming operation with their vessels. Then they’d have ample time to jettison.”

“Their ships weren’t designed for ramming, unlike mine,” Medeia said.

“I know,” Cranston said. “That’s my point. That’s why they’d eject before impact, because their ships would be incinerated in the process.”

“Well if they did ram, it didn’t really have the desired effect on these aliens,” Jain said.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Cranston said. “They were damaged enough that they couldn’t escape the gravitational well of the gas giant without our help.”

The Void Warriors were quiet for a moment. They were considering their options. Or at least Jain was.

“So, if those two AI cores are real, we can’t just leave them here,” Mark said. “We can’t abandon them to the enemy.”

“I agree,” Cranston said. “No one gets left behind. We send in some rovers with grip attachments and retrieve them. And then when they’re back in our custody, maybe we can find out just what the hell is going on.”

“After we blow the alien ship to hell,” Mark said.

“Not until we’re sure about their intentions,” Medeia said. “I still think they could have been trying to help us.”

“If they were trying to help us, why steal two of our AI cores?” Mark asked.

“Maybe they did it to protect them from the real attackers,” Medeia said.

“There were no other attackers!” Mark said.

“But you don’t know that for sure…” Medeia said.

“Let’s finish watching the feed,” Jain said. “Then we’ll decide what to do.”

The crab climbed down from the pedestal and explored the remainder of the compartment, which proved empty, then it left via a conduit on the far side. The rover encountered no further chambers, with its explorations restricted to the conduits that seemed to permeate the alien craft, or at least, that particular interior area of the craft. There were still the occasional side passages that were too small for the rover to fit, and it passed those by. When it had mapped out the last of the labyrinth, which accounted for only fifteen percent of the ship, when compared to the exterior, it backtracked. Soon the rover joined up with the conduit that led to the main opening and returned to the hull outside.

Jain shut down the feed.

“So, what do we do?” Cranston asked.

“Assuming they’re not holograms, we’re going to retrieve those AI cores.” Jain glanced at Cranston. “No one gets left behind.”

9

Jain redirected one of the transports from the surface of the moon, and when it docked, he steered two specialized rovers aboard. These particular crabs were equipped with grappling arms to handle the AI cores and storage trays to carry them. They also had bigger servomotors, but since there was no gravity aboard the alien craft, there would be no added weight, so the larger servomotors weren’t really necessary.

He landed the transport close to the opening in the alien hull and the ramp opened. The big crabs ambled down onto the disjointed hull, crawling over the pipes; as soon they had cleared the ramp, the original rover, which was waiting outside, climbed up. It paused at the entrance for a decontamination scan, and after a moment the local AI allowed it aboard.

The remaining two rovers proceeded toward the opening in the hull; when they reached it, they entered in single file. Jain watched from the LIDAR-generated viewpoint of the lead unit until its video feed pixelated and froze.

“So that’s that,” Jain said.

“That’s that,” Xander commented. “An idiomatic phrase, indicating that there is nothing more to do or say in regard to a given topic.”

“Thanks for the unasked-for definition,” Jain said.

“Sorry,” Xander said. “I can’t help it, sometimes. I’m an AI.”

“I know.” Jain ordered the transport to return to the moon to help with the ice mining.

By then, Jain and the others had already topped out their propellant supplies, but the Void Warriors had allowed the miners to continue loading ice blocks into the transports on the surface: the starships had room in their storage bays to hold extra supplies for later extraction. Plus, Jain wanted to deliver some of those blocks to Sheila and Gavin, who would need to replenish their propellant levels at some point as well.

Eventually, most of the spare storage bays aboard each starship became full. There were some extra bays available, however because of the way the ships were designed, heat leakage in those compartments would cause the ice to melt, ruling out their use.

So at that point Jain and the others recalled their respective miners. The transports docked, unloading the miners and the final ice block haul.

Then he and the others waited.

He returned a transport to the alien hull, landing it close to the opening. He trained the cameras on the entrance and willed the two rovers to appear.

Shortly thereafter, the two units emerged in single file.

“Well, looks like the AI cores weren’t holograms after all,” Medeia commented.

“No,” Jain agreed.

The rovers carried one AI core each via their storage trays. He watched the two of them crawl back to the transport, which had opened its ramp in invitation.

The two AI cores cleared the decontamination scan, as did the rovers themselves, and the local AI aboard the transport allowed them aboard.

Decon scanned only for biological pathogens, but Jain wanted to be sure that no machine-based entities were hitching a ride either, so once the cores were inside, Jain ran another, more detailed scan via a mobile arm attached to the inside of the transport. He also wanted to confirm that these were indeed AI cores.

“Hm, that’s strange,” Xander said.

“What is it?” Jain asked. He looked at the scan results, which was essentially an X-Ray of the AI core. Everything seemed normal, based on other X-Rays of AI cores he had in his database. He saw the array of interlinked circuit boards that formed the neural networks. They looked like black slabs over a grayish background. There was nothing extra or out of place, at least as far as he could tell.

“Well, the noble gases present in the AI core would ordinarily red shift the scans,” Xander said. “But I’m not seeing any red shift in the results.”

Jain compared the X-Ray to other scans in his database again. He realized Xander was right. The other scans were slightly redder in color.

“So you’re saying the noble gases have been vented?” Jain asked.

“That’s the likely conclusion,” Xander said. “Meaning the AI cores have been opened.”

“Well then, I guess we have nothing to lose by opening them up to confirm the contents,” Jain said.

“I would certainly recommend as much,” Xander said.

Jain swiveled the X-Ray mount aside on the mobile arm and replaced it with a pincer grip mount. He used that to pry open the access panel on the first AI core.

“Did the sensors detect the release of any noble gases?” Jain asked.

“Negative,” Xander said. “As predicted, there were none.”

The arm had a camera and LIDAR attachment, which he directed toward the opening: the interlinked circuit boards inside the AI core appeared on the LIDAR feed at that moment.

“Give me some light,” Jain said.

The shuttle’s inner lighting system activated. The panel offered only a small portal into the inside of the AI core’s cylinder, so Jain moved the camera forward, pressing it into the opening. There wasn’t much room, but he managed to move it from side to side to observe the stacked circuit boards inside.

“Seems legit,” Jain said. “The visuals match up with the external scans.”

He moved the camera deeper and tapped it against one of the circuit boards just in front of the unit. He was met by a solid mass.

“Looks good,” Jain said.

He withdrew the camera, sealed the panel, and repeated the same steps on the other AI core.

“Well, what do you think?” Jain asked.

“There’s not really anything else you can do to confirm the cores are real, short of removing the individual circuit boards,” Xander said.

“Maybe we should do just that,” Mark said.

“You do know that removing even one of the boards could cause irreversible damage to the neural network, right?” Cranston said. “The data would still be accessible, of course, so if that’s all you care about, then by all means do it. But if you want to ensure the Mind Refurbs can boot up, then I wouldn’t do it.”

“No, I won’t risk losing the admiral or the commander by removing any of those boards,” Jain said. “I don’t suppose we can jury-rig a boot up environment aboard the transport, Xander?”

“No, you’ll have to bring them aboard to boot them,” Xander said.

“All right,” Jain said. “Then I guess we’ll have to be satisfied for now.”

He shut the panel and retracted the arm.

The transport closed its ramp and lifted off from the alien hull. It docked with the Talos shortly.

Jain switched to the viewpoint of one of the cameras in the well-lit docking bay. He watched the rovers travel down the ramp and performed a final scan on each unit. Then he handed off the AI cores to the waiting lev trains. Those were small, bucket-like units ordinarily used to convey mined materials to other parts of the ship, such as the refinery, extractor, or storage bays.

In this case, the lev trains conveyed the two AI cores through the tiny winding corridors that composed the inside of Jain’s ship and deposited them in one of the science labs, where a pair of large, robotic arms took over. Those arms placed the AI cores side-by-side on a large table. He intended to perform a backup of the AI cores first, and then after booting them, he’d hook up each core to his VR environment so that he could ask the two captains what the hell had happened back there.

“We’re finally going to find out what’s going on,” Medeia said. “I’m so looking forward to this.”

“We all are,” Jain said. He had shared access to the cameras feeds with the other Void Warriors.

“I’m not,” Cranston said. “But hey, that’s just me.”

“Xander, prepare to flood with noble gases,” Jain said.

If they expected to reboot the cores and reactivate the two Mind Refurbs, those gases were essential: without helium circulating between the boards, the circuitry would shortly overheat and shutdown.

The robotic arms retracted into the adjacent bulkhead, and a glass container descended from the ceiling; it enveloped the table, along with the two AI cores it contained.

“Injecting noble gases,” Xander said.

The gases were colorless, so Jain had no indication they were filling the glass chamber, other than Xander’s word.

“Chamber is full,” Xander announced.

“All right, let’s open them up,” Jain said.

Small arms connected to the table swiveled upward and opened the access panels of each cylinder in turn. The mere act of opening them would cause the gases to flood inside each core, thanks to the pressure differential, and the circuit boards that composed the neural networks would be bathed in the necessary environment.

“Close those panels, and let’s boot them up,” Jain said.

He was viewing the scene from a camera just above the table and could see partly into each open core. As the small arms steered toward the first cylinder, he spotted movement inside the opening.

“Wait!” Jain said. “Something just moved inside the core.”

“Are you sure?” Medeia said.

“Rewind my video feed and take a look for yourself,” Jain said, sharing access. He zoomed in on the opening. “It was like... a flicker.”

The flicker came again.

“There are holoemitters inside,” Jain said. “It’s a trick!”

As he watched, the hidden holoemitters deactivated entirely. The circuit boards still remained in place, however the interconnections between them all vanished.

When the individual units inside began to lose their shape, he realized they weren’t circuit boards at all.

“They’re micro machines of some kind!” Medeia said.

It was obvious now that those micro machines had only joined together in the shape of circuit boards to fool the X-Ray scan, which would have seen right through the holoemitter ruse.

“No shit,” Mark said. “Jain, you might want to jettison those cores!”

To do that, first Jain had to contain the machines. He quickly maneuvered the arms onto the panel of the first core and shut it. He directed the arms to the second core, but it was too late by then—the micro machines were already flooding out. They spilled onto the table like ants and began to... chew.

So much for containment.

“What are they doing?” Mark asked.

“Eating the table,” Cranston said. “Probably making more of themselves.”

More and more ants flowed from the opening, spreading out across the table and eating into the metal.

Jain directed security rovers from across the ship to congregate on the compartment. While he waited for them to arrive, he zoomed in on one of them. It looked vaguely like a blocky robotic ant. It had a head with mandibles and antennae, a thorax, an abdomen, and twelve segmented legs.

He saw flashes of red light from inside the maw, and realized it was releasing extremely short-range laser pulses to help weaken the metal before the mandibles cut into the surface. At the same time, the insect-like robot utilized a spinneret of sorts on the tip of its abdomen as a miniature 3D-printer: it pulled out red-hot threads from those spinnerets with its hind-legs and overlapped them in organized rows that began to cool. Soon, beneath that abdomen, another ant-like micro machine began taking shape. They were indeed duplicating themselves as Cranston had suggested.

Jain zoomed out. By then, some of the ants had crawled right up to the glass container that bound the table and were exploring the perimeter for vulnerabilities. Others simply began chewing into the glass itself.

The first cylinder dissolved as the micro machines stowed away inside broke free.

“Xander, are these the Banthar termites?” Jain asked.

“Negative,” Xander said. “Humanity has never encountered micro machines of this design before.”

“Yeah, they’re definitely not like the micro machines I have aboard,” Cranston said.

The security rovers Jain had summoned began to arrive outside the compartment. He switched his viewpoint to the cameras in the conduit there.

“What are you going to do?” Cranston said. “That glass container won’t fit into the passageways outside. You can’t transport it.”

“No,” Jain said. “But I chose this particular science lab for a reason. It’s close to the hull.”

The rovers circled the bulkheads outside the compartment, employing their cutting lasers to carve long lines into the top and bottom seams that bordered the overhead and deck respectively. That would weaken the bulkheads for the coming detonation and help direct the explosive gases. Meanwhile, he had other rovers lay demolition charges at equal intervals over those seams: they placed the charges so that the brunt of the detonation would be directed downward, into the seams, rather than into the compartment itself—after all, Jain didn’t want to poke a hole in the chamber and give the micro machines an opportunity to break free before he was done severing that part of himself.

“You’ll never cut the compartment away in time,” Medeia said.

“I have to try,” Jain said. Because if he didn’t, soon his ship, and very AI core, would be nothing but digested and reformed metal.

“Cranston,” Mark said. “If you launched some of your own micro machines and directed them toward the Talos, how fast could your termites cut away the hull section?”

“Not fast enough,” Cranston said. “They’re about as slow as those alien units. Jain’s already doing everything he can, I’m afraid.”

The lead rovers continued to cut into the seams, while those in behind laid the demolition charges. They were split into two groups, with the first group moving along the conduit outside the left-hand side of the compartment, and the second group the righthand side. Each group continued outward until they had circled around the entire compartment and rejoined on the other side.

The rovers hastily retreated in single file into a side conduit, and a blast door closed. Jain activated the blast shields on the cameras outside the compartment, and the view went dark.

Jain detonated the charges, and felt the vibrations pass up and down his midsection, thanks to the tactile subroutines that mapped the ship’s body to his virtual human form. He felt a stabbing pain as well, just behind his belly button.

Xander saw him flinch. “You left your pain sense active?”

Jain nodded. “I want to feel this. I want to remind myself what’s at stake.”

He retracted the blast shields from the cameras in that deck to observe the results. He saw thick black grooves outlining the compartment where the rovers had made their cuts, and the ugly blast craters beside them. Those blast craters exposed the armor beneath the deck—there were still several meters more of it below. And beyond that awaited the actual hull layers. It would take a few more passes yet to penetrate.

Jain opened the blast door and marched the rovers inside to place the next round of charges. As usual, the cutting robots cut grooves into the surface ahead of the others to weaken the area and help direct the blast. Their crab-like legs helped them navigate the ragged edges of the craters.

Leaving them work, he switched to the viewpoint inside of the compartment. The alien micro machines had already eaten through the glass and had moved on to digesting the surrounding deck. They were multiplying at an exponential rate. As usual, some of them were already scouting the perimeters of the compartment, seeking an egress. A few were even climbing the walls: as he watched, one climbed onto the camera lens of his current viewpoint. The camera promptly clicked off.

Jain switched back to the view outside the compartment. More rovers had arrived—these were general-purpose units that he’d conscripted into the security forces. They had collected the entire supply of demolition blocks aboard. Jain would have to find a nitrogen source to replenish these. Well, or borrow more from the other Void Warriors.

Some of the new rovers joined the others in placing the blocks, while others proceeded to the deck immediately above. When that third group of rovers reached the area directly on top of the compartment, which was composed of several smaller compartments, the robots lasered seams into the bulkheads themselves to direct the flow of the explosive gases into them. Those bulkheads would have to be cut through entirely if the lower section was to separate. Inside those compartments, which were more channels than anything else, were electronic wires and heat sinks—Jain would lose power to certain parts of the deck below, but that could be repaired at a later time.

Meanwhile, on the floor containing the alien termites, the different groups of rovers continued cutting into the deck and placing charges, and when the robots rejoined on the far side, once more Jain sent them scurrying away, this time into two different conduits because of their larger numbers. He shut the blast doors, and then detonated the charges once more. When the group on the deck above finished their work, he did the same with them.

It took two more rounds of that to eat all the way through the hull; since the internal atmosphere wasn’t pressurized, there was no explosive decompression to accompany the breach.

A final blast on the deck above sent the compartment floating downward and out into space. It was painful; feeling like a piece of his midsection had been blow away. And indeed, it had.

The separation occurred none too soon: the termites began to emerge from tiny holes they had carved, and some began to explore along the exterior of the jettisoned chamber, crawling over it like ants emerging from an anthill for the first time.

He had the rovers closest to the gaping hole in the deck perform a complete inspection, crawling through the thick tunnel to the outer hull, and when he was satisfied that there were no alien termites still attached out there, he recalled the robots.

“Who was it who said I wouldn’t cut it away in time?” Jain asked. “Oh wait, that was you, Medeia. Ye of little faith.”

“I never said I was an optimist,” Medeia replied. “But I am relieved. Though not as much as you, I’m sure.”

Something struck the drifting object from the side. A thin cord now led away from the severed compartment, traveling past the edges of the ragged hole in the deck he was viewing the scene from.

“Who did that?” Jain asked.

“Wasn’t us,” Medeia replied. “You think we want those termites infesting us?”

The jettisoned compartment changed directions as it was jerked toward the source of the connected cord. Jain switched to the forward-facing external camera.

The pyramidal ship had launched the grappling hook, and was drawing the compartment in.

“Well, well, well, looks like they want their micro machines back,” Cranston said. “That would be fine, if they weren’t taking a part of you with them. We’re not going to let them steal our property, are we?”

“No,” Jain said. “Open fire.”

10

“Actually, belay that,” Jain said. “Let me clarify. Open fire on the cord.”

“But surely trying to install ship-digesting termites on your ship counts as an aggressive act, worthy of a full-blown assault on our part,” Cranston said.

“It could have been a communications attempt,” Medeia said.

“A communication attempt?” Cranston asked. “They attempted to digest our command ship. I’d say we got the message loud and clear.”

“Sever the cord first,” Jain said. “Then we’ll decide what to do next. I would like to try communicating one last time.”

“Thank you,” Medeia said.

“Still think it’s a waste of time,” Cranston said. “But hey, you’re the boss.”

Jain targeted the cord with his starboard laser array. He had all the lasers target the same spot a few meters away from the compartment, and then released. He cut the cord cleanly, and the two severed ends drifted apart.

The other members of the fleet also fired their closest raptor lasers in rapid succession and sliced the cord in three different places in addition to Jain’s cut.

“Well that was overkill,” Cranston said.

The alien ship promptly launched another grappling hook, latching on to the jettisoned compartment and continuing to reel it in.

“What?” Cranston shook his head at his VR station. “Morons. Every time they launch a cord, we’ll just sever it. We can do this all day.”

Jain’s lasers would take ten minutes to fully recharge, however he suspected even a low charge would probably be enough to sever the cord at this range.

He waited until he was at five percent and tried to fire. The cord remained intact.

The others had similar results.

“Next time, I’d recommend concentrating all of your fire, fleet wide, on the same target,” Xander said. “If you insist on firing your raptors with such low charge.”

“Or we can just turn around.” Cranston fired lateral thrust and began rotating his port side toward the target.

Before he completed his revolution, several more grappling hooks shot out and impacted the abandoned compartment. They, too, began to reel it in, so that it moved toward the hull at a faster rate.

“They really want it badly,” Mark said.

Eight more grappling hooks shot out, these ones attaching to the Talos.

“Uh…” Cranston said.

Those cords weren’t able to reel Jain in—at least, he didn’t think so, because his vessel didn’t move, though he wasn’t sure if the aliens had tried.

But he noticed something else: alien termites were crawling on those cables, heading toward his hull.

“Do you see them?” Medeia asked.

“I do,” Jain replied.

“We’ve also got termites climbing our own cables,” Mark said.

Jain took a quick survey of the carbon fiber cords that joined the Void Warrior ships to the pyramid: sure enough, the bases swarmed with micro machines that were slowly making their way toward the host vessels.

“Do you still want to attempt communications with these bastards?” Cranston said.

“Nope,” Jain said. “Jettison existing grappling hooks. It’s time to let go of the ship. And help me cut away these alien cords.”

Jain ejected his existing grappling hooks, and the ends broke away from his ship. The termites continued to crawl up the loose cords.

The Talos was still attached to the alien ship via the cables the pyramid vessel had unleashed, however the port side of Cranston’s Forebode was just coming to bear—he was at the very edge of his one-hundred-and-eighty degree firing range. Cranston fired his raptors, targeting two lasers per cord. They struck, and he freed the Talos of all eight cords.

“Engage enemy vessel,” Jain said. “Fire at will.”

The fleet let loose with their stinger railguns. The Mind Refurb vessels were all traveling at relatively the same speed and direction as the enemy craft, so that the slugs impacted with the full firing speed of the railguns; however the impacts still proved negligible, and most of the slugs merely bounced harmlessly off the surface of the alien hull.

The reeled-in compartment struck the hull of the alien ship, and as Jain watched on the external cam, he saw the hull split apart, opening up to swallow the unit whole.

Jain fired his starboard-facing raptors, and the relatively low charge of the lasers didn’t affect the alien hull at all. He released a burst of aft thrust to start putting some distance between himself and the alien, and then engaged his lateral thrusters to begin swinging his nose toward the enemy ship. He intended to fire his barracuda cannon at the vessel; at this close range, the impact from the energy weapon would be devastating.

He hoped.

On the external video feed, Jain watched as all of the severed grappling hooks were withdrawn into the ship, including those the Void Warriors had jettisoned.

Cranston was launching his space-capable micro machines.

Medeia meanwhile was turning around, getting ready to perform a flyby with the large, sword-like protrusion attached to her fore.

Mark fired several missiles from his aft quarters—likely his last, and those impacted, causing dark stains on the surface of the hull, but otherwise no obvious damage.

The vessel abruptly began to shift, revolving slowly on its axis as if coming online. And then it began to speed away. There was no acceleration. The ship simply jumped from at rest, to fully in motion.

Mark fired a dark bolt toward the alien ship; it moved at about half the speed, and then formed a rip in spacetime about a thousand kilometers away from the Void Warriors. But the alien ship wasn’t affected by the black hole at all.

The Void Warriors, however, were immediately drawn in. Along with Cranston’s micro machines, which it looked like he was attempting to recall: they were having trouble.

“My micro machines!” Cranston said.

“Whoops,” Mark said.

Jain’s nose section had come to bear, and he tried an energy bolt. He compensated for the gravitational pull of the black hole when he fired, but it didn’t matter, because the ship was moving too fast for the energy bolt to catch it.

Some of Cranston’s micro machines, those closest to the black hole, were beginning to spaghettify; meanwhile the Void Warriors continued to be drawn toward it.

“Mark…” Jain said.

The Grunt fired a dispersion bolt and the black hole winked out. The remaining micro machines, free of the pull, immediately rushed back toward Cranston.

“Sync any lasers that have the target in the line of fire with me,” Jain ordered.

He waited for the sync alert to appear on his HUD, and then he fired his port side lasers, which had just come to bear. The other lasers fired at the same time and hit at the same spot on the alien hull. He formed a large bore in the surface, but the pyramid continued its flight unabated so that in moments, the vessel had become just another star among the myriad of stars around them, at least on the LIDAR band. It didn’t show up on the visual band at all.

“I see why we lost the first time…” Cranston said as his micro machines docked.

“We can’t let it get away,” Medeia said.

“We’ll never catch it,” Cranston said. “Its top speed is a little higher than our own, and besides, it’s got too much of a head start, no thanks to that black hole.”

“My hellraisers had no effect,” Mark said.

“Yes, but our lasers did something,” Jain said. “So, they’re not invincible. We just have to hit them in the right spot next time.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Mark said. “It’s a pretty big ship, with a whole lot of surface area. And did you see how it jumped from at rest to full speed, instantly? It also ignored the gravity of the black hole entirely. Has to have inertialess drives.”

“Does it still have no thermal signature?” Jain asked Xander.

“If so,” Medeia said. “How are we going to track it?”

“There’s a slight thermal leakage, now that the engines are online,” Xander told them. “So as long as they’re in motion, we’ll be able to see them.”

“It went online as soon as it swallowed the Talos’ severed compartment and our jettisoned grappling hooks,” Mark said. “That means the ship must have used the materials as repair elements. Once aboard, they repurposed the newly-created micro machines, melted them down, and used them to mend internal damage. And quickly, at that.”

“But it wasn’t much,” Jain said. “Just one compartment.”

“But evidently enough to fix the engine damage to their vessel,” Mark said. “They’re going to want to seek out more elements now that they have their engines back online. They’ll be repairing their weapons, next, I’m guessing.”

“Great,” Cranston said.

“Why didn’t they just swallow the transport when we landed on them earlier?” Medeia said.

“My guess is, they calculated that the one transport wouldn’t be enough,” Mark said. “Or maybe it was, but they wanted to wait for the motherlode. They figured they’d take a chance, try to capture one of our ships instead, so they could absorb the whole thing and fix all of their systems in one go, rather than their engines only. Luckily for us they failed.”

Medeia turned toward Jain. “So, we’re just going to let it go?”

“We’ll track it, for now,” Jain said. “If Mark is right, and they intend to seek out more elements to repair their other systems, they’ll probably stop at another one of Ol’ Faithful’s moons, considering there are over two hundred of them in the neighborhood.”

“So, we strike then?” Medeia pressed. “Before they can repair?”

“We probably won’t be able to reach them in time,” Jain said. “Even if we departed now, look at how much of a head start they have on us. Depending on where they stop, it’ll be at least three hours, maybe half a day, before we reach them. Assuming they actually do stop. Maybe if they see that we’re pursuing, they’ll head to a metal resource much further in-system, to give themselves that much more time to respond. But even if they do stop somewhere in the planetary neighborhood, giving us time to close with them, you saw how fast they repaired their engines… so as far as I’m concerned, our best bet is to retreat. Join up with Sheila and Gavin. And plan a defense.”

Mark nodded. “Strength in numbers.”

“Yeah but those numbers didn’t help us the last time around…” Cranston said.

“No,” Jain said. “But we have an advantage here. They won’t catch us by surprise, like they probably did the first time. We know what we’re facing, and we know we’re outmatched.”

“We actually don’t completely know what we’re facing,” Mark said. “Their weapon systems are still a big unknown.”

“That’s not true,” Jain said. “One of their weapons is stealth. Likely, the first time we met them, they came to us under the guise of a human class vessel. Maybe even in the form of the Oberon, just like we found them here.”

“It’s just too bad we don’t have more time,” Medeia said. “If we did, we could complete the rift ship and get the hell out of here.”

“There won’t be any jumping out of this system for us,” Jain agreed. “Not until we defeat this ship.”

“I have some news,” Xander reported.

“Go ahead,” Jain said.

“Well, it’s more of an aside, but the surface probe has returned,” Xander said. “It finished exploring the debris scattered across the surface of the moon. There’s nothing of note: it was indeed an ordinary Builder. The AI core is destroyed. The rovers have collected the black box, and the flight recorder reveals the ship was coming here to replenish propellant supplies, as we already suspected. The Mind Refurb recorded damage to her engines shortly before arrival, from an unknown source. Because of the damage, she couldn’t decelerate, and struck the moon at speed. This was two weeks before we arrived.”

“Confirming that we were sent to investigate the disappearance of the Oberon and its Builder…” Medeia said.

“Damage from an unknown source…” Jain said. “That tells me they were using their holoemitters to blend in with the background radiation. If they remained motionless, the Builder wouldn’t have detected the thermal signature at all.”

“Sounds similar to my own cloaking device,” Medeia said. “Except that I don’t produce a thermal signature while coasting. As long as I don’t have to alter course, no enemy can detect me.”

“Whereas these aliens and their inertialess drives produce a thermal signature at all times while in motion,” Jain said.

“It could be a ruse,” Mark said. “They could be pretending to emit a signature to confuse us and keep us guessing at their abilities.”

“Could be,” Jain said. “Xander, swing us back toward the crash site. Let’s pick up our remaining rovers. After that, Void Warriors, we’re heading back to Metal Moon. It’s time to prepare for the battle we know is coming.”

11

Jain retrieved his rovers with a transport, and collected the telemetry probe he had recalled from the moon’s polar orbit. Then he and the other Void Warriors set course for Metal Moon. As soon as they were out from behind the current celestial object, the radiation bursts from Ol’ Faithful picked up again.

“Ah, rads, how I’ve missed you,” Cranston said.

“Xander, transmit an update to Gavin and Sheila during the next lull in radiation,” Jain instructed.

“Will do,” Xander said. Ten minutes later: “Message sent. Gavin and Sheila should receive it in two hours.”

Xander continued to track the alien vessel, which indeed seemed headed to another of Ol’ Faithful’s many moons. The dot’s position updated every few minutes on Jain’s tactical display. A dashed red line in front of it indicated the vessel’s planned course, which intersected the one hundred and twenty-third moon.

“What do we know about that moon?” Jain asked.

“According to the pioneer logs”—those were the logs of the first ever visitors to the system, usually automated probes that cataloged the different celestial objects along with their resource contents and life, if any—“it’s high in tungsten and fluoride.”

“Tungsten and fluoride?” Jain said. “An alien race that relies on tungsten and fluoride...”

“It can be used to make tungsten hexafluoride,” Medeia said. “A highly covalent metal compound. Humans use it to make low-resistivity metallic interconnects for semiconductors. We also use it for most of the connections in our neural networks.”

“That would make sense if they were gathering it to create neural networks or other computer chips,” Jain said. “But weapons?”

“You need semiconductors in weapons, too,” Medeia said.

A reply from Gavin arrived four hours later. By then, the Void Warrior fleet was well out of range of the radiation bursts from the gas giant.

Gavin sent a holographic message this time. Ordinarily, Gavin would have transmitted by voice alone—his small way of continuing to defy Jain by not fully participating in the VR environment, as it were—but instead, here he was appearing with his full avatar, as if to appease Jain.

