Dangerous Toys (Part Nine)

Dangerous Toys (Part Nine)

Oscar traced his way along the border between his systems and the enemy, searching for a weakness. Unfortunately, his systems around the barrier were just as old as the ship. His Engineer had secured the critical parts and he had already scoured out anything the looked wrong. Then he found a break. Someone had botched a repair in the network, pasting a line directly into the enemies heart. He moved slowly by his standards, but he wanted to secure as much room as possible before he triggered some alarm or tripwire he hadn’t noticed. He still felt that the Engineer should be here for this, but he had already failed her once and, in the very private channels used by human-AI when speaking amongst themselves, losing your Engineer was regarded as the ultimate embarrassment. He crept through networks, embedding himself in anything he could find. The part of him that he was training to be his Avatar grinned when he found the doors.

Patrica was fed up. Loki was upset and she was coming down off the long list of ‘supplements’ that the suit had punched her full of during the fight. She needed a sit-down and a cup of coffee. Without interrupting the crew she went to the Captain’s quarters and helped herself to a mug. She was slightly surprised to find the wall had scorch marks around it. Her suit boosted her hearing so that she could keep track of the mumbled plans her Captain was making but mostly she just put /Scentofhappy/ on her lap while Loki lay with his head on her feet. Everyone needed a little comfort today. She stroked the puppy to calmness and sipped her coffee. Her mind fell to plotting.

The Captain was a little lost. His people weren’t military, he had never shot a weapon in anger. His Chief of Security was, while a good man, not someone he wanted leading his men into battle. Even if he hadn’t been shot already. The torturous discussion kept getting bogged down in the most ridiculous minor details such as what should happen to the criminals, what type of armour the enemy had. It was all unknown. His nose had followed the Engineer as she had moved to his office. He allowed the conversation to swirl about him while he read her mood, ‘/SimmeringRage/fatigue/sorrow/pain/’ when she entered the room but now, now it was strange. He felt the scent of the dogs as they reached out and looked for comfort from her and she responded. Co-evolution had built something strange, the, ‘/Fatigue/’ was passing, a strange calm that he remembered from his childhood fell on the dogs, ‘/UtterTrust/Love/’. He could smell some new mood take Patrica. Perhaps he should wait to see what her solution might be.

Patrica had listened to the Captain and the Chief of Security as they made elaborate and ridiculous plans to retake the ship. Her impatience grew. Loki was sleeping as the excitement had worn off and her own body was not far off the breaking point. She had had enough. She patched through to the AI, “Oscar, I need an update. How are you doing out there?”

Oscar was disturbed by her tone. It sounded...cold. Odd. He ran it through some of his newly allowed parameters and it registered as ‘Human, (REPORT IMMEDIATELY, CLASSIFIED). That didn’t sound encouraging. He continued, “Welcome back Engineer. I have good news, I have infiltrated the Cargo area and I can now seal it and evacuate the atmosphere. Nothing organic would survive.” He was proud of his proposed solution since it was efficient and didn’t put his crew in any danger. No need for the level of organic violence that his Engineer had been subjected to.

Patrica paused in her thoughts. It seemed strangely attractive to wipe the problem from the ship with a single word but it spoke poorly of her decision to bring Oscar on-line in the middle of a fight. “Oscar, I appreciate the work you have done but that would be inappropriate at the moment. We have no way of knowing who is guilty or innocent in there and, to be blunt, we need Intel not corpses. I have a different approach but I need to speak directly to the criminals. Can you do that for me?”

Oscar tested the network, “I believe so but I would need to extinguish the enemy AI to do it. It would have too many opportunities to retaliate. Is that permitted?”

Patrica stopped herself giving a quick yes to that. She was supposed to be training Oscar. “Does the AI have sentience? Could you negotiate with it?” Oscar went back over his data, for the first time thinking of the Enemy as perhaps a person that he was about to kill. “No Patrica. It is a simple autonomous operating system.” He hesitated a little. “It will feel no pain. If required I can revive it afterwards. Forgive me, Engineer, I had not posed the question like that when I developed my response.”

She nodded. “This is new to all of us. I need doors and Comms under your control with as few casualties as possible. Prepare your plan.”

As she carefully lifted /Scentofhappy/ off her lap and laid her beside Loki the Captain arrived. He watched the small tableau, the sleeping dogs and the tired human. To think that he and his people would share this soon. He could scent some /conclusion/question/ coming from Patrica and a flavour of /coldness/determination/. He waited a moment until she was standing, “You have something for me, Engineer?”

