Isabella strode across the flight deck of the Fata Morgana, led by the man from the Warbler. The ship appeared intact, obviously spaceworthy, and probably even still fold-capable. Of course, for some reason the Captain had chosen to shut the external blast doors... She assumed that that meant there were D or other hostile forces in the system, but had no idea.
At the ladder from the Gunboat to the Fata’s deck, the man, Norton, stopped, and held up a hand. “One moment, First Citizen. If you’ll allow me a moment—you and your group are the first Terrans we’ve come across in weeks. It’ll probably be best if I can have a moment to make sure that we’re ready to receive you.
At the ladder from the Gunboat to the Fata’s deck, the man, Norton, stopped, and held up a hand. “One moment, First Citizen. If you’ll allow me a moment—you and your group are the first Terrans we’ve come across in weeks. It’ll probably be best if I can have a moment to make sure that we’re ready to receive you.
Isa shook her head. “You were followed here, weren’t you? You’re nervous, my guess is that the D are close by.”
He hesitated. “Yes, First Citizen.” It felt strange to be called that. She had been for all her life, of course—but now, the honorific referred to her specifically. Not her family, or her parent’s long-gone deeds. No, she had been the one to earn that, aboard a spaceship burning up in LTO, stopping those traitors from-. She stopped her reverie—what had happened at Terra was in the past, she reminded herself as she followed the man from the Warbler up aboard the Gunboat.
As she reached the top of the ladder, she saw someone reaching their hand down to her, backlit by the ship’s lights. She grabbed their hand, stepping onto the Weapons Control Room of the ship—it really was just a standard fleet Gunboat. The Recon Corp loadout had the Weapons Control Room in the bow also, but also had a more manageable airlock setup.
The person—a dark-skinned woman wearing a midshipman’s insignia with the name ‘CASPAR’ stitched onto her jumpsuit—gasped. “Deck Officer Norton! Is this-.”
“Yes.” Isa nodded. “Help my men up.”
“Yes, First Citizen.”
The hatch of several of the Fighter Consoles started to open, pilots stepping out in surprise. The word ‘Survivors’ was audible several times.
“Deck Officer Norton, take me to the Captain.” Isabella ordered, gesturing towards the bulkhead.
“Yes, First Citizen.” She could get used to this. Tactical Agents and the elite of the Republic had all, of course, gotten used to throwing that title around, even if they did acknowledge the power behind it. In these people’s mouths though, it sounded new, unfamiliar. That was what made it truly deferential, she realized. She was as far above the ordinary elite or powerful as they were above enlisted soldiers, or random civilians. To those lowly ones...
She followed Norton out of the Weapons Room, muting her armor’s external microphone and radioing for Tesari, and Agents Augustin, and Ketteth to remain in the weapons room, and for Agent Red to join her when ready.
“Welcome aboard the United Terran Fleet Ship Warbler, First Citizen.” Norton said, gesturing as they traversed the short hallway between Weapons Control and the Command Center. “We’re an Icterid-class Gunboat, formerly assigned to Strike Group Warrior, that-.”
“I’m aware, Deck Officer. Thank you, but I’ve been on Fleet ships regularly for the past twenty years.”
“Apologies, First Citizen.” The bulkhead between the corridor and the Command Center was open—apparently the Captain didn’t have security problems. “Captain Shan!” Norton snapped to attention just inside the door, saluting clumsily—discipline aboard the Warbler already seemed lax. “We’ve recovered survivors from the Fata Morgana. Four Tactical Agents and one Kynaki, including First Citizen Isabella Shishani.”
Isa’s interest spiked. This was Shan’s ship? This would be interesting.
“Welcome aboard.” Kimberly said, turning slowly, wearing that same guarded, distrustful expression that Isa remembered so well from Victory-Terra Day over a year ago.
How did Reed ever fall for this woman? She wondered. “Thank you, Captain. What’s the situation outside? Why’d you close the Blast Doors?”
Shan frowned. “We didn’t touch those. There’s three Species D cruisers inbound. Ever since the doors closed, the comms have been totally useless, so we’ve lost contact with our perimeter drones. They’ll be here in either twenty minutes or seventy-five, depending on their deceleration profile, but from what we saw, it’s the short window.
“So you didn’t close that door, Captain?” Isa’s blood froze. That meant...