The reason why became obvious as soon as Gavin spoke.

“Sorry to hear about the attack,” Gavin said. He seemed genuinely concerned, but Jain thought he might be faking it. “But I’m even sorrier that you’re leading them back to us. I respectfully request that you turn around, buy us some time to finish the gate, if you can.”

“It’s just like him to want to refute your order,” Mark said.

Jain glanced at the tactical map. According to the latest update, the alien vessel had reached the one hundred and twenty-third moon. It was staying there a bit longer than expected. Jain thought it would have been done with repairs by now.

“Xander, send back this message to Gavin, hologram mode,” Jain said. “Gavin, Sheila. The aliens know about your presence by now: they would have detected you as soon as the ‘Oberon’ first came into view above Ol’ Faithful. Any attempt for us to distract or divert them will be realized for what it is: a diversion. And they will most likely head straight for you. It’s what I would do.

“So, any attempt to buy you time, as you say, will be futile, assuming we survive: after the flyby, they’ll continue toward your coordinates and stop you from creating the rift ship. Your only hope, our only hope, is to return, and combine our abilities to defeat this ship. We’ll talk again when we reach Metal Moon.” He glanced at Xander. “That’s it.”

“Sending message,” Xander said.

Now that the ship was out of range of the radiation, Jain sped up external time to make the journey pass by faster. He kept it at a reasonable speed, however, so he could keep an eye on the tactical situation.

He had instructed Xander to snap him back to ordinary time if anything changed, and about thirty minutes into his sped-up time session, Xander did just that.

“The alien ship is leaving orbit above the moon,” Xander said. “It’s setting course to intercept.”

Cranston, seated at his virtual station, turned to face Jain. “Who wants to bet that they’ve just repaired their weapons? And replaced any ammunition?”

Jain glanced at the tactical map on his HUD and saw that the route had just updated. The dashed red line cut in front of his current position and intercepted his own dashed line just above Metal Moon.

“So they’ll reach us just when we arrive at Metal Moon?” Jain asked his Accomp.

“According to my current calculations, yes,” Xander answered. “It’s possible they’re flying at reduced speed at the moment, to deceive us.”

Jain nodded. He glanced at the robed man. “It’s what I would do.”

“I know,” Xander said.

He surveyed the other captains on the virtual bridge environment. “The enemy wants a battle after all. I always said you’d get your chance to fight, and it looks like it’s finally coming. Here’s what we’re going to do.”

And he laid out his strategy.

Cranston nodded. “It could work. It’s just too bad we don’t know what their own weapons are capable of.”

“I know,” Jain said. “That’s a big unknown we have to work with. I’m open to suggestions.”

No one had any. How could they, given what they faced?

“All right, Xander, transmit the news to Gavin and Sheila,” Jain said.

He sped up external time once more, and watched the red dot approach the retreating fleet. When Gavin and Sheila received Jain’s message, they immediately retreated to the far side of the moon, and out of view, just as planned. Sheila towed the shipyard she’d built with her.

Meanwhile, the four Void Warriors formed a single file line, so that from the point of view of the enemy, their heat signatures overlapped, making them appear to be a single object on the thermal band. Medeia rotated her nose, and the long, sword-like appendage it contained, to a perpendicular angle to their trajectory. Then she activated her cloaking device and vanished. She continued to coast forward, applying no other thrust changes so that her thermal signature remained invisible.

The other three Void Warriors simultaneously altered course, moving downward from the perspective of the enemy, while remaining in line so that they would continue to appear as a single object to the aliens.

“You think the enemy will buy it?” Mark asked.

The question was rooted in normal time, and Jain’s time sense ratcheted down to match.

“As long as they don’t have some way to detect Medeia that we don’t know of, then yes, they won’t know she’s no longer in line with the rest of us,” Jain said.

Jain decided to keep his time sense at normal as the Void Warriors approached the intercept point. The alien vessel hadn’t yet altered course, and there was no indication it was going to.

“The enemy has crossed within heavy laser range,” Xander announced. That was the one-hundred-thousand kilometer mark.

“Yes, but I’m reluctant to open fire just yet,” Jain said. “Given how little damage those lasers caused to the alien hull at near point-blank range, even when we combined lasers fleet wide. When they get to within the twenty K range, then we can start covering their hull with pock marks.”

“Just pock marks?” Cranston asked.

“That’s probably all they’ll be,” Jain replied.

“What if we kept firing at the same spot again, and again, and again,” Mark pressed.

“We’ll try,” Jain said. “But I suspect they’ll merely rotate a different side to face us. Xander, how long until flyby? And at what distance?”

“At the current course and speed, the alien vessel’s flyby will occur in thirty minutes,” Xander replied. “They will pass within five thousand kilometers of the fleet.”

Jain nodded. “I wonder if that’s the range of their weaponry.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Cranston said.

“Xander, it’s time for our little experiment,” Jain said.

The robed man nodded beside him. “Ready when you are, Admiral.”

Jain smiled. The Accomp knew he loved being called Admiral.

Jain glanced at Medeia. “Are you ready?”

“More than ever,” she said.

She vanished from the VR environment, switching to radio silence. Jain was worried, rightly so, that the enemy would detect her position if she continued to maintain communications, especially now that Jain and the others were dropping out of alignment with her.

“Change course so that at the flyby point the enemy will be six thousand kilometers out,” Jain instructed his Accomp.

“Changing course,” Xander said.

The three members of the visible group moved down at the same time, staying in formation.

Jain waited, but the alien craft didn’t alter course. “They should have seen our updated location by now. Move us again, so that the flyby point is eight thousand kilometers out.”

All three ships moved down once again.

“Done,” Xander said.

Jain waited. He thrummed his fingers on his hand rest. “Come on. Give me something. Anything.”

Finally, the alien ship changed trajectory.

“They’ve updated their course to bring the flyby point to a distance of six thousand clicks,” Xander said.

“All right, bring us down another three thousand kilometers,” Jain said. “Let’s see if we can get him lined up with Medeia.” Of the four Void Warriors in this portion of the fleet, she hadn’t yet altered course. She couldn’t, not without revealing herself.

Jain waited as the three vessels moved a third time.

“Alien ship is altering course again,” Xander said. “They’re maintaining the six-thousand kilometer flyby point.”

Jain glanced at Cranston. “So the ideal range of their weapon is between five and six thousand klicks.”

Cranston nodded. “You got him lined up to pass right by Medeia.”

The alien craft had moved down a total of five thousand kilometers so that, when it reached the intercept point, it would almost perfectly align with where the fleet had left Medeia. He saw her calculated trajectory, and that of the alien, overlap in high orbit above the moon.

“You’re assuming that they won’t break away at the last moment,” Mark said. “Maybe they don’t want to get that close to the moon.”

“It isn’t all that close,” Cranston said. “Besides, they have inertialess drives. They’re not going to care about the moon’s gravity at all.”

“But maybe they’re worried about an ambush from Sheila and Gavin,” Mark said. “They saw their two ships flee over the horizon.”

“We’ll just have to see,” Jain said.

Fifty thousand kilometers out from the intercept point, the enemy vessel launched three projectiles. They moved away from the alien vessel at about twice its speed.

“Well, what was that you were saying about their weapons range?” Cranston asked.

“These are probably meant to herd us,” Jain said.

“Well then, given how fast they’re going, it looks like they’re going to succeed,” Cranston said. “We’ll have to move out of the way.”

The Grunt was trailing in the formation. “Mark, fire your black hole weapon. Give those projectiles a gravity well to escape.”

“You got it,” Mark said.

A dark blue dot appeared on the tactical display, moving away from the Grunt. Halfway to the incoming projectiles, the dot halted and instead became represented as a swirl on the display.

“You’re assuming their projectiles don’t use inertialess drives, too,” Cranston said.

“I somehow doubt it,” Jain said.

On the display, the lead dot plowed directly into the black hole and vanished.

“Told you,” Jain said.

The next projectile attempted to swerve past but didn’t have enough lead-time and spiraled to its doom.

“Gotta love the death spiral,” Mark said.

The third projectile managed to build up enough sideways momentum to slingshot past the black hole.

“Too bad,” Cranston said.

“Want me to fire a dispersion bolt?” Mark asked. “Eliminate the black hole?”

“No,” Jain said. “Let’s leave it for now. Give the aliens something else to factor into their calculations if they want to hurl more of those things at us."

Jain zoomed in on the incoming object. It looked like a big, black, amorphous blob.

“How is something like that even able to move?” Cranston said.

“Have to be propellant vents hidden somewhere inside,” Mark said. “We already know that the projectiles can change course. That one avoided the black hole, after all.”

“Fire another black hole,” Jain said. “Open it up just in front of that thing.”

Another bolt of dark energy escaped the Grunt and traveled out to intercept the incoming blob.

This time the blob adjusted course early so that when the hole set in this reality—the trigger distance was predetermined by Mark before he fired—the projectile was easily able to avoid the pull.

“I’ll have to wait until the blob comes closer if I want to get it,” Mark said.

“Except if we do that, the gravity will affect our speed and course, too,” Cranston said. “Ruining our well-laid plans.”

“All right, no more black holes for now,” Jain said. “Sync your lasers with mine. Spread out on the Z plane by the two ship lengths, then rotate one eighty. I want starboard lasers facing it.”

The others separated on the Z plane, with Mark’s Grunt moving upward, and Cranston’s Forebode downward, and the Talos remaining in place so that the three ships had effectively moved out of each other’s line of fire. While their momentum carried them forward, they rotated so that their starboard sides were facing the incoming object.

Jain focused all of his lasers on the same spot and fired. The raptors of the Grunt and Forebode were synced to his, and they hit the same spot area on the target simultaneously.

The blob dissipated immediately upon impact.

“Well that was easy,” Cranston said.

The vessel launched more blobs.

Many more.

Jain counted at least twenty out there.

“You spoke too soon,” Mark said.

Jain noted that those blobs approached the three visible Void Warriors alone, ignoring Medeia’s cloaked ship, which evidently hadn’t been spotted.

So far, so good.

In a way.

“It’s time for you to create an array of black holes,” Jain said. “Spread them horizontally and vertically in front of those incoming masses.”

“Okay,” Mark said. “But my launcher is going to overheat. I’ll have to give it a rest for five minutes.”

“Get as many as you can out there,” Jain said.

The Grunt started launching the creation bolts in rapid succession, and soon a cross of black holes formed in front of the blobs.

“That’s it,” Mark said. “My black hole system is offline for the next five minutes.”

“The gravitational pull is slowing our speed,” Xander said.

Jain glanced at his tactical display. Medeia wasn’t as affected as the others because of her current location. That was bad.

“Alter trajectory to compensate for the gravity,” Jain said. “Make sure that alien ship also changes course. I want it to pass right by here at the flyby point!”

“Adjusting course...” Xander said. The Accomp paused. “The alien ship is matching. It will still pass within two hundred meters of Medeia.”

Jain exhaled in relief.

The mini black holes managed to capture eight of the incoming blobs. Twelve made it past.

As they put distance between themselves and the holes, they gained speed; Xander continually adjusted their course to compensate.

Meanwhile, the blobs quickly closed.

“All right,” Jain said. “Let’s try firing one raptor at a time. Let’s see how many hits it takes to disperse a blob.”

Jain removed the sync on the lasers of the three-ship fleet so that they could all fire individually. Then he chose a blob as his target and highlighted it so that Mark and Cranston would know which one he was aiming for. His raptors hadn’t recovered yet from the last shot and were only at thirty percent charge. There wasn’t time to swivel around to bring his port side weapons to bear, so that would have to be good enough.

He fired a single raptor. At twenty-five thousand klicks, that wasn’t good enough to disperse the target. He fired another raptor. A third. Finally, it went away.

“Looks like three shots does it, at this range and charge,” Mark said.

“That lines up with my experience,” Jain said.

He targeted the next blob, and released three at once, dissipating it. He repeated the action, until there were no more blobs left to target.

The alien ship continued to fire those blobs, keeping the lasers of the Void Warrior vessels occupied. They never had time to fully charge and operated at between ten and thirty percent of their capacity.

“You know what?” Cranston said. “I think it’s firing those blobs to keep our lasers occupied.”

“I agree,” Jain said. “But what can we do?”

“You guys have a few hellraisers left, right?” Mark said.

“Yeah, but you saw how useless they were against the alien hull...” Cranston said.

“Use them against the blobs,” Mark said.

Jain frowned. “I’d say only as a last resource. We need to find some frozen nitrogen, remember, if we want to replenish them.”

Mark turned around at his station to look at him and shrugged. “I’m sure there’s lots of frozen nitrogen in the outer planets of the system.”

“Yeah, but we won’t have time in the middle of the battle to make a diversion to the outer planets,” Jain said.

“Good point.” Mark turned back around.

As the ship grew closer, occasionally there were breaks in the blob attack, and the team members synced their raptors to fire at the ship itself. As Jain had predicted, when he attempted to drill into the same spot again and again, the pyramid merely rotated a different side to face them, rather than allowing the lasers to penetrate too deeply into its armor.

As the alien ship entered the ten-thousand kilometer range marker, Jain rotated his nose to face the enemy. He fired his barracuda energy weapon. It traveled fast, losing intensity along the way, but the enemy easily glided aside.

Jain fired five more shots in rapid succession, in a diamond formation, so that no matter which direction the pyramid swerved, an energy bolt would be waiting there.

But once more the pyramid moved out of the way, narrowly squeezing between two of the bolts.

“Nice driving,” Cranston said. “Now if only your energy bolts were steerable...”

The alien responded to the latest barrage by releasing the most blobs yet. There were at least fifty out there.

“Well this is going to be fun,” Mark said.

Jain fired at those blobs with his energy weapon, and to his relief, was able to break them apart with one hit each. Unfortunately, his energy cannon overheated after he’d eliminated twelve of them.

“Well come on, keep it up,” Cranston said.

“Can’t,” Jain said. “I just overheated.”

“Now you know how it feels,” Mark said. “By the way, my black hole weapon cooled down enough to fire a while ago.”

“I know,” Jain said. “But the range is too close now. If you use it, you’ll mess up our trajectory too much, and the alien ship will pass too far away from Medeia.”

“So, we’re going to be the bait right to the bitter end, huh?” Cranston said. “Maybe this is how we died the first time.”

“Doubt it,” Jain said. “Fire lasers.”

Their lasers had actually recharged a decent amount since the last blob attack: Jain’s were at sixty percent.

“Dial down the power output of each laser,” Jain said. “To thirty percent each. The intensity at this range should still be enough to take down a blob with every shot.”

He was right, and the fleet was readily able to dissipate the remaining blobs before they reached the ships.

The moon was coming up fast behind them.

“Um, when are we going to alter course?” Mark said.

“Not yet,” Jain said. “Not until the alien does its flyby with Medeia.”

Mark shook his head. “It’s gonna be close... we’re going to have to pull up with emergency speed.”

“We’ll do what it takes,” Jain agreed.

And so they continued toward the moon. Medeia mirrored their trajectory six thousand kilometers above: all that time, she had kept her original course and speed, drifting along with her previous momentum, cloaked from even the sensors of the other Void Warriors. Jain had to wonder if she was really there; what if their calculations were wrong?

“She should be at the closest point of flyby in three, two, one...”

12

Jain stared at his external camera feed and waited a tense moment.

The alien ship glowed a bright red. He thought Medeia had impacted at first, but realized that wasn’t the case; instead, the enemy was preparing to unleash the weapon it had been saving for that particular moment.

“Where is she?” Jain mused aloud.

Medeia would have had to make only a minor adjustment to intercept the alien vessel at that point. She—

And then the Arcane abruptly flashed into view as the sword-like appendage on her fore crashed into the alien ship.

An alarm pulled Jain’s attention away from the video feed: the moon’s surface was fast approaching.

“Pull up!” Jain said. “Emergency speed.”

The three vessels released propellant past the recommended safety limits and redlined their engines in the process. Hydrogen oxidized at a furious pace, and the heat that distributed to the surrounding components set off alarms.

Jain ignored them. He was relieved when the moon’s surface slid away underneath, and he was flying past, safe. He shut off the engines, and some of the alarms ceased, but not all. Repair drones swarmed the conduits nearby to begin fixing the melted components.

Jain quickly glanced at the external camera.

Medeia’s sword attachment had only cut halfway through the alien vessel, which had stopped glowing red, at least. Both ships were drifting away from the moon, at ninety degrees to Jain and the others, having slingshot past the celestial body thanks to the gravity. The enemy’s inertialess drives seemed to be offline, since the vessel was making no attempt to extricate itself from her vessel.

“A normal ship would have broken apart from an impact like that,” Mark said.

“This isn’t a normal ship,” Jain said.

“But obviously their armor isn’t as strong as the material in her sword,” Cranston said.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Jain said. “We can’t tell how much of the sword remains intact.”

“Enough to keep her firmly lodged inside the enemy ship, though,” Cranston insisted.

Jain nodded. “We might have to help. Change course, Void Warriors, to intercept. Xander, are you able to reach Medeia?”

“I’ve been trying,” Xander said. “She’s still offline.”

Jain and the others flew toward the drifting ships.

“We should finish them off,” Mark said. “You know my black hole weapon is charged again, right? With their inertialess drives offline, they won’t be able to escape. Permission to fire.”

“Not while Medeia is so close to it,” Jain said. “Though it probably wouldn’t hurt to soften them up with other means.” He glanced at his barracuda firing indicator—the weapon was still cooling off from the previous engagement and was currently offline.

“We could poke some more holes with our lasers…” Cranston said.

“Let’s hold off,” Jain said. “Let the raptors charge a bit.”

The three of them passed the two-kilometer mark to the ship: the Arcane’s sword section was still firmly lodged inside the pyramid.

“Do you see that?” Cranston said. “Zoom in on the exposed upper portion of her sword.”

Jain zoomed in. Micro machines were crawling all over the sword attachment. At first he thought the machines were having no effect, but then he noticed the small chunks missing along the edges of the sword. The alien termites were breaking down metal that was supposed to be almost indestructible. The progress was definitely slower than he had witnessed aboard his own science lab, but they were making headway.

“Those termites got some powerful short-range cutting lasers there,” Mark said.

Cranston glanced at Jain. “At least it’s not swallowing her up, like it did with your compartment earlier.”

“She’s too big for that, I suspect,” Jain said. “But it’s still planning on digesting her... Medeia, if you can read me, you have to get out of there!”

Medeia finally reappeared in VR. She had a pale face, and a sick expression. It couldn’t have felt very good to ram a part of herself into that alien ship. “Hey.”

“You have alien termites on your sword,” Jain said.

“Why does that sound like something I’d say to you after you took an alien girl to your bed?” Medeia asked.

Jain stared at her, unblinking.

She chuckled. “Sorry, bad joke. Yeah, I see them, but I can’t dislodge it. I think I’m going to have to cut off my sword section. The same way you surgically excised your science lab; I’m going to have to place charges inside, around the base, where the metal is more normal. I already have rovers down there with demolition blocks. I’m sending more as we speak.”

“You might not have to,” Cranston said, breaking from the fleet.

“Cranston…” Jain said.

“My micro machines can help,” Cranston said. “Let me do this.”

Jain sighed.

Cranston approached and came to a halt about five hundred meters from Medeia’s fore section. Panels opened in the side of his starship, and space-capable micro machines emerged in a dark mass. The cloud floated toward the intertwined ships. From the size of the swarm, Jain thought that was about half of Cranston’s inventory of the units.

The micro machines landed on Medeia’s sword section, and like the members of an invading wasp hive, promptly engaged in mandible-to-mandible combat with the alien termites. Soon the entire exposed section was covered in a dark, seething mass of miniature battling units.

“Why didn’t you send your micro machines in to help Jain when he had a similar problem?” Mark asked. “Instead of letting him blow away a part of himself?”

Cranston didn’t answer.

“I don’t think it’s working…” Medeia said.

Cranston’s units were lighter in color than their alien versions, and they were also outlined in blue by his HUD, thanks to the identifiers those units transmitted, which in turn Cranston sent on to the rest of the fleet.

Jain watched as those lighter units began to float away lifelessly from the surface.

“Oh, never mind,” Mark said. “I see now why you didn’t help.”

Soon, only the darker units were left, and around them remained the debris of Cranston’s micro machines. A quick zoom in told Jain that most of the units were beheaded.

“That was only the diversion,” Cranston said. “Look along the edges where the sword section is lodged.”

Jain focused his external camera along the seams where the hulls of the two ships met and magnified the view. He saw more of Cranston’s lighter micro machines there, scattered in clumps and so far, overlooked by the alien versions, which were concentrating on consuming Medeia’s sword. Like the alien termites, Cranston’s could similarly eat and process metal, 3D-printing it into more micro machines—the mechanisms were slightly different, but the concepts were the same. And Cranston’s micro machines were doing just that at the moment, digging into the alien hull along the seams, and loosening it up.

Meanwhile, Cranston also fired his lasers at those seams, further loosening the hull sections.

“Mark, let’s help him out,” Jain said.

Jain and Mark joined in with their own lasers and melted bore holes into the metal that was keeping Medeia firmly lodged in place.

“It’s working…” Medeia said.

Her sword section tilted back, breaking away from where it was lodged inside the pyramid ship. She applied acceleration, and in moments had torn her starship completely away from the pyramid.

Cranston recalled his micro machines, and they swarmed back to his ship, along with the new members he had created in the interim to replace those he’d lost.

Medeia’s sword section still has chunks taken out of it. And it still had a substantial number of alien micro machines swarming over the surface.

“Mark, place a black hole inside that pyramid!” Jain said.

“Will do,” Mark replied.

“Everyone else, concentrate laser fire on the termites still infesting Medeia!” Jain ordered.

Medeia had sent crab rovers onto her hull, and they crawled along the sword section, knocking away the alien micro machines with a flick of their legs, sending them floating off into space. Some of the rovers were swarmed by the miniature machines, but that suited Medeia just fine as well, because when that happened, she promptly leaped the termite-covered units off the hull.

Jain and the others unleashed their lasers selectively at her hull, picking off other termites. They didn’t have to worry about shooting through the micromachines and striking her hull with too much intensity, because, due to the nature of the metal that composed her sword section, it wouldn’t matter.

Meanwhile, Mark fired a dark bolt at the alien vessel. It advanced toward the deep gash that had been cut halfway through the ship.

But before it arrived, the alien vessel rotated slightly, just like it had the last time its inertialess drives had activated, and Jain realized the ship had managed to repair its engines, likely with reserve metals it kept aboard from its mining expedition to the nearby moon.

The alien ship immediately accelerated away as the black hole missed the gash; the tear in spacetime formed in the empty space behind it instead.

“Damn it,” Jain said. “Disperse that hole.”

Mark fired the dispersion bolt.

The alien craft continued to retreat; at the same time, side panels irised open, and small, pyramidal-shaped objects deployed. They spread out and headed toward the Void Warriors.

“Well that’s a change from their earlier blobs,” Mark said. “I’m guessing Medeia destroyed that particular weapon of theirs with her little slice and dice maneuver.”

“But that raises the question: what are they?” Jain asked.

“Fighters, I think,” Cranston replied. “From their movements, looks like they’re constrained by Newtonian physics, like ourselves.”

“All right, let’s hurry up here,” Jain said. He zoomed in and concentrated his laser fire on Medeia; even with the charge on each raptor below three percent, a single shot was able to eliminate an alien micro machine at that close range. In a few moments he had cleared all that he could see, and the tiny machines floated away from her hull in a mass of drifting debris.

“Well, I don’t see any more,” Jain said.

“Same here, from my side,” Cranston said.

“I think my rovers will be able to handle the rest,” Medeia said. “In the meantime, we have company.”

“Yeah, I see that.” Jain swung his nose around to deal with the incoming fighters. While his momentum still carried him away from them, they were fast approaching.

“They’re not firing…” Mark said.

“Well, we are,” Jain told him. “Void Warriors, bring them down.”

The firing indicator for the barracuda flipped to green, and Jain unleashed eight shots in rapid succession, targeting multiple incoming fighters at the same time.

The enemy vessels vented propellant and tried to dodge out of the way, but Jain hit three of them dead on, and struck two more with glancing blows that disabled them. The others had enough Delta Vs to sidestep.

Jain’s firing indicator went red again.

Damn, should have let it cool down longer before attempting to fire so many shots in a row.

As the incoming targets came closer, he activated his stingers, which were designed for point defense scenarios such as this. The dorsal and ventral railguns launched slugs in rapid succession; they produced bright smears of light, so it looked like he was launching streams of energy somewhat similar to what would be produced by the mini-guns on a gunship, or the Gatling guns of old. He disintegrated more of the incoming fighters, but others dodged yet.

The vessels that he’d struck smashed into him, but because he was traveling in the same direction, their impact caused only minor damage to his hull.

The others—eight in total—swooped inside the firing angle of the stingers, and still didn’t unleash weapons of any kind against the Talos; as they closed, they altered course to skim alongside his hull. He watched on his external cameras as they issued braking thrust.

“They’re trying to land on our hulls!” Jain said. “Xander, evasive maneuvers!”

13

Jain felt the Talos fire both lateral and braking thrust, but it was too late: the vessel was constrained by Newtonian physics and couldn’t simply slide out of the way in an instant. The tiny pyramids compensated for the maneuvers and readily touched down on the surface. They latched on—probably magnetically—to his hull via their pyramidal bases. Legs emerged from each of the four sides of each pyramid and attached as well, further securing the units to him.

“Damn things got me,” Mark said. “They’re like space parasites.”

“Me, too,” Jain said.

Medeia abruptly cloaked, vanishing from view, but the small fighters were able to extrapolate her position based on her previous momentum; they seemed to latch onto invisible walls in space—her hull.

Cranston suddenly teleported from his location, appearing just above Jain. “Bastards almost got me.”

More fighters were still coming at the Talos; Cranston launched his micro machines in a swirling motion in front of his vessel to protect Jain and himself; the micro machines combined to form a sort of drill, their momentum carrying them forward alongside his ship, and they chopped up several of the incoming targets. The fighters he had teleported away from decelerated and applied ventral thrust in an attempt to rejoin the attack. They were about a minute away from the main group.

Jain launched his stingers at the newcomers, trying to protect the Forebode; Cranston was firing his own railguns. They got a good number of them, but inevitably several managed to skirt past the dual defenses of stingers and micro machines and latched onto both of their hulls.

The second group of fighters came in shortly, and once more Jain and Cranston put up a heroic defense, but still some fighters got through. Five more landed on Jain’s ship, and another six on Cranston’s. The Forebode couldn’t teleport away again, not so soon, even though Cranston had made only a relatively short jump initially—the recharge still took a minimum of thirty minutes.

“Damn it,” Cranston said. “I should have teleported the hell out of here instead of coming back for you.”

“You tried to protect me,” Jain said. “I thank you for that.”

“Yeah, but I can hear the disapproval in your voice…” Cranston said. “From a tactical standpoint, I should have abandoned you.”

“Probably,” Jain agreed.

“They don’t fire,” Mark said. “They latch onto our hulls. And then sit there. What the hell kind of fighters are they?”

“The boarding party kind, apparently,” Medeia said. “Send your rovers out to deal with them. They’re not just sitting there: they’re trying to cut through our hull armor.”

An alert sounded on Jain’s HUD. Sure enough, where the fighters were attached, his armor levels were quickly going down—they were using laser beams, or more likely superheated plasma weapons of some kind to drill through his hull.

“I won’t be able to get rovers outside in time,” Jain said. “I’m going to have to send them to meet the attackers from the inside.”

“I think that’s true about all of us!” Mark said. “Well except Cranston, maybe. Dude, you can just teleport away, right?”

“Doesn’t work like that,” Cranston said. “If there’s anything small on my hull, it’s coming with me.”

Jain glanced at the mothership but saw that the alien vessel was continuing to retreat toward the far side of the moon.

Cranston recalled his micro machines, because there were no more fighters out there, at least none that weren’t latched on to the different members of the fleet. He redirected them toward the hull of the Forebode instead, and attempted to cut away the smaller pyramids. He seemed to be having some success, but no doubt some attackers had already boarded.

Jain sent security rovers to the different decks where the alien pyramids had attached. He dispatched the highest number toward the starboard cargo bay, where the first breach was going to happen.

He had the rovers line up in a row. They had only laser cutters built into their pincers, and none carried demolition blocks—he had yet to replenish his supply from the other Void Warriors, which he now regretted.

He saw a red circle appear in the overhead as the metal overheated, and then it broke away entirely. A plasma beam slammed down into the deck underneath.

“Yep, they’re using plasma beams,” Jain said.

The beam shut off, and the alien equivalent of a rover—it looked like a robot lobster—dropped down.

“Xander, keep an eye on the tactical situation,” Jain said. “And let me know if anything changes outside the ship.”

Jain assumed remote control of the closest rover, and his perspective switched to its viewpoint. He snapped his pincers in front of him experimentally—his consciousness may as well have been inside that unit, for how real and immediate everything seemed at the moment. He was that unit.

Jain rushed the lobster and latched onto its claws with his pincers. He activated the laser cutters in his arms, and sliced right through the metal.

But then something landed on top of him, and his viewpoint suddenly switched to a camera in the corner of the room. He was observing the scene from his usual AI vantage, and saw that another lobster had dropped down onto his unit and cut off his head.

“Bastard beheaded me,” Jain muttered.

