CHAPTER 002: Atomic Heist

Adam Rytman

TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System

Long War

28 March 2547, 13:45

The first thing I had to do was to get myself some clothing. Since I was naked. Nothing surprising, as I couldn’t think of any reason a clone in the cryogenic tube should wear something.

Was this one more view of a future as a Free Love Future without the nudity taboo? it was quite typical in games recently. You had to keep your player base happy. Though it was mostly a thing of Future Entertainments before they lost the market to the Entertainment International. They were a bit tamer. A bit. I’m still not sure what should I feel about it.

Now, if it was something like that, then it wouldn’t surprise if there wasn’t any clothing to wear it…

...scratch that. We are in space, so you have to wear something, right? It’s hostile environment right outside.

The clothes that Nymphae prepared for me beforehand were… weird. White and blue in colouring. Too smooth in touch for any textile I knew. Is that some flexible plastic? It was a one-piece ‘suit’ that covered everything from the bottom of the feet to my neck. Adhered to the skin perfectly. Seeing a girl wearing this might be… interesting. Huh.

There was also a ‘plastic’ half-cap half-helmet and a backpack. I asked Nymphae, and it turned out that helmet has some nanotech part that can automatically cover the head and everything above the place the suit ends. Which is useful when the part of the ship you are in gets hit and is depressurized.

This ‘backpack’ thing included a small generator to keep everything running and an oxygen tank. You could also use the oxygen to propel yourself when you were outside, so returning to ship after getting sucked out was possible.

Alright, so whoever build Alum, is definitely much more advanced than the intelligence level of Nymphae suggested. The door I had to walk through to leave the room I woke up in turned didn’t open. They were mostly nanomachines. So I literally walked through them as they turned into liquid on touch.

Hey, that’s neat! Easy to keep pressure, and you can even let people through without going through a dedicated lock. Even when one side is a vacuum. It should also make boarding the other side of the ship easier.

The line on the ground led me through the corridors… and soon I discovered what happened to the crew.

The whole sterile and futuristic insides of the ship were pretty ruined by the dried blood, malfunctioning lighting, bullet holes and massacred bodies.

Yuck. There was a lot of anger here. Some bodies looked like they were literally torn apart with the purpose of making them look grotesque and terrifying. Few seemed nailed to walls.

“What the heck happened here?” I asked Nymphae.

“I do not know.” What? “It seems that the order to abandon the ship was issued. A part of the procedure for that is termination of the ship AI and cleansing all data banks to avoid enemy discovering valuable data about the Corporation. Which, normally, is followed by the self-destruction of the ship. Something, however, interrupted the process in the middle, with only some of the banks emptied.”

So it’s not only an idiot but also has partial amnesia. Sweet.

“The bodies, however, bear obvious signs of being killed. By weapons slightly less powerful than ship artillery.” Nymphae decided to continue speaking, interrupting my thoughts. “While I’m sure that there are no hostiles in the front half of the ship, I do not have access to security systems of the rear part. Because that, there is a possibility of hostile presence there.”

Oh. Ok, I take that back. It’s only 50% an idiot. It obviously has better moments.

“Any weapons I can take with me?” I saw pistols lying beside the bodies here and there.

“Unfortunately, the boarding seems to happen after the ship was separated into two parts. And the ship armoury is on the other side of Alum.” Wonderful. “Personal weapons like the pistols you are seeing are coded to work only for their owners.” Wonderful even more.

“I’m a captain. Can I have the pistol reprogrammed so I can use it?”

Second of silence. Then, finally, an answer. “Yes. Take that pistol, I’ve rewritten it for your DNA.”

The pistol lying beside a body of some female crew member lighted up. Something shot her bad. So many bullets hit her around the waist she broke in half. Seems like something being able to shoot fast, and…

… well, the pistol probably won’t help me much more than it helped her. But at least I can defend myself now, right?

***

TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System

Long War

28 March 2547, 13:49

Nymphae led me into a long, straight corridor with some rail in the middle. There were several bodies scattered here and there, and a lot of abandoned crates.