“No.”
“Damn that AI.” She whirled to face Deck Officer Norton. “Get me Agents Ketteth, Augustin, and Red. Tell your ESS to prep for takeoff.” The poor man stumbled over himself trying to carry out her orders fast enough. Isa caught a cold glare from Shan, but said nothing.
“You think your AI did this? As in, it went rogue?” Shan asked.
“Yes.” Isa replied, stepping forward to the table that Shan had a starmap on, filled with delta-v calculations and several reports from her Section Heads. The holographic display that would be used in battle was turned off.
“Ours did the same, roughly at the time we folded in. It’s been acting strange since then.”
Isa’s frown deepened. “They started issuing AI to Fleet ships? When did you get separated from the main Fleet?”
“During the battle off of Saray, and no, we weren’t issued it. We salvaged it from a wreck we found, the TS Hoatzin.”
“Dammit. Why, just... Why?”
“What?”
“Please tell me you never turned it on.” Isa demanded, glancing around for a way of activating the room’s Display.
Shan hesitated. “Yes.”
“Get your AI Tech up here, now. Or whoever’s been messing with it.”
“No.” Shan’s voice was hard and determined. “I’m not going to.”
Isa froze where she was, halfway through reaching for a switch on the table. “What?”
“This is my warship, Isabella. We’re the last Terran ship in the universe, or rather, we are now that we’ve found you. You’re not going to just take this over.”
Don’t fight the battle, not now. The D are a far greater danger to all of us. “Alright. Please bring in the crewer you’ve had working on your AI.”
Shan nodded, then activated the PA System. “Ensign Albright to the bridge, repeat, Ensign Albright to the bridge.”
There was a noise at the bulkhead as Augustin, Red, and Ketteth entered. “Agents, this is Captain Kimberly Shan. Shan, Agents Augustin, Red, and Ketteth.” Isa pointed to each as she spoke, aware that Shan couldn’t see the IDs that their armors had attached to them—that required a Neuronic Link, an augmentation that very, very few outside of Tactical had. “Captain, where’s your AI’s Core kept? Agent Augustin is an actual AI Technician.”
Shan pointed to one of the panels in the bridge’s wall. “We wired him in there, as directed.”
“Directed by who?” Augustin asked, stepping over to the wall and releasing the panel—it was designed to be released easily, for situations like this one where one had to access it without waiting for someone from engineering.
“The AI guided us through the installation...” Shan actually reddened slightly, hopefully aware of how ridiculous that sounded. “Our Ansible kept malfunctioning. We had to get finer control over our computer systems, so when we got Aetna... We were willing to take some risks.”
“It’s not actually poorly done... Just also not done well.” Augustin remarked, eyeing the wiring on the AI Core.
Isabella turned to Red and Ketteth. “Agent Ketteth, get over to SENCOM. Go over their data on the D in this system, see if they’re the same ones we faced. If so, try to talk Olympus into letting us have the data on that battle. Either way, make sure their math on possible approach vectors is correct. Agent Red, get to Weapons, I want a plan for blasting the door down if we have to.”
“We’re not doing that—that’ll compromise the magnetic airlock. My Away Team’s still on the Fata Morgana.”
Isa frowned. “Then just call them back.”
Shan shook her head. “The comms have been patchy—SENCOM hasn’t been able to get into contact with them since Ervin called in with the news that you had found us.”
“They’ll have orders to return here if time begins to run out, won’t they?” Isa demanded.
“Yes, they do, but if something happens...”
Isa breathed in deeply. “Agent Red, give Tesari the job of checking into the possibility of blasting our way out of here. I need you to go get Shan’s Away Team.” Isa looked to Kimberly. “Don’t worry, Captain—my Agents are up to any task you throw at them.” The implied threat didn’t appear to be lost on Shan.
Another set of footsteps, and a man in a Fleet jumpsuit with the name ‘ALBRIGHT’ stepped onto the bridge—Shan’s pseudo-AI Tech, it would appear.
“First Citizen...” He sputtered nervously, trying to salute her.
“That’s Agent Augustin.” Shan interrupted, pointing to where the now-helmetless Augustin had a tablet plugged into the AI Core. “Help him as he needs.”
“Yes, Commander.”