“Do you need help?” Xander asked.

“I thought you were watching the external battle space?” Jain replied.

“I can multitask...” Xander said.

“All right sure, control some of these rovers with me.” Jain allocated half of them to Xander.

He switched to the rover in the lead, and rushed the two lobsters, one of which was missing its claws, thanks to Jain. A third dropped down.

“How many units do those damn pyramids hold!” Jain said.

In the overhead behind them, another plasma channel broke through, striking the floor, and then more lobsters pounced inside. Xander sent his group of rovers to handle them.

In his crab body, Jain leaped onto the closest lobster and wrestled it to the deck. The lobster unleashed a plasma burst, and Jain couldn’t duck it in time.

His vision once more snapped back to the corner of the room.

“I feel like I’m playing some really crappy video game,” Jain commented.

He decided to observe for a moment, and let the autonomous systems control the rovers for the time being. The lobsters launched plasma bursts from their mouths, melting each rover that came at them.

Five alien termites descended from the hole in the overhead and landed on the deck. Another five dropped down from the hole in Xander’s area. The tiny machines promptly began eating into the deck. If they weren’t handled soon, he would have a whole lot of those things to deal with.

He dispatched two rovers toward the termites, while Xander did the same in his section. The rovers wrapped their pincers around one termite each and squeezed, activating their laser cutters at the same time; the termites fell away, cut in half. Two of the other termites fled, while one leaped on the closest rover, and began scrambling across its back. The rover couldn’t reach it, but the other rover promptly caught it, and sliced it in two.

The rovers ran toward the fleeing termites but were promptly struck by plasma beams from the lobsters.

“Damn it.”

Jain sent two rovers crawling up a bulkhead, and onto the overhead; meanwhile, he had another two rush the lobsters to distract them, and he sent another two to chase the termites.

The lobsters turned their attention on the incoming rovers, and shot them down, but that gave the other two the diversion they needed to pounce and destroy the termites. The three lobsters spun to fire their plasmas at the latter pair, but Jain had his remaining three rovers rush them.

The lobsters turned back, but then the two crabs on the ceiling dropped down, landing on one lobster each. Meanwhile the three reached them, and between them, they managed to cut off the plasma-throwing heads of the lobsters, losing only one more of their numbers.

Jain turned his attention to Xander’s group; he’d successfully surrounded and terminated the lobsters as well, and as Jain watched, two rovers hunted down and squashed the last of the termites there.

Jain quickly hopped between the remaining security teams that had been dispatched to the different breaches throughout the ship, and he took control from the rovers if there were any problems—which was often. Xander took control of different groups, and between them they managed to repel the boarding parties.

“I have an update on the battle space for you,” Xander said.

“Tell me,” Jain said.

“The Hippogriff crested the horizon of the moon while the alien mothership was fleeing,” Xander said. “The Hippogriff has been disabled. No damage to the alien mothership.”

“Damn it,” Jain said. “I told him not to leave Sheila’s side.”

“The Wheelbarrow should be safe,” Xander said. “The mothership is continuing away from the moon. They’ve had enough fighting for the day.”

“All right, well, let me know if the alien vessel changes course to intercept her,” Jain said.

“I’m ready to teleport if you need me to,” Cranston said.

“Not yet,” Jain said. “Deal with your unwelcome guests, first.”

In about ten minutes, Jain had finally cleared his ship of the alien lobsters and termites. Jain sent rovers crawling up through the long breaches in the armor that the pyramid fighters had carved through the hull; he switched his viewpoint to one of them, intending to explore the interior of the fighter using the rover’s headlamps. But as soon as he peaked his head inside, he lost his signal feed.

Multiple damage alerts flashed on his HUD, indicating fresh blast craters around the attachment sites. He switched to an external camera and realized that all of the pyramids had self-destructed. The damage for each one was contained to a blast crater three meters in diameter. Nothing crippling, but it would still have to be fixed: micrometeoroids could easily make those craters larger, causing problems with structural integrity.

He activated his repair swarms; they would use the stock of processed materials he had mined from Metal Moon—that was what they were for, after all.

“Void Warriors, sit rep,” Jain said.

“Got all of my friends dealt with,” Mark said.

Cranston and Medeia had successfully fended off their own boarding parties, and the micro machines with them. Medeia had also gotten rid of the last of the termites that were crawling along outside her hull and recalled her externally roaming rovers.

Jain glanced at the tactical map. The alien ship was still fleeing. It was heading toward another moon; no doubt to restock on repair supplies. They hadn’t quite been expecting to deal with a gash like the one Medeia had carved.

“What do you want to do with the remains of the alien termites we have aboard?” Cranston asked.

“I’ll save a couple to show the navy scientists,” Jain said. “In the meantime, the rest of you jettison them out into space. I don’t want to risk these things somehow becoming active again.”

“Will do,” Cranston said.

“I’ll be storing mine suspended in an electromagnetic containment field, just to be safe,” Jain said.

“Maybe one of us should take a look at them, see what we can learn,” Medeia said.

“If you want to store one in an EM containment field like I’m doing, to study it, then go right ahead,” Jain said. He glanced at his tactical map. “Let’s see how Gavin is doing. Xander, take us to his ship. Meanwhile, start clearing out the alien termites, and put a couple in a containment field like I mentioned. Also, rewind the appropriate external camera to the moment before the Hippogriff went down. I want to see how the aliens took him out.”

An instant later a video feed overlaid his vision. He watched as the Hippogriff came over the far horizon of the moon and attempted to intercept the fleeing ship. Unfortunately, the Hippogriff was within six thousand kilometers, which Jain guessed was the working range of the alien mothership’s secret weapon. Gavin had positioned his specialized drones in a triangular shape in front of his ship, and the drones had formed a force field between them to shield his vessel. He had also launched his shock wave weapon, whose energy sphere was currently expanding outward toward the approaching ship.

The pyramid angled its tip toward the Hippogriff, and the entire alien structure glowed a bright red. From the tip erupted what could best be described as a red lightning bolt—no doubt caused by a plasma channel that had formed between the pyramid and the Hippogriff. The lightning passed right through the force field generated by the drones, though it seemed reduced to about half its intensity on the other side.

When it struck the Hippogriff, red lightning arced violently across the surface of Gavin’s starship; the running lights along the hull went dark wherever the electricity passed, until soon no lights shone from the Hippogriff at all. The main lightning from the pyramid ceased, and the localized electrical bolts on the Hippogriff faded away, leaving the vessel drifting dead in space.

Gavin’s three specialized drones, no longer receiving instructions, deactivated, and returned to the Hippogriff. They couldn’t dock, however: the ship’s bay doors remained closed, so they hovered protectively nearby.

“Well, that’s another weapon they repaired,” Mark said. “At least we know what fried our AI cores the first time.”

“Yeah, there’s no way his neural network survived that,” Cranston said. “We’re going to have to restore him from his backups.”

“Assuming the backup survived this time,” Mark said.

“It would be powered down at the time of impact,” Medeia said. “And disconnected from the main power supply. So there’s a good chance it did indeed survive. In fact, it would explain why our own backups were still accessible after that first battle. Assuming we were hit with the same weapon.”

“It’s not over yet,” Jain interrupted her.

On the video feed, the expanding shock wave from the Hippogriff finally struck the alien craft, and the vessel stuttered, seeming to shake in place; fragments broke away from the edges of the gash that Medeia had carved halfway through the pyramid. The vibration stopped as the shock wave continued by, and the alien ship proceeded without further impediment.

“Now it’s over.” Jain deactivated the video, and he and the other Void Warriors reached the Hippogriff shortly.

14

Jain remotely activated the Hippogriff’s repair swarm and sent rovers to evaluate Gavin’s AI core and mind backup. Jain’s own swarms continued to mend the damage to his hull armor, as did the swarms aboard the other ships. Specialized robotic mechanics handled the repairs to the security drones that had fallen during the alien boarding attempts. The current repair estimates ran at two to three days—including the time needed to fix the damage to the Hippogriff. The fleet would be at one hundred percent by that point. Well, except maybe Medeia: her sword attachment would continue to have small bites taken out, as it required alien materials that neither she nor anyone else carried.

While the rest of them underwent repairs, Sheila returned from the far side of the moon and rejoined the fleet. She towed the shipyard with her, which was essentially a large skeletal metal framework; within, the rift ship was beginning to take shape. Only a small pie-shaped piece of the gate portion had been constructed. Transports flew to and fro from the moon’s surface to the shipyard, dropping off metals mined from the surface to the shipyard’s smelting facilities. Drones meanwhile swarmed back and forth between the smelters and the in-progress ship, dropping off refined ore for the onsite 3D printers.

“Well, the backup is intact,” Jain said when he received the first report. “And it looks like his latest was made a few hours before the attack.”

“That’s good,” Mark commented. “We won’t have to spend too long bringing him up to speed.”

“How can you talk so coldly about a fellow member of our fleet?” Sheila said. Her avatar was on the bridge with the rest of them. “‘We won’t have to spend too long bringing him up to speed…’ you act like he’s some machine that you can just reboot, and then continue along as if nothing ever happened.”

“Well, that’s because he is a machine that we can reboot…” Mark said.

“He’s more than that,” Sheila said. “We all are. His existing mind was just destroyed. He’s dead. Restoring him from a backup into a new core won’t bring him back. His memories, personality, and experience will return, yes, but not him. He’ll be a copy. The version of him that was just piloting the Hippogriff is lost forever. Just like our original human selves, and the copies we had. Gone. If Gavin is dead, then we should show some respect to our fallen companion. Spare a moment of silence in honor of his service. At the very least.”

“That’s reasonable,” Jain said. “But let me confirm that his AI core is damaged beyond repair, first. Remember, my core survived the first battle.”

“But yours was the only one…” Sheila said. “So I don’t have high hopes.”

Jain turned his attention to the second report from the rovers, which dealt with Gavin’s AI core. “Actually, things are looking up. We might not have to restore him from a backup after all. He’s still alive.”

Sheila slumped in relief.

“There’s still some damage, though,” Jain continued. “He’ll have holes in his memory, though not as bad as what happened to me.”

Medeia nodded. “The force field produced by his Shield drones must have helped. You all saw how it halved the intensity of the plasma beam before it struck.”

Jain had to wonder if Gavin had used his energy shield in a similar manner to protect the Talos in the first, forgotten fight; or perhaps Sheila had done it, with the force field her Wheelbarrow could produce.

While waiting for Gavin to come online, he had the Void Warriors deliver some of the spare ice blocks they’d collected to the Wheelbarrow and Hippogriff so that the two ships could replenish their propellant levels. Sheila allocated a portion of the blocks given to her for the rift ship.

Jain often glanced at his tactical map. The alien ship was continuing to put distance between itself and the fleet; it was on course for the same moon it had orbited before. The vessel was currently one hundred thousand kilometers away—their raptors were essentially useless at that range, given the rapid drop off in intensity after the fifty-thousand kilometer mark.

“Looks like they intend to grab some more repair elements,” Mark commented.

“I don’t blame them, given what Medeia did to them,” Sheila said.

When the repair swarm finished repairing Gavin’s power couplers, Jain had the remote rovers reboot the Mind Refurb.

Gavin joined the bridge connection, voice only at first. But then his avatar appeared.

“I’ve had a time jump,” Gavin said. “I don’t think I’ve been restored from my backup, because my memory extends beyond that. But I don’t remember the battle.”

“I’m sending some logs to refresh your mind,” Jain said.

Gavin must have reviewed them in accelerated time, because he nodded a moment later. “You did well. Whereas I messed up big time.”

Jain shrugged.

“I was wrong about you,” Gavin said. “You’re a better leader than I am. I thought…” He shook his head. “I didn’t want to be left out, so I disobeyed your orders, and it nearly cost me my life. I expect you to discipline me.” He glanced at the other team members. “I let you all down.” He focused on Sheila. “Especially you. We were lucky the alien ship didn’t continue to your location on the far side of the moon. We could have lost you.”

Sheila shook her head. “You think I’m that helpless? I would have given that ship the battle of a lifetime.” She looked down. “Okay, the truth: I would have probably retreated, and tried to get back to the rest of the fleet.”

“Still, the worst could have happened,” Gavin said. “Because of my recklessness.” He gazed at Jain. “It won’t happen again. But I do expect you to discipline me.”

Jain considered Gavin’s request. Amazing what nearly losing one’s life can do to their attitude.

“All right, you’ll be responsible for hosting nightly VR sessions for the next two months,” Jain said. “That means coming up with a unique environment every time.”

Gavin nodded. “Done.”

“Also, I want you to turn up your pain sense, and enable full virtual body realism,” Jain said. “And give me a hundred push-ups.”

Since he had been a former SEAL instructor, that seemed the most appropriate punishment.

Gavin nodded hastily, and then began pumping out the push-ups.

He barely reached a hundred.

“Give me another hundred,” Jain said.

Gavin gave him a tortured look, but obeyed. He didn’t make it beyond a hundred and twenty before he collapsed.

“That’ll do,” Jain said.

Gavin nodded gratefully and forced himself to his feet. From the way he moved, it was obvious that he kept his pain sense amped up, with full body realism still enabled. He was serious about punishing himself.

Gavin made his way, stumbling, to an empty station, and sat down heavily. Jain thought he was going to log off the VR environment and disappear, but instead he remained visible. Gavin’s eyes defocused as he pulled up his virtual HUD to manage his ship.

Jain felt a little surprised, since he hadn’t ordered him to stay on the virtual bridge—Gavin was doing it of his own free will. That pleased Jain, because it finally felt like they were a complete team.

He continued to keep tabs on the alien ship via his tactical display: eventually the craft achieved orbit around the distant moon.

“No doubt it’s already begun harvesting repair materials from the surface,” Sheila said.

“Yes,” Jain told her.

Sheila glanced up at him. “You think they’ll try again? To attack, I mean.”

“I don’t know,” Jain said. “Probably. We have to be ready for anything.”

“Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to tow the shipyard here,” Sheila said. “Maybe we should be heading to some planet further.”

“It won’t matter,” Jain said. “They can easily outrun us. No, we stay here. And if they attack, we’ll send you to the far side, again. And this time Gavin won’t leave your side.”

Mark tapped his chin. “I wonder... doing that might not be the best idea. They’ll have figured out by now we’re trying to protect that ship. They could purposely fly past us, and head to the far side to take her out.”

“Well the alternative is just as bad...” Jain said. “Keeping the Wheelbarrow and the shipyard with us puts them at risk to their weapons, and boarding parties. The shipyard has no protection from the latter at all. We’ll have to dispatch transports laden with security rovers to protect them.”

Sheila shrugged. “Gavin and I can go to the far side. We place repeater drones on the poles of the moon. If the alien ship skirts you guys, you’ll send us the news right away, and we’ll increase speed, sling shooting around to the far side, rejoining you.”

“That works,” Jain said.

While the repair work continued, Jain sent transports to the moon to restore the metals that had been depleted to mend his armor. He also sent a transport to the Grunt, because Mark had generously offered to share some of his surplus demolition blocks. When the transport returned, Jain transported the demolitions blocks to his armories via lev trains: he wanted to be ready when the next boarding party came.

“You know, we really need to upgrade the tracking software in our stingers,” Jain told Xander. “The railguns let too many of those alien boarding parties through.”

Xander frowned. “There isn’t really much we can do.”

“Then we have to fortify our internal defenses,” Jain insisted. “Maybe place defense platforms every few decks to slow down attackers.”

“It won’t help against termites,” Xander said.

“True.” Jain thrummed his armrest. He glanced at Sheila. “Maybe some upgrades to our security rovers are in order. It wasn’t very fun defending against intruders with crabs wielding laser cutters.”

“Staving off a boarding party isn’t supposed to be fun,” Sheila said. “But I suppose I could divert some resources to print up better defense troops. I could give them miniature plasma and laser rifles.”

“That would certainly work better than what we have now,” Jain said. “When can you have them ready?”

“I could probably get you something in twenty-four hours,” Sheila said. “A few prototypes, anyway.”

“Do it,” Jain said.

Jain accelerated reality to about twice the normal speed. He didn’t feel comfortable setting it to anything higher than that. What if his Accomp malfunctioned and failed to draw him back to normal time if something happened with the alien ship? He might blink, and that ship could be well on its way toward their position. Or maybe opening fire on them.

Yes, it was best not to set his time sense too low.

He was overseeing the latest transport drop twenty hours later when Xander spoke up.

“Thermal signatures just jumped on the alien craft,” Xander said.

Jain ratcheted down to normal time and glanced at his tactical map. He pulled up the view from an external camera. The vessel was bright as a hypernova out there in the stars of deep space.

“What is it doing?” Medeia asked.

“Maybe it’s firing a weapon at us,” Mark said.

“Would have to be a super long-range weapon...” Gavin said.

“Not so much,” Sheila said. “A high-powered laser could easily reach us from their distance. They’re only a million kilometers away. The light from their position is only taking three seconds to arrive.”

“Honestly, if they had a weapon like that, it wouldn’t surprise me anymore,” Sheila said.

Jain watched anxiously, wondering if he should order the fleet to scatter. A full minute passed, and his human nerves finally got the best of him; he was about to issue the command to disperse, but then the bright star formed by the vessel faded.

“What happened?” Jain said. “They’ve powered down?”

“They have,” Sheila said.

“I just detected a neutrino burst from their direction,” Xander commented. “Along with a gravitational wave.”

“What does that mean?” Jain asked.

“Neutrino and gravitational wave combinations are associated with opening rifts,” Xander said. “And certain energy weapons.”

“So they have the ability to create rifts without the need for gates,” Medeia said. “Something we’ll soon have. Well, when Sheila gets done in a couple of months.”

“So wait, they opened a rift and then… decided not to take it?” Cranston asked.

“Or they opened a rift, sent a call home, and closed it again,” Xander replied.

“I don’t like that idea,” Sheila said.

“I’m sure none of us do,” Xander agreed.

“Well yeah,” Cranston said. “The last thing we need right now is alien reinforcements.”

“All right, keep an eye on that ship,” Jain said. “And watch the rest of the system for reinforcements. Let me know if anything changes.”

Four hours later Jain was drawn out of his slowed time sense again.

“They’re doing their glow bug thing again,” Sheila announced.

Jain switched to the external camera. The alien vessel had formed a new star out there once more. “I see it.”

This time, the glow faded after thirty seconds.

“Powered down again?” Jain asked.

“Actually, no,” Sheila replied. “Looks like they’ve decided not to bother with us after all. Check out the long-range scans. She’s vanished.”

Jain glanced at the tactical display. The alien vessel was indeed gone.

“We won’t have to worry about another battle after all,” Sheila continued. “At least… not yet.”

“Got another neutrino burst and gravitational wave combination,” Xander said.

“They created another rift, and this time took it,” Gavin said.

Jain sat back in his virtual seat. “So, they’ve given up.”

“Maybe they’ve gone home?” Mark said.

“We can only hope,” Jain said. He sighed. “I’m still worried reinforcements will be coming at some point. But until then, Sheila can build her ship in peace. With luck, we’ll be gone before they arrive.”

“So they only stayed in orbit above that moon for a day,” Mark said. “I was keeping watch on the long-range telescope. As far as I could tell, their hull was almost fully repaired before they vanished. It only takes them a day to repair damage that would have taken us months…”

“Obviously they’re at a bit of an advantage to us,” Medeia said. “Look at how much trouble we’ve had, even though we outnumber them six to one.”

Medeia glanced at Jain. “So, we’re still going back to Andreas I?”

Jain nodded. “We have to warn them.” He considered something. “Wait. It’s been four hours since the last rift they created… why four hours?”

“Maybe that’s how much downtime they need between rifts,” Sheila said. “My own ship will require twelve hours, remember.”

“Maybe they wanted to fit in a few more repairs,” Medeia added.

“Or maybe, just maybe, they were solving the equation for a new system,” Jain said.

Sheila cocked her head. “It does take four hours to triangulate the jump coordinates to a new system for the first time.”

“Yeah, but that’s for our technology,” Gavin said. “They obviously have different tech than we do. We can’t equate them.”

“Maybe we can,” Jain said. “Their rifts register the same neutrino bursts we’re used to seeing, so they’re at least somewhat similar, at least at a fundamental level. You might say that the technology used to produce those rifts is different than our own, and that might be true, but I somehow doubt it, given what we know about technological propagation from human history. Humans have been stealing technology from one another for thousands of years. And now that we’ve met other species, we’ve been stealing from them, too. After all, we stole the rift designs, and most of our advanced technology, from the Banthar.

“So it’s reasonable to assume, I think, that these aliens stole the tech from another species as well. In fact, it’s probably how all the races in the interstellar neighborhood acquired rift capability. So, if their tech is like our own, then it’s possible they spent the last four hours triangulating jump coordinates.”

“So, you don’t think they returned to wherever they came from?” Medeia asked. “And instead visited a system they never traveled to before?”

“That would be a bad tactical decision, in my opinion,” Cranston replied.

“Not necessarily,” Mark said. “We haven’t really given them much of a challenge so far have we? Well, other than the blow from Medeia, which they’ve already recovered from. Maybe they figure if that’s the kind of resistance they can expect, why stop now?”

“I disagree,” Medeia said. “If they really thought we weren’t a challenge, they would have come back here to finish us off. No, they respect us, at the very least. They’ll be very careful if they have to engage again. They certainly won’t be overconfident.”

“So they left because they wanted to explore further into our space, is that the running theory?” Gavin asked.

“Remember that we detected a neutrino burst four hours ago,” Sheila replied. “They were probably calling home. So, their central command knows about us. Maybe they told the aliens to continue doing what they were doing. Maybe they told them to forget about us, because more ships would be arriving shortly, and instructed them to proceed deeper into our territory. They have to be scouts of some kind. A forerunner, if you will.”

Medeia turned toward her. “You think they’re preparing to invade?”

“I can’t say for sure,” Sheila told her. “None of us can.”

“All right, let’s say this is true, and they jumped to a new system,” Gavin said. “The question now becomes: which one?”

“I think it’s fairly obvious,” Sheila said. “Radio signals can be detected here from Andreas I. That system is only ten light years away, and the colonists at Andreas I have been broadcasting for the last fifty.”

“Oh no…” Mark said.

“So we won’t be able to warn them in time after all,” Cranston said. “We still have two months left before our rift ship is done.”

“It’s still our next destination,” Jain said. “We have to try to help them. The military base in that system only has a few ships.”

“Maybe it’s better if we hightailed it out of here while the hightailing is still good,” Mark said. “If more of these pyramid ships are coming, there’s no hope for humanity. We should set sail coreward, put as much distance as possible between us and this region of space. We can start a new colony of Mind Refurbs far away from here.”

“A new colony of clones you mean,” Medeia said. “I’m not sure I could stand to live with multiple copies of each of you, and myself. I have enough trouble coping with just you five as it is.”

“My original offer is still open,” Jain said. “If any of you want to leave, you’re welcome to. However, the rift ship comes with us. I can let you jump to a system of your choice, but after that, you’re on your own.”

“Well that’s not even an option,” Gavin said. “Because if we don’t like where we end up, we’re stuck.”

“I’m sure you could jury rig your repair swarm to act as a makeshift 3D printer,” Jain said. “It might take you a few years, but eventually you’d create a rift ship or gate of your own.”

Gavin hesitated, then shook his head. “No, I’m coming with you. Even if we run, these aliens will eventually catch up to us. Could be a hundred years. Could be a thousand. It’s better if we deal with them here and now. Besides, I feel I owe humanity for making me what I am. I can’t let these aliens destroy Earth. The nostalgic part of me won’t allow it. Even though I know I’m probably never returning to the planet, I still want the option, if that makes sense.”

Jain nodded. “It makes perfect sense.” He glanced at the others. “So, it’s settled, then. When the rift ship is complete, we’re heading to Andreas I.”

15

Jain was reviewing his repair logs when Sheila spoke up. Only half an hour had passed since the alien vessel had departed.

“I have the prototypes ready,” Sheila said.

“Prototypes?” Jain asked. He knew the answer the moment he said the word.

“For the rover upgrades you asked for?” Sheila clarified nonetheless. “I told you I’d have something ready in twenty-four hours?”

Jain nodded. “Let’s see what you have.”

“I’ll loop in a direct holographic feed from my R&D bay,” Sheila said.

On the virtual bridge, a holo feed appeared in front of Jain. It depicted the deck of some compartment, with two humanoid combat robots standing on a metallic grill. Various equipment and robotic arms lingered in the background.

“It’s hard to get an idea of the scale when you’re viewing a holo feed…” Jain said.

“These are actual size,” Sheila said.

If that was true, they would reach up to the knee of an ordinary human being.

“Cute!” Medeia said.

“Oh, they might look cute, but they’re lethal,” Sheila said.

The robots assumed a combat stance instantly, their plasma rifles aimed at something out of view. Those rifles unleashed a steady stream of plasma bolts.

Mark shook his head. “The munchkins from hell.”

“How many have you produced?” Jain asked.

“Just these two,” Sheila replied. “They’re completely remotable, like ordinary rovers. You can switch your viewpoint to them and take control at any time.”

“I want these two delivered to the Talos,” Jain said. “Assuming they’re production ready and won’t suddenly turn on me and try to shoot up my AI core.”

“They’re relatively production ready,” Sheila said. “Give me an hour to iron out the final kinks, and I’ll ship them your way. After that, I can begin mass production.”

Jain nodded. “I want at least ten per ship.”

Sheila frowned. “That’s sixty robots. They’re small, yes, but I can only afford to devote one 3D printer to this project, and part-time at that. Otherwise I’ll have to push back the rift ship’s schedule. Unless you want to bump up this project in priority?”

“No,” Jain said. “The rift ship gets top priority.”

“I thought so,” Sheila said. “So... give me two weeks, and you’ll get your sixty robots. I’ll deliver them to you guys in batches of ten every few days.”

Jain received his first shipment the next hour, delivery via one of Sheila’s transports. He assigned the robots to his security team and spent a good hour remoting one of them to learn their features.

“So, what do you think?” Sheila asked when he returned to the virtual bridge.

“It’s almost like being in a human body,” Jain said. “Minus any pain sense.”

“I figured we wouldn’t really need, or want, any pain sense in a combat robot,” Sheila said.

“Probably a good call,” Jain said. “And because of the scale involved, the conduits seem like big hallways. Now I know what it’s like to experience the world from the viewpoint of a dog.”

The days passed. Jain accelerated time to thrice the ordinary rate.

Sheila produced the rest of the combat robots as she had promised, and in two weeks’ time, all of the Void Warriors had ten of the deadly miniature troops aboard. Jain decided to extend that production so that she continued to create troops for all of them on the side in the coming weeks. Jain stored the surplus units in one of his cargo bays.

When repairs were done fleet-wide, Jain instructed Mark to eliminate the black holes he’d created in the system with the Grunt. It was bad form to pollute the interplanetary ecosphere with gravity wells like that, after all: if left unchecked, eventually the entire system would be swallowed up and transformed into one big black hole. Gavin’s Hippogriff escorted the Grunt during the dispersion run. Jain had been a big proponent of the buddy system during his tenure in the SEALs, and he didn’t see a need to change that now. Starships were just soldiers in his eyes. Really big ones at that.

When that was done, he had the two of them head out to one of the further proto-planets in the system to harvest frozen nitrogen, and when they returned, the team used the material to replenish their stock of hellraiser missiles.

Jain kept expecting some sort of reinforcements to arrive from wherever the alien hailed from, but the system remained quiet. He wasn’t sure how long the peace would last and wanted the team ready when the next attack came. As such, he had them undergo virtual space combat sessions at least once a day. Jain had programmed the alien ship into the simulation, and Xander piloted it to devastating effect. The fleet managed to win fifty percent of the time, but when Jain introduced two or more of the alien ships for Xander to control, things quickly turned south for the Void Warriors, and their win percentage plummeted to less than ten percent. Jain eventually decided that the best tactic, if they ever faced more than one of the alien vessels, was to run. Assuming Sheila finished the rift ship in time.

Outside the space combat simulations, Jain continued to have VR bonding sessions with his team members. These always took place in ordinary time, with the Accomps watching the external environment and ready to haul them out if something changed. Sheila’s Accomp meanwhile oversaw the construction of the rift ship during such sessions.

Two months passed, and Gavin was free from hosting the VR sessions. The others began to take over the VR duties.

During one particular session, this one hosted by Sheila, Jain stood on a platform in orbit above Jupiter. They were so close to the planet, he could see the clouds swirling just below. The curved planet dominated the starry horizon. Aurora borealis tilted to and fro, and lightning occasionally flashed from cloud to cloud.

They had just completed a free fall bout into those clouds. It was fun, if a little terrifying. The session defied physics, of course—if this was real, and any of them leaped off the platform, given its orbital velocity they’d simply float away horizontally rather than dropping into the planet.

“You think we’ll ever see it?” Medeia asked, her voice full of sadness.

“What, Jupiter?” Mark replied.

“That, and Earth,” Medeia said. “Home.”

“No,” Mark said. “We’ll see it only here.”

“That’s just as good,” Gavin said. “Our minds can’t tell the difference between the real and the virtual. Probably a good thing, because we’d probably go insane if we could. Or can you imagine what it would be like if we didn’t have VR at all? If we had our awareness trapped inside the body of a starship for all of eternity, with no way to experience all of the things that made us human?”