“This location is called Axis, it’s an internal rail that can transport cargo.” It informed me. “It is practically a straight line going from the end of the ship to its bow. Practical only in cargo vessels as it weakens the hull integrity. Since it connects all cargo holds, it’s the fastest route to our destination.”

Riiight. And it even did without me asking for. I seriously can’t figure out how smart the AI truly is. It has both moments of initiative and intelligence and… well, the moments without them.

I’ve run forward - enjoying the much-improved stamina of this body - and in a few minutes, I reached the sealed nano-gate.

Wait, it’s not nano-gate.

“The nano-gates are vulnerable to mechanical damage.” Nymphae informed me. “Since having them in Axis would threaten the hull integrity too much, they are replaced with typical mechanical gates.”

“Which also means that if we open it, there will be a decompression, right?” Sounded like a bad idea. Most of the abandoned crates seemed secured properly, but this didn’t mean that something couldn’t… like… fly after me and hit me or something, right?

“Yes.” I suddenly heard a mechanical noise coming from behind. When I looked back, I discovered that another gate was closing maybe twenty meters behind. ”However, the decompression will give you a higher initial velocity while wasting no fuel.”

“Higher initial velocity?” The gate behind me closed. ”Wait, you don’t mean…”

I felt something liquid beneath my helmet. It spread around my head, covering my face with a transparent membrane. Half a second later the gates in front of me opened. The air was sucked out… and after two seconds of the useless struggle, I was sucked out as well.

WOOOOOOOOOOO…

“Requesting consent for taking a temporary control over your body.” Nymphae’s voice interrupted my voyage.

“Granted.” I don’t know what does Nymphae means, but I’m moving fast enough for the impact to be positively lethal, and I know nothing about travelling through a vacuum, so…

My body moved on its own. This thin bodysuit could eject minuscule amounts of air wherever it wanted, which worked like maneuver thrusters.. Together with well-planned movements of my body, this allowed Nymphae to stabilize my trajectory.

“We will reach the destination in one minute.” It informed me. I was already seeing something looking like a ship far in front of us. ”The standard procedures in case of damage like that is for the ship halves to stabilize their position close to each other, remaining directionally aligned with each other.” What? ”In short, there is Axis right in front of us and after opening the first gate the ongoing decompression will serve as an emergency breaks.”

“Hey, isn’t that dangerous? If there is something inside and it gets sucked out, it will go right at me, right?” With a bit of velocity, to boot.

“I have no data about objects that aren’t safely secured to the walls or the floor in the Axis. Because of that, the landing is safe.” Oh, that’s… WAIT A SECOND.

“Didn’t you say you have no access to security systems of the rear half? That you can’t see if there is an enemy there? Then how can you be sure there are no dangerous objects inside?”

Three-second long silence. And then, finally… “Oops.” WHAT?! “It’s no problem to us, however, as the gate to Axis refused to open.” WHAAAT?! “Initiating emergency manoeuvres.”

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOA!!!

Nymphae made me did some rather crazy mid-flight turnover and fired the main thruster on the lower end of my backpack. While the ship in front kept growing bigger, it wasn’t growing bigger as fast anymore. And it looked like we were deviating from the course.

What is it tryin…Oh.

The ship was pretty cigar-shaped. Initially, it planned to have me go from Axis to Axis - which were in the centre of the cigar - but now the plan changed. Instead of hitting the wreckage surrounding the damaged Axis gate, Nymphae had me miss the ship and slowly decelerate while flying right beside it.

I passed by maybe a third of the rear half of the ship before I finally stopped. Then the AI made me fly towards nearby… it looks like a hatch, I think. It opened in front of me.

“Oxygen reserve 20%. I suggest entering the ship.” Nymphae interrupted my thoughts. Again.

I guess the manoeuvres were a bit more costly that they were supposed to. Especially the part about deccelerating. That again, this little backpack wasn’t supposed to be used for long trips outside, so…

***

TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System

Long War

28 March 2547, 13:53

The rear part of the ship didn’t look very different from the front one. Sterile surfaces, white and blue colours, a lot of dried blood (ruined the sterile part), and mutilated bodies. Boring, to be honest.

