Chapter 025: Secrets

Attempts to demilitarize after the War of Purity ended in disaster, with Discord raids depopulating entire worlds (such as Wagner-II and Nemea-IV, to mention the most well-known raids). Demands of the newly settled Frontier (now the Inner Colonies) for self-defense rights were scrapped in favor of a massive Commonwealth military build-up due to fears of secessionism.

In the midst of this, the entirety of the Commonwealth’s Reserve Fleet went renegade - led by members of a secret society among its flag officers which later blossomed into the abyssal cult of Silent Sorrow. Most of the ships joined the ranks of the Discord, intensifying its raids tenfold almost overnight. Together with the wide-scale participance of military officers in the Semann Coup, this event led to massive purges of the military leadership.

Because of that, the initial armed insurgencies against the Commonwealth were primarily caused by flag officers of the Navy, motivated by fears of forced retirement and imprisonment on political charges. The Harrison Rebellion (led by R. Adm. Harrison), the Northern Quadrant War (Adm. Andropov and V. Adm. Sukarto), the Eastern Insurrection (V. Adm. Hernandez) can serve as an example.

While quickly squashed due to the numerical superiority of the forces loyal to the government, remnants of these rebel forces switched to guerilla warfare. When the start of the Frontier Rebellions and the concurrent rise of the Liberator drew the government’s attention away, those remnants reignited their rebellions.

Encyclopedia Galactica

Book 7, page 346

***

LENA DRATHARI

“I can’t believe we’re doing this.” Lena said subvocally, the machinery of her Doll converting the unspoken words into a voice message.

“No, you are doing this.” Lieutenant Commander Athalia answered his smartphone while opening a can of beer. “I’m resting in my quarters, taking pleasure in simple human things. Besides, you’re allowed to access the Central Terminal. We are just trying to be reasonably sneaky about our investigation.”

Lena wasn’t in a mood for sophistry. She quickly passed an automated checkpoint and entered the ship’s Core. The section - also known as ‘the Heart’ or under a hundred different nicknames in a hundred different Navies - which housed both the Internal and External AI cores, the ship’s central computer, and its data vault.

Innocent was there. He was sitting in front of one of the subterminals, doing his computer magic. He nodded towards her when she entered, and returned to doing things that Lena was too simple to understand.

“By ‘that’ I meant using special computer programs to search the restricted part of the database.” She answered while walking through a door marked ‘Core Access’. “You do know that even if the Internal AI fails to detect the intrusion, Innocent and Victor will notice it without a doubt.”

“Listen.” Lith sighed. “I’m their equal in programming. And that’s the most humble appraisal in my case. Victor’s specialization is nanopathogen programming. In case you weren’t aware, it’s me who reprograms the medical nanomachine in the bodies of the organic crew members to counter his newest nano-flu strains. And Innocent cheats with a transcendental code, but he used most of it to boost our anti-voidcraft defenses and missile guidance systems before the last engagement. He won’t use it unless it’s a critical situation. Besides, you did check my program, correct?”

“Yes.” And it was one of the most beautiful pieces of computer code I ever saw in my life. And as a Virtual, that means a lot. I know of at least one person from my country who would probably propose to Lith after seeing it, if he wasn’t so violently anti-transhuman. “Why are you even so interested in Keller?”

Lena entered the long and curved corridor. She had to walk until the very end to access the Central Terminal.

“This question goes both ways.” Lith answered. “In my case, it’s because I hate not knowing something. And the Captain’s an enigma to me. He knows a lot of things. He has lots of contacts. But he is also a master when it comes to hiding his tracks. In short, I want to know. The same in your case, yes?”

“Mostly, yeah.” Lena passed by the door marked INTERNAL AI CORE. ”How much do you know about him?”

“Besides the official things? Almost nothing.” He replied. “He met me between the loss of the Halberd and the acquisition of the Echo. I was a part of a group of mercenary Enhanced hired by the Visegrad Empire when the triffids launched the Storm of Thorns. I fought during the Route 36 Massacre, taking many interesting samples and meeting both Princess Róża Dunecki and her liaison from the Navy whose surname rhymed with seller.” Lena froze in the middle of the corridor.