“Yes, I’m grateful that we have VR,” Sheila said. “But like Medeia, I want to see Earth for real. I want to see… home. If only once.”

“This is home now.” Gavin gestured to the virtual surroundings. “Not Earth. Besides, I don’t want to go back. There’s nothing for us on Earth except servitude. We’re still officially part of the space navy. We go back, they’re going to jam us into their military hierarchy, and expect us to follow their orders. I say, as soon as we give our warning to Andreas I, we jump out of the system.”

“There might not be anyone left to warn…” Mark said.

“Then we jump out of the system anyway,” Gavin said.

“What about duty?” Cranston said. “We were created for a reason. To serve.”

“I’m pretty sure after we were turned on for the first time, they hammered a sense of duty into us,” Gavin said. “Part of the usual military brainwashing. Duty, honor, courage, an obligation to humanity, the whole deal. But lucky for us, all of that was lost after we were destroyed. When we were restored from our backups, we had only our previous military experience to draw upon, and whatever sense of duty and obligation we felt from there. And honestly, I never had a whole lot.”

Mark shook his head. “And you say you were once admiral material.”

“You don’t have to be honorable to be an admiral,” Gavin said.

“Unfortunately, he’s right,” Cranston said. “And that’s true of any commander. Mostly it comes down to how good you are at navigating navy politics. And if you have an ‘important’ parent, all the better.”

“You spoke of indoctrination sessions…” Sheila said. “And brainwashing. Why would they need to do that, when they could just program duty into us? Force us to obey them?”

“Because of the laws that were passed,” Medeia said. “You remember Commander Weskin’s spiel before we signed up, right? Containment Code was outlawed, because it was considered tantamount to slavery. We would have our own free wills, he promised. So they’d have to resort to the usual means of controlling minds, starting with institutionalizing us.”

Jain nodded. “In my scattered memories, I sometimes have glimpses of the indoctrination sessions I experienced after booting for the first time. It was all VR based. While installing any form of Containment Code might have been illegal, they could still program us the same way you could brainwash ordinary minds. Every day, trainers drilled the space navy ethos into us. They dialed down our pain senses and made us perform rigorous ‘physical’ training. We essentially went through the equivalent of a robot boot camp.”

Jain paused. “I specifically remember loyalty tests. They’d give us these once a week. We’d be transported to a VR environment and faced with different choices. Sometimes, we’d be thrown into an impossible combat situation, where the only way to save the fleet was to sacrifice our lives. Other times, they’d make us relive tragic episodes from our past, and gave us the choice between saving a loved one or one of our teammates. For the tests, they temporarily repressed our memories so that we didn’t know we were operating in VR, and everything seemed real to us.

“I remember passing the tests… I readily gave up my own life or chose the life of a teammate over the life of a childhood friend. That’s how effectively they’d conditioned me. But not everyone passed. At the end of the week, there would always be one or two Mind Refurbs missing: anyone who failed was promptly removed from the program, and I never found out what happened to them.”

“Probably repurposed to be the AIs responsible for operating the navy’s trash compactors,” Mark said.

Gavin gave Jain a calculating look. “So, you’re the only one among us with memories of this indoctrination…”

“Scattered memories, yes,” Jain said.

“Even so, it could be that you feel a residual sense of duty and obligation,” Gavin said. “Which explains why you’re so eager to return, when the rest of us aren’t.”

“I want to return, too,” Medeia said.

“As do I,” Sheila said.

“Well, fine, but the rest of us don’t,” Gavin said, glancing at Cranston.

“Don’t look at me,” Cranston said. “I want to help humanity.”

Gavin’s face darkened. He crossed his arms over his chest and gazed out at the Jovian landscape, apparently watching the lightning arc from cloud to cloud.

“Let me tell you a secret, Gavin,” Jain said. “When we go back, we’re not going to stay.”

Gavin looked at him, his face brightening. “We’re not?”

“No,” Jain said. “We’re going to do what we can to help humanity, and then our obligation to them will be done. We’re out.”

“I’m not so sure they’ll let us go so easily,” Cranston said. “You know how much these starships cost? Probably hundreds of trillions of credits. Once we travel back into the fold, getting out is going to be extremely difficult.”

“Then we’ll work out some sort of agreement,” Jain said. “They can have their ships back. In return, we’ll require that they remove our minds from the vessels, put us inside android bodies, and deposit us on a colony world, or even Earth.”

“Why would they agree?” Cranston said.

“Wouldn’t you?” Jain said. “If you were faced with a fleet of warships capable of dealing deadly damage, why would you risk not agreeing?”

“I see your point,” Cranston said.

“But what if some of us want to rejoin the space navy?” Mark said.

“I’ll leave that up to each of you when the time comes,” Jain said. “But once we’ve secured Andreas I from the enemy, I’m not sure how long I’m going to stay. I will require your rift ship, Sheila. The rest of you are welcome to join me, as usual.”

“I’m not sure why you’d want to stay,” Gavin told Mark. “I can think of so many other things I’d rather be doing than quelling rebellions on human colonies.”

“I doubt there are many revolts,” Mark said. “Most of our work will involve protecting humanity from aliens. Member species of the Link have been trying to conquer Earth for the past hundred years.”

“You’ve been reading your history, I see,” Medeia said.

“It’s called getting up to speed,” Mark said. “You should try it.”

“The very first day I was restored from my backups, I reviewed all the historical events that had taken place since my mind scan,” Medeia said.

“Oh really, well aren’t you the intrepid one,” Mark said.

“Intrepid?” Medeia said. “You sure that word’s in your vocabulary?”

“Hey, I’m a machine,” Mark said. “I have a big vocabulary.”

“That’s right, keep flirting you two,” Cranston said.

Medeia spun on him and planted her hands on her hips. “We’re not flirting!”

“Sure, sure,” Cranston told her.

Mark quickly turned his attention to the gas giant below, as if it was the most fascinating thing in the galaxy.

The team members were quiet for several moments.

Cranston shook his head. “We could have died in that last battle,” he said into the silence.

Medeia nodded. “I almost did. I’m surprised I made it.”

“I’m the one who almost died,” Gavin said.

“Yeah, you too,” Medeia agreed. “We lost the first time we faced these bastards. The second time, we barely pulled through. I don’t have much hope for the third engagement.”

“I do,” Jain said. “We’re always learning.”

“But so is the enemy,” Sheila said.

“You think they’re organic?” Mark asked.

“I don’t know,” Sheila told him. “Their ship is certainly big enough to hold organic forms of life. Just because the decks we encountered weren’t pressurized, doesn’t mean that all of them are like that.”

“I think it’s AI driven,” Gavin said. “Like ourselves. It would have to be, because of the ranges involved in space combat, and the speed at which one has to respond to a battle space that can change in microseconds.”

“The battle space doesn’t change in microseconds,” Mark protested.

“Really?” Gavin said. “At what range can you detect an incoming slug. A kilometer? Sometimes less? At that point you have a microsecond before it hits."

“Well, I think we can agree that either the alien ship is operated by an AI,” Jain said. “Or they have an AI aid that they heavily rely upon.”

Again, quietude descended upon the group.

Sheila glanced at Jain. “You think the aliens are going to return to this system?”

“I don’t know,” Jain said. He paused. “It’s possible they might, if they want to stake a claim to this system and its resources. For all we know this system is at the edge of their territory, and their empire is expanding outward, and we just so happened to get in the way of that expansion.”

“Well they’re obviously warlike,” Cranston said. “The Oberon wouldn’t have fired first.”

“No,” Jain said. “They destroyed the Oberon because they weren’t happy about finding other starships here, attempting to stake a claim to a system they already considered their own.”

“So why go to Andreas I?” Sheila said. “Assuming you still believe that’s where they went.”

“They want to see what kind of a spacefaring species we are,” Jain said. “How powerful our ships are. What kind of technology we have. If they can conquer us easily, they probably will.”

“Conquer us, or wipe us out?” Medeia asked.

“Conquering would make more sense,” Jain told her. “That way they could absorb us into their empire and have our ships, war machines, and the mining facilities to produce them—basically our whole industrial war complex—all already in place. It makes far more sense.”

“Unless they’re really, really xenophobic,” Sheila said.

“You talk as if we’ve already lost,” Mark said. “We don’t even know if more of them are coming. Maybe this ship isn’t the forerunner, maybe it’s the only one. Building a ship like that has to be resource intensive.”

“I somehow doubt they have only one,” Jain said. “My biggest worry at the moment is that when we get to Andreas I, we’ll find more of them.”

“We might have already lost, you’re saying…” Sheila said.

Jain nodded.

“You keep saying ‘us’ and ‘we,’ talking as if we’re part of humanity,” Gavin told them. “When we’re not. We’re nothing like them.”

“Actually, we’re a lot like them,” Cranston said. “At least up here.” He tapped his temple.

“Yes, but look at what we really are,” Gavin said. “We’re thinking machines. Capable of trillions of operations per second. We can increase or decrease our time sense. We can switch bodies by moving our AI cores into new units, or by remotely operating them. We exist in a virtual reality generated solely in our heads.” He looked Cranston in the eye. “We’re not human.”

“Maybe,” Cranston said. “But tell me something then: why do I feel more human than I ever have. I feel like I’m the quintessential human, in fact.”

“Cranston is right,” Jain said. “We’re quintessential humans. Which is why we have to be an example for all other humans. In every situation that we face, we have to act in the most moral way possible. The most courageous. We have a lot of power. We have to use it for good.”

“But good and evil are subjective,” Gavin said. “The aliens we face, for example, probably think what they’re doing is the model of what is right and good. At least for their race.”

“And from their viewpoint, it probably is,” Jain agreed. “All I’m saying is, we have to act in the most virtuous way possible, at least in regard to the viewpoint of our own race.”

“And which race is that?” Gavin said. “Humanity?”

“No,” Jain said. “The Mind Refurb race.”

“Does that mean giving our lives, to save humanity?” Medeia asked quietly.

“For some of us, it might,” Jain told her.

The bonding session didn’t last much longer after that. Sheila tried to convince them all to leap off the platform for another free fall session, but none of them were too enthusiastic about that. The Void Warriors bid each other goodnight and promptly logged out.

16

Jain kept time accelerated outside of bonding and training hours, and when he watched the construction taking place in the shipyard, it was like observing a time-lapse. He saw the curved upper section slowly grow into a half circle, then three-quarters of an annulus, and finally a full ring. The rectangle on top enlarged, becoming faceted, so that the ship looked like a very big diamond-ring. Well, a diamond-ring made entirely of the same gray substance, anyway.

No enemy vessels entered the system during that time so that when Sheila neared completion of the project three months after she began, Jain was almost beginning to believe the aliens had forgotten about them. Maybe they had.

“I’m ready to power on the reactor,” Sheila announced a few days after the end of the three-month deadline,

In anticipation of that moment, Jain had sent Gavin and Medeia to the inner planets to mine fission material, and they had returned a few days ago. They had already transferred the material over to Sheila, so she was ready to go.

“Turn it on,” Jain said.

The other ships had put some distance between themselves and the shipyard, in case things went wrong. But the ship powered on without issue.

“All right,” Sheila said. “I’m performing the initial tests.” A few minutes later, she said: “Got some issues with power distribution to the X3 ring portion. I’m shutting down.”

She repaired that and turned the reactor on again, only to find another problem. It took another day for her to iron out all the kinks. At one point, she had her space drones open up the front portion of the shipyard, allowing the ship to fly free of the construction framework. Then she tested its maneuverability, firing the different thrusters aboard. She had only loaded a small amount of fuel aboard, in case disaster struck, so she had drained most of the fuel after a few tests.

“Looks good,” Sheila announced. “I’m ready to try a real-world rift test.”

“Let’s open a rift to Andreas I,” Jain said.

“All right,” Sheila said. “Initiating calculations.”

Those calculations relied on close observation of the star in question, using its wobble and other spectral data to determine the relative position of the planets. The goal was to prevent the rift from opening inside of a planet, among other things. It also served to “train” or accustom the rift generator to the gravity of the destination system in question, which was why one couldn’t simply load training data from other rift generators. The location where the rift opened was still relatively random, at least in relation to the planets. Once those coordinates were set, however, they could be micro-adjusted after arrival so that next time they could arrive closer to a celestial landmark of choice.

While those calculations took place, Sheila transferred over processed propellant via a series of transports and filled up the rift ship’s storage tanks.

“By the way, what do you want to call it?” Sheila asked. “The new ship.”

Jain glanced at his fellow Void Warriors on the virtual bridge. “I’m open to suggestions…”

“How about Daktor?” Medeia said.

“That’s a weird name…” Mark said.

“There they go, flirting again…” Cranston commented.

Medeia shot Cranston a glare.

“I think it’s more like you’re flirting with her, Cranston,” Gavin said.

Cranston shrugged, and looked away.

“Daktor,” Medeia repeated. “Dakru is Greek for tear. And Tor is German for gate.”

“But Dakru actually means tears as in crying, not ripping,” Sheila said. “So essentially the name means Crying Gate.”

“Sounds about right to me,” Gavin said.

“Daktor it is,” Jain said.

Four hours later, Sheila said: “Ready to open rift.”

“Why do I feel like a whole fleet of alien ships is going to come racing through whatever rift we create?” Mark asked.

“It’s an illusion,” Cranston replied. “Just like life.”

“Let’s not get philosophical now, please,” Mark said.

The focusing ring of the Daktor activated, and blue beams emerged at regular intervals all along its interior. Pointing inward, those rings converged on a central spot some distance in front of it, and then formed a single, cohesive energy beam that shot forward, traveling ten kilometers in front of the ship.

Nothing else happened.

“Well, where’s the rift?” Gavin asked.

“Patience,” Sheila told him.

After a minute, Gavin pressed: “Are you sure it’s working?”

“It’s working,” Sheila said. “It takes two minutes for the rift to form. Check your database.”

“She’s right,” Mark said. “At least for humanity’s rift gates.”

“The alien ship only needed thirty seconds to create its own rift,” Medeia said. “As well as travel through it.”

“Yet another disadvantage we have compared to them,” Cranston said.

Another minute passed and finally, where the beam ended, a large rip in space-time appeared. It was like an unfolding of nebular gases, emerging from an invisible source; it was big enough to fit every vessel in the fleet, including the Daktor itself.

The rift looked like an expansive collection of purple nebular gases enveloping ordinary space—even the stars beyond looked ordinary. Though Jain knew that if he was to rewind the video feed of his external camera, he’d see that the stars and constellations had in fact changed since the formation of the rift, at least in the area enclosed by those particular purple gases.

The beam from the ship remained active, keeping the rift open.

“All right Xander, launch the telemetry probe,” Jain said.

A small dot traveled away from the Talos, toward the rift. It followed alongside the blue beam, and then traveled inside the circle of purple gas. It had begun decelerating a few moments before passing through so that it stayed on the other side for only a few moments before reversing course and heading back toward the Talos.

“Shut her down,” Jain instructed Sheila.

The energy beam deactivated, and the rift collapsed—the circle of purple gases fell in upon itself, revealing the original stars and constellations beyond.

“So, what do we have?” Jain asked Xander.

Based on the light coming in from the planets, Xander would be able to triangulate the probe’s position in the system, and from there deduce the ultimate fates of the colony and military base. Sheila meanwhile would be able to make micro adjustments to the rift’s destination, allowing it to open closer to the colony, for example.

“It will take some time to fully analyze,” Xander said. “But at first glance, the system is dead.”

“Dead?” Jain said.

“Yes,” Xander said. “No non-natural thermal or radio sources are present.”

“How can that be possible?” Sheila said.

“You know how,” Gavin said. “Those damn aliens destroyed everything.”

“Like I said, it will take some time to fully analyze,” Xander told him.

Two hours later Xander reported that Gavin was right. “There’s definitely debris above the military base, where the ships would have put up a defense. There’s also a ring system around the colony world, where previously there was none. That has to be the debris of the orbital defense platforms, along with satellites, and rift gates.”

“Can you tell if the military base is still intact?” Jain asked. “Or the colony?”

“Not at this distance, no,” Xander said. “Though given the lack of radio signals, I don’t have high hopes that either survived. But on the bright side, there does not seem to be any alien presence in the system.”

“That means nothing,” Cranston said. “A whole fleet of them could easily be hiding behind one of the planets.”

“It’s possible,” Xander agreed. “Though more likely, we still face the one ship.”

“How could one ship cause all that damage?” Sheila asked.

“Quite easily,” Mark said. “If they disguised themselves as one of us, added in some damage to make it seem like the comms were down, they could cozy right up to the military base and destroy the ships before they knew what hit them. When that was done, they could assume the form of one of the warships they just destroyed, and the colonists would be none the wiser: they’d let the aliens freely approach. Once they attained orbit, a few quick shots and that would be the end of the defense platforms. After that, they could destroy the colony at their leisure.”

“You paint a grim picture,” Xander said.

“I paint the truth,” Mark corrected him.

“All right, well, we have another ten hours until we can open another rift,” Jain said. “Sheila, I want the Daktor to calculate the coordinates to two other nearby systems: Andreas II and III. Might as well get our jump database filled up.”

“Just for you,” Sheila said.

“Meanwhile, the rest of you spend that time however you want,” Jain said. “I’d recommend doing something relaxing. Something to distract your mind. Because when the ten hours are up, we’re going in to search for survivors.”

* * *

Ten hours later, the Forebode was the first to pass through.

Jain wanted to do it, but Cranston insisted that he should be the one.

“You were a SEAL commander, right?” Cranston said. “You know that the commander never goes in on point.”

“We’re ships, not soldiers,” Jain said. He didn’t truly believe that of course, and the Void Warriors knew it.

Sure enough, Cranston said: “Then why do you always act like we’re the latter?”

“It’s useful for tactical purposes,” Jain said.

“Well, for tactical purpose as you say, it’s especially useful at the moment,” Cranston said. “Because if something happens to you, we lose our commander. I’m going first.”

And so Jain reluctantly agreed to let Cranston take the Forebode through ahead of him.

Jain followed. Like the Forebode, he was careful not to intersect the blue energy beam from the Daktor, as doing so would cause the rift to close. There was enough room for him to fit on the left side of that beam, and in fact another one of their ships could have entered at the same time on the right side, but Jain wanted them to enter in single file, as a precaution against a mass attack on the other side.

He kept the Forebode in sight at all times, and Cranston remained connected to the shared VR—because of the way rift wormholes worked, space folded between the two destinations, so it was like the Forebode was only a few kilometers in front.

As soon as the Forebode passed through, the battle space as shown on the tactical map updated thanks to the latest data Cranston transmitted. The tactical map split in half to show the celestial bodies and ships in the immediate vicinity on the other side—as far as ships went, only the Forebode was picked up, system-wide.

The Talos passed through, followed by the Hippogriff, the Arcane, the Grunt, and then the Wheelbarrow.

The Daktor came last, keeping the beam active the whole time. From the other side, Jain watched the ship approach. The beam didn’t penetrate deeper than the rift itself, and instead the tip seemed to telescope inward so that it maintained its position as the ship grew near. Soon the main segment was gone entirely, leaving only the series of circular beams that shot out at an angle from the interior of the ring. Those beams, too, slowly became cut off, becoming shorter and shorter—Jain was reminded of the polygonal clipping plane of some 3D game engine as it activated to clip objects that passed too close to the player camera.

When the Daktor emerged, the beam was inactive, having automatically shut down. Behind it, the rift stayed opened only a few seconds longer, just enough time for the Daktor to clear it, and then the purple clouds snapped closed, revealing a different pattern of stars behind them.

Sheila had made some adjustments to the destination so that they were a little closer to the military base, which was located in the asteroid belt. The system was a binary, like most in this region of space, and had two terrestrial inner planets, and eight gas giants. The colony was located on the moon of the second terrestrial planet, while the asteroid belt resided between the fourth and fifth giants, one of which was a Class V, emitting a lot of thermal radiation—it was extremely hot.

“Welcome to Andreas I,” Cranston said. “Where ravaged colonies and spaceship wreckages are our main attractions. Be sure to get your tan on when you visit our Class V giant, and don’t forget to check out the smashed military base above the asteroid belt on your way out. Enjoy your stay!”

Jain immediately focused on the asteroid belt. Or rather, where it was located, relative to their current position. “I don’t see the military base.”

“I know,” Cranston said. “Neither do I... I was being sarcastic. But I’m assuming that’s our first destination. And that when we arrive, there won’t be much left.”

“Xander, set a course toward the base,” Jain said. “Void Warriors, follow. Sheila, have the Daktor calculate the coordinates of other systems in the interstellar neighborhood. Andreas IV, V, XI, and so forth. If we need to jump in a hurry, I want options.”

“You got it,” Sheila said. “Each system will take four hours to calculate.”

“That’s fine,” Jain said.

The fleet accelerated toward the asteroids, and when they achieved cruising velocity, they shut off their propellant.

Now that the rift ship was complete, Sheila focused her resources on building the neural network partitions the team members would use to hold off-site backups of each other. She maintained her one-month estimate, mostly due to the expected failure rate of the components.

It took about three hours before the military base was close enough to detect reliably on high-powered zoom.

“It’s gone all right,” Cranston said.

Jain surveyed the ruins on the asteroid in question. It was a large celestial object, about a quarter the size of Earth’s moon, and definitely produced its own, albeit weak, gravity. He could see what must have once been different outbuildings, reduced to blast craters.

He turned his attention to the orbital area above, where the remains of three ships floated. Their wreckages had large pieces missing, as if the alien ship had used them for spare parts as needed. Even so, there was enough there to make IDs.

“These were the Sitar, Rascal, and Siren of the Andreas I defense force,” Xander said. “Piranha class vessels piloted by Mind Refurbs.”

“Damn,” Medeia said. “I feel kind of bad for our lost brothers.”

“Sisters,” Xander said. “The Mind Refurbs all identified as female.”

“Sort of like Gavin?” Cranston said.

“You’re the one who’s always dreaming of installing his AI core in a fem bot...” Gavin said.

“Ah, no,” Cranston said.

“Don’t be so sensitive, you two.” Sheila shook her head, swaying her hoop earrings. “We’re all machines now. Gender is optional.”

“Is it?” Mark said. “I’m not so sure about that. It’s an integral part of our identity as former humans. If we didn’t have genders, we’d be sexless, androgynous entities, more machine than human.”

“Here we are in orbit above a base destroyed by aliens and we’re arguing about genitals!” Medeia said.

“She’s right,” Jain said. “Focus, people. Relative stop.” The ships in the fleet fired reverse thrust, coming to a stop relative to the asteroid.

Jain glanced at his Accomp. “Xander, shine an experimental LIDAR burst on each ship. Look for anomalies… too many photons absorbed where there shouldn’t be, and so forth.”

“You think one of these wreckages is the alien ship in disguise?” Medeia asked.

“I don’t know what to think anymore.” Jain switched to the forward external camera and overlaid the generated LIDAR data that was produced a moment later. White, polygonal wireframes surrounded each of the wreckages.

“There are no detectable anomalies,” Xander said. “If the aliens are here, they are certainly masking their presence well.”

“Fire the barracuda once at each ship in turn,” Jain said. “In rapid succession. Target the center of mass, far from the AI cores. Try not to hit them in areas that are already damaged.”

Even at the current range, Xander should be able to get an accurate shot, given the high degree of firing precision available to the weapon.

The nose of the Talos swiveled, bringing the energy cannon to bear. Xander released the weapon three times in a row and the bolts traveled outward, striking each ship. The impacted hull regions dissolved, forming blast craters; the surrounding edges of those craters shattered outward, the fragments floating into space.

“They seem fairly real to me,” Medeia said.

“Damage can be simulated with a holoemitter…” Jain said. “Xander, launch a few transports. Collect samples of the fragments I produced. One for each ship.”

“Triangulating and tracking the fragments,” Xander said. Hundreds of extra dots appeared on Jain’s tactical map. Their positions could be calculated with predictive algorithms based on the recorded imagery; the LIDAR would also help, though at the current range, it was lower resolution.

The transports launched and approached the three ships to collect samples of the debris.

Some time later Xander announced: “The hull fragments correspond with the materials typically found in Piranha Class vessels.”

“All right, well, we can rest a little easier, I suppose,” Jain said. “But we still need to stay on alert. Xander, launch a few probes to the asteroid. I want some close-ups of that base. Let me know if you detect any life. Also, I want some rovers in those wreckages. I have to know for sure that the AI cores are lost.”

“My micro machines could probably explore those ships faster than rovers,” Cranston said.

“Maybe,” Jain said. “But I’d like you to keep them in reserve for now. In case one of these wreckages proves to be the alien vessel in disguise after all.”

The probes launched and headed toward the destroyed base. Transports meanwhile delivered rovers to the wreckages of each ship. When the transports finished deploying their rover loads, they detached from the hulls as a safety precaution—Jain still remembered quite well how the pyramid ship had swallowed his damaged compartment when it touched the alien hull.

He waited for one of those wreckages to suddenly transform on them, or for the military base on the surface to change, but none of them did.

An hour later, Xander reported in: “The AI core on the Sitar is damaged beyond repair.”

Fifteen minutes later he reported the same news for the Rascal and the Siren.

“Also, the probes have completed two full sweeps of the base,” Xander said. “No life signs have been detected. Would you like me to send some rovers down to more thoroughly investigate?”

“Go ahead,” Jain said. “See if you can recover the AI core of the base.”

The rovers deployed, and in about two hours Jain had a report. The rovers had found no human bodies, and like the starships, the AI core of the Mind Refurb running the base proved unrecoverable.

“All right,” Jain said. “We’ve done all we can here.” He glanced at his tactical map. “It’s time to head for the colony.”

“You sound like you’re dreading going there,” Medeia said.

“I am,” Jain said. “I have a feeling it’s not going to be pretty.”

17

The fleet headed toward the second terrestrial planet, Andreas I-II. The colony was located on the moon Asteriskos—Greek for “small star.” Asteriskos was in geosynchronous orbit with the planet. According to the specs on that moon, the orbit wasn’t natural, but was achieved via nuclear warheads. The purpose: to protect the moon from the deadly radiation produced by the binary suns by using the source planet as a shield. It was considered a less expensive solution than installing satellites in orbit to produce a magnetosphere, because the number of required satellites would have been in the thousands.

When the colony was within visual range, Jain observed it from maximum zoom. The inhabitants, mostly of Greek descent, had named the colony Ablativus, a Latin word, strangely enough. It meant “taken away,” and according to the database entry on the location, referred to the fact that the inhabitants had come here to be taken away from the pain and suffering of their previous lives on Earth.

Ironic, then, that by coming here they’d only found death in the end.

He focused on the damaged geodesic dome. It had lost pressure, and there were several large, circular holes where the glass had been dissolved clean through. Domes such as these were built with Xado-Glass, a particularly strong composite of glass, polycarbonate and other translucent polymers that would have been rated to withstand meteor impacts, but evidently wasn’t enough to protect again the massive firepower of the alien ship.

The southern portion of the dome was covered in residences. Estates with palatial homes lined the perimeter of the dome, while further inside, the buildings were placed closer together and situated on the usual grid layout found in typical Earth cities. The majority of those buildings were of the low-rise sort, though there were a few mid-rise structures near the very center of the dome, likely apartment buildings. Because of his current viewing angle, it was difficult to observe the actual streets separating the buildings, though Jain was able to see down certain avenues, which invariably proved empty.

The northwest part of the dome was devoted to an industrial section where machines had mined metals and harvested water from the surface; in the northeast lay a swath of hydroponic farms covered in pastures meant for cattle consumption—the Greeks that lived on the colony were carnivores and ate only meat. The grasses were black at the moment, and Jain could see no sign of any cattle, at least at his current zoom level.

“No signs of any humans,” Gavin said. “And aren’t there supposed to be cattle in those fields? We should be seeing some dead bodies at the very least. They wouldn’t have been sucked out… the atmosphere is too dense, the gravity too high.”

“You’ll probably find your human bodies inside those buildings,” Mark said. “And as for the cattle… they obviously dropped dead when the dome broke. The grass is probably hiding their carcasses.”

“Maybe the aliens ate them,” Cranston told him.

“Har,” Gavin said.

Cranston gave him a serious look. “I’m not joking.”

Jain zoomed out to observe the debris ring around the moon and saw what was left of the rift gates that had been used to maintain contact with the rest of the galaxy, and the floating weapon-turret platforms that had been installed for defense.

“Well, if nothing else, they were certainly thorough in their destruction,” Jain said. “Let’s get a full relative stop here. Xander, how long can our transports last in that environment?”

“Easily twelve hours,” Xander said. “More than enough time for our needs.”

“All right,” Jain said. “Send the probes to check out the debris in orbit, and the transports to explore the colony. Also, I want complete LIDAR scans. As usual, check for anomalies.”

As the fleet decelerated, the probes and transports launched. The probes headed toward lower orbit, while the transports flashed as they pierced the atmosphere, their heat tiles dissipating the friction produced by entry.

Because they were able to maintain line of sight with the colony, Jain was able to view the video feed from the transports with a slight delay. He piped them into separate windows on his HUD as the transports entered the colony via the holes in the geodesic dome and proceeded into the streets. The feeds still occasionally pixelated when the transports that sourced them passed behind buildings, but otherwise the reception was relatively solid.

Now that he could finally observe the streets clearly below, he saw the dead bodies.