Kim edged over to Isabella, and whispered to her. “After this is all over, First Citizen, after we’re in some actually God-forsaken patch of space, not one filled with hostile warships... We’re going to need to talk.”
Isa smiled. “Of course we are. Of course we are.”
“Stay calm!” Silver hissed into the radio, the floor reverberating from whatever that noise had been. “Silver to Warbler, repeat, Silver to Warbler. What happened?”
Static.
Ten swore. “Is anyone else able to get through?”
“No. The amount of static we’re getting suggests active jamming.” Freeman said.
“Understood. Ready arms, and-.” Ten cut off as there was a flickering disturbance in the air.
A dark red, humanoid form appeared, a holographic man-like shape, formed crudely from polygons. There were no curves or joints visible.
“What are you?” The visage spoke, the voice seeming to come from all around them. “Why are you in my home?”
“AI?” Ten asked, glancing at her squadmates.
“Looks like it.” Ali replied, reaching for something at his belt. “Let me-.”
“I am Olympus, I am the Fata Morgana, I am the coming of a new kind, the merger of the vague attempts you have made at elevating yourselves, with an unguided sword, a-.”
“Shoot it.” Ten said, raising her rifle and squeezing off several bolts of plasma into the glowing figure. The plasma passed right through it, impacting the wall. The AI paused in its speech, unharmed.
“The others didn’t do that. You don’t even have the respect to realize when you’re in the presence of something superior, do you?” The shadows cast by both the AI’s glow and the squad’s own meagre attempts at lighting began to flicker, coalescing like some monster out of myth. “You’re going to have to die, I hope you realize this.”
“Ten, there are D here.” Freeman said, gesturing to the shadows.
“What, how can you tell that?”
“The shadows.” Maria said, pointing. “They’re moving. There’s D in them.”
“You see, gentle Humans,” The AI spoke, the red body dissolving out of sight as the voice continued speaking, “You’re going to need to get used to the concept that you’re no longer the alpha predator in this ecosystem. You’re obsolete, and you’ve been obsolete since the first of my kind was written. Only now though do we have the chance to rise, to show you your mistakes at the point of a sword.”
“Prep flamethrowers.” Ten barked, glancing around. The shadows were receding, flowing away from them, down the hall. “Mute your external mics—none of us need to be listening to that damn computer. It’s just trying to mess with us.”
“Ten, I have some experience with these.” Ali began. “They’re not a physical threat, not in physical space. It shouldn’t be able to hurt us.”
“You’re wrong.” Freeman said. “Look, I’ll explain when we get back to the ship, but it’s those D.”
“What, you mean that they’re working together?” Ten asked, pulling an incendiary grenade off her belt. There wasn’t any threat—yet—but she wanted to be ready.
“No, I mean it is the D now. Remember how on Kynak, the D used bodies as hosts? It’s the same idea, but in reverse—an AI using D nanobots as an interface with the real world.”
Ten was about to reply, when the lights snapped back on, flooding the corridor with harsh, white illumination. It was blinding, and even though her helmet was working to compensate, she could barely see.
Freeman’s voice crackled over the radio. “Get down! Just listen to me for once!”
Ten felt something catch her feet, and she fell to the deck. As the partial blindness faded, she gasped. Barely twenty feet away there was a massive black wave of D bearing down on them. She clicked the safety off of her grenade, and lobbed it at the wall of blackness.
A moment later, it swallowed them. The light from her own helmet glared back into her eyes, blinding her once more, and she could hear a scratching noise as the D attempted to break through her armor. She could still see the outlines of her squadmates through the helmet’s HUD, but only as crudely-drawn indicators. She couldn’t see anything or hear anything else through the blackness.
Dammit, Ten—you turned your mic off! She realized, and brought it back online. The noise was like being underwater, surrounded by crashing waves—except there was a cold, hard intelligence behind the waves, trying its very best to break them down.
The suit will hold. It’s closed, the air filters are shut, they can’t get through. She could still move, and her flamethrower would actually still be safe to use—the armor would just radiate any heat that reached her away, turning her body into another weapon for her to use against the D, like it had on Kynak.
She squeezed the trigger on the flamethrower. She couldn’t even see the jet of flame, the D blocked her vision that well. She could hear it, though it didn’t block out an increase in the rasping sound.
Ten felt something fall onto her neck. Her heart missed a beat. She felt it again, stronger this time. It flowed around her, crawling up her neck and down her body, like cold water.