We walked for maybe two minutes through the maintenance corridors. Then, a large cargo hold. Filled with (white-blue) plastic crates.

Suddenly my body moved on its own. I jumped sideways and hide behind a crate. What the?

“According to audio feed received through your ears, there was a movement behind you.” Oh. “Do not make any noise.”

Right.

I could hear something moving, this time consciously. Finally, it walked right beside my hideout.

It was… an eye. Maybe fifteen centimetres long and ten wide? With spider-like legs. The whole thing was maybe half a meter high. It didn’t look my way and left the area after half a minute.

“Target identified: Numbers’ Scout Drone.” THIS DIDN’T TELL ME ANYTHING, YOU KNOW? “There are five to twenty of them around, walking around according to predetermined routes. They are searching for hostiles. Unfortunately, Numbers consider Corporation assets a Kill on Sight target.” Wonderful. I won’t even ask who Numbers are, it’s not important right now.

“So it’s all about not being seen?” I asked.

“No. They move through exactly the same route every time, always filming environment and sending the video data to the processing centre. If it notices any discrepancy between new data and the old one, it will trigger an alert.”

Holy shit, that’s both ingenious and bad. For me. Bad for me. For them it’s just ingenious.

“What’s the level of precision we are talking about?” That’s a pretty important part. How much mess can I leave behind without getting caught?

“Depends on the size of the central computer that oversees them, and the number of drones it governs. It didn’t detect you through the microscopic changes like the footsteps you leave in the dust, so I’d say your chances of survival are decent.”

I looked down at the floor. I saw no dust. Ugh. Security systems can detect such changes?! The future is scary.

“Requesting permission to take a temporary control over your body in case of threat of leaving signs that the Numbers could detect,” Nymphae said in its empty voice.

“... You didn’t need my consent to hide me, right?” What is this now?

Nymphae remained silent for a long while.

“Requesting permission to take a temporary control over your body in case of a direct threat to your life.” DID IT FORGET TO ASK ME ABOUT CONSENT EARLIER ON?! Ok, at this point, it’s either only pretending to be an idiot or is malfunctioning severely.

“Yes, yes. You have it. Now, let’s go.”

I’m having bad feelings about that.

***

TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System

Long War

28 March 2547, 13:59

“This is the place.” The cargo hold was small. It differed from the earlier ones only because instead of crates there were… hm. The boxes looked like briefcases. They even had handles. There was a sign of radiation threat painted over the side.

Hmph.

“Take two of them and you can return.” Right. Wait, what with my gun? I kept it in my hands for all this time (I almost dropped it mid-flight), but now… “It will automatically stick to your suit.”

“You are reading my mind?!” That was something new. But it explained Nymphae’s rare boosts of initiative.

“I am connected to your cerebral implants. This allows me to more or less know what you are thinking about. It wasn’t hard to figure out why you were thinking about a gun right now.” Oh. So it’s something like that.

I followed the advice. The gun ‘glued’ itself to my suit. Huh. Handy piece of clothing.

The briefcases weren’t heavy. I could freely swing them around. Huh.

“They are 50kg each,” Nymphae informed me. “Densely packed enriched uranium. Close to the point of the explosive chain reaction starting. The reason they are so light is that the briefcases are equipped with anti-gravity device that robs it from the majority of the weight.”

Wow. There are a lot of the briefcases here. Are you telling me that each of them is an inch away from becoming a nuclear bomb?!

“You need three power cells for three reactors to power up the entire ship.” Nymphae explained what didn’t need explaining. “For approximately 12h. Long-range missions, like the one that brought Task Force Pontifex to this place, might keep the ship away from the base for months.”

Makes sense. This certainly means a lot of fuel for the reactors.

I moved towards the door that the glowing line on the floor led me to.

I was maybe two meters before them when they suddenly opened. A scout bot stood right in front of me. Our eyes met.

Oh shit.

“RUN.”

Nymphae didn’t have to tell me that twice. I immediately leapt forward, jumping above the bot and running through the empty corridors.

I could hear it running after me. Probably sending info on my movements to his friends. Great.

“Nymphae, can I glue one briefcase to the back of my backpack?”