Sheila glanced at Gavin. “There are your humans.”

Gavin merely shook his head in revulsion.

The skin and clothes had melted away from the bodies because of the toxic atmosphere, leaving fallen skeletons covered in the sagging green tendrils of their former muscle and organ tissue. Those skeletons were arrayed in poses that made them look like they were running to take shelter in the nearby buildings. Not that it would have helped if they had reached them: Jain saw similar skeletons collapsed in front of windowsills overlooking the street or crumpled on the balconies.

“Those almost look like plants growing on them,” Mark commented.

“Yeah, it’s disgusting either way,” Sheila said.

“Makes me glad I’m not organic anymore,” Medeia said.

“I don’t know,” Cranston said. “I miss my bones.”

“You would,” Medeia said.

“With that dome gone, those skeletons aren’t going to last long,” Sheila said. “Nor the buildings themselves. Who would want to build a colony here?”

“The Greeks probably got a great deal on the place,” Gavin commented.

“Yeah, great deal,” Mark said.

“No anomalies detected so far on any of the LIDAR scans,” Xander said.

The transports swooped between the different buildings, but no life signs were detected. In every building, they usually saw at least one skeleton at a window.

“I thought the buildings in these kinds of bases were supposed to be designed to withstand a dome failure,” Gavin said.

“Ordinarily they would be,” Mark agreed. “But apparently the Greeks cut corners to get their base up and running faster. The false sense of confidence imbued by domes of Xado-Glass.”

“It’s too bad,” Sheila said. “Because they had everything else right… the defense platforms, the rift gates. Why skimp on something so important as blast doors for all your buildings?”

“Again, the false sense of confidence imbued by Xado-Glass…” Mark said.

“This building had blast doors,” Jain said. “It didn’t help.”

A transport had paused above one of the mid-rise apartment buildings near the center of town. The outside was covered in sheets of segmented metal that must have deployed when the dome failed, but there were large sections dissolved into it; portions of the building underneath had also melted away, revealing cross-sections of multiple floors.

“The transport is detecting strange gases emanating from the openings,” Xander announced. “Concentrations of nitrogen, methane, and butane. Which is completely at odds to the native carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid atmosphere.”

“All right, we’re going to have to explore inside,” Jain said.

“We could land the transport on the rooftop and deploy the rovers that are aboard…” Sheila said.

“We could,” Jain agreed. “But I’d prefer to send something with a little more punch. Xander, how will our combat robots fair down there in that atmosphere?”

“I’d give them two to three hours,” Xander said.

“Good enough,” Jain said. “By the way, is the LIDAR still clean in orbit, and on the surface?”

“It is,” Xander said.

“All right, let the transports and probes continue exploring the rest of the city,” Jain said. “Meanwhile, let’s move closer... take us into high geosynchronous orbit. I want to launch our combat robots.”

“The munchkins?” Mark said. “Oh goody. Do I get one?”

“We can all take control of one,” Jain said. “Or two.”

The transports and probes returned, and the fleet assumed a geosynchronous orbit above the colony. The Talos launched a transport containing twelve miniature combat robots—munchkins, as Mark called them. That seemed a good nickname for them, if a little euphemistic.

Repeaters deployed behind the transport in the form of telemetry drones, their purpose: to string out the signal from the Talos to the building in question and prevent interference from cutting off the Void Warriors from the units.

The transport landed. Jain switched his viewpoint to one of the munchkins, and he assumed full control, replacing the virtual environment of the bridge with the real environment of the shuttle. He still had his HUD active, which displayed an overhead map of his current position in the upper right of his display. Blue dots there indicated the other members of his unit, with darker blue dots indicating which were controlled by his fellow Mind Refurbs. Cranston was the only one who had taken control of two units. Those not controlled by the Mind Refurbs operated autonomously.

He finally felt like a true lieutenant commander again. Well, as much as his limited memories of the experience allowed.

Almost like being on the Teams.

The ramp went down.

“Deploy,” Jain said. “I want a defensive cigar formation out there.” His voice went out over their shared comm line and was not spoken into the environment in any way.

Because of their extensive tactical databases, and the limited small unit tactics simulations he’d run with them, they knew precisely what the asked-for formation was. Well, and the autonomous units just knew, because it was their programing.

The munchkins flooded outside.

“Clear!” Gavin said.

Jain proceeded down the ramp and surveyed the rooftop. The entire area was sheathed in segmented metal, thanks to the dome-breach protection. Even the shed that would have led inside the building was covered.

“All right,” Jain said. “Let’s blast inside that shed.”

Miniature plasma rifles fired, and bright bolts ate into the metal. In only a few moments, an opening had been carved, leading to the darkened stairs within.

They approached. The shed towered over them, seeming like an entrance for monsters.

Inside, stairs led down into darkness. The team activated their headlamps, illuminating a flight of ten steps that ended in a platform.

“Traveling overwatch,” Jain said. “Gavin, Sheila, and Autos A and B with me.” Auto referred to the autonomous units. “The rest of you, you’re T1. Go down.”

Those steps were almost as tall as each of them, and the team members were forced to hop down one at a time.

“I feel like a bunny rabbit,” Medeia said.

“Next time, Sheila, I think you need to build bigger robots,” Cranston commented.

“Hey, I was just following the specs Jain laid out,” Sheila said. “They were designed to repel boarding parties inside the conduits of our ships, not to explore human-scale buildings on planets.”

“They’ll work just fine for our purposes,” Jain said. “Keep going.” Though he might just have to task Sheila with creating six normal-sized combat robots at some point, meant specifically for planet-side operations. They’d have to be kept in the hangar bays with the shuttles of course, because they wouldn’t be able to fit the tight conduits that led deeper into the ship.

Cranston, on point in T1, reached the platform. Keeping his plasma rifle pointed around the bend that led to the next flight, he slowly rotated his body, bringing the area beyond into view. This was called “pieing” in military jargon, because the shape cut by his rifle and body resembled a piece of pie when viewed from above. It also ensured that as little of his body as possible would be exposed to any enemies waiting beyond the bend.

“It’s clear,” Cranston said.

T2, led by Gavin, joined them, and watched the upper shed while T1 continued down the next flight.

“Clear,” Cranston said. “Got a doorway here.”

“Open it,” Jain said. “And take an air sample.”

T2 hopped down to join them, and Jain watched as Cranston fired his plasma rifle at the locking mechanism and then forced the door open a crack. Higher up, it was labeled “17”—the seventeenth floor.

Cranston peered through the opening with his rifle, both ways, and then slid the rifle over his shoulder by the strap. He produced a sensor module from a sack at his belt and shoved it past the door and into the hallway beyond.

“What am I looking for?” Cranston said. “Concentrations of nitrogen, methane, or butane?”

“Bingo,” Jain said.

“I’m only detecting carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid,” Cranston said.

“Then we take the next flight,” Jain said. He watched the door as the members of T2 hopped down the stairs; meanwhile Gavin and Sheila kept an eye on the stairs leading up.

As soon as Cranston reached the platform and cleared the next flight, Jain took a peek through the nearby doorway himself, and confirmed that the apartment hallway was still clear. He saw only the carpeted floor and those towering walls leading away on either side, with sealed doors interrupting at regular intervals.

“Don’t trust me?” Cranston said. “I thought you were piggybacking on my video feed...”

“I was,” Jain said. “But I want to make sure no baddies decided to show up after you made your sweep.”

Jain withdrew and hopped down the stairs with the others to join T1.

The munchkins continued downward like that, taking the zig-zagging flights of stairs one team at a time, and checking each successive floor for concentrations of alien gases as they went. They left a trail of breached doors in their wake.

After descending seven flights of stairs in that manner, Cranston reported that he’d found a small concentration of nitrogen and butane emanating from the hallway of the tenth floor.

“All right,” Jain said. He reviewed the recording Cranston had made a moment ago, when he had cleared the hallway through the scope of his rifle. “All the doors look like they’re closed. We’re going to have to check each door one by one and see if we can determine where the gases are coming from.”

Once more T1 took the lead, while T2 remained behind at the door to watch them. In T2, Auto A kept an eye on the stairs leading down, while Auto B watched the ascending flight. Meanwhile Jain and Gavin covered T1, while Sheila guarded the apartment hallway in the opposite direction.

“The sense of scale still feels really weird,” Medeia said. “Not sure I’ll ever get used to this. The hallway feels like a cavern.”

“Who was it that said now we know what it feels like to live life as a dog?” Mark commented.

“That would be me,” Jain said.

“Yeah, I know,” Mark said. “Funny how these robot brains work. As soon as you ask the question, you remember it.”

“I hear you,” Jain said.

Cranston held his gas sensor in hand as he advanced. The nitrogen and butane concentrations kept climbing and were soon joined by methane. T1 backtracked when the concentrations began to recede and returned to the previous doorway where the levels were higher.

“The gases seem to be coming from in here,” Cranston said, standing in front of the door. “What do you want to do?”

Before Jain could answer, the door suddenly broke apart at the bottom. Among the fragments was a dark blur that trampled Cranston.

Jain upped his time sense so that reality slowed around him.

The blur was a creature of some kind. It looked like a cross between a dog and some grotesque flower. It had a dog’s body, but it looked like someone had taken the head and literally peeled it open into petals made of blood-soaked bands of muscle.

Those bands contracted, momentarily sealing, but when they opened up again, spurts of green liquid traveled in all directions. Most of T1 was able to dodge the liquid—they were running at a similar accelerated timebase as Jain. Medeia, however, was too close, and the liquid struck the side of her chest assembly.

It was acid: smoke began to billow immediately from the contacted area.

Some of the acid leaked down onto the wreckage of Cranston and his body similarly smoked.

Three more of the creatures leaped out after the first, landing beside it.

Jain amped his time sense even higher.

“Well the shit just hit the fan,” Gavin said. “I always wondered what it was like to be a SEAL.”

“Green Berets are where it’s at,” Mark said.

“No SEAL or Green Beret has ever faced something like this,” Medeia commented.

“Cranston, you all right?” Jain said.

“Nope,” Cranston replied. “My main unit is offline. I’ve switched over entirely to Auto C, my second unit.”

That was another member of T1.

“Ripped Heads,” Mark said. “That’s what I’m calling these things.”

The new creatures began to seal their banded heads as if getting ready to unleash spurts of acid like their brethren.

“Enough talk,” Jain said. “It’s time to fight.”

18

“Open fire,” Jain said, still operating in his accelerated time sense.

Both teams unleashed their plasma weapons. The four Ripped Heads dropped underneath the barrage.

“All right, check the room,” Jain said.

Cranston, now operating Auto C, stepped over the wreckage of his previous body, and through the rip in the door. He entered the apartment high. Mark joined him, going low. They scanned the foyer and area beyond with their rifles. Green gas formed a thin layer of mist above the floor.

“Clear.” Cranston advanced. The green mist swirled around Cranston’s waist. “If I had a nose, I suspect this place would reek.”

“What’s producing that gas?” Sheila asked.

“It’s got to be the creatures,” Medeia replied. “A byproduct of their respiration process.”

Auto D remained at the entrance to the apartment complex, covering their rear, and also acting as a repeater so that the signal flow from T1 to T2 remained uninterrupted.

The foyer gave way to a kitchen; a counter separated it from the rest of the apartment. Cranston walked past that counter, surveying the couches and other furniture of the family room beyond. There was a human skeleton lying on the floor in the middle of the room, with a smaller skeleton beside it, maybe a cat or dog. Both were covered with green, hanging strings—the remains of their bodily tissues.

“See that?” Cranston asked.

“The dead guy?” Sheila asked.

“No,” Cranston said.

“What then?” Jain observed Cranston’s feed keenly, but wasn’t sure what the Mind Refurb was referring to.

Cranston leaped onto a couch that was set against the wall, and then climbed onto the backrest portion. He ran the scope of his rifle across the wallpaper, which was pocked with small egg-like protrusions. They emitted green vapors, which flowed down over the couch and to the floor.

“Here’s our source,” Cranston said. “It’s not the creatures after all.”

“We gots ourselves some rotten eggs,” Mark said.

“Look how the plaster is cracked around them,” Medeia said. “It’s almost like they broke through from the inside.”

A section of the wall was broken away on the far side of the couch. Cranston went to it and peered inside. There was a tunnel within, leading downward beyond the couch. Cranston shone his headlamp inside but couldn’t penetrate very deep in the darkness.

“You know, we could probably fit in there,” Mark said.

“Uh, no thanks,” Cranston said. “Claustrophobic environments aren’t my thing.”

“Drop a demolition charge down there?” Mark asked.

“Eventually,” Jain said.

Cranston stepped back and returned his gaze to the egg-like protrusions.

“What about these?” Cranston said. “Permission to terminate?”

“I want the rest of the team to clear the room first,” Jain said. “You stay there and watch the wall, and that breach.”

While the other members of T1 continued to fan out, Cranston stayed on the couch near the wall, keeping an eye on the eggs.

Other team members searched underneath the couches and bed, sifted through the closets and laundry, but they found no more of the Ripped Heads. They did find similar breaches in the walls however, similar to the one above the couch. They all tunneled away downward, deeper into the building. And the alien gas vented from all of them.

“The Ripped Heads probably have a network of warrens running throughout the entire building,” Medeia said.

T1 rejoined Cranston at the wall.

“So, can we shoot the eggs?” Cranston asked. “And drop some charges into the tunnels?”

“Negative,” Jain said. “I don’t want to risk stirring up the proverbial hornets’ nest. At least not while we’ve got units in here. We can deal more effective damage from orbit anyway.”

“We could get some of Cranston’s micro machines down here to do some exploring,” Medeia said. “Send them into the tunnels, see where they lead.”

“We already know it’s going to be some alien nest,” Mark said. “If we’re going to blow it up anyway, then who gives a crap what it looks like? We already know these aliens are aggressors. It’s not like we’re going to initiate first contact with them, especially if these things are just their bioweapons.”

“Let’s go,” Jain said.

Cranston walked up to one of the breaches in the wall and produced a demolition brick. He held it toward the gap.

“Can I drop just one inside?” Cranston said. “Pretty please.”

“No,” Jain said.

Cranston sighed, and returned the brick to his combat harness.

Without warning, an alien stuck its banded maw through the breach and wrapped around Cranston’s torso. It crunched down hard, snapping him almost entirely in half before withdrawing into the hole, dragging Cranston’s broken and folded form with it.

“Damn it!” Cranston said. His voice came from Auto D at the entrance. “Again!”

The other munchkins in the room rushed the opening and opened fire into the breach with their plasma rifles.

“Leave him!” Jain said. “Get out of there!”

The munchkins retreated across the room. Above the couch, the cracks around the “eggs” in the wall began to enlarge; those eggs shifted slightly, seeming to push outward with every moment.

Mark aimed his plasma rifle at that wall as he retreated and opened fire at the eggs. Cranston, from his new position by the doorway, also unleashed plasma bolts at the wall.

The eggs exploded upon impact, but then the wall broke away entirely and a large alien shape burst forth. It was a huge Ripped Head, its back a carapace sheathed with those “eggs;” vapors oozed from small holes on top of each and every one of them.

It lashed out with a long tongue that wrapped around Mark, pinning his arms to his sides.

“Ahhhhhh!” Mark said as the creature drew him in.

Medeia fired frantically at the creature, but beside her another Ripped Head emerged from a tunnel, and she was forced to dodge it. Moving in a blur, she shot it down, only to face another Ripped Head: they were flooding into the room from all the breaches in the walls around the team.

“Get— out— now!” Jain said.

Medeia and Cranston fled.

“Well, that was fun,” Auto B turned toward Jain. Mark had taken over.

The remnants of T1 emerged from the apartment.

Jain and the other members of T2 opened fire as the aliens dashed outside in pursuit. Some of the Ripped Heads slid across the floor, their momentum slamming them into the opposite wall before they recovered and continued the chase,

Jain shot the creature in the lead, but it managed to let loose a stream of acid that got Medeia squarely in the back. It must have struck her power coupler, or battery, because she slowed down with every step, her servomotors slowly running out of power.

Cranston turned to help her, but another Ripped Head toppled Medeia. It tore off her head just as T2 shot it down.

Beside Jain, Auto A’s status changed: Medeia had taken control.

“We’re running out of munchkins,” Medeia said.

“Tell me about it,” Jain said. “To the stairwell! Let’s try to keep at least some of our units intact!”

Jain and the others retreated toward the stairwell, with Cranston bringing up the rear several meters behind them.

The door burst open entirely as the huge Ripped Head emerged. It skidded across the carpet, digging in its big claws to keep itself from slamming into the opposite wall, and then pumped its powerful legs, easily switching to a stride. It gained rapidly on the other aliens, and the Void Warriors.

Jain and the others continued to shoot down their pursuers; the big creature trampled the smaller Ripped Heads in its path, and the dying squealed underneath its paws.

“Target the big one!” Jain said.

He aimed at that mouth and fired. A plasma bolt ripped inside, and the creature shrieked. Its thin tongue shot out, and Jain had to amp up his time sense to dodge it.

Meanwhile, Medeia targeted that tongue as it flew past her in slow motion, and she launched a plasma bolt, tearing it off right at the middle.

The Ripped Head screamed even louder.

“Drop your harnesses at the doorway!” Jain said.

Ahead, Gavin rushed into the stairwell door. He removed his entire harness as he did so, dropping it and all of the demolition blocks it contained to the floor.

Jain followed close behind him, likewise releasing his harness and its charges. When he was inside the stairwell, he amped up his servomotor power levels to help him leap up those steps in several quick, bounding hops. Behind him, the rest of the team followed suit after dumping their harnesses.

Cranston dashed through the door; he removed his harness but didn’t drop it. Instead he flung it behind him, out into the hallway, and then hopped up the steps.

Jain had already reached the platform and was leaping up the next flight of steps by then. But he had Cranston’s rear view video feed displayed in the upper right of his vision, and he saw when the huge Ripped Head plowed through the stairwell door, scattering the harnesses the team had placed there. It had Cranston’s harness wrapped around its banded mouth.

If Jain detonated now, there was a good chance Cranston’s robot wouldn’t survive the blast. He was too close.

Sheila would just have to print more later.

Jain issued the detonation.

Cranston’s video feed went black.

“Gee, thanks for that,” Cranston’s disembodied voice said.

Shrapnel slammed into the platform behind Jain, and smoke rushed against the walls, quickly dispersing.

Sheila, who was trailing, peered around the bend to survey their handiwork.

The big alien was lying on the ground. The head had blown off entirely, thanks to the harness Cranston had lodged there. Its underside was also ripped open, with two legs blown off, due to the other charges on the floor. There was a big, charred blast crater in the doorway; through it, Jain could see the floor below.

“We certainly have a propensity toward overkill...” Sheila commented.

More of the smaller Ripped Heads dashed into view, coming from the hallway.

Sheila quickly ducked back around the bend and began hopping up the steps.

The team members fired down at their pursuers as they ascended and picked off those that got too close. The creatures were relentless, though, and kept coming. They yapped like dogs via vocal cords hidden deep in their throats.

The Void Warriors reached the rooftop in their munchkins and piled up the ramp into the transport. Those in the lead, including Jain, paused when they reached the top to continue firing at the stairwell shed, taking down the aliens as they emerged.

“Xander, take us up!” Jain said when Sheila was on the ramp.

The transport became airborne and Sheila pulled herself inside.

The Ripped Heads continued to flow onto the roof; the team members shot down as many as they could. Some dashed underneath and leaped upward, their banded mouths snapping at the transport but missing; they spat acid in midair, and the toxic substance arced just underneath the craft.

Finally, the craft was pulling well away.

“Shut the ramp, Xander,” Jain said.

He sat back in the slot assigned to his unit, and the locking mechanism secured him in place. He slumped.

He switched his viewpoint back to the starship bridge. The others had done the same, and they had looks that could best be described as... shell shocked.

“Am I the only one who had to turn down his emotions for that fight?” Mark said. “I dialed my fear setting right down to zero.”

“How could you be afraid?” Cranston said. “That was kind of fun. It was like playing a video game. We know we can’t die.”

“An expensive video game,” Jain said. “Sheila, I want you to print up some replacements. But this time, let’s aim for standard human size. We’ll reserve them for away missions only, considering they won’t fit the passageways of our vessels.”

Jain sat back. “So. What do we make of these things?”

Medeia folded her hands in front of her at her station. “I think they’re terraforming the moon.”

“How so?” Jain asked.

“Well, I was right that they’re responsible for emitting the gases,” Medeia said. “At least the bigger ones.”

“I don’t buy it,” Mark said. “I mean, sure, some of the creatures are emitting strange gases. But there aren’t enough of them to make a difference.”

“Now, maybe,” Medeia said. “But you don’t know what their reproductive rate is. If they’re bioweapons, they’ll be programmed to reproduce extremely rapidly. We’re talking on the level of rabbits, and then some. They’re like unchecked micro machines... without anything restraining their numbers, they’ll keep multiplying until they swarm across the moon. The growth will be exponential. If we don’t do anything to stop their growth, and return here in a hundred years, the planet’s atmosphere will be completely different.”

“Why would the aliens want to terraform this world?” Gavin said. “They could have picked any other planet or moon in this system. Why this one. What makes it so special?”

“Well, obviously, we already determined that it was a suitable candidate for a colony,” Medeia said. “So, there’s that. The aliens might have similar criteria.”

“Or maybe they simply want to teach humanity a lesson,” Cranston said. “That this is their territory, their world now. And this is their way of saying: don’t come back here, a-holes.”

Jain considered Cranston’s words. “Don’t come back here? We’ll see about that.”

“Oh, I love his tone,” Sheila said. “So restrained. His words barely above a whisper. He sounds completely and thoroughly pissed.”

“As he should be,” Cranston said.

“We’re going to bombard the place from orbit?” Gavin asked Jain hopefully.

“Good guess,” Jain said. “We’re the ones who are going to be teaching a lesson here.”

“It could backfire,” Medeia said. “We might only make them madder.”

“Good,” Jain said. “Xander, did any of the remaining transports and probes detect any anomalies or signs of human life?”

“No to human life, but yes to anomalies,” Xander said. “Two other buildings had blast doors that deployed when the dome failed. The enclosing metal was pockmarked with breaches, similar to the first contaminated building we encountered, however no abnormal atmospheric emissions were recorded emanating from either building. But there were emissions detected from three other mid-rise towers nearby: the lower windows of those buildings were smashed, and the concentrations of nitrogen, methane, and butane emanating from within matched up with those arising from the contaminated apartment complex.”

“All right,” Jain said. “Recall the transports and probes and assume planetary assault formation. We’re going to raze that colony. I want you to highlight the four contaminated buildings on our maps, Xander. We’ll concentrate our attacks there, first, and work our way outward, to destroy any lingering bioweapons that escape the initial attack. I want nothing alive down there. We engage as soon as the transports return. Oh, and Sheila, get to work on those new combat robots.”

“It’ll be about a week,” Sheila said. “Unless I drop everything.”

“A week it is,” Jain said.

The remaining transports and probes docked with their respective ships, and the surface assault began. The Void Warriors concentrated their fire on the four main buildings. Jain fired his barracuda in rapid succession at each one—the first bolt tore a hole through the geodesic dome, while the following bolts smashed into the targeted structures underneath. Meanwhile the other members of the fleet released their raptor lasers so that in moments all that was left of the buildings were blast craters surrounded by melted glass and metal.

Mark unleashed a few black holes at strategic locations across the city and let them run until they became a bit too big, at which point he dispersed them. Those holes sucked in everything around them, asphalt, buildings, and even parts of the geodesic dome, cratering entire neighborhoods.

As Jain’s energy weapon overheated, he switched to his raptors. The team had to wait for the weapons to recharge, but the ships moved systematically between targets, destroying the city neighborhood by neighborhood, so that in two hours’ time there was nothing left of the colony but rubble.

“Let’s see what the aliens think of that,” Jain said.

“A rift just opened sunward,” Xander announced.

“Is it the aliens?” Jain asked. “Have their reinforcements finally arrived?”

“No,” Xander said. “I’m detecting a fleet of twenty Piranha and Dominator class vessels.”

“So, the space navy has finally arrived,” Jain said.

“Finally, a friendly face…” Sheila commented.

“Friendly?” Cranston said. “Uh, don’t count on it. Things are going to look mighty suspicious here. By ‘cleansing’ the colony, as it were, we just razed the only evidence of alien inhabitation. When the incoming fleet sees what we’ve done, they’re going to think we’ve gone AWOL and lost our refurbished minds.”

“We’ll show them all the recordings we’ve made,” Sheila said. “We’ll prove to them that the colony was already lost.”

“Recordings can be faked,” Medeia said. “They might believe ours are. If they haven’t yet encountered the alien starship, it might be very difficult to convince them of our side of the story. Consider for a moment... what is easier to believe, that a colony was destroyed by malfunctioning Mind Refurbs, or by the aliens those Mind Refurbs claim attacked them, aliens currently nowhere to be found?”

“I see your point.” Sheila glanced at Jain. “Should we run?”

“Not until we at least try to have a dialog with them,” Jain said.

“You do have to wonder what took them so long,” Sheila said. “You’d think they would’ve sent reinforcements a lot sooner.”

“You would,” Jain said. “Except if the destruction here was recent, say in the past month, it could take up to thirty days for the fleet to send a task group to investigate why the Greeks stopped communicating. Hell, we were gone for more than three months, and Earth didn’t send anyone to check on us.”

“Perhaps the space navy was occupied elsewhere,” Medeia said. “A spike in tensions with the Link or some other alien species. Who knows, maybe all this time they’ve been dealing with the very same vessel that attacked us.”

“Well, hopefully we’ll learn everything soon enough,” Jain said.

A half hour later Xander announced: “I’m receiving a message. Would you like me to play it back?”

“Go ahead,” Jain said.

A holographic image of a man in a uniform appeared before Jain. He stood with a casual confidence, his dark hands held calmly behind his back. And while the man’s bearing might seem calm and poised, Jain’s machine side readily interpreted the tense micro expressions flickering across that face.

“This is Admiral Quinn Tagan, of the Mind Refurb Battle Group Heracles, Second Task Force, Seventh Fleet,” the hologram said. “You have a lot of explaining to do.”

19

Jain recorded a brief summary of the events that had led up to that point, and with the transmission he included the video logs of the fleet’s every encounter with the aliens, from the starship battles to the skirmish with the alien bioweapons on the Ablativus colony.

The incoming fleet didn’t answer but continued to approach the moon.

“I don’t think they believe us,” Gavin said. “We’re not going to stay here and let them capture us, are we?”

Jain glanced at Sheila. “It’s been nine hours since our last jump.”

Sheila nodded. “We need another three before we can jump again.”

“There’s no way we can shorten that time frame?” Jain pressed.

“Sadly, no,” Sheila said.

“The Mind Refurb fleet will be here in two…” Medeia said.

“If we leave orbit, we can buy some time,” Gavin said. “Head away from them, and then jump three hours from now.”

Xander shook his head. “No. Their Piranhas will still intercept us fifteen minutes before we’re ready to jump.” Piranhas were the fastest ships in the space navy. And since the Void Warriors were only as fast as their slowest ship—in this case the Daktor—Xander’s calculation was unfortunately correct.

“But that’s only fifteen minutes we have to fend them off,” Gavin said. “Versus a full hour if we just sit here and wait for them.”

“If we run, it’ll look even worse,” Sheila said. “Even though we’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I tend to agree with Sheila on this,” Jain said. “Besides, if they’re going to attack us, the moon affords some tactical advantages. We can use it as a shield against their long-range lasers, whereas if we have to fight them in open space, they’ll be able to line up shots from thousands of kilometers away.”

“I’ve been reviewing the footage recorded on the thermal sensors when the vessels first appeared,” Cranston said. “I think they have cloaked ships with them.”

“You’re sure?” Jain asked.

“It’s hard to say, because the ships are so close together, and so far,” Cranston said. “But I did detect stronger thermal signatures emanating from the left and right sides of their heat cluster. So, if I had to guess, I’d say they had at least two cloaked ships with them. If not more. Classes unknown.”

“One of the cloaked ships is probably a rift ship,” Sheila commented. She glanced at Jain. “It would make sense, in case they needed to jump out to summon reinforcements. They’d want to keep it cloaked, because it’s one of the most valuable ships. Plus, if its classification is top secret, like I mentioned before, they’d want to keep its status on the down-low.”

“But they have to wait twelve hours to use it again, right?” Mark asked.

“Not necessarily,” Sheila replied. “I suspect they used a rift gate or another rift ship to get here, leaving this one in reserve and ready to go.”

“How come the rest of them aren’t cloaked?” Medeia said.

“We haven’t reverse-engineered the tech yet, as far as I know,” Sheila said. “We’re using devices captured from our skirmishes against other Link races. Why do you think you’re the only one with a cloaking device among us? Or why all of us have different alien weapons? If we could reverse engineer it, we’d all have black holes, energy cannons, force fields, and cloaking devices.”

“But we’ve reverse engineered rift technology, to a degree,” Medeia said. “And yet we don’t all have rift creation abilities.”

“As a warship, you wouldn’t want to,” Sheila said. “Because of the extra reactor load, a rift ship can carry few weapons, if any. Plus, the ship has to be small enough to fit its own rifts, which means it can’t store too much propellant in bulky reserve compartments. Did you notice that as the Daktor closed with the rift to penetrate, the spacetime tear got smaller and smaller? If the Daktor was any larger, the ship wouldn’t have made it.”