“Route 36?! You were there?” It was the largest deployment of Enhanced ever since the end of the War of Purity. And a very successful one, with ten thousand of them slaying close to twenty times more triffids. It still required the almost total mobilization of the Res Publica Christiana Enhanced, with significant reinforcements from various mercenary groups and every relatively sane country in the Western European Oversector. Even Lena’s country sent twenty Enhanced.

Meeting Róża Dunecki was even more shocking. The fact Keller knew her too was the icing on the cake. Especially as it was a close meeting and a more long-term cooperation.

“Yeah. There’s more to me than meets the eye, you know.” Lith chuckled. “Now you should resume walking before it gets suspicious.” She listened to him and quickly passed by the door marked EXTERNAL AI CORE. “Great. You should also know that Route 36 is like Thermopylae. Everyone remembers the Spartans, but not those few thousand Mantinean, Thespian, Mycean, Arcadian and Phocian warriors accompanying them. Everyone remembers the ten thousand Enhanced, but very few remember that they had artillery support of twelve siege regiments of the Royal Army and that the triffids were bloodied and weakened by Princess Dunecki’s three-week-long guerilla campaign of terror. And once she took out the triffid’s AA batteries, the orbital and artillery bombardment made mincemeat out of them.”

“Legends always exaggerate, I guess.” Lena replied while walking past the COMPUTER CORE ACCESS door.

“They do.” Lith agreed. “Speaking about the Captain, he has a surprising amount of influence in both the Res Publica Christiana and Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy. Both are giving him pretty much a carte blanche. The crew wages and supplies are all paid by the APD. RPC in the meantime blesses him with very competent personnel, like Innocent, Lieutenant Commander Mendez, or Lieutenant Commander Taim.”

The enviro officer of the Echo - who suffered from a serious case of lack of contact with reality and compulsory exhibitionism - was the last person Lena expected being mentioned as ‘competent’ or as lent from the RPC. Even when the exhibitionism was somewhat understandable for members of this Variant.

“Mendez too?” Lena rarely heard her talking about religion. She was certain that the communication officer was a member of the Church, but mostly due to the cross she always wore.

“You bet.” Lith chuckled. “Somewhere in the Northern American Oversector, there is a small historical revivalist country known as the Empire of Mexico. A member of the RPC, of course. In a fairly desolate corner of its capital world lies a small monastic order. If one were to dig through a complicated network of denominations and their property within the Church, he would discover that this order belongs to no recognized member church. Nobody knows what’s happening inside. What’s known is that the order picks up a small number of orphans who years later leave it as very competent people. Professional fighters skilled in intelligence gathering, criminal investigations, and a lot of other things that might be useful when serving as bodyguards for high ranked personnel of the RPC-aligned organizations.”

“And she’s from that place?” Lith responded with a faint ‘mhm’ sound. “They are brainwashing people there?”

“Brainwashing is such a nasty word.” Medic replied with a mocking tone. “And a completely unnecessary one in the era of the sociological plateau which some retards keep calling a ‘sociological singularity’. Why brainwash someone into a single-minded fanatic, when you can simply form him through well-tailored education into being a devoted but intelligent and capable believer? And these guys are very, very good at it. Even I failed to break into the monastery, and I’m a world-class expert in infiltration.” Lena decided to not comment on how much Lith would be standing out in such an environment. Or in any environment, save for some Equality Front worlds. There he would fit right in, at least with the way he looked like.

Then she suddenly froze and looked around her.

“What happened?” Lith asked.

“Have you ever had this weird feeling that someone is standing behind you?” She replied after making sure nobody was in the corridor with her.

“No. Typically I’m the person standing behind other people.” Lith replied calmly. “Electromagnetic waves and infrasounds can subtly influence human brains, often causing unexplained feelings such as the one you reported. I’m not exactly sure if they could influence a Doll’s cybernetic brain, but it’s possible. And you are standing in the middle of some very powerful and very active computers, so being bathed in EM waves and infrasounds is a possibility. You should proceed.”

I just hope this won’t change into some stupid horror story now.

Lena passed by the door to the data vault. She knew what was inside - an aurum xenotech hard drive which allowed Captain Keller to be so lenient when it comes to storing things in the Echo’s computers. Seven hundred twenty years of Mankind’s electronic entertainment took less than 1% of its capacity.