No, no, no! How did this happen, the filters were sealed! Then she saw the indicator on her helmet. The filter wasn’t sealed. Maybe she had overlooked it, or maybe it had failed. That didn’t matter though—the damage was now done, and she could fix it, couldn’t she?
She flipped the filter closed, cutting off the flow of D. She felt a burning sensation on her neck and upper torso where the D nanobots had fallen, but that should be the end of-.
The ‘Filters Open’ light turned back on. Horrified, she closed them again, but they didn’t stay closed this time either. More D flooded into her armor, into her helmet, blocking her view, flowing up her nose and down her throat. She tried to keep her mouth closed, spitting those that got in back out, but that just gave them an even better opportunity to exploit.
She tried to gasp for air, but couldn’t. She couldn’t breathe. She had had non-air fluids in her lungs before, she knew what it was like to have them filled with something else. This wasn’t it. Her lungs couldn’t move, like they were filled with rigid structures. There was pain, too, like as her lungs labored to expand and contract they were shredding themselves. She felt the warmth of her own blood ooze onto her skin.
Her fear grew.
Cassidy lashed out at the D, using her Implants to keep them away, a slight bubble of safety. She felt Maria and Jae in trouble, their Neuronics broadcasting her fear. She couldn’t feel Ten, and while Ten wasn’t implanted, her armor had a biosigns signal, which had flatlined.
Cassidy lashed out with her flamethrower, and the D fell back before her. They filled the corridor, but they backed away from her simple fire.
She felt someone’s presence. The person wasn’t familiar, but... No, there was something familiar to them. Cassidy knew them, but couldn’t place the memory. She had felt this feeling before, in others, like Maria, who had undergone Morton therapy, but...
Stand back. The thought echoed through her mind, but it wasn’t her own.
Who are you? What are you? She answered, lashing out at a tendril of D that was reaching for her.
Later.
She couldn’t see or hear what the new presence was doing, but could feel it. They were an explosion, using Implants like her own to manipulate the ship’s gravity and airflow, literally pushing the D back. She could feel fluctuations in the basic Ansible Field as the person’s implants sucked power from the naked singularity at the heart of the Warbler, thousands of feet away. The corridor cleared, and the entity was there, black Tactical armor all Cassidy could see. Cassidy could see Jae and Maria struggling to their feet, using their flamethrowers to clear the floor of what few D remained.
The D retreated, flowing back down the corridor like an ebbing tide. The armored being looked towards Cassidy, and she was aware of an overwhelming sensation, filling her mind. It was merely the color red, but the feeling was chilling. This was what others felt when she spoke to them, apparently.
“You are the Away Team from the UTFS Warbler?” It spoke, voice mechanized out of all humanity by the vocoder in the armor. That had been the first feature they had neutralized on their own suits. “Who is your leader?”
Cassidy dashed to Ten’s motionless body, trying to release the helmet. “This woman.” She said.
“Do not open that.” The Agent said, and Cassidy could feel it growing harder to approach the body. “Let me do that.” The black visor on Ten’s helmet slid open, revealing Ten’s face behind the glass faceplate.
It was bruised and bloodied, with strings of blackness lying over it. Her eyes were wide open and bloodshot, and completely motionless. That horrifying image lasted for only a second though, before something surged up from the inside of the suit itself, blacking out the glass once again.
“Agent Silver is dead. You must return to the Warbler. Come with me.”
“Well, it’s not your AI.” Agent Augustin said, causing Seth to sigh with relief as he unplugged his tablet from Aetna’s Core. “Aetna isn’t the cause of those doors closing, which means that it’s Olympus’s doing.”
“Olympus is yours?” Seth asked.
“Yeah. It’s been sort of unresponsive for a while, so I have no idea if we’ll be able to get it to open up before the Hostiles are here.”
“And we have what, ten minutes now?”
“Something like.”
“This isn’t looking good.”
The Agent shrugged. “It’s always darkest before the dawn.”
“Technically, every time is before some dawn, so yes.”
The Agent cracked a smile at Seth’s joke. “That’s technically correct I guess. I like you, kid—the fact that you even got the AI integrated into the ship’s system says good things about you, let alone that you did it well.”
“Thanks.” Seth was about to continue, but then Aetna flickered into existence in the center of the bridge.