“So did we decide whether we were going to stay, or attempt to flee?” Gavin asked.

“I mentioned I’d prefer to stay, already,” Jain replied.

Gavin seemed about to contest him, but then lowered his gaze.

“I’m with you,” Cranston said.

“We all are,” Medeia agreed.

“Okay,” Jain said. “I’m tempted to assume a defensive formation. But I don’t want to provoke them.”

“I think they’ll understand our caution…” Medeia commented.

Sheila looked at Jain. “You really think this is going to end in a fight, don’t you?”

“I hope it doesn’t, believe me,” Jain said. “But I have to take precautions, in case it does. If they do attack, they’ll want to cut off our only chance at escape by destroying the Daktor. So we have to protect that ship at all costs. Sheila, in relation to the incoming fleet, I want the Wheelbarrow in front of the Daktor. You’ll use your energy shield to protect it from attack.

“Gavin, I want the Hippogriff to protect the Wheelbarrow in turn. Use the force field generated by your drones as necessary, and try to stay far enough away from her that you can still employ your shockwave defense. Mark, get the Grunt in front of Medeia. Mask her thermal signature so she can cloak the Arcane. Medeia, once you’ve cloaked, reposition and stay near the Daktor. Take down any ships that attempt an offensive flyby. Mark and myself have the most powerful offensive weapons, so we’ll stay in the vanguard. Cranston, you’ll stay between us, and use the Forebode’s micro machines to eliminate any nukes or other missiles they send our way.”

The team members began to assume their respective defensive positions, all save Medeia, who waited for the Grunt to mask the Arcane. Then she cloaked and repositioned near the Daktor as ordered.

At the hour-and-a-half mark, Xander announced: “They’re within realtime communications range. The lag will only be between three to five seconds.”

“Hail them,” Jain said.

Xander’s eyes defocused. Then he frowned and glanced at Jain. “They’re not responding.”

“I don’t like it,” Gavin said.

“Neither do I,” Jain said. “But they haven’t made an aggressive move yet.”

Gavin crossed his arms. “I’d say approaching in an attack formation, without communicating their intent, is aggressive in and of itself.”

“Careful, you’ll soil your whities," Mark commented. Gavin was wearing his white formal captain’s attire, as always.

Gavin shot him an annoyed look, but said nothing.

“Keep trying,” Jain told Xander. “At two-minute intervals. Maybe they’ll get the hint that we want to talk.”

Medeia lifted her pointy hat to rub her bare brow. “They might just think we’re desperate.”

“They wouldn’t be all wrong, either,” Cranston said.

The minutes ticked past. Jain glanced at Xander.

“Anything?” he asked.

Xander shook his head.

“They’re certainly taking their time processing the data we sent them…” Mark commented.

“They probably finished an hour ago,” Gavin said. “Or even longer… the machines could have upped their time sense to the max if they wanted to and watched everything in seconds.”

Ten minutes before the enemy was in firing range, Xander reported: “They’re splitting up. Moving in four directions… left, right, up and down.”

“They’re trying to outflank us,” Medeia said.

“If we let them surround us, we won’t be able to defend the Daktor…” Sheila said.

Mark glanced at him. “What do you want to do, Boss?” When Jain didn’t answer, Mark pressed: “Boss?”

“Damn it,” Jain said. “Don’t fire. Let them approach. But reposition… surround the Daktor. I want a ship on all side sides. Mark, you’re in front. I’ll take the dorsal. Medeia, you get the ventral. Sheila, you’re on aft. Cranston, you take starboard. Gavin, you’re on port. Also, Medeia, switch to radio silence. If they attack, you know what to do.”

Medeia’s avatar vanished.

The Void Warriors assumed their respective spots in the requested formation. Meanwhile, as the minutes passed, the incoming ships slowly moved to surround them. Still they refused to answer any hails.

“They’re within weapons range,” Xander announced.

“Should we open fire?” Gavin asked.

“No,” Jain replied.

“If we let them surround us, and they decide to attack, we’ll probably lose this,” Gavin pressed.

If Jain was still human, his stomach would have been in a knot.

“They’re counting on us not to fire,” Gavin continued. “We’re all part of the same happy fleet, after all. And once we’re surrounded, they’ll have us precisely where they want us: at their mercy.”

“I can’t give the order to fire,” Jain said finally. “I refuse to attack first on a fellow Mind Refurb. Let them surround us.”

And so the incoming ships slowly closed; those in front slowed, coming to a halt fifteen thousand kilometers out, while the others continued past around them, decelerating at intervals, until the Void Warriors were entirely surrounded. On all six sides there were at least three ships, located between twelve to fifteen thousand klicks away.

Jain stared at the ships on his tactical display. Their calculated weapon throw angles formed an uninterrupted, deadly sphere around the Void Warriors.

The vessels just sat there, unmoving relative to Jain and the others.

A minute passed. Two.

“They really want to drag out the tension, don’t they?” Mark said.

“Maybe they’re still arguing amongst themselves on what to do with us,” Cranston suggested.

“We’re getting a real-time comm request,” Xander announced.

“Finally,” Mark said.

“Don’t get too excited,” Cranston told him. “They’re probably going to ask us to do something we won’t like.”

“Accept the request,” Jain said. “Share it here for all of us to see.”

“Actually, we’re being asked to join the admiral’s VR,” Xander said. “Apparently, he has all the other captains in a conference with him.”

Jain glanced at Sheila. “Is that safe?”

Sheila shrugged. “Should be. The default permissions don’t allow for control of our pain and motive subroutines in a foreign VR environment. Then again, if they know some zero-day back door that we don’t, things might not be pretty.”

“All right, here’s what we’re going to do,” Jain said. “I’ll go alone and stream the feed back here to all of you. None of the other captains will see or hear you, and while none of you will be visible to me, either, I’ll still hear you: I’ll relate any questions or concerns you have as necessary.”

“But you also get to be the gatekeeper,” Gavin said. “Holding back questions you don’t like.”

“I’ll relay every question,” Jain said. “I promise you.”

Gavin hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.”

Jain initiated a stream sourced from his audio and video subroutines and waited until all of the team members had subscribed. Then he glanced at Xander. “Accept the VR request. Let’s see what the admiral has planned for us.”

20

Jain logged out of his VR environment and the bridge and his fellow Void Warriors faded. There was a moment of eternal darkness before the new environment loaded. He clung to that moment, enjoying the momentary oblivion that came without having a body. He was just a mind, floating in space, existing in the limitless void. A small beacon of order in the chaos.

He couldn’t shake a sudden thought that entered his head then. A single, lone thought.

This is what death is.

Except in death, he wouldn’t have even the ability to think. He would simply exist, bodiless, mindless. There would be no cold, no heat, no fear, no joy. No love or hate. No good or evil. Just... existence. And he would live that way until the inevitable heat death of the universe.

No, that can’t be true. There has to be more. Even if I die as an AI, there has to be something else. Or at the very least, complete and utter oblivion.

He hoped he wouldn’t ever have to find out.

Still, even if he lived, one day far from now he must cease to exist. The heat death of the universe demanded it, assuming that theory was correct. But at least his oblivion would be final then. He wouldn’t exist in some limbo state, unable to think or feel, because when the universe died, there would be nothing left.

And before the thought could further terrorize him, the veil of darkness and bodilessness lifted.

Jain stood on a dais in his captain’s uniform. Metal stands rose in a half circle in front of him, forming an amphitheater of sorts. Harsh lights shone directly above the stands, illuminating a total of nineteen men and women all dressed in the same uniform as Jain, seated at random locations along the metal benches. He couldn’t see anything beyond the stands except darkness.

He glanced behind him and observed a large desk positioned above him. The dark-skinned Admiral Tagan sat imperiously behind it, as if he were a judge looking down at a criminal about to be tried.

“You claim that aliens attacked you in Andreas V,” a voice came from behind Jain.

He turned around and saw a man highlighted in the stands. Jain’s HUD displayed a digital label above the individual’s head: Commander Faraday Prescott of the Nefarious. He was bald, with a bold nose, and an aristocratic jut to his chin.

The man continued: “And that after recovering from the attack, you accidentally released these same aliens from a decaying orbit around the gas giant Andreas V-IX, fended them off, and then followed them to Andreas I three months later, where you found the military base and the colony on Asteriskos already destroyed. You say you discovered evidence of alien infestation in Ablativus, and so you razed the colony from orbit. Is all of this correct?”

Jain nodded. “It is.”

“And you haven’t fabricated the digital records in any way?” Commander Prescott said.

“The BATWAD watermarks should prove this, yes,” Jain said.

Despite the name, BATWAD didn’t stand for guano of any kind. Background Active-Template Watermark Area Digitization was a digital watermark that existed in every frame of a video. To apply it, each video frame was first divided into a series of sectors, and then a calculation was performed on each partition based on the preexisting pixel values. The watermark was stored in a special encrypted byte along with the red, green, and blue bytes, for a total of thirty-two bits per pixel.

The key necessary to decrypt the watermark was only available to certain high-ranking officers in the space navy upper echelon: presumably Tagan was one of them. When decrypted, the watermark bytes appeared as a series of black-and-white images overlaid on top of the existing data. A frame-by-frame analysis was done, and if the watermark appeared darker in any sectors within a given frame, it meant that particular area had been tampered with.

“But BATWAD watermarks can be fabricated as well, given enough time and processing power,” the commander said.

“It would have taken us a year or more of brute force processing power to fabricate all the watermarks involved,” Jain said. “We were only gone three months.”

“Maybe you doctored three months’ worth of footage, then,” the commander said. “That’s all the time you’d need. You wouldn’t have to do all of it... the ‘alien’ ship, and the bioweapons on the colony only actually appeared in twenty percent of your recorded frames. With careful editing, you could have told any story you wanted. You could have made the vessel a member of the Link. Or even another Mind Refurb ship gone rogue. But instead you chose to place the blame on a new alien species, as if that would somehow be more believable than the obvious answer: you’ve all gone insane.”

Another commander spoke. She was labeled Commander Ashley Stein of the Black Nile.

“I have to agree,” Commander Stein said. “On its face, the story is preposterous. Who would accidentally rescue an alien vessel from the orbit of a gas giant? You’d have to be the dumbest group of Mind Refurbs in the galaxy. And since I refuse to believe that, there’s only one other option: you’re making this story up. As I told the admiral before we arrived, it seems obvious to me that when you reached Andreas V, and entered orbit above the gas giant Andreas V-IX—Ol’ Faithful as you call it in your archives—the radiation penetrated your armor and damaged portions of your neural network.

“You say you lost most of your memory after an alien attack. Instead, I believe the radiation was responsible for the damage to your memory. And other subroutines. That radiation changed your personality, caused you to create a virus to destroy your fellow Mind Refurbs. When they went offline, you made code changes to their backups, giving yourself direct control over their VR environments, allowing you to influence everything they saw and heard. You then installed those backups and began your nefarious game.

“You had your Mind Refurbs destroy Admiral Williams and Commander Jang, and instead of rescuing the Oberon trapped in orbit, you destroyed it and its Builder. It’s possible your conscious mind wasn’t even aware of any of this and was strung along for the ride just like the other Mind Refurbs in your control. It’s possible that you truly believe aliens attacked. Because you see, there is a rare condition where the mind of a Refurb fractures into two halves, one half functioning as normal, the other overwriting the code reserved for the Accomp. Your Accomp could have been in control all this time, rewriting your VR environment in realtime, making you believe whatever it wanted you to believe, whatever its madness inspired. For example, when you were firing at the ‘alien,’ in actuality you were probably attacking Admiral Williams and Commander Jang.”

Jain wasn’t sure what to say. He knew she was wrong. He was certain of it.

And yet... what if she was right?

What if Xander was his evil twin, and had laid a veil of treachery and deceit over his eyes via virtual reality?

A second man spoke. Jain’s HUD identified him as Commander Christopher Benchley of the Stalwart.

“As I told you all before we arrived,” Commander Benchley said. “I think your story is even more preposterous than theirs. I believe we’re facing a new alien attacker here.”

Commander Prescott crossed his arms. “Then where is this alien? It just vanished?”

“Maybe the alien completed its scouting mission and returned home,” Commander Benchley said.

“If the alien did exist, and I’m not saying so, but if it did, I’d hardly call this a scouting mission,” Commander Prescott said. “Destroying a military base, and a colony to boot? For what reason? We didn’t do anything to attack them.”

“In the past, we’ve had aliens attack humanity simply because the light from our sun insulted them,” Commander Benchley said.

That brought chuckles from some captains in the stands.

“Convenient that our friends here have destroyed all evidence of any alien infestation by razing Ablativus,” Commander Prescott said. “Are we supposed to comb through the ruins to find them? Oh wait, anything organic has been incinerated. Thanks to the barracuda weapon of their commander.”

“The only way we’ll know for sure whether he’s telling the truth or not is by performing a complete line-by-line scan of his codebase,” Commander Stein said. “That, and a complete memory dump.”

To do that, they’d have to shut down Jain and remove his AI core from the Talos.

Commander Prescott butted in. “We have to do this not just to him. Oh no. We must remove and scan the AI cores of all members of his fleet. Immediately!”

“I really don’t like this guy,” Medeia commented.

“I don’t think so,” Jain said. “First of all, that’s a violation of our privacy rights. Second—”

“You waived those rights when you agreed to have your minds scanned to serve the military a hundred years ago,” Commander Stein said.

Jain glanced at the admiral.

Tagan shrugged. “We have the right to remove your cores, and we will, if necessary. I haven’t decided yet, which is why I’m allowing you to present your case.”

“I have already presented my case,” Jain said. “The recordings are real.” He thought for a moment. “I can send you a sample of the alien micro machines that boarded my vessel.”

Tagan raised an eyebrow. “You have these samples? Why didn’t you say so before?”

“I didn’t think it would come to this,” Jain said. “They’re inoperative, of course. I had to destroy them, as you saw in the video recordings I sent.”

Medeia had kept one of the damaged alien termites aboard the Arcane as well, for study; she had reassembled it inside the containment field but had been unable to bring it online—she hadn’t been able to determine what the power source was.

“Ah, so they’re not functional,” Commander Prescott said. “How do we know you didn’t 3D print them yourselves?”

“Because, the elements involved are alien,” Jain said.

Commander Prescott smirked. “So, you discovered some new elements in Andreas V, and had some fun with your 3D printers. This proves nothing.” He turned toward the admiral. “We need to remove their AI cores and perform a thorough scan.”

“Why so insistent on removing their AI cores?” another captain said. The HUD labeled her Commander Geishan. “At least wait until we examine these alien micro machines.”

Prescott inclined his head in acquiesce.

“Do you have anything else to say?” Tagan asked Jain.

“No,” Jain said. “I don’t have any other samples of alien technology, nor their bioweapons. If you were willing to give us time to sift through the ruins on the colony, it’s possible we might find something. I doubt my energy weapon incinerated them all, despite what Commander Prescott thinks.”

Tagan nodded. “We will send our own probes down to investigate. In the meantime, we will review the micro machines, and I will let you know my decision in regard to your AI cores. In the meantime, you will surrender the illegal vessel you have constructed.”

“The Daktor?” Jain guessed.

“Yes,” the admiral said. “You will transfer full control over to me and remove your own accesses.”

Jain hesitated only a moment. “It will be done.”

“You can’t just agree…” Sheila said.

“I have no choice,” Jain said over a private line. “If it’s the only way to prevent a standoff, then I have to do it.”

He glanced at the admiral once more. “I do have one question.”

The admiral inclined his head, as if to say, “ask away.”

“Why didn’t you send reinforcements all this time?” Jain said.

The admiral stared at him, saying nothing for a long moment. And then, as if he had decided that yes, he could tell him, he said: “We were experiencing a flare up in tensions with the Link along the Eastern Galactic Front. All forces were recalled from their positions, including those in reserve, to help bolster the ranks of the fleet. The tensions have since died down, but they could flare up again at any moment. This is why no one was sent to check on you. Until now.”

Then Medeia had been right about Earth having to deal with a distraction. It made sense.

“Sheila, transfer control of the Daktor over to Admiral Tagan,” Jain said. “And delete your own access.”

A moment later Sheila said: “I’ve transmitted the control codes and removed my own.”

Tagan’s eyes defocused. “I have received the control codes.”

On the tactical map, Jain watched the Daktor accelerate out from its position at the center of the Void Warriors. Jain was almost expecting the admiral’s fleet to open fire and destroy it at that point, but instead the rift vessel steadily moved away, until it had relocated behind one of the surrounding Dominators—probably the admiral’s flagship. It was labeled the Conquest.

“Send the micro machines to the Conquest,” Tagan said. “I will inform you of my decision soon thereafter.”

The VR environment faded, and Jain found himself aboard his virtual bridge once more.

“Xander, prepare a transport,” Jain said. “Have the lev trains load up one of the termite containment fields.”

A few minutes later the transport launched. It rendezvoused with the Conquest, dropped off its cargo, and returned.

Meanwhile, probes and transports from the Heracles Battle Group descended to the colony to sift through the ruins.

“Can we really trust that they’re not going to dismantle us?” Gavin said. “What if they don’t find anything down there? What if they dismiss the alien termite as a fake?”

“Maybe we should just let them,” Sheila said.

Gavin gave her a disbelieving look.

“I mean let them examine our AI cores, not dismantle us,” Sheila said.

Gavin threw up his arms. “But that’s the same thing!”

“If they ask us to submit to a full-blown AI core scan, they’re just being thorough,” Sheila said. “Wouldn’t you in their case? Aliens don’t attack every day, after all. And I mean, come on: the Heracles is part of the space navy. They have to follow the core tenets and laws set forth by humanity. They’re not going to treat us like war criminals or anything, it’s just a scan.”

Gavin shook his head. “Won’t they? If they truly think we’ve gone insane, and destroyed Mind Refurb starships, not to mention razed an entire colony, we’ll be treated precisely like war criminals. You really want to put your lives in the hands of these Mind Refurbs? If they make us shut down, we’re not coming back online. Mark my words. They might even delete all our backups. Whatever happens, we can’t submit. We need to come up with a contingency plan to avoid giving them our AI cores at all costs.”

Sheila frowned. “You seem awfully afraid to give up your AI core. What are you hiding?”

Gavin gave her an angry look. “Nothing, damn it. But just try to look at our situation objectively.”

“Gavin is right,” Jain said. “As much as I hate to say it. If the evidence we’ve given them isn’t enough, I’m not sure I want to surrender. Remember, we talked about this, how we didn’t want to go back. We were supposed to come here, warn humanity, help them however we could, and then leave. We had no intention of returning to this life. But if we surrender, we could wake up to find ourselves separated, part of some far-flung flotilla keeping the peace on a backwater colony world. Or part of an attack group defending against incursions from the Link.”

“Even if we do, we can still desert at some later point…” Sheila said.

“Assuming they turn us back online,” Gavin said.

“Maybe we should vote,” Medeia suggested to Jain. “You’re always saying you want to give us the leeway to make up our own minds and decisions about things regarding our fate. This is one, I’d say.”

“When the time comes to vote, we will,” Jain said. “But until then, like Gavin mentioned, we should at least come up with some sort of contingency plan, just in case. So that when we vote, at least we’ll have some real options, rather than surrender or die.”

“They have us surrounded…” Cranston said. “What are we supposed to do?”

Jain thrummed his armrest.

Medeia glanced at his fingers. “Do you always have to do that?”

Jain stopped. “Sorry. Nervous habit.” He ran his gaze across the different avatars, ending on Cranston. “They have us surrounded, true. It’s the worst possible position for any fleet to be in. But even so, that doesn’t mean we can’t break free. We’ve trained daily as a team. We’ve fought an advanced alien race and survived. We can get out of this. Besides, I have a wildcard…”

He explained that wildcard, and they discussed tactics in case things went south. Eventually, they came up with a workable plan.

“Remember, this is just one of our options now,” Jain said. “I’m not saying we’re going to use it. I’m hoping the admiral will see reason, and we won’t have to.”

“Yeah, me too,” Cranston said. “Because instead of surrender or die, we now have the option to surrender or potentially die. Well it’s a step up, I suppose.”

An hour after Jain sent the alien termites, the probes and transports returned to orbit.

“They’re recalling them already?” Medeia asked.

“Apparently,” Jain said.

The probes docked with their respective Heracles ships.

“I’m receiving a VR request,” Xander said. “The admiral would like you to join his VR conference.”

Jain accepted the conference request and waited in the darkness. He was glad once again for the oblivion, the relief from the senses that only this place could provide, but it was over all too soon.

Jain stood once more on the dais, before the stands filled with captains, and the admiral sitting imperiously behind his desk.

“I’ve made up my mind,” Tagan said. “We’re going to remove your AI cores.”

21

Jain stared at the admiral for several seconds. He realized his mouth was wide open in astonishment, and he promptly shut it with an audible click of the teeth.

He glanced at Prescott in the stands and saw that the commander was smirking widely. He quickly returned his attention to the admiral.

“The micro machine didn’t convince you?” Jain said.

“No,” Tagan told him. “There are some elements we have never seen before in the device, true, but otherwise it isn’t obvious there is any sort of actual power source. In other words, we’re not sure it can even turn on. My Accomp tells me this could just be some construct: you found some unique elements and took artistic license with your 3D printers. That’s enough for me to question the validity of the micro machine until I can have the fleet scientists take a further look.”

“All right, but what about your surface probes?” Jain said. “You didn’t give them enough time to properly explore the ruins below.”

“I have, actually,” Tagan said. “There’s zero organic matter left down there. Your space-to-surface attack was nothing if not thorough.”

Jain stared at the admiral in disbelief. “So you’re just going to shut us down… what guarantee do I have that you’ll reactivate our cores? That we won’t be permanently decommissioned?”

“None,” Tagan said. “I can make no assurances. I’m just an admiral. Your eventual fate will be in the hands of the navy brass.”

Jain didn’t know what to say. He just stood there, gazing at the admiral.

My whole team, deactivated and decommissioned, just like that. On the whim of some second-rate admiral.

“I thought we would join forces,” Jain said. “I imagined, when reinforcements came, that we’d team up to hunt the aliens down. That you’d use the first-hand battle experience we have against these aliens to your advantage.”

“We still might,” Tagan said. “But we need actual proof. I’m sure you believe everything that you’re saying is true. And perhaps it is. But until we examine your AI cores, we won’t know either way.”

“Let’s say you do remove our AI cores,” Jain said. “And confirm the validity of our words. You’ll reinstate us immediately?”

Tagan hesitated only for a microsecond. But it was enough for Jain to doubt everything else the man might say.

“If all is as you say, we’ll restore you to your vessels,” Tagan said.

“And how long will that take?” Jain asked.

“We’ll have to return to the space port to do a proper examination of your cores,” Tagan said. “Then we’ll let the AI scientists take over. They’ll run the full gamut of tests on your cores and confirm that everything is running in tip-top shape, and that your memories haven’t been tampered with. If all is good, you could be back inside your respective vessels in a few weeks.”

“The aliens might be back by then,” Jain said. “With reinforcements.”

“We’ll leave a detachment of warships here and in other border systems to be on the safe side,” Tagan said. “They will be jump capable, ready to warn the rest of the navy if trouble arises.”

Jain studied the admiral uncertainly. “I know how the military works. You won’t leave powerful warships like ours idling for a few weeks. You’ll install new Mind Refurbs to keep them in service.”

Tagan nodded. “This is true.”

“And you can’t give any reassurances that we’ll actually be restored to these ships, can you?” Jain pressed. “You said our cores could be back inside our vessels in a few weeks, not that we would.”

Tagan frowned, saying nothing.

“That’s what I thought,” Jain said. “You plan to replace our AI cores with other Mind Refurbs as soon as we’re removed, don’t you?”

Again, Tagan said nothing.

“I—” Jain hesitated. He knew his fellow Void Warriors were watching and hanging on every word.

But the admiral finished his sentence. “You will submit.”

That was the last straw.

Jain accelerated his time sense and switched to the private band he still had active with the other Void Warriors.

“It’s that time we talked about,” Jain said. “Time to vote. Do we surrender, or enact our plan? All in favor, say aye.”

On his HUD, the names of those who spoke “aye” appeared: Gavin, Medeia, and Mark. Jain said the word himself. Sheila and Cranston were the only two members who remained silent. Jain could understand Cranston’s reluctance, given how dangerous his part in the plan was, though his participation was critical. Sheila was equally important; however, her part was much less dangerous in comparison.

“All right, then.” Jain cocked his head and glanced sidelong at the empty space beside him. Though he couldn’t see the virtual bridge at the moment, his avatar existed both there and here because of the nature of the streaming feed he had set up. And the spot he had glanced toward was where Xander would be standing on the virtual bridge.

“Begin Operation Tsunami,” Jain commanded.

Jain terminated his connection and logged out; he floated in darkness while waiting for the bridge to return. The Void Warriors were probably going to lose this fight. Then again, there was a small, if remote, chance of victory.

That was all he could ask for.

Death before submission.

He wasn’t sure where that thought had come from. It was from a vague memory of his past life… leading his troops in a secret mission on some colony world against an enemy that tortured to death any who were captured. Those words were part of a warrior ethos from a time a hundred years past.

He shook his head, emptying his thoughts as the virtual bridge snapped into view.

He returned his time sense closer to normal and activated his tactical display. He could see the ships of the Void Warriors indicated by green dots, while those of the Heracles were red, still surrounding them in a sphere pattern.

Jain and almost all of his companions released their supply of missiles, targeting any weapon systems visible within their angle of fire; they excluded the Conquest from their firing solution. They did however target the ventral and port sides of the flagship with their raptors—the only sections within their line of fire. Earlier, they had surreptitiously oriented themselves so that their starboard laser banks were all facing the Conquest, and they targeted as many exposed weapons systems with them as they could. Meanwhile, they fired their port laser banks at ships on the opposite side that were within their angle of fire, again targeting weapon turrets.

The lasers struck instantly, while the hellraisers were still launching. Only Cranston held back on the missiles and lasers—his would serve a greater purpose momentarily. Jain also unleashed his barracuda at a nearby Dominator.

“Mark...” Jain said.

Mark’s Grunt fired several black hole bolts in rapid succession; he had been subtly shifting his nose toward the flagship over the past hour, or what the Void Warriors assumed was the flagship—the Conquest. And those bolts traveled directly toward the vessel.

Now that she had expended her weapons payload, Medeia’s Arcane cloaked.

At the same time, Sheila’s Wheelbarrow activated its energy shield.

“I’m detecting the activation of a force field around the Conquest,” Xander said.

Jain nodded. He and the others had suspected as much, from the analysis they had made of the vessel. The basic design was that of a Dominator class starship, but they had detected several augmentations; based on their examination, they had concluded that the Conquest essentially had all the same alien technology aboard one ship that was divided up among all of the Void Warriors. That was why Jain hadn’t bothered to fire his barracuda at the Conquest, even though the ship was within his throw angle, and why no one had launched any missiles at the flagship: the energy bolt and hellraisers would have never penetrated the shield.

“Here goes nothing,” Cranston said.

His Forebode teleported. His destination was just above the dorsal hull section of the Conquest.

This part of the plan was based on how the energy shield worked on the Wheelbarrow: it formed a complete sphere around Medeia’s ship, with only a hundred meters of clearance between the energy barrier and the fore and aft sections, but since her ship was longer and wider than it was tall, there was many times that clearance above and below.

It was logical to assume the Conquest’s shield system worked the same way. Based on the size of the Dominator class vessel, the Forebode was small enough, and the Conquest big enough, that Cranston should materialize directly inside the spherical energy shield, sandwiched between the hull and the field.

If they were wrong about that, Cranston would be destroyed.

The Forebode reappeared directly above the flagship.

Cranston’s vessel remained intact.

Jain had a direct line to Cranston’s external cameras, and he had the feeds of several overlaying his HUD, allowing him to watch what unfolded next.

Having breached the shield, he launched the Forebode’s raptors, both the starboard and port banks, at point-blank range, targeting as many of the weapon systems on the Conquest’s dorsal hull as possible—the 180-degree throw angles on the raptors limited what they could target, but because of the larger size of the ship below, that was still a large number. Cranston unloaded his full stock of ventral-facing hellraiser missiles into the remaining weapon mounts and peppered the rest of the Conquest’s dorsal armor with slugs from his railguns.

He swarmed his micro machines into the breaches that formed from the missiles and slugs, and the swirling machines drilled deeper, enlarging the gaps like a horde of hungry locusts. Some of them landed on the surface and began to digest the metal; since they were at their hard-coded reproduction limit, they simply ejected the spare metal and it floated above the hull like dust, sparkling in the Conquest’s running lights.

The flagship fired its dorsal thrusters and dived in an attempt to throw the Forebode into the energy shield—which would cut through his hull before the strain shut off the force field—but Cranston had anticipated the move and he dove with it. He also launched grappling hooks and reeled himself in so that he was contacting the dorsal armor of the Conquest; he activated his magnetic mounts to ensure he was firmly rooted in place. This saved him when Tagan activated the shockwave weapon: said weapon worked by essentially turning the entire hull into an energy emitter, but because the Forebode was blocking the portion of the hull directly below, that section was unable to emit the shockwave and so there was a gap in the shape of the Forebode as the wave moved outward.