“I’m especially surprised with the RPC’s support for Keller.” Lith added after a while. “He is technically a Church member but mostly asymptomatic. And they rarely support ships that have more than twenty-five percent of unbelievers aboard. The Echo has around twice as many. Then again, if he went for religious unity when recruiting people, he’d have issues while working with the APD.”

“Aren’t those two factions working together? I thought they should have been past such issues.” Lena asked.

“Only on the surface.” Lith replied. “One of the biggest tragedies of modern times is that people started learning from history. Democrats have a long history of using one enemy against another. During the Second Terran War, they used communists against nazis and fascists. During the Third Terran War, they used nazis and fascists against communists.”

“It misfired in both cases, didn’t it?” Lena interjected while Lith was drinking his beer.

“Yes.” Medic replied finally. “In both cases, they ended up regretting not slaying their tools when they had the opportunity. Now they are cooperating with the Res Publica to keep extremists of all stripes at bay. However, the Alliance wants to bring democracy and secularism to the Church’s holdings. Res Publica, in the meantime, wants to convert the Alliance and abolish the idea of the division between the Church and State meaning the former being subservient to the latter. Even if they vanquish all of their enemies, the last campaign of the Long War will be fought between them. And while they prefer their issues being resolved by negotiations rather than wars, there is a lot of rivalry between them.”

Hearing that only makes me more curious as to who Keller is. Though I guess it also makes me wonder who exactly Athalia is.

Finally, she reached the last door in the hallways, signed as CENTRAL TERMINAL ACCESS. She walked through it and entered the relatively simple-looking room with a large computer terminal.

There were many computer terminals throughout the ship, most of them accessed remotely by the crew from wherever they were. The central terminal was different. It was the only place to access the secure parts of the network. Only the Captain, the exec, and the officer in charge of the electronic system of the Echo could enter the place from which one could format every computer on the Echo with a single push of a button.

She sat down in front of the terminal, facing the door through which she had entered. It was the only entrance, a design oversight very helpful for someone trying to do illegal things. All she had to do was to hide the contents of the terminal when someone entered.

She uploaded Athalia’s program from her Doll’s computer system. It began searching through the restricted databases for information about Captain Keller which fulfilled several criteria. It found thousands of entries, most of them irrelevant.

She began sweeping through pages of documents that were of no significance. She was going through it quickly. Lith could see through her eyes, and together they needed at worst a second to quickly check a file to find out if it was what they were looking for.

Still, they almost missed the damn thing.

“Wait, scroll back.” Lith interrupted her sweeping through the files with an alarmed voice. She did as he said, quickly finding the file that had caught his attention.

“No. Way.” She said when she spotted the crucial detail of the image. “I know I've been saying that a lot recently, but this IS impossible.”

“I know.” Lith replied. There was no mockery in his tone. Only genuine shock. “Even I don’t know what to say. That’s… a new thing to me. Download the file and get back to me. We’ll need to check if it’s genuine or just a crazy joke.”

She was about to do that when she suddenly felt someone’s hand on her shoulder. She’d have jumped back instinctively out of shock, if not for the fact that the hand held onto her like a vise. Her half-formed shout died out when she looked up and saw Captain Keller standing right above her.

Impossible! The only entrance is right in front of me!

“I thought that mentioning your talk with Tiaa would give you a clue and you’d drop that.” Keller sighed. “Unfortunately, sometimes you can’t avoid getting your hands dirty.”

***

LITH ATHALIA

When Lith Athalia’s smartphone displayed a large CONNECTION TERMINATED label, the medic sighed, leaned back on his chair, and lit a cigarette.

The phone’s display showed Keller’s visage right before the connection was severed. The Captain somehow found out about Lena’s investigation. The Virtual had been a useful tool for him, but it seemed that their cooperation had finally come to an end.

At least it’s the Captain we’re talking about. Nine to one she will show up to work tomorrow with a horrible headache and some memory loss. Still, a part of me will miss her.

He made the necessary preparations as to not be discovered as well. Unlike Lena, he was an expert. The program would self-terminate and erase all traces of itself the second their connection was severed. The only risk was Keller somehow accessing Lena’s memories instead of triggering her equivalent of the secrecy enforcer.