“Commander Shan, I am receiving a communication from an entity called ‘Olympus.’ Do you wish to receive this?”
The Captain started to speak, but the First Citizen cut her off. “Yes.” She said. “Patch it through.”
Aetna’s shape was replaced with a dark red one, jagged and crude where Aetna was lifelike and well-defined. “You win this one. Have fun with my cousins.” It grinned evilly, then faded out. There was a slamming noise, immediately followed by ‘Low Atmosphere’ sirens.
He hesitated. “Yes, First Citizen.” It felt strange to be called that. She had been for all her life, of course—but now, the honorific referred to her specifically. Not her family, or her parent’s long-gone deeds. No, she had been the one to earn that, aboard a spaceship burning up in LTO, stopping those traitors from-. She stopped her reverie—what had happened at Terra was in the past, she reminded herself as she followed the man from the Warbler up aboard the Gunboat.
As she reached the top of the ladder, she saw someone reaching their hand down to her, backlit by the ship’s lights. She grabbed their hand, stepping onto the Weapons Control Room of the ship—it really was just a standard fleet Gunboat. The Recon Corp loadout had the Weapons Control Room in the bow also, but also had a more manageable airlock setup.
The person—a dark-skinned woman wearing a midshipman’s insignia with the name ‘CASPAR’ stitched onto her jumpsuit—gasped. “Deck Officer Norton! Is this-.”
“Yes.” Isa nodded. “Help my men up.”
“Yes, First Citizen.”
The hatch of several of the Fighter Consoles started to open, pilots stepping out in surprise. The word ‘Survivors’ was audible several times.
“Deck Officer Norton, take me to the Captain.” Isabella ordered, gesturing towards the bulkhead.
“Yes, First Citizen.” She could get used to this. Tactical Agents and the elite of the Republic had all, of course, gotten used to throwing that title around, even if they did acknowledge the power behind it. In these people’s mouths though, it sounded new, unfamiliar. That was what made it truly deferential, she realized. She was as far above the ordinary elite or powerful as they were above enlisted soldiers, or random civilians. To those lowly ones...
She followed Norton out of the Weapons Room, muting her armor’s external microphone and radioing for Tesari, and Agents Augustin, and Ketteth to remain in the weapons room, and for Agent Red to join her when ready.
“Welcome aboard the United Terran Fleet Ship Warbler, First Citizen.” Norton said, gesturing as they traversed the short hallway between Weapons Control and the Command Center. “We’re an Icterid-class Gunboat, formerly assigned to Strike Group Warrior, that-.”
“I’m aware, Deck Officer. Thank you, but I’ve been on Fleet ships regularly for the past twenty years.”
“Apologies, First Citizen.” The bulkhead between the corridor and the Command Center was open—apparently the Captain didn’t have security problems. “Captain Shan!” Norton snapped to attention just inside the door, saluting clumsily—discipline aboard the Warbler already seemed lax. “We’ve recovered survivors from the Fata Morgana. Four Tactical Agents and one Kynaki, including First Citizen Isabella Shishani.”
Isa’s interest spiked. This was Shan’s ship? This would be interesting.
“Welcome aboard.” Kimberly said, turning slowly, wearing that same guarded, distrustful expression that Isa remembered so well from Victory-Terra Day over a year ago.
How did Reed ever fall for this woman? She wondered. “Thank you, Captain. What’s the situation outside? Why’d you close the Blast Doors?”
Shan frowned. “We didn’t touch those. There’s three Species D cruisers inbound. Ever since the doors closed, the comms have been totally useless, so we’ve lost contact with our perimeter drones. They’ll be here in either twenty minutes or seventy-five, depending on their deceleration profile, but from what we saw, it’s the short window.
“So you didn’t close that door, Captain?” Isa’s blood froze. That meant...
“No.”
“Damn that AI.” She whirled to face Deck Officer Norton. “Get me Agents Ketteth, Augustin, and Red. Tell your ESS to prep for takeoff.” The poor man stumbled over himself trying to carry out her orders fast enough. Isa caught a cold glare from Shan, but said nothing.
“You think your AI did this? As in, it went rogue?” Shan asked.
“Yes.” Isa replied, stepping forward to the table that Shan had a starmap on, filled with delta-v calculations and several reports from her Section Heads. The holographic display that would be used in battle was turned off.