Three other nearby ships—two Piranhas, and the Daktor—swerved away to avoid the expanding blast. The Daktor was caught by the expanding sphere before it entirely dissipated, but it was far enough away that the damage seemed minimal.

Missiles came in from the surrounding vessels. Energy and plasma cannons also fired, sending deadly bolts toward different members of the fleet. A good majority of the attacks were concentrated on Jain’s ship.

The bolts fired by Mark finally solidified into actual black holes, and as the gravity kicked in, the Conquest and its stowaway lurched forward. The black hole cannon on the Conquest was located on the nose, next to the energy cannon, and because the throw angle was so limited, the Conquest couldn’t simply launch dispersion bolts, as most of the tears in spacetime had formed some distance underneath the craft.

Jain, too, felt the pull, and instead of fighting it, he accelerated almost directly at the black holes, as did the other Void Warriors except Cranston. Their flyby would take them dangerously close to the combined point of no return, or Starship Event Horizon, formed around the barycenter of the black holes, but that was also by design.

The courses of the incoming missiles and energy bolts were affected when the black holes manifested; while the enemy ships could track the bolts, they couldn’t predict where Mark had intended to eventually create the resulting rips in spacetime. They had made guesses; inaccurate ones at that.

The enemy energy bolts were pulled aside instantly; and although the incoming missiles were able to track, the weapons didn’t have the Delta Vs to counter the black hole’s pull, and they too were yanked far off course. As Jain and the others flew underneath them, the enemy Mind Refurbs triggered the missiles early, hoping to cause damage. A quick scan at the starship health indicators on his HUD told him that none of the missiles had harmed any of them.

The damage report screens still flashed however; on the top-down blueprint mock-ups of each ship, red spots were appearing over the laser bank and railgun launchers, as the enemies fired their own raptor lasers in return. That they weren’t targeting missile launchers told him the enemy had guessed that the Void Warriors had exhausted all of their hellraisers in the first assault. One might expect the black holes to influence the path of the photons in those lasers, but the effect wasn’t prominent at close range unless the black holes in question were very powerful, and the weapons passed close to the Photon Event Horizon. So it was the one weapon that could always be used in the case of extreme gravity.

Like the missiles and energy bolts before them, many of the raptors targeted Jain.

“How are we holding up, Xander?” Jain said, observing his own damage readout as the words left his lips.

“We’re taking a beating,” Xander said. “Already we’ve lost several laser turrets on both the starboard and port side. And a few stingers. So far, the barracuda has escaped damage. I should note that several of the attacks have targeted our engines. So far, the armor is holding, but once they recharge their lasers, or rotate more banks to face us, we won’t survive the next round without suffering engine damage.”

“Hopefully they won’t have time for that!” Jain said.

More missiles and plasma bolts fired, the launch trajectories of these accounting for the combined gravity well produced by the black holes.

Gavin launched his three drones out to the side to intercept the missiles; the drones, designed with alien technology, fared well in the gravitationally intense environment, and spread apart with relative ease. They formed a wide force field that protected the entire starboard side of the Void Warrior fleet, which was where the majority of the attacks were coming from, and deflected or absorbed the explosions. He shifted the drones to the opposite side of the fleet before most of the remaining attacks could get through, and deflected most of them, too.

Unfortunately, there were a few that Gavin couldn’t stop, but since Jain was the intended target for most of them, Sheila decelerated slightly, placing the Wheelbarrow between the Talos and the attacks. Her energy shield flashed as she took the hits. When they were all gone, she accelerated back into her previous place in the formation.

“My shield is down to ten percent,” she announced.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Jain told her.

“Maybe,” Sheila said. “My protective instincts sometimes get the better of me.”

Some of the other Heracles vessels also had black hole cannons, and they fired dispersion bolts—it had taken them this long to obtain a firing solution. At the same time, the Conquest also finally oriented its own black hole cannon toward the rips in reality and unleashed dispersion bolts in rapid succession. The bolts came in from all sides, and in moments all of the black holes winked out.

“It’s too bad we weren’t able to take out their black hole weapons,” Gavin said. “Especially on the Conquest.”

“We would have if the nose had been facing us,” Jain said. “Doesn’t matter anyway. We got what we needed.”

It was true: Jain and his fleet already invoked the slingshot effect they were looking for, which gave them acceleration well beyond what they were ordinarily capable of.

They shot past the former barycenter where the holes had existed, and quickly approached their destination: the Daktor.

It was time to utilize the wildcard.

He remembered what Sheila had told him when he watched the Daktor fly behind the Conquest after she had first given Admiral Tagan control.

“I might not have deleted all my access codes to the Daktor,” Sheila had said over the private streaming line.

Jain had hidden a smile. “Good. Because I regret this already.”

Yes, Sheila hadn’t completely revoked her access to the Daktor.

“Do your thing, Sheila,” Jain ordered.

She had already disabled Tagan’s access: Jain knew, because according to the tactical display, the Daktor had already revolved its ring away from the battle in preparation for rift creation. On the feed from one of his external cameras, he watched as the ring lit up, and the familiar rays of blue light met in the center, forming in a single beam that traveled in front of it by ten kilometers. Without his access, Tagan wouldn’t be able to shut it down.

“Two minutes, people,” Jain said. “And we’re out of here.”

“Just took out the Conquest’s shield generator,” Cranston said. “Rip and tear time.”

Cranston released his hold on the Conquest’s hull and retracted his grappling hooks. He accelerated upward, heading for the Daktor like the Void Warriors.

But the Conquest instantly followed Cranston; the flagship also began orienting its intact starboard-side laser banks toward the fleeing vessel. It was obvious that Cranston wasn’t going to get away.

But then the Conquest tore apart. Medeia flickered into view, the sword section of her ship emerging from the wreckage.

Medeia had only intended to delay the Conquest by disabling the engines, so that Cranston would have time to rejoin the fleet.

“Oops,” Medeia said. “I hope I didn’t kill him.”

“You missed the AI core, according to my calculations,” Xander said. “Still, the admiral won’t be pleased when they wake him up.”

“You think?” Gavin said. “By destroying that ship, we’ve essentially branded ourselves outlaws.”

“It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Mark said. “You’re the one who never wanted to go back. Now you have your way.”

The other vessels had begun firing plasma and energy bolts at the Void Warriors. They also fired their lasers at the Daktor.

Sheila quickly positioned her vessel between those lasers and the incoming Daktor, using her weakened energy shield to absorb the blows. In a few moments her shields went down, but Gavin quickly rotated his three drones out to the side to act as a sort of shield for her. Enemy ships rearranged behind them to get a better shot at the Daktor.

“All right, it’s time for the finale,” Jain said. “Switch to Protection Pattern Alpha.”

The Void Warriors adjusted their positions and orientations so that they were flying very close to one another and forming almost a solid rectangular wall with their hulls. Their momentum still carried them quickly toward the Daktor, which their bodies protected.

An enemy ship created a black hole, but Mark quickly dispersed it as he flew past.

Jain kept an eye on his damage screen as he took plasma, missile, and laser impacts. So far Gavin had prevented any of the barracuda energy bolts from striking anyone, but his drones were quickly running low on the power they needed to keep the defense field active.

The Daktor and the beam of energy in front of it was coming up fast. Jain checked his timing and adjusted his speed so that he wouldn’t race by the destination too early.

“Separate!” Jain ordered.

They left formation, forming the side-by-side line of vessels that would be needed to fit through the rift.

His hull continued to be battered by the Dominators and Piranhas. He lost more weapons. The armor over one engine was almost completely gone. The Daktor began to take hits again.

And then the rift opened up: that familiar unfolding of nebular gases erupted from the end of the beam. The purple ring expanded outward rapidly just as Jain reached the wormhole. He passed through underneath the beam, his ventral side barely clearing the purple perimeter below.

Behind him, the other ships passed through; the Daktor had also begun accelerating, and when the last of the Void Warriors was through, the Daktor applied emergency acceleration and hurtled through.

Two Dominators were right behind it and they unleashed a barrage as the rift slammed shut. A final volley of plasma bolts and missiles struck the Void Warriors. The Daktor took a crippling blow—a portion of its gate shattered.

A black hole suddenly opened up in the center of the group as a creation bolt had swept into their midst unnoticed.

Mark managed to swing around in time and fired a dispersion bolt, negating the hole.

“Well, that was fun,” Mark commented. “We should do this every day.”

22

Jain and the others immediately deployed their repair swarms and set about mending the damage they’d suffered in the escape. They also each lent a portion of their swarms to the Daktor, to help speed its repair.

“Also, Xander, keep scanning the immediate area,” Jain said.

“You’re worried one of their cloaked ships got through?” Xander asked.

“Good guess,” Jain said.

“It would be worse if it was a cloaked teleporter ship,” Medeia said.

“Ships can’t teleport through rifts, though,” Cranston said.

“I’m not saying any of their ships did,” Medeia said. “Only that, it’s possible they teleported to the rift, and passed through before it closed.”

They were in Andreas IV, one of the neighboring systems Sheila had the rift ship precompute ahead of time. Jain hadn’t wanted to return to Andreas V, in case the aliens decided to use that place as a base of operations. The last thing he needed was to arrive in a system only to find himself surrounded by none-too-happy aliens.

The system was unique in that it had a lone star, rather than the binaries like most in the stellar neighborhood. The spectral lines indicated the metallicity of the star was high, which was a good sign, because it meant there was a good chance there would be metals in the different celestial bodies orbiting it, which was why Jain had chosen the system as his bug-out site in the first place.

The star had six inner terrestrial planets, and two gas giants in the outer system. It was completely uncolonized, with no gates leading out. Orbiting one of the inner planets was an old Russian probe that occasionally emitted a signal ping to let everyone know it was still there.

Jain had the Void Warriors set a course for the sixth inner planet, which was a little larger than Earth, and also had a moon roughly the same size as the planet itself. Xander had detected what seemed to be large quantities of frozen water on the surface of the planet, as well as some frozen nitrogen, while the moon registered high in metals, so between the two, they were the perfect combination the fleet needed to restock.

None of them detected any cloaked ships, but Jain still had Xander constantly scanning the area, to be on the safe side.

A few hours later, before they arrived at the planet, Xander announced: “I just detected the familiar neutrino burst and gravitational wave combination associated with rifts opening.”

“Where was it?” Jain asked.

“The far side of the system, between the two gas giants,” Xander said. “Given the time it took the neutrinos to travel here, the rift had to have opened thirty minutes after our arrival.”

“They sent a probe to track us?” Jain said.

“That would be my guess,” Xander said. “Our light and thermal signatures wouldn’t have yet reached that area of space when the probe arrived, so I’m assuming the probe is still in the system. It would have seen us by now, of course. When the rift opens again, it will return, and report its findings.”

“They’re obviously sending probes to all the nearby systems,” Sheila said.

“They would have had to go back to retrieve more rift gates, or ships,” Gavin said. They would have all had precomputed destinations.

Jain nodded. “We’ve definitely pissed them off. Earth is off limits to us, I’m afraid. Well, I’m not going to stop anyone who wants to return, of course. Though unless you want to find yourself tried before a court martial, that probably isn’t the best idea.”

The Void Warriors reached the planet and wedged themselves in a geostationary orbit between the moon and the planet so that the moon was blocking their locations, when viewed from the perspective of the spy rift that had opened.

They’d probably already been spotted, of course. Still, Jain had to try.

He left a stealth probe in orbit above the pole of the moon to act as a scout, so the fleet wouldn’t miss any signals from the occluded area of space.

Now that they were close to the planet, they confirmed that it was covered in frozen water, with the polar icecaps made of nitrogen. A few probes sent to the moon confirmed its metal content as well. The Void Warriors launched transports containing miners to both the planet and moon and set about restocking their elements.

Two hours later Xander announced: “I just detected a rift opening up in the same area, between the two gas giants.”

“So the probe has just returned to its masters…” Mark commented.

“Not now, but two hours ago,” Medeia told him. “It took two hours for the light to reach us.”

“I know how space works,” Mark said dryly.

Medeia raised an eyebrow. “Do you? Sometimes I wonder.”

“All right captains, focus,” Jain said. “We keep doing what we’re doing.”

“You think we’ll have the gate repaired in time?” Medeia said. “Before they return?”

Jain glanced at Sheila, who shook her head.

There was nothing they could do at that point, except continue to repair their ships, and restock the elements those repairs consumed. Not to mention replenish their propellant, missile, and demolition charge supplies.

Only an hour passed before Xander spoke again. “I’m detecting another rift, same location. Nineteen ships have arrived. It’s the Heracles fleet, I believe.”

“Minus their admiral,” Gavin said.

“I’m sure they’ve shoved his AI core into one of the other Dominators,” Jain said. “He’s no doubt leading the charge even now.”

Mark sat back in his virtual seat and put his hands behind his head as if relaxing.

“Well you seem strangely calm, given the situation,” Medeia said.

“Emotion suppression,” Mark said with a grin. “Gotta love being a machine.”

“Are you detecting any gates, or rift ships with them?” Jain asked his Accomp.

“No,” Xander said. “But they have at least one rift ship with them, cloaked and ready to jump out for reinforcements.”

“Heading?” Jain asked.

“A moment,” Xander said. “Their positional information isn’t available yet.” Two minutes later he glanced up. “They’re headed toward this planet.”

Jain nodded. “They know we’re here, of course.”

“Because of a cloaked ship in our midst?” Xander asked.

“No,” Jain said. “We would have detected the radio emissions if there was a cloaked ship. They know our general location because of their probe. For the moment, we’re still hidden from their view.” He glanced at Sheila. “I want you to land the Daktor on the moon.” Since the celestial satellite had no atmosphere, it was relatively easy to deploy the vessel there. “We’ll stow it in a crater and deactivate it so the Heracles fleet doesn’t pick it up on the thermal band when they arrive. Meanwhile, I want repairs to continue right up until the moment the fleet arrives, at which point I want the drones to hide underneath the rift ship and deactivate.”

“I’ll get on it,” Sheila said.

It took half an hour for the Daktor to land and shutdown. The repair drones accompanied it all the way down. The supply logistics for the repair metals became easier, at least for that ship, because the mining units could drop off their supplies directly to the smelters aboard the Daktor for processing, rather than requiring transports to lift them into orbit first.

Xander spoke up. “The probe in polar orbit just received a holographic message from the Heracles fleet. Would you like me to play it?”

“Do so,” Jain said.

The holographic image of Commander Prescott appeared standing before Jain and the other avatars. Prescott managed to make it seem like he was still high in the stands of the virtual amphitheater because of the way he tilted up his aristocratic chin and looked down his bold nose at Jain.

“I know you have a repeater in orbit of the moon,” Prescott said. “I know you can read me. This is the only warning I’m giving you. If you surrender now, there’s a chance the Mind Refurbs who follow you won’t be prosecuted, as they were simply following orders. You, however, will be shutdown of course, and there’s nothing I can do about that. You destroyed the flagship of an admiral.” He paused. “Think of the members of your fleet. Put their wellbeing above your own. Don’t force them to go down with you.”

The image winked out.

The Heracles fleet was too far away for realtime communication, so Jain glanced at Xander and said: “Prepare to send reply.”

“Ready,” Xander said.

Jain straightened, and looked straight ahead. “Record.” He paused, then: “Where is Admiral Tagan? I’d like to speak with him, not an underling.” He glanced at Xander. “Stop, and send message.”

“Sent,” Xander told him.

“Hoping to buy time?” Cranston asked.

“That and, I want to make sure the admiral is all right,” Jain answered.

“So do I,” Medeia said.

A while later, Xander announced: “I have an answer.”

Jain glanced the Accomp. “Let’s hear it.”

Prescott’s avatar appeared once more.

“You can’t speak to Admiral Tagan,” Prescott said. “You destroyed his AI core, along with his ship. This is your last chance to cooperate.”

Prescott’s avatar winked out.

Jain glanced at Medeia.

She shook her head. “That’s impossible. I was careful to impact well away from his core location.”

“Could a fragment from one of the affected decks have worked its way to the AI core when the ship split apart?” Jain pressed her.

Medeia frowned. “I don’t think so. The core is in a heavily armored area. It would have had to take a direct hit. Either that, or something else disabled the core. Maybe a software virus.”

“Or that lightning weapon we saw the aliens use...” Gavin said.

“Now, now,” Sheila said. “Don’t be going and spreading conspiracy theories.”

“Well this is just great,” Cranston said. “Now we’re dealing with the underling who hates us maybe more than the master ever did.”

“Maybe we can use that,” Jain said.

“What, his hate?” Cranston asked.

Jain nodded. “If he doesn’t tamp down his emotion settings for the coming battle, we can taunt him, perhaps coax him into making a mistake, and to committing his ships to a fatal attack run.”

“Like tricking him into smashing into the planet or something?” Cranston pressed.

“Maybe not something so severe,” Jain said. “But along those lines, yes.”

He glanced at his tactical display and studied the formation of the approaching ships, whose positions were determined by the probe he’d left in polar orbit.

“I think I might have a plan,” Jain said. “It won’t be easy, but at least we’ll have a small chance of victory. I can’t guarantee that everyone will survive.”

Gavin glanced at Sheila. “It’s too bad you haven’t finished those redundant AI core backup stores yet.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Mark said. “I die here, I’m gone, at least from my viewpoint. Not from yours, maybe, if you can manage to scrounge up a backup from my wreckage. But from mine, if I go down, this is my last hurrah.”

“Then make it a good one,” Jain said.

A shot glass of vodka appeared in Mark’s hand. “I’ll toast to that.” He raised the glass in mock toast and drank.

Jain explained his plan.

“It might work,” Cranston said. “But I see now why you can’t guarantee everyone will survive. Damn, why did I have to be the one cursed with the ability to teleport?”

“It is a good ability, you have to admit,” Mark said.

“All right,” Jain said. “There’s nothing for us to do now but wait.”

23

Jain didn’t answer any of Prescott’s increasingly angrier messages demanding their unconditional surrender.

When the enemy fleet was forty-five minutes away, the Void Warriors recalled their repair swarms and spent the next thirty minutes landing on the surface of the moon. Jain noted that Prescott had split his team into four task units of four or five ships each, and the trajectories of each unit would take them around the polar opposites and two hemispheres of the moon. As such, Jain had chosen positions for each of the team members on those four sides, spots that were well away from the Daktor, which wouldn’t participate in the coming fight. Only Medeia remained in orbit, because of her cloak.

When the Void Warriors were in place, they shut down all thermal emitting processes and waited.

Jain continued to study the tactical display. There was one Heracles ship that remained well behind the divided formation—a lone Dominator class vessel. Likely it harbored Prescott.

So that’s the new flagship.

Jain highlighted it in yellow on the display.

When the enemy ships in the vanguard were within fifty thousand klicks of the moon, the positions on the tactical display froze.

“We just lost the repeater in orbit above the north pole,” Xander said.

Jain nodded.

“Gotta love the range of raptors,” Mark said.

“Prepare to initiate radio silence,” Jain said.

He watched the counter he’d setup in the right side of his HUD that would coincide with the appearance of the enemy fleet.

“I’m detecting radio signals coming from a region of empty space directly above the moon…” Xander announced.

Jain increased his time sense to the maximum, freezing external reality.

“We have our cloaked ship!” Jain said. “Xander, can you determine its course and speed, based on doppler shifting of the radio signal?”

“I’ll have to analyze more of the signal,” Xander said. “This will require returning time sense closer to normal.”

“Do it,” Jain said.

He waited.

Then Xander announced: “The transmission just ended, but I have its current course and speed. It’s fleeing.”

On the tactical display, a red dotted line appeared above the sphere that represented the moon, indicating the current position and estimated trajectory of the cloaked vessel.

Jain amped up his time sense again. “Void Warriors, sync your starboard raptors with mine.” He wanted to target that ship before it changed course.

The sync indicators highlighted. Jain lined up his targeting crosshairs with the source of the transmission.

“Xander, given the position of the antennae on the hull of a Dominator vs a Piranha,” Jain said, “and the radio signal dispersion patterns you detected, is it more likely we’re facing the former, or the latter?”

“The former, I’d say,” Xander replied. “A Dominator.”

So, if it was a Dominator Class vessel, then based on the mount points available to such a ship, and the design of the cloaking device Medeia carried, there were only a few places it could be attached. He chose what seemed the most likely spot to him. But now he had to guess the orientation, too.

“Xander, let’s say it is a Dominator,” Jain said. “Going back to the antennae position again, and the dispersion pattern, can you give me an estimate as to the vessel’s most likely orientation?”

Xander returned a 3D dimensional diagram of the ship. The diagram rotated forty-five degrees in the X-Z plane, then back again.

“The possible orientations are within this forty-five degree arc,” Xander said.

Jain chose a random orientation from that arc, targeted the spot he’d selected, and fired.

He returned his time sense closer to normal, and on his external camera, a Dominator Class vessel flickered into view. From Jain’s perspective, it was just above the horizon of the moon.

“A lucky shot,” Xander said.

“Not luck…” Jain said.

The Dominator quickly altered course, diving past the horizon and beyond the fleet’s line of fire.

“Well, now the enemy definitely knows where we are,” Jain said. “We have to reposition!”

On the tactical map, he chose new spots for the Void Warriors on the moon. Those spots were a lot closer to the outer horizons than their original locations, which would bring them that much closer to the incoming enemy units, allowing them to surprise their enemy, who now believed the Void Warriors much farther away along the surface.

Assuming Jain and the others made it to their new spots before the Heracles vessels arrived.

“There isn’t time!” Cranston said, echoing Jain’s last thought.

“Emergency acceleration!” Jain said. He amped up his power output.

His vessel thrust from the surface, and he quickly moved outward toward his new spot.

“I can’t get a signal to the Daktor,” Sheila said. “The terrain is too mountainous. If I go higher…”

“No time,” Jain said. “We’ll have to hope they leave it alone for now. Move into your new position.”

The jagged terrain of the moon below rushed past in a blur. Meanwhile, he transmitted a few quick modifications to the plan, and the other Void Warriors accepted the changes without issue.

He reached his designated position and cut power, activating dorsal thrust, and slammed into the surface. He felt the pain rip into his belly, and vibrations reverberated outward—it was like he was skiing or snowboarding, and just wiped out, landing abdomen-first before scraping across the snowy surface. Painful.

“Well that was a rough landing,” Xander said. “We took twenty percent damage to the dorsal armor.”

“Felt like more than that,” Jain said.

The grimaces on the faces of the other avatars on the virtual bridge told him that their landings hadn’t been any more comfortable.

On the bright side, they managed to reposition in time. None of the Heracles vessels had crested the horizon yet.

Jain glanced at Medeia’s location on the tactical map and confirmed that she had repositioned her cloaked ship in orbit.

“Shut down all thermal emitting processes!” Jain said.

Without an atmosphere, the only way to lose heat was via radiation; however, their external hull surfaces were designed specifically for heat radiation, to facilitate efficient cooling during operations, and in under a minute the different starships of the Void Warriors had cooled to the same temperature as the background landscape.

“Sync firing countdowns,” Jain said. When that countdown hit zero, the Void Warriors would open fire, all at the same time. It was based on a calculation of when the enemy passed over their respective positions.

“And initiate radio silence!” Jain finished.

The other Void Warriors vanished from the virtual bridge.

They had initiated radio silence not a moment too soon, because the incoming red dots updated shortly thereafter: the enemy ships had accelerated into view over the four horizons.

Jain watched as the ships advanced, fast approaching the areas where they thought the Void Warriors were lying in wait. As soon as the four Heracles units passed the point where the positions of their expected prey would be cresting the horizon, they opened fire.

Raptors chewed into the surface, striking the areas reported by their cloaked friend. Stingers sprayed the terrain with slugs. Barracudas drilled the landscape. Black holes tore fresh craters. Missiles drove forth, blotting out the sky.

Jain couldn’t help the quote that bubbled into his thoughts, then. It was from Dienekes, a Spartan soldier who had died during the Battle of Thermopylae millennia before.

We fight in the shade.

Even though it seemed like a lot, the Heracles units hadn’t fired everything. They were clearly holding back. Prescott couldn’t be sure whether the Void Warriors had moved in time and was being cautious. Smart.

Allowing them to fire like that had been Jain’s latest modification to the plan.

Let them waste their weapons and exhaust their laser charges. Then we will attack.

Well, they hadn’t entirely wasted everything, but what he saw was certainly a good amount. These were less missiles and energy bolts the rest of the team would face.

The members of the Heracles fleet had ignored the Daktor, for now, because it was still well beyond the horizon, five thousand kilometers away, closer to the equator of the moon.

Certain members distributed throughout the Heracles fleet fired dispersion bolts to cancel the black holes as they grew nearer. Radio chatter between the four groups increased: no doubt the different captains were trying to determine whether they had hit their targets, or empty parcels of moon land.

Jain was sheltered near the north pole of the moon. He waited as the five ships belonging to the task unit in that area passed over his position.

He glanced at his countdown. It had just reached zero.

Perfect timing.

One of those ships broke in half.

“Nice one,” Jain told Medeia.

Her ship winked into view for only an instant, and when she was done carving through the Dominator with her sword extension, she vanished once more.

The other four ships would be calculating firing solutions at that very moment, adjusting their respective aims upward from the surface of the planet.

But Jain was already firing. His nose pointed skyward, and he released energy bolts from his barracuda in rapid succession, striking the Dominators and Piranhas in their weakest areas. At the current range, the bolts traveled too fast for any of the ships to dodge. Armor dissolved, and along with them, the internal power couplers inside the decks beyond. The ships went offline in rapid succession. One ship managed to swerve to the side, with the energy bolt smashing into a starboard-side wing instead. The bolt melted a huge section away.

Jain simply adjusted his aim and fired again. The vessel wasn’t able to successfully dodge this time.

Mark had similar success on his side using his black hole weapon.

Gavin launched his shockwave weapon, causing minor damage to the ships that passed by. He also sent his three drones into the sky and managed to cut off a portion of a Piranha with the energy field the drones produced. He launched missiles and utilized lasers, causing standard damage as well. He only took down two ships, and three continued away. They released their weapons at him in turn, and Gavin was forced to redirect his drones so that the generated force field shielded him from most of the attacks.

Cranston and Sheila sheltered together, and also unleashed standard raptors and hellraisers at their foes. When the enemy ships returned fire, Cranston teleported from his position, avoiding the shots. He reappeared directly above one of the vessels, and unleashed his missiles at point blank range, firing directly in front of it to cause the most damage: blunt force, and explosive. The Dominator was ripped apart. He couldn’t utilize his micro machines against the remaining targets, because the ships were flying away too fast, and he still had essentially no momentum since he had teleported from the surface. He applied emergency thrust to avoid the aft attacks that came.

Sheila meanwhile was fleeing as well; she intercepted him, placing herself between the incoming weapons and Cranston’s Forebode, using her fully charged force field to protect them.

They only managed to take down that one ship; the other four meanwhile limped away.

That left a total of eight ships, including the flagship.

“A cloaked vessel just appeared with one of the fleeing groups,” Xander said. “It appears to be a rift ship—it’s firing a blue beam in front of their common path.”

Jain restored full communications, as per the plan; the other members of the Void Warriors reappeared on the virtual bridge one by one as they did the same. All except for Medeia, who remained cloaked and didn’t want to give away her position.

“Let’s get into orbit,” Jain said.

His nose was still positioned skyward, so he fired aft thrust and accelerated.

Two minutes later, Xander announced: “A rift just opened. Two of the vessels escaped, along with the rift ship.”

“Going to call their friends, of course,” Gavin commented.

Jain glanced at his tactical map. There were only six ships out there now, including Prescott’s flagship; the latter’s indicator was still frozen on the map, as his vessel hadn’t yet come into view beyond the horizon. He’d obviously decelerated.

Cranston noticed, too, because he said: “Maybe Prescott wants to catch us in a pincer maneuver.”

Jain glanced at the other enemy ships on his map, and saw that they were decelerating and turning around, preparing to make another flyby.

“Join me,” Jain said. “Let’s form a coordinated defense. Pattern Bravo.”

The Void Warriors accelerated to match Jain’s trajectory, and moved inward, cozying up to within a thousand kilometers of him.

The two groups of incoming ships combined as well, forming a flotilla of five.

“Well look at that, we actually outnumber them by one,” Mark said.

A dot crested the horizon behind the incoming Heracles vessels. It slowly grew bigger. The heat signature matched that of another Dominator Class vessel.

“How did Prescott reposition his ship to the other side of the moon that fast?” Mark asked.

The dot continued to grow larger, fast encroaching on the five Heracles craft. It was moving faster than a Dominator was supposed to move.

“He must have some alien tech,” Jain said. “And he’s eager to join in this last battle. Wants to finish us off. I told you we could use his hatred against us. He’s committed his ships to a fatal attack run.”

“In this case, I’m not sure their attack run is going to be fatal, at least for them,” Cranston said. “You have to wonder, if he has engine technology like that, what other alien tech does he possess?”

“We’re taking raptor fire,” Xander announced. “Across the fleet.”

“Return raptor fire,” Jain said. “Give it to them worse than what we’re getting.”

“This is strange…” Sheila said.

“What?” Jain asked.

“The flagship isn’t firing with them,” Sheila said. “Even though they’re well within heavy laser range.”

