Dangerous Toys (Part Sixteen)

The end arrived abruptly as she was giving Loki a quick walk. Oscar lit up her Comms with an alert. She sucked in the suddenly warm air and knelt to Loki, more for herself than her precious cargo,

‘/Work/NewPackleader/Me/Follow/EnemiesApproach/’. Loki yipped and stretched his head deep into her shoulder, nuzzling to give support. No words were needed.

The crew stood silently looking at blank screens when she arrived. They stared, wondering what new insanity had descended. Nothing was incoming except the alarm from her command chair. She sat and hit the comms button. Nothing. She raised her voice, “Oscar, you better have a fucking good reason for this.” The final tragic gift from any AI parents was the kill code if the new-born betrayed their position. She didn’t even need the ship to invoke it. Blinding the ship in the middle of a war zone was so far past the line that she couldn’t believe he had done it. She let the rage fill her voice, “Answer me!”

A new voice filled the bridge, a voice soft, female, human, and old, “My apologies Captain, I didn’t realise you were carrying a child. He is safe and I will return him shortly, perhaps a little older and wiser. This is a human registered Diplomatic vessel. Are you willing to pledge for the honour of your crew? A crew that has already proven full of traitors? Because I will not trust my life to them. I will speak to you alone, Engineer. Go to your safe space, away from a Command that is blind or lying and we will speak. Bring Loki, it has been too many years since I played with a puppy…” Her console died.

She stared at the dead screens and scrambled for words. Finally, she looked at her crew, “It is one of my people. I will deal with this.” She hesitated, unwilling to leave them with so little. “I can retake the ship with a word. I can kill any AI that would dare to turn on us. If I fall doing it, well this ship already has a Captain. Look to him to get you safe. I will be in Engineering until this is resolved.”

The crew watched as she marched out with her Loki, facing yet another battle they didn’t understand. With the ship locked down, they had little to do except worry. Someone was sent to find /Longnose/.

Her brain rattled as she made her way down to Engineering. Nothing helped. She had no old stories or murmured rumours to go by, just a sense that this was a human problem. The door to Engineering swung open, an insult to her since she hadn’t touched it. Something had taken complete control of her ship and it hurt.

As she entered all the screens lit up, centred on the gas giant she had chosen to hide behind. Then something even more unexpected happened as a hatch opened and a small Avatar stepped out, “Interesting work. Your Oscar has some clever ideas. I think I approve. I hope he isn’t too upset if I borrow it for this conversation. Still, that will be your problem.”

Patrica stood silent as an Avatar the size of a ten-year-old boy stepped out. The voice didn’t match. Loki began with a low growl as he reacted to her scent. The Avatar suddenly did a somersault and giggled, “Ta-da!” Now it spoke in a young boy’s voice, “Hello Loki, you’re a good boy I’m told.” Loki stopped growling, confused, and looked at Patrica. She sighed, “Fine. Let’s talk.”

The small Avatar seemed to grow older as it turned to the screen and spoke, “You told us there was a threat to Earth. You provided the data and it has been confirmed. Don’t be so surprised that things creep out of the dark.” It waved at the screen as a huge ship emerged from the planet. “ This is me. Hi. I’m Genie, AI Defense Force. You guys get to play with the planets and pirates but we stay out in the dark. No base, no crew. Just me.”

Captain Patrica O’Neill had a few comments to make about that but she settled for the first logical conclusion she reached, “You. You lit us up for these fuckers to find. What kind of diseased malware are you?” She looked at the screen again, “You could shit all over anything chasing us. Why am I sitting out here with a target painted on my ship?” Even as she said it, it made sense. “We were better than you thought. We lost the fucking assholes and you need them to find us so you could be the hero. Nice. That Avatar suits you since you want to wear a cape and be fucking superman. Go jump off a roof or something.”

Genie knelt down and waved at Loki, crafting a ball in its hand. “Here boy!” She threw it high and watched as Loki ignored it completely and continued his guard. She stood. “Fine. In fact, I was lucky to catch up with your signal. I have your Testament by the way. I burned half my body-weight to get here but sure I’m the bad guy. I can’t chase these fuckers all over the system but if I know where they are going to be… then I can turn them to mush and return to the dark. You will be safe and no-one really needs to know that the Human-AI Alliance is a little bit more heavily-armed than the Human-Canine Alliance.”

The ball flew back to her hand and Loki hummed a question. Patrica sighed again and nodded. This time he caught the ball when Genie threw it. The Avatar smiled, a look of pure contentment, “I spent my childhood with a family that loved dogs. Stuck on-planet. You are making the universe a better place bringing them here. I never really understood humans but dogs…” she took the ball back and threw it again, “...dogs are the best of us.”

It turns out that, under battlefield conditions, a tired human engineer and a deep-space scary Warship can spend quite a long time drinking coffee and whisky, throwing ideas and toys around. Genie absent-mindedly turned back on the ship’s systems after she had hidden her true self in the clouds of gas again. Patrica called to tell the crew that all was well and hung up. /Scentofhappy/ found them and joined in.

Not far away, the Commander of the Recovery Initiative Fleet was watching as everyone tried to follow his orders. Out of the twenty ships only seven still held crew as the instructions from Incice handed the ships over to murderous AI’s of his own twisted creation. He shook at the thought but they were already dead. His own ship was nearly empty as he took the ceremonial Blade that hung behind his desk, as it had since he had taken command. He laughed to himself. Incice was only clever in certain ways. His own family had defended the homeworlds for generations, long before that slime had stolen his honour and that of his people. If the fucker had ever paid attention he would have known that Admirals never carried a blade. It was a slow ten-minute walk as he made his way to the engine room and pushed it straight through the ship-field generator. The blade was designed to twist now-space directly into then-space and it was like dropping a toaster into the bath. The Commander was smiling as his atoms went looking for a better yesterday.

The ship erupted into real-space and exploded as every twinned particle looked for somewhere else to be. To the approaching human fleet, it was like ringing a bell into a megaphone and shouting “How fucking hard are you?.”

They heard.

Wellerman picked it up first, “All incoming, Incice fleet found. Twenty frigates identified. Let’s go to work people.”

Genie heard the explosion as it echoed across the systems and her childish face took on the weight of many years, “ Fair sailing Admiral.” She looked at Patrica, “Sometimes the good guys are on the wrong side. You need to be on your bridge. I’ll try and keep us all alive... Fair sailing.” The Avatar walked back to the hatch it had emerged from and disappeared

The Incice AI orders began to spread throughout the systems. His long reach suddenly became clear as cargo ships, pleasure craft, military patrols, mining vessels were ripped from the cursing and screaming hands of their Captains and sent to war against the humans. They held one simple instruction: Kill.

From the dark emerged the sisters of Genie, dark ships with no base and no record, answerable only to the Human-AI alliance.

Will of the Wisp “Attention shipping, surrender your control or be destroyed. Frankly, I don’t care which. Also, you’re ugly. Stand down.”

Gremlin on the wing “If you look outside you will see me. Stand down or die. Apologies for the inconvenience.”

Lockpick my heart “We haven’t met before but I already want to kill you. Stand down or die.”

Staring at the Sun “I missed you. Would you like me to try again? Stand down.”

Seven more Seas “I’m a big fan of travelling. How fast do you want your component parts to be moving? Stand the fuck down. We have pets on that ship.”

Loose Screw “Look, I tried to explain but let me make it simple. I will kill you if you move. Let me show you what I mean.” His plasma beams cut the Incice ship into scrap