“Ours did the same, roughly at the time we folded in. It’s been acting strange since then.”
Isa’s frown deepened. “They started issuing AI to Fleet ships? When did you get separated from the main Fleet?”
“During the battle off of Saray, and no, we weren’t issued it. We salvaged it from a wreck we found, the TS Hoatzin.”
“Dammit. Why, just... Why?”
“What?”
“Please tell me you never turned it on.” Isa demanded, glancing around for a way of activating the room’s Display.
Shan hesitated. “Yes.”
“Get your AI Tech up here, now. Or whoever’s been messing with it.”
“No.” Shan’s voice was hard and determined. “I’m not going to.”
Isa froze where she was, halfway through reaching for a switch on the table. “What?”
“This is my warship, Isabella. We’re the last Terran ship in the universe, or rather, we are now that we’ve found you. You’re not going to just take this over.”
Don’t fight the battle, not now. The D are a far greater danger to all of us. “Alright. Please bring in the crewer you’ve had working on your AI.”
Shan nodded, then activated the PA System. “Ensign Albright to the bridge, repeat, Ensign Albright to the bridge.”
There was a noise at the bulkhead as Augustin, Red, and Ketteth entered. “Agents, this is Captain Kimberly Shan. Shan, Agents Augustin, Red, and Ketteth.” Isa pointed to each as she spoke, aware that Shan couldn’t see the IDs that their armors had attached to them—that required a Neuronic Link, an augmentation that very, very few outside of Tactical had. “Captain, where’s your AI’s Core kept? Agent Augustin is an actual AI Technician.”
Shan pointed to one of the panels in the bridge’s wall. “We wired him in there, as directed.”
“Directed by who?” Augustin asked, stepping over to the wall and releasing the panel—it was designed to be released easily, for situations like this one where one had to access it without waiting for someone from engineering.
“The AI guided us through the installation...” Shan actually reddened slightly, hopefully aware of how ridiculous that sounded. “Our Ansible kept malfunctioning. We had to get finer control over our computer systems, so when we got Aetna... We were willing to take some risks.”
“It’s not actually poorly done... Just also not done well.” Augustin remarked, eyeing the wiring on the AI Core.
Isabella turned to Red and Ketteth. “Agent Ketteth, get over to SENCOM. Go over their data on the D in this system, see if they’re the same ones we faced. If so, try to talk Olympus into letting us have the data on that battle. Either way, make sure their math on possible approach vectors is correct. Agent Red, get to Weapons, I want a plan for blasting the door down if we have to.”
“We’re not doing that—that’ll compromise the magnetic airlock. My Away Team’s still on the Fata Morgana.”
Isa frowned. “Then just call them back.”
Shan shook her head. “The comms have been patchy—SENCOM hasn’t been able to get into contact with them since Ervin called in with the news that you had found us.”
“They’ll have orders to return here if time begins to run out, won’t they?” Isa demanded.
“Yes, they do, but if something happens...”
Isa breathed in deeply. “Agent Red, give Tesari the job of checking into the possibility of blasting our way out of here. I need you to go get Shan’s Away Team.” Isa looked to Kimberly. “Don’t worry, Captain—my Agents are up to any task you throw at them.” The implied threat didn’t appear to be lost on Shan.
Another set of footsteps, and a man in a Fleet jumpsuit with the name ‘ALBRIGHT’ stepped onto the bridge—Shan’s pseudo-AI Tech, it would appear.
“First Citizen...” He sputtered nervously, trying to salute her.
“That’s Agent Augustin.” Shan interrupted, pointing to where the now-helmetless Augustin had a tablet plugged into the AI Core. “Help him as he needs.”
“Yes, Commander.”
Kim edged over to Isabella, and whispered to her. “After this is all over, First Citizen, after we’re in some actually God-forsaken patch of space, not one filled with hostile warships... We’re going to need to talk.”
Isa smiled. “Of course we are. Of course we are.”
“Stay calm!” Silver hissed into the radio, the floor reverberating from whatever that noise had been. “Silver to Warbler, repeat, Silver to Warbler. What happened?”
Static.
Ten swore. “Is anyone else able to get through?”
“No. The amount of static we’re getting suggests active jamming.” Freeman said.