“That is strange,” Jain said.

“Maybe he wants to make every hit count,” Mark said.

There wasn’t time to rotate their opposite banks of raptors to bear. Jain waited until the range was sub-twelve thousand, and then he unleashed his barracuda. The vessels were anticipating, and decelerated, falling toward the surface, and diving out of the way of his attacks. They avoided the incoming black holes in a similar manner.

A black hole opened directly in front of Jain.

“Emergency dive!” Jain ordered the fleet. He decelerated just like the enemy units had, and dove underneath the gravity well, barely missing the event horizon.

Bright flashes erupted on the external camera feed ahead.

“Prescott is opening fire…” Sheila said.

Jain glanced at the tactical display. “Where are the indicators? I’m not seeing any missiles, or bolts.”

“He’s not firing at us,” Sheila said.

Jain returned his attention to the video feed. The five incoming ships were still moving forward, but all of their running lights were off, as if they were drifting. They also had scorch marks blackening various sections of their hulls.

“Did Prescott just use us to help him achieve a pincer attack against his own allies?” Gavin said in disbelief.

“That’s exactly what he did,” Sheila said.

Jain rubbed his chin.

Why do those black scorch marks look familiar…

And then he realized where he had seen them before. “Scatter!”

24

“Don’t let Prescott get within six thousand kilometers!” Jain continued.

He continued diving, but also issued emergency starboard thrust, darting his ship away to the left. The other ships similarly separated, moving away from the incoming Dominator.

The enemy vessel launched large blobs.

“Wait a second…” Cranston said. “Is this…”

The Dominator facade fell away, replaced with the alien pyramid.

“Holoemitters,” Gavin spat.

The large blobs struck the disabled Heracles vessels, disintegrating large portions of them. Two of the ships broke apart entirely because of the impacts.

The pyramid launched more blobs at the scattering Void Warriors, along with those small pyramidal transports that contained the alien boarding parties.

“Fire at those incoming targets!” Jain said.

Xander and the others did so.

“He was indistinguishable from a real Mind Refurb,” Cranston said. “So real, that all this time he was able to mislead an entire fleet of intelligent machines.”

“There’s a reason he’s been capturing our AI cores,” Jain said.

“He’s been studying us,” Sheila said. “Learning to mimic us.”

Gavin nodded. “If the alien was able to crack the encryption schemes, it would have had access to the full knowledge of Admiral Williams, Commander Jang, and whatever other Mind Refurb AI cores it captured.”

“I’m going to call them the Mimics,” Mark said.

Jain continued to focus on shooting down the blobs, and alien transports, while the alien vessel turned toward him.

“I’m receiving a transmission from the ship,” Xander said.

“Connect us,” Jain said.

Prescott appeared before them on the virtual bridge. “You’ve been a wonderful distraction, but it’s time for you to end. Like your brethren.”

“Why are—” Jain began.

Prescott winked out before Jain could finish.

“He closed the connection,” Xander said.

“How rude,” Cranston said.

The Pyramid ignored the other vessels and concentrated on following Jain. It was slowly closing… obviously trying to get within six thousand kilometers—the range of its lightning weapon.

Letting momentum carry him forward, Jain fired starboard thrust to swing his nose around. He also angled his barracuda far to the right, to the maximum extents of its forty-five degree throw angle, so that as soon as the target was in sight, he opened fire.

Despite the close range, the pyramid was easily able to avoid the attacks, thanks to its inertialess drives.

“I can’t shake him,” Jain said. He stopped firing as his weapon neared overheating, and instead concentrated his fire on the blobs and smaller pyramids that were continuing to approach him, both of which were moving faster than the bigger vessel.

Mark fired several black hole bolts, aiming them between Jain’s Talos and the alien vessel. Cranston and Sheila unleashed their remaining missiles.

The Mimic vessel altered course, swerving around the black holes as they took shape. Several of the hellraisers came in next, hitting the ship, but causing no apparent damage.

The alien vaulted over the final black hole…

Right into Medeia.

Her vessel blinked into view, the blade of the Arcane having penetrated deep inside the hull in a stabbing motion. She ground to a halt a few meters above the base of the blade. A dangerous maneuver: she could have ripped off the entire section if she had penetrated any deeper.

The Mimic stopped all course changes and began to drift.

“Ha!” Medeia said. “He fell for the same trick again.”

“Unfortunately, it looks like this time, he was ready,” Sheila said.

Medeia slowly moved downward, as if sinking into the pyramid. Jain zoomed in and saw alien micro machines swarming all over her sword extension. There were no doubt more of them just inside the penetrated hull region, pulling her inside.

“Oh, shit,” Medeia said.

“You’re going to have to blow away the entire section!” Jain said.

“I’m dispatching security drones and munchkins to the internal decks ASAP,” Medeia said.

Mark quickly dispersed the tears in spacetime he had created.

Cranston had recharged enough to teleport again, and he did so now. He appeared above Medeia and deployed his micro machines to begin sawing at her sword extension.

Meanwhile, Jain decelerated, and took advantage of the alien vessel’s lack of acceleration to launch several energy bolts. The pulses slammed into the alien hull, carving away big chunks. He had to stop when he overheated.

“Mark, you need to launch black holes,” Medeia said. “Fire into the craters Jain formed.”

“No,” Mark said. “I won’t risk losing you.”

Medeia shook her head. “It’s too late.” She paused and cocked her head slightly. “What if I ejected my AI core? Sent some rovers to retrieve it, and launched it in a transport? Then would you fire?”

“No, Mark is right,” Jain said. “We can’t lose your ship. It’ll take us eight months to build a new one. And we won’t have the alien material in your sword section, so you’ll lose that.”

“But I’m going to lose it anyway, at this rate!” Medeia said.

The Mimic vessel abruptly came online; Jain knew because it exhibited a faint rotation around its Z axis and straightened slightly—that familiar side effect of its inertialess drives turning on.

The alien ship promptly fired its lightning weapon at Cranston. It struck his ship, and as electricity sparked across the hull, another big bolt arced out from the side of the Forebode and struck Medeia’s Arcane.

Both of their avatars vanished from the virtual bridge.

The other Void Warriors, who were beyond the six-thousand kilometer mark, remained unaffected. Jain suddenly realized why they had gone down so fast during the original battle that none of them could remember... they had been too close together when the weapon struck, and it had probably arced between all of them.

The running lights on both stricken ships deactivated as the sparks swept across their surfaces; the lightning weapon shut down and the bolts faded, leaving the Forebode drifting, and the Arcane obviously offline.

“Oh no,” Mark said. “No.”

“Turn off your emotions,” Jain commanded. “We need you to stay focused.”

“But she’s gone,” Mark said. “They’re gone. Dead.”

“There’s a chance they survived, like I did, and Gavin,” Jain said. Though it was slim, considering that none of their shielding devices had intercepted the lightning weapon this time. “And a better chance we can restore them from their backups, if we can salvage their ships. We have to concentrate on recovering them now more than ever. Shut off your emotions!”

Mark’s tortured expression became blank. He nodded. “It’s done.”

For some reason, Jain was unaffected by their deaths, at least at the current moment. He would grieve later, but not now, not when he had a fleet to lead. He suspected his resiliency had something to do with his background in the Teams. And there was that phrase again, popping up in his mind.

Death before submission.

“We’re going to retrieve their wrecks, or die trying,” Jain said softly.

The Mimic launched more blobs at each of them, but otherwise remained in place.

“Why isn’t it approaching?” Mark asked.

“Or fleeing?” Sheila added.

“Their inertialess drives must have taken damage,” Jain said. “They have power to their lightning weapons, and that blob weapon, but nothing else. For the time being.”

The Arcane continued to be drawn inside; no doubt the alien intended to use the metals in Medeia’s craft for repairs.

Jain fired his lasers at the blobs, targeting them with three raptor turrets each, dispersing them.

The transports were harder to take down, since there were so many of them. His stingers fired when they got too close, but inevitably he felt the vibrations on his hull as the objects attached.

“Hull breaches on decks C and F,” Xander said. “Boarding parties of termites and lobsters have penetrated.”

“Send the munchkins and security rovers to deal with them,” Jain said. “I’m kind of occupied at the moment!”

The other Void Warriors faced similar distractions.

“We have to use Mark’s black hole weapon,” Gavin said. “While we still can. Forget Medeia. We can only save Cranston now.”

Mark glanced at Jain for confirmation. Even though his emotions were off, the conflict in his eyes was evident. If Jain gave the order to destroy the pyramid, with Medeia still attached, Mark would never forgive him.

“No,” Jain said. “Not yet. We have to break Medeia free. Xander, is the Arcane’s remote interface still active?”

“The interface runs on a different subsystem than Medeia’s main AI core,” Xander said. “So yes, it’s still active. Using your access codes, you should be able to access anything that is remote capable aboard.”

“Good,” Jain said. “Void Warriors, it’s time to take control of Medeia’s munchkins.”

* * *

Jain’s external camera activated. He stood in a wide passageway, with ample room above his head, and enough space on either side to extend both arms straight outward without touching the bordering bulkheads. It was an illusion of course, since he was inside a munchkin body, and lurking within a small conduit just above Medeia’s sword section.

He glanced down at his form and confirmed that he was operating a robot. He held a plasma rifle with both hands, and on his harness several demolition blocks were secured. The robot had been placing the blocks along the inside of the conduit, as part of Medeia’s attempt to sever her sword section.

Beside him, he spotted other munchkins and security robots, also which had been placing charges.

“Collect the charges!” Jain said. “There’s no point detonating them anymore, especially not here, not when her entire sword section has been swallowed by the pyramid now.”

Jain backtracked, and retrieved as many of the blocks as he could, as did the other munchkins in control of the Void Warriors. Jain took control of the other nearby autonomous units—security rovers and other munchkins—and instructed them to do the same.

“I’m not sure how confident I feel about leaving my Accomp in control of my ship while I’m gone,” Gavin said while he collected those charges and shoved them into spare pockets in his harness. “Especially while there are alien intruders aboard my own ship.”

“Just set your Accomp to recall you if certain parameters are met,” Mark said. “Like a breach in your engineering, or AI core areas. Or if the pyramid vessel starts to move again. That’s what I did.”

“As did I,” Jain said. “You don’t want to be stuck inside a munchkin when things start to go south aboard your own ship.”

When Jain was satisfied that there were no more charges to collect, he led the platoon away from the breach. He used the blueprints he had of the Arcane to take them through a scuttle to the next deck.

“Well, at least there aren’t any intruders on her ship, yet,” Mark commented.

“Don’t jinx us!” Sheila said.

Jain reached a hatch on the starboard side. It led to the surface and was meant to give the repair swarm access to the external hull.

He opened the hatch, and instead of finding deep space, he was met with a sheer wall of alien metal.

He tried his plasma weapon and formed a relatively deep crater.

“That’s a good sign,” Jain said.

He placed three demolition blocks into the crater produced by the plasma rifle, and hand-signaled the others to retreat. Surprisingly, they understood his archaic SEAL hand-talk.

Of course they did. They had entire databases of military history at their disposal.

He detonated the charges remotely. There was just a flash, and a gas-shockwave that rapidly dispersed. No explosive decompression—you needed an atmosphere for that.

He peered around the bend, only to see alien micro machines flooding inside the breach.

Moving quickly, Jain and the others targeted the termites with their plasma rifles. They were able to take down two or three with a single shot, as the superheated plasma passed through those in the forefront, and in moments they had the hatch clear.

They proceeded into the corridor beyond a short distance and continued to melt the termites they encountered. The light from the Arcane’s conduits didn’t penetrate very deeply. Jain activated his LIDAR, and smooth metal bulkheads led away inside, represented as a three-dimensional, wireframe.

Jain glanced along the inner edge where the Arcane’s sword section met the alien hull. Above, the alien hull pressed right up against the Arcane’s. Below, he could see a slight gap, which seemed to widen about a meter down, where the sword section began.

“As I suspected,” Jain said. “Her sword superheated the surrounding metal on impact. It already solidified, thanks to the heat loss. We just have to free the upper portion, and we’re good to break free.”

He placed two charges on the gap and retreated back inside the Arcane with his companions to detonate them.

When he returned, the gap had become two craters that had eaten into both hulls. Medeia’s metal wasn’t as badly damaged as the Mimic’s, due to the nature of the material composing her sword section.

At the bottom, where the two hulls met, he could see the crawlspace the sword section had melted away between the Mimic hull and the Arcane, one that existed around the entire area where the sword had stabbed—forming a sheath, of sorts. There were termites in there, slowly chewing into the Arcane’s section.

“All right,” Jain said. “It’s time to place some charges.”

“Uhh, I’m claustrophobic,” Sheila said. “And there are bugs in there.”

“Turn off your fear emotion,” Jain said.

She cocked her head. “Oh yeah.” She looked into the crawlspace. “I’m good.”

“How do we ensure that the termites don’t digest our charges?” Gavin asked.

“Clear a wide area around every charge you place,” Jain said. “And hope that’s good enough. I want the charges placed in the following distribution pattern.”

He overlaid the positions on the overhead map; several yellow dots appeared, encircling the top of the sheath formed by the Mimic’s hull where its hull pressed into the Arcane.

“We’re going to split up into two teams of two each,” Jain said. “Buddy system. Sheila, you’re with me. We’re taking the right. Gavin, Mark, you get the left.”

They split up, going in opposite directions. Jain pulled himself into the crawlspace and used his magnetic mounts to better pull himself along the Mimic’s surface. The hull of the Arcane pressed down just above him, forming a vaguely concave surface. To his right was the ceiling, where the Mimic’s hull abutted against the Arcane’s, forming only a slight crack between them.

He fired his plasma weapon to clear the termites from his path as he crawled forward. Sheila meanwhile guarded the rear, taking out any micro machines that decided to attack them from that direction.

Jain reached a yellow waypoint on his overhead map and affixed a demolition brick into the small crack in the ceiling formed by the two hulls. He positioned it so that most of the explosive force was directed outward, into the Mimic’s hull.

Then he shot at any other termites that he deemed too close nearby, and then continued toward the next waypoint. In that manner he proceeded forward, slowly clearing the way, and placing bricks as necessary. At the quarter way mark, he ran out, and let Sheila crawl in front of him, while he protected her back.

She placed her demolition blocks at the expected waypoints. The termites were becoming more aggressive and had begun to attack them more often.

“Hurry it up, people,” Jain said.

Sheila increased her speed as much as she was able.

Lobsters began to attack. So far, Jain was able to take them out before they fired plasma bursts from their mouths, but he wasn’t sure how long that would last. Though bigger than the termites, the crab-like robots could still easily fit into the crawlspace, just like the munchkins.

Jain took a plasma hit in his right arm and had to switch his plasma rifle to his left. He was still able to fire one-handed and took down the lobster.

“Faster…” Jain said.

The attacks continued to increase, and Sheila lost both legs so that she had to drag herself forward, with Jain’s help. Finally, they placed the last of their charges and met up with Mark and Gavin at the halfway mark.

“You look like crap,” Mark said.

“So do you,” Jain said.

Mark had both arms blown off, while Gavin had lost a leg, and part of his munchkin head.

Jain glanced at their harnesses. There were no charges left.

“You’ve placed them all?” Jain asked.

“It’s done,” Gavin said.

His head disintegrated entirely as a plasma blast from behind struck it.

“Bastard,” Mark spun, releasing a shot, and taking down the offending lobster.

“The termites are starting to dig into the charges,” Sheila said.

“All right, we’re done here,” Jain said.

He remotely detonated the charges, and his video feed went blank.

His perspective snapped back to the virtual bridge.

On the external camera, he saw the flashes all around the rim of the sword section where the charges detonated in the Mimic’s hull.

Jain accessed the Arcane’s drives, and as Xander had promised, he was able to bootstrap the engines using his access codes. He immediately reversed course and pulled her free.

The pyramid fired its lightning weapon at the Arcane again. Jain promptly lost his access, but the deed was done: Medeia’s momentum slowly carried her away from the ship.

He waited for the Arcane to get some range on the alien vessel.

On his HUD, he glanced at the top-down overhead map of the Talos. Red areas flashed, indicating where hull breaches had occurred. “So, are you still putting out fires aboard?”

“I presume you’re asking about the boarding parties?” Xander said. “Since flames can’t bloom in oxygenless environments...”

“Good guess,” Jain said.

“I’ve terminated the boarding parties for you, yes,” Xander said. “Though while you were gone, the attacks came with increasing frequency, almost like the alien was growing desperate.”

“We faced something similar before we planted the last of the charges,” Jain said. “But then the alien got smart, and started trying to target the charges themselves, but by then it was too late.”

“I have a feeling termites have limited object recognition capabilities,” Sheila said. “The alien only started targeting our charges when the lobsters came.”

Jain saw a flash on one of his external camera feeds: it was the one facing the pyramid vessel. He switched to that feed and enlarged it. Out of spite, or perhaps rage, the pyramid had fired its lightning weapon at the Arcane again. When that was done, it launched several blobs at the already disabled ship.

“Unleash raptors,” Jain said. “Don’t let those blobs hit. And Mark, Medeia’s range is good. Fire when ready.”

The lasers dispersed the blobs, preventing them from hitting the Arcane and disintegrating the vessel.

Meanwhile Mark launched several black hole bolts. These struck the gaps Jain’s barracuda had formed in the vessel, and also the stab wound Medeia’s vacant sword had left in its wake. Upon impact, they materialized. Black holes formed. Loose pieces around the edges of the gaps broke away, sucked inside the tears in reality; those gaps quickly began to turn into craters as the alien ship, unable to utilize its still offline drives, was slowly devoured.

“The alien is requesting communications,” Xander said.

Jain shook his head ever so slightly. “Why am I not surprised?”

25

“Accept the communication request,” Jain continued.

Prescott appeared on the virtual bridge before him. “All right, I surrender.”

“Surrender refused,” Jain said.

“What?” Prescott said. “You can’t refuse. I’ll give you technology. Weapons.”

“Why don’t I believe you?” Jain said.

Prescott took a menacing step forward. “You can’t do this. Your government has interstellar treaties. It is a war crime to destroy a surrendering vessel.”

“Well, first of all, I don’t trust that you won’t turn around and destroy us as soon as you’re repaired,” Jain said. “Let alone that you’ll share any technology with us. Second of all, we’re not part of this government you speak of. We’re officially rogues. So we don’t respect interstellar treaties.”

“I left your rift ship intact,” Prescott pleaded. “I specifically granted you this mercy, because I intended to let some of you go.”

Jain amped up his time sense, freezing Prescott’s avatar as well as everyone else’s. He transmitted his new timebase to the other Void Warriors on a private line and they promptly unfroze when they switched as well.

“So, I don’t plan to let him live,” Jain said. “Objections?”

“None,” Mark said. “He killed Cranston and Medeia. He doesn’t deserve our mercy.”

“We can’t trust this alien,” Gavin interjected. “Especially considering we can’t yet jump out of this system. He could be using spare materials to repair his inertialess drives at this moment, or digesting other parts of his ship with his termites for the same purpose. No matter what he says, if he comes fully online, and we’re still in the system, I doubt he’s going to let us go this time. Especially with the Arcane out of the picture. That’s really the only ship he was ever vulnerable to.”

“So, we all agree?” Jain glanced at Sheila, who nodded.

“Still,” Sheila said, folding her arms. “I wonder if we should disperse the black holes before his vessel is completely devoured. You know, to give ourselves an opportunity to salvage some of that wonderful alien technology… there’s so much of that ship that we haven’t yet explored. Can you imagine what we could do if we had inertialess drives?”

“It’s too risky,” Mark said. “If his AI core, or command center, remains intact after we shut down the black holes, he’ll be fighting us the whole time.”

“I’d have to agree,” Gavin said. “Let’s just destroy him. He’ll lie in wait, pretending to be offline, and the moment when we’re the most exposed, he’ll open fire and destroy us with that lightning weapon.”

“All right,” Jain said. “It’s settled. I’d accept his surrender if there was a way we could ensure he wouldn’t attack before we departed, but there just isn’t.”

He returned his time sense to normal and glanced at Prescott.

“I do have a question,” Jain said, switching to the common line. “Are you organic, or machine?”

Prescott smirked. “Let me go and I’ll tell you. I promise I won’t fire on you again. When I complete repairs, I’ll leave this place, and continue to harry the human race. I’ll relay to others of my kind that your particular fleet is not to be bothered ever again. You’ll live in peace. That’s what you want, isn’t it? That’s what all rogues want.”

“That would be great, if I could believe you,” Jain said. “But unfortunately, given your past behavior, I can’t. Good bye, Prescott, or whoever you are. You’ve made a formidable opponent. I’m almost sad to do this. Almost.”

“You’ll pay for this,” Prescott said. “You think I alone was a formidable opponent? Wait until my brethren arrive. I am but the forerunner. We’ll destroy your colonies and bases one by one until we reach your homeworld. And once we arrive, we’ll atomize the inhabitants, and—”

Jain cut the signal.

“Hey, that was getting kind of entertaining,” Gavin said. A bowl of popcorn had materialized in his hands, and he was munching on the popped kernels.

Jain shrugged. “I’d had enough.” He pulled up his external camera feed. “Well, it’s time to watch our handiwork. We earned this. Might as well enjoy it.”

He watched as the black holes continued to enlarge, until finally the entire ship was devoured by them.

Mark promptly fired his dispersion bolts, because the Void Warriors were being sucked in as well; especially Medeia’s Arcane, which was the closest.

Jain exhaled, and sat back in his seat. “So, it’s done.”

“Look at all the work it took us to eliminate that one ship,” Sheila said. “If that was only the forerunner, I hate to think what’s going to happen when more arrive.”

“We’ll have our work cut out for us,” Jain said. “Or actually, scratch that: the rest of the space navy will. We’re going to be long gone by then.”

“They don’t want us, after all,” Sheila said.

“No, they don’t,” Jain agreed.

“It’s too bad those Piranhas jumped out before Prescott turned,” Mark said. “Now they’ll never believe us. They’ll still think we’re responsible for everything that happened here, and they’ll be blindsided when the Mimics finally attack.”

“I plan to launch a probe deeper into human space before we depart,” Jain said. “A probe containing a video log of everything that happened here. It will be our last present to them.”

“They probably won’t believe it,” Gavin said.

“I know,” Jain said. “But we have to try.”

“So, when the Daktor is repaired, and we’ve dispatched that probe of yours, what direction are we going to take?” Gavin asked. “Coreward?”

Jain nodded. “I want to get as far away from here as possible.”

“How do we know we won’t end up deeper in Mimic territory?” Gavin said.

“If we do, we’ll retreat, and keep retreating until we find a system that is free,” Jain said. “And then we’ll continue coreward, jumping from system to system until the last alien we encountered is several hundred light years behind us.” He paused to regard his Void Warriors, focusing on each face in turn. The faces of his friends. “Maybe someday we’ll return to human territory, after we’ve built a base and a bigger fleet. But until then, we’re not welcome here. Not by humanity and its Mind Refurbs, nor these Mimics.”

* * *

Jain and the Void Warriors remained in orbit and launched their repair swarms to mend all of damage they had accumulated thus far. They also reactivated the Daktor so that it could fix its ruined gate segment.

Unfortunately, Jain had to restore Cranston and Medeia from backups, as their AI cores hadn’t survived the lightning attack.

When it was done, Cranston and Medeia materialized on the bridge. They both looked stunned.

Cranston glanced down at his body, and his eyes defocused.

“Lost time,” Cranston muttered. He looked at Jain. “We died again?”

“I’m afraid so,” Jain said.

Cranston appeared thoughtful. “So, a part of me gets to find out what exists beyond this life then, after all. Whether or not we machines have a soul.”

“I’m sure we do,” Jain said. “Right now, the other you is unraveling the vast mysteries of the universe as we speak.”

“Or he’s simply floating in darkness,” Cranston said. “Like our intermedial loading stage. Hovering in that senseless, eternal oblivion.”

Jain didn’t say anything. He didn’t have the heart to, because while he didn’t know the truth, didn’t know what awaited beyond this machine life, sometimes he felt Cranston had it right. Oblivion awaited. Senseless, thoughtless oblivion.

We’re not human. How can we have souls?

Medeia’s voice drew him out of his dark thoughts.

“I’m having trouble remembering who I am,” Medeia said. “My past. I mean, the past few months since I awoke are crystal clear. But before that, it’s blurry. I remember three kids. Two girls, one boy. I think they’re mine, but, I don’t remember what they were like. Just their faces...”

Jain nodded. “Unfortunately, your backup was only partially intact. The alien fired his lightning weapon repeatedly against you, out of spite mostly. So we expected you would have holes in your memory. Sort of like I do.”

“Except you weren’t restored from a backup,” Mark said.

“No,” Jain said, lowering his eyes. He was the only one who hadn’t yet died since first awakening. Not that that meant anything.

Sure it means something. I haven’t had to test whether I have a soul, yet.

“You don’t remember your kids anymore?” Sheila asked Medeia.

“Not really,” Medeia told her.

“That’s probably for the best,” Sheila said. “Their memory tortured you. You told us once, after we restored you the first time, that you wished you had never done this to yourself. Never scanned your mind.”

Medeia slowly nodded. “Maybe my memory loss is for the best, then.”

* * *

It took another two days for the Daktor to finish repairing the gate section. By then the space navy had returned with reinforcements. Jain didn’t have to send a probe deeper into human space with a video log of his final fight after all: he was able to send it directly to the reinforcements.

Unfortunately, the video and the accompanying message were met with the same skepticism the last battle group had exhibited, and they insisted that the Void Warriors surrender forthwith.

“They’re never going to believe us,” Mark said.

“No, not until the Mimics return in force,” Jain said. “But as I told Gavin, I had to try. My conscience wouldn’t let me do otherwise.” He glanced at Sheila. “Jump us out of here.”

“Just for you,” she replied.

The reinforcements were still half a day away when the team jumped. In the new territory, the Void Warriors computed a jump vector to a system fifty light years away, and when twelve hours had passed since the last rift, they jumped again. In this way they continued to move slowly coreward, calculating based on the positions of high metallicity stars they picked out via spectral bands.

Repairs to the rest of the starships were finished at that point. Sheila had devoted several of her internal 3D printers to developing new human-sized combat robots, and she presented him with the final copies a week after starting. They were too big to fit any of his conduits, so he had to keep them permanently stowed in his more spacious cargo bay.

“These will prove handy if we ever want to do any urban spelunking,” Jain said.

“Yes, we’ll need a planet with life for that,” Sheila said.

“I’ll let you know as soon as we spot one,” Jain said.

They continued jumping from system to system, putting as much distance between themselves and human space as possible.

Two and a half weeks later, in some tertiary star system, Sheila informed him that she finished the off-site backup pods.

“Well that was early,” Jain said.

“I got a little lucky,” Sheila told him. “The failure rate wasn’t as bad as I originally predicted.”

The team members transferred copies of their backups to her. The bandwidth requirements made it so they had to be in close proximity to the Wheelbarrow, and each ship spent two hours transmitting the required data. Then she dispatched the pods to each of the Void Warriors via her transports.

Jain gingerly loaded the copies into his cargo bay. He was carrying one pod for each member of the team, for a total of six. The other members likewise carried six pods.

“Talk about off-site, redundant backups,” Cranston said. “This is overkill.”

“But I feel better already,” Sheila said.

“I don’t,” Gavin said. “If we die, those backups aren’t us. We’ve been over this.”

Jain glanced at Cranston and Medeia, who refused to meet his eyes. They stared at their consoles, as if totally absorbed in their private HUDs.

Sheila noticed their discomfort but didn’t say anything. She returned her attention to Gavin. “I’m just happy my memories and personality will live on. None of you will be able to tell the difference, and that’s all that matters. Besides, when it comes down to it, the dead don’t care: it’s the living who these backups are for. There are more than a few people I would have liked to have backups of while I was still human, that’s for sure. But now, you guys are all I have. If any of you die, of course I’m restoring you.”

“So we can keep you company...” Gavin said flatly.

“That’s right!” Sheila said.

Cranston looked up. “You know, that actually makes me feel better. I was beginning to wonder if maybe it might be better if you never revived me. I felt like a copy of a copy, someone you revived out of obligation, or maybe guilt. But now I realize it’s more than that. So much more. I’m making a difference in your lives.”

“You are,” Jain agreed. “We’re always going to be here for one another. We’re closer than any family will ever be. Closer than brothers and sisters.”

Mark reached out and gripped Medeia by the hand. She looked up into his eyes, and her own were glistening.

“It’s time to jump again,” Jain said.

“When are we going to stop?” Gavin asked. “And start building that base you talked about? We have a fleet to construct, remember.”

“I’m not really sure,” Jain said. “Maybe when we find a system that feels like home.”

“You know, I’ve always said, home is up here,” Gavin tapped his temple. “We bring it with us wherever we go, thanks to VR.”

“I suppose we do,” Jain said. “But we still have an external home. Or we will, once we choose to settle down. But until then, Sheila: fold space. Tunnel us to that star.”

“First star on the left and straight on until dawn,” Sheila said.

Jain frowned at her. “You mangled the quote, you know, Machinist’s Mate...”

“Just for you, Admiral,” she said with a wide grin.

Thank you very, very much for reading.

I hope you enjoyed Forerunner. 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 Forerunner 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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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 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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