“Yes.”

Ok, so I freed the hand to use the gun with. Neeeat.

I stopped, turned back, and then fired the gun. Wow, it was pretty much recoilless, though the sound was disappointing - it was a quiet TUCK sound, that just does not fit a weapon. The third bullet seemed to hit the bot right in the eye, with enough power to make it pop like a watermelon.

Nnniiiceee.

Then I resumed my desperate escape. Before more of them came.

The destruction of the scout bot bought me some time. Enough to almost get to the nearest hatch before the enemy came.

It marched through the nano-door right beside the ones I was about to go through. Robot. Humanoid robot. Crude, it totally didn’t fit the theme of the Alum. It seemed to have been taken straight from some gritty science fiction full of rust and heavy industrial machines that looked like someone got inspiration for their design from the times of the Industrial Revolution.

It carried a gun of equally industrial design. Much heavier gun. Rifle beats the pistol. Unfortunately.

I jumped behind the crates, even before the Nymphae could take over. He fired a long burst of bullets, but they all either bounced off the crate or missed it at all.

“Target identified: Numbers’ Infantry Bot.” You. Are Not. Helping.

“Any idea where should I shoot it?” That would be useful.

“In the current setting, your pistol will not penetrate its armour. Switch to the anti-armour setting.” Wh… oh, there is a switch on the side of the pistol. Good to know. “The vital systems are located in places similar to humans. Hit its head or chest.” Riiight.

I looked around the corner of the crate to see the bot standing behind another crate… and aiming his rifle at me.

I hid before another series of bullets made holes in me. After the burst concluded, I looked around the corner again, this time with the pistol in my hands.

I pulled the trigger. Half a second later, the bullet hit the machine in the chest and pushed him back - and saved my life, because he was about to shoot me. The impact interrupted him.

The second bullet hit his head. This pushed him back (shit, how much power those bullets have?!) and made him drop his gun.

I stood up and tried to shot him the third time.

Shit, end of ammo?! Plan B.

“Can I use his rifle?” After a brief ‘Yes’ I leapt forward and jumped above the crate he used as a cover. I grabbed his rifle right before he did and then fired it whole burst at him. Point blank.

Alright, that guy is out.

“I suggest you move. More of them are coming. And not only simple infantry bots.” Oh, right. I almost forgot about that.

I glued the rifle to the back of my suit, beneath the backpack and right above my butt. Then I grabbed the briefcases and returned to running forward like a madman.

I reached the exit hatch before more Numbers (whoever they are) arrived.

“What about the oxygen?” I said while opening it. I totally forgot about it. 20%? No way I’ll make it back.

“Tank refilled back to 100%. You are free to go.” Hey, it‘s quite efficient. It refilled the backpack in, like, ten minutes?

“We won’t run out of it if I spend more time outside? There is no explosive depressurization propel me, right?”

“It depends. Do you still expect me to hurry?” What? “You ordered me to hurry. Let me quote it. “After a short while I could hear my own voice from the recording. “Lead me to the reactor power cells. And hurry.” … “So I made sure you reached them as fast as possible.”

…

So I told it to hurry, and it decided that using explosive depressurization of a ship as propeller was a good idea?! Shit, I need to be more… precise in my orders. Nymphae doesn’t seem very sane. They must have erased its Common Sense program, if it ever had one.

“You don’t have to hurry. Just make sure I manage to reignite the reactor in time.” Is that neutral enough?

“Orders received. Now, leave the ship.” Right.

***

TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System

Long War

28 March 2547, 14:05

I had Nymphae conjure a small clock on the edge of my view. 68 minutes until the first of two mortal dangers will have us all killed. In short - the excursion to the other part of the wreck went pretty good, time-wise.

Of course, unless the enemies decide to follow me. Then it will be bad.

I was flying through space in-between in a much more sane speed.

“So…” I decided to get the first answer. “What is the corporation the ship belonged to?”

“Truthseekers Corporation.” Sounds… somehow. Dunno what to think about it. “Deals mostly in cutting-edge technology. Physics. Biology. Xenoarchaeology. Weapons R&