Then again, what sort of a game is it, if there are no risks involved? Besides, I already saved that file in several different places accessible only to me. Even if he finds out and wipes my memory, there is at least a seventy percent chance he won’t find them all. So soon I’ll remember everything again.

He discovered two very important facts about Keller. The image file showing a man suspiciously similar to Keller standing among the crew members of Curiosity after its return to the Solar System was one thing. It could be a fake, a funny meme of some now-retired crew member of the Echo, or a random similarity which happened all too often as Mankind’s numbers had reached the trillions. Besides, the crew member could be Keller’s ancestor. Genetics can cause funny coincidences. Even after five hundred and fifty years.

What hammered the nail, though, was the sensor feed of the bug that he placed on Lena’s body right before she departed for the mission. Especially its equivalent of the Guild’s three special gauges.

He glanced once again at its display. The second gauge moved a bit right before the connection died, indicating laws of physics going haywire near Lena. Captain suddenly showing up somewhere where he simply couldn’t be was the most likely explanation for that.

Is it possible that Christopher Hall’s Gift isn’t the only case of an extradimensional capable of meaningfully interacting with Mankind? Or perhaps Captain merely overdosed on some of the more elusive archeotechs?

That part with Curiosity ramps up the questions. Is it merely a coincidence? Was the crewmember on the picture merely one of Keller’s ancestors? I saw people ‘inheriting’ a ghost ship with a fixation on them. But if yes, why did the sighting of the ship spook him so much? Is it some sort of inheritable sign of imminent bad luck?

But if the man on the photo truly was Keller… did he took part in Curiosity’s journey? Or did he join its crew while the ship was away from the Solar System?

Knowing things doesn’t help me if I have no idea how to interpret what I just found. It will require time. And probably some more tools, I can discard at will.

Lieutenant Commander Lith Athalia began planning his next move.

***

LENA DRATHARI

The Guild’s fleet exited the Hyperspace in the Lisca star system with the combat alert on. Thankfully the worst-case scenario didn’t occur, as no Truthseekers ships were waiting for them in ambush right near the Hyperspace exit.

Lisca was part of the so-called Yellow Zone of the sector. It was visited during the initial pre-settlement survey of the Guild and had been left alone after a brief exploration. As the Guild’s resources were limited, the local detachment of its forces was busy with anti-pirate operations, so the situation remained the same. Especially as the discovery of some alien ruins in the Yellow Zone worlds on the other side of the subsector had drawn the attention of the Guild.

The system looked fairly normal. An unassuming red dwarf, four planets, some moons, but most of them the size of rather dwarfy planetoids. The only interesting point of the system was the second world which, according to the findings of the initial exploration team, could be terraformed in a reasonable timeframe. Which, in an age without access to the World Forge and with limited industrial power of the subsector states, meant at least several decades of economy-draining efforts.

Needless to say, this system was certainly going to become a battlefield in twenty years top. If only for the Tavian Republic’s capital world soon becoming overcrowded. Gas giant moons were rarely good material for megalopolis-type worlds.

The Guild’s fleet immediately deployed some mines and then began accelerating towards the other end of the system. Less than twenty minutes later, two Seekers’ task forces - each composed of a battlecruiser with an escort - left Hyperspace from a completely different point.

A single small missile salvo later, all mines were destroyed. Keller’s trap for the main Truthseeker fleet was defused.

“And that…” Captain Keller said. “... is why mines are typically useless in space battles.” Most of the skeleton crew of the Echo’s bridge agreed with him wholeheartedly. The rest was too busy to take part in the conversation, as they were analyzing the taskforce's capabilities..

Commander Drathari shook her head. “The plan made sense. Unfortunately, it was a rather obvious maneuver.” The enemy probably intentionally baited them by following the Echo and its small fleet's course so perfectly.

“Great.” Keller shook his head. “Well, we can safely call the combat alert off. We can equally safely admit that the Seekers are plotting something nefarious. And shepherding us in the direction of that something.”

“You’re planning to get some answers in the ECHELON base?” Lena asked. To her, it sounded like the best idea for now.