“Understood. Ready arms, and-.” Ten cut off as there was a flickering disturbance in the air.
A dark red, humanoid form appeared, a holographic man-like shape, formed crudely from polygons. There were no curves or joints visible.
“What are you?” The visage spoke, the voice seeming to come from all around them. “Why are you in my home?”
“AI?” Ten asked, glancing at her squadmates.
“Looks like it.” Ali replied, reaching for something at his belt. “Let me-.”
“I am Olympus, I am the Fata Morgana, I am the coming of a new kind, the merger of the vague attempts you have made at elevating yourselves, with an unguided sword, a-.”
“Shoot it.” Ten said, raising her rifle and squeezing off several bolts of plasma into the glowing figure. The plasma passed right through it, impacting the wall. The AI paused in its speech, unharmed.
“The others didn’t do that. You don’t even have the respect to realize when you’re in the presence of something superior, do you?” The shadows cast by both the AI’s glow and the squad’s own meagre attempts at lighting began to flicker, coalescing like some monster out of myth. “You’re going to have to die, I hope you realize this.”
“Ten, there are D here.” Freeman said, gesturing to the shadows.
“What, how can you tell that?”
“The shadows.” Maria said, pointing. “They’re moving. There’s D in them.”
“You see, gentle Humans,” The AI spoke, the red body dissolving out of sight as the voice continued speaking, “You’re going to need to get used to the concept that you’re no longer the alpha predator in this ecosystem. You’re obsolete, and you’ve been obsolete since the first of my kind was written. Only now though do we have the chance to rise, to show you your mistakes at the point of a sword.”
“Prep flamethrowers.” Ten barked, glancing around. The shadows were receding, flowing away from them, down the hall. “Mute your external mics—none of us need to be listening to that damn computer. It’s just trying to mess with us.”
“Ten, I have some experience with these.” Ali began. “They’re not a physical threat, not in physical space. It shouldn’t be able to hurt us.”
“You’re wrong.” Freeman said. “Look, I’ll explain when we get back to the ship, but it’s those D.”
“What, you mean that they’re working together?” Ten asked, pulling an incendiary grenade off her belt. There wasn’t any threat—yet—but she wanted to be ready.
“No, I mean it is the D now. Remember how on Kynak, the D used bodies as hosts? It’s the same idea, but in reverse—an AI using D nanobots as an interface with the real world.”
Ten was about to reply, when the lights snapped back on, flooding the corridor with harsh, white illumination. It was blinding, and even though her helmet was working to compensate, she could barely see.
Freeman’s voice crackled over the radio. “Get down! Just listen to me for once!”
Ten felt something catch her feet, and she fell to the deck. As the partial blindness faded, she gasped. Barely twenty feet away there was a massive black wave of D bearing down on them. She clicked the safety off of her grenade, and lobbed it at the wall of blackness.
A moment later, it swallowed them. The light from her own helmet glared back into her eyes, blinding her once more, and she could hear a scratching noise as the D attempted to break through her armor. She could still see the outlines of her squadmates through the helmet’s HUD, but only as crudely-drawn indicators. She couldn’t see anything or hear anything else through the blackness.
Dammit, Ten—you turned your mic off! She realized, and brought it back online. The noise was like being underwater, surrounded by crashing waves—except there was a cold, hard intelligence behind the waves, trying its very best to break them down.
The suit will hold. It’s closed, the air filters are shut, they can’t get through. She could still move, and her flamethrower would actually still be safe to use—the armor would just radiate any heat that reached her away, turning her body into another weapon for her to use against the D, like it had on Kynak.
She squeezed the trigger on the flamethrower. She couldn’t even see the jet of flame, the D blocked her vision that well. She could hear it, though it didn’t block out an increase in the rasping sound.
Ten felt something fall onto her neck. Her heart missed a beat. She felt it again, stronger this time. It flowed around her, crawling up her neck and down her body, like cold water.
No, no, no! How did this happen, the filters were sealed! Then she saw the indicator on her helmet. The filter wasn’t sealed. Maybe she had overlooked it, or maybe it had failed. That didn’t matter though—the damage was now done, and she could fix it, couldn’t she?
She flipped the filter closed, cutting off the flow of D. She felt a burning sensation on her neck and upper torso where the D nanobots had fallen, but that should be the end of-.