“Yes, Captain. I believe I can break us through to the Cargo area, take control of its Comms and kill the enemy AI. I would like you to send security to whatever positions the Chief thinks best to move quickly to secure the area and any information we might recover. Then you will have your Ship back.” The Captain listened and parsed out the plan in his mind. “You are expecting no opposition?” The Engineer nodded, “I don’t know yet, please be prepared to shoot if required. I think I will talk to them first. I seem to have been their target and I have quite a lot they might need to hear.”

The Captain sighed, “Engineer, this Ship has been at peace since it became mine. I will order the men into place and await your response. Good luck Patrica.” He turned and reentered the bridge with hope and fear raging within him. “Chief, assemble the men and prepare to take the Cargo area. Our Engineer is going to kick down the doors for us.” With a grimace, the Chief growled and called his team. He looked back at the Captain, “Give me five minutes. It will all be up on the screen as it happens. Is she really that good?” The Captain nodded and turned to the screen, “Chief, you had better hope so.”

Patrica moved to stand by the Captain. “Sir, I will need to use my HUD for this but I will be broadcasting across all Comms if you wish to listen. “ She buzzed Oscar, “Let me know when Security is in place and then go to work. As soon as those doors unlock I need to know it.”

Oscar turned to his networks to fire, burning away any trace of the Enemy. In the speed of it Security saw nothing but the doors unlock but in the system was a bloody knife fight as the Enemy tried to retake lost systems, retaliate against the intrusion and alert its men. In this strange battle, nodes burned, memory was fought for and lost. Finally, Oscar stood over the last remaining code of the AI that had tried to kill his Engineer and crushed it to oblivion. A strange sense of satisfaction rushed through him and then faded to some unquiet pain. He opened the doors and alerted Patrica

“Engineer I have put you through to the Cargo area. I assure you that our enemies can hear you.

“Attention insurgents, pirates or whatever name you care to use. You have shot at me, bombed me and tried to stab me and I’m done. You hurt my fucking dog. You have five minutes to surrender or I am coming down to Cargo and I will personally throw your half-chewed corpses out the airlock along with the rest of your failed assassins. Drop your weapons and lie down on the fucking floor. If I see you move I will kill you. If you breathe in the wrong direction I will kill you. Security will be waiting to take your surrender and weapons and if you’re lucky you will get to live. Do it now. Anyone left standing will be fed to my pet.” She cut her Comms, aware of the astonished silence from the Captain and crew. She muttered, “They shouldn’t have hurt Loki.”

In the chaos of the Cargo area, the speakers suddenly roared into life and the doors swung open. A confused and difficult briefing was interrupted by the sound of sheer fury from across the ship. The few surviving operatives listened as the human’s voice echoed across the area. They listened as her cold rage threatened to hunt them to a miserable and ignominious death. One of the older men, one that considered himself a simple smuggler swore and looked around at his supposed comrades. He carefully pulled the power-cell from his weapon and threw both parts far into the darkened bay, then he lay on the ground and curled up in a ball. Within less than a minute the Cargo hold was filled with the sound of people throwing away their weapons and the silent hope that the damned war-beast wasn’t on its way. With a hesitant claw, their Officer pressed the Comms button, “We will surrender to the Captain. We request that the human remains on the bridge… with her war-beast. My men are disarmed and ready to surrender.”

Patrica looked at the Captain, not ready to speak just yet. /Longnose/ sniffed to himself and remembered how little the other Captains had been willing to tell him about humans, about how he would have to see for himself. He knew his Engineer to be a calm and helpful creature. Her efforts to improve the ship, her behaviour toward Loki and her willingness to open his world to the Canine Alliance. He stopped himself from voicing his questions. She had given him back his ship with a simple threat, a threat he would have made himself if he thought for a moment that the Crew-Killers on his ship would have believed it. Hearing her he truly believed every word she had said. Now he knew why the other Captains said nothing. How many times had they made this choice?

“Thank you, Engineer, I believe you have solved the problem. Please remain here until we have detained these creatures.”

“No Captain, I’m taking Loki to Engineering and we are going to sleep there. Let me know how it all works out.” She nodded to the Chief of Security, “Let me know if you need me. Goodnight.”