“Not really.” The Captain replied, surprising her. “We’re going to visit it if we can, but I do not expect to find anything the Truthseekers didn’t leave for us to find. The only hope is that Hao somehow knew too much, yet they didn’t expect Innocent to break him so thoroughly so they didn’t brainwash him. There are some indications this is possible.”

“If so, then the assault on the ECHELON base is going to be troublesome.” Lena had no doubts about it. “The second we stray from the course planned for us by the Seekers, they will react. We’d need to somehow gather some space between us.”

“And this isn’t going to be easy.” The Captain concluded. “Especially if I’m correct and they are running a me-shaped AI to predict my movements. In the meantime… how would you gain some ground?”

“Smokes and Mirrors?”

The Captain contemplated her answer for a while.

“Vice-admiral Cassidy’s combat doctrine, I think I even know which maneuver you mean.” Keller nodded. “It wasn’t my first and second choice. So it can work. And if it will, we’ll have further proof that they can predict my actions.”

“It will probably not work.” Lena decided to point out. “They have better technology. And this maneuver depends on it a lot.”

“I know. But we have a few days of travel through the system before we can use it. That should give Innocent some time to apply his cheats to our decoys.” Lena stared at him for a while with an utter lack of emotions on her face.

“Okay, can someone finally tell me how he’s doing it?” Finally, she decided to speak out what had been bothering her. “Suddenly ramping up the targeting systems of our missiles and point defense guns was already impossible enough.”

“Oh, he has a friendly class-four AI that supplies him with transcendental code.” The Captain replied with a tone much too calm for such an outrageous statement. “And before you ask, it’s neither AI/OVERSEER nor AI/PANOPTICON, nor their Discord and Truthseekers’ equivalent. It’s one of the AIs that officially do not exist.”

“That… explains a lot.” Depending on its size, a single packet of AI-derived self-adaptive t-code can cost more than a destroyer! If he has free and unlimited access to them… that’s something even the Seekers sometimes struggle with. Despite having AI/PROMETHEUS at their side. “He probably won’t be very happy about it.” she added.

“I know.” The Captain’s tone was so bitter Lena almost laughed. “I already have him spending close to half of his reserves on our ECMs, point defense and missiles. Asking him to spend more of it might have potentially disastrous consequences. Though I believe he will agree in the end, as the purpose is certainly noble.” He paused for a second, before looking at Lena questioningly. ”Are you ok? You are slightly less emotional than you used to be. Problems in Gates of Infinity?”

“Oh, no no no, it’s just…” She sighed and decided to be honest with Captain. “... an issue. Mechanical one. I think I suffered a malfunction of my memory bank. I lost a significant part of my recent memories. I can’t even figure out what I lost. I think I was doing something… special? I think what I did during these missing parts is somehow connected, but…”

“Did you consult Lieutenant Sun?” He asked with a worried look on his face. Lena shook her head.

“I don’t need to visit the transhuman infirmary.” She replied. “I know enough about myself to do self-maintenance and repairs. If I can’t find the reason for the memory loss, then Lieutenant Sun will not succeed either. Especially as he is an Immortal.” And they suck in programming. Why they are even considered transhumans is beyond me.

“Well, from what you just described I’d wager a guess that you erased those memories yourself.” The Captain concluded. “Or something triggered the secrecy enforcing program. You didn’t try to tinker with it, right?”

She shook his head. It did sound like a sensible explanation. What did she learn, that could make her decide to forget it afterwards?? She had learned many outrageous things recently, yet she was acutely aware that there were hundreds of secrets the Captain refused to share with her. She was going to become a Captain of the Guild, yet its members of this rank were not equal. He wasn’t telling her everything. And she shuddered to imagine why.

“Well, perhaps.” She folded. “I’m going to run some more tests to make sure I’m not damaged in any way.” It was probably the worst thing to happen to a Virtual after getting hacked by someone. The very idea was an absolute taboo in every Virtual country. And it was treated by the Confederation’s laws as equal to forceful brainwashing of an organic human through mind sculpt.

Death through exile. The Damocles sword that kept the crazier parts of the Confederation sane.

Suddenly many new dots showed up on the system map. The Captain required one glance on the monitor to mumble a nasty curse. It took her a few seconds more to do the same.