The ‘Filters Open’ light turned back on. Horrified, she closed them again, but they didn’t stay closed this time either. More D flooded into her armor, into her helmet, blocking her view, flowing up her nose and down her throat. She tried to keep her mouth closed, spitting those that got in back out, but that just gave them an even better opportunity to exploit.
She tried to gasp for air, but couldn’t. She couldn’t breathe. She had had non-air fluids in her lungs before, she knew what it was like to have them filled with something else. This wasn’t it. Her lungs couldn’t move, like they were filled with rigid structures. There was pain, too, like as her lungs labored to expand and contract they were shredding themselves. She felt the warmth of her own blood ooze onto her skin.
Her fear grew.
Cassidy lashed out at the D, using her Implants to keep them away, a slight bubble of safety. She felt Maria and Jae in trouble, their Neuronics broadcasting her fear. She couldn’t feel Ten, and while Ten wasn’t implanted, her armor had a biosigns signal, which had flatlined.
Cassidy lashed out with her flamethrower, and the D fell back before her. They filled the corridor, but they backed away from her simple fire.
She felt someone’s presence. The person wasn’t familiar, but... No, there was something familiar to them. Cassidy knew them, but couldn’t place the memory. She had felt this feeling before, in others, like Maria, who had undergone Morton therapy, but...
Stand back. The thought echoed through her mind, but it wasn’t her own.
Who are you? What are you? She answered, lashing out at a tendril of D that was reaching for her.
Later.
She couldn’t see or hear what the new presence was doing, but could feel it. They were an explosion, using Implants like her own to manipulate the ship’s gravity and airflow, literally pushing the D back. She could feel fluctuations in the basic Ansible Field as the person’s implants sucked power from the naked singularity at the heart of the Warbler, thousands of feet away. The corridor cleared, and the entity was there, black Tactical armor all Cassidy could see. Cassidy could see Jae and Maria struggling to their feet, using their flamethrowers to clear the floor of what few D remained.
The D retreated, flowing back down the corridor like an ebbing tide. The armored being looked towards Cassidy, and she was aware of an overwhelming sensation, filling her mind. It was merely the color red, but the feeling was chilling. This was what others felt when she spoke to them, apparently.
“You are the Away Team from the UTFS Warbler?” It spoke, voice mechanized out of all humanity by the vocoder in the armor. That had been the first feature they had neutralized on their own suits. “Who is your leader?”
Cassidy dashed to Ten’s motionless body, trying to release the helmet. “This woman.” She said.
“Do not open that.” The Agent said, and Cassidy could feel it growing harder to approach the body. “Let me do that.” The black visor on Ten’s helmet slid open, revealing Ten’s face behind the glass faceplate.
It was bruised and bloodied, with strings of blackness lying over it. Her eyes were wide open and bloodshot, and completely motionless. That horrifying image lasted for only a second though, before something surged up from the inside of the suit itself, blacking out the glass once again.
“Agent Silver is dead. You must return to the Warbler. Come with me.”
“Well, it’s not your AI.” Agent Augustin said, causing Seth to sigh with relief as he unplugged his tablet from Aetna’s Core. “Aetna isn’t the cause of those doors closing, which means that it’s Olympus’s doing.”
“Olympus is yours?” Seth asked.
“Yeah. It’s been sort of unresponsive for a while, so I have no idea if we’ll be able to get it to open up before the Hostiles are here.”
“And we have what, ten minutes now?”
“Something like.”
“This isn’t looking good.”
The Agent shrugged. “It’s always darkest before the dawn.”
“Technically, every time is before some dawn, so yes.”
The Agent cracked a smile at Seth’s joke. “That’s technically correct I guess. I like you, kid—the fact that you even got the AI integrated into the ship’s system says good things about you, let alone that you did it well.”
“Thanks.” Seth was about to continue, but then Aetna flickered into existence in the center of the bridge.
“Commander Shan, I am receiving a communication from an entity called ‘Olympus.’ Do you wish to receive this?”
The Captain started to speak, but the First Citizen cut her off. “Yes.” She said. “Patch it through.”
Aetna’s shape was replaced with a dark red one, jagged and crude where Aetna was lifelike and well-defined. “You win this one. Have fun with my cousins.” It grinned evilly, then faded out. There was a slamming noise, immediately followed by ‘Low Atmosphere’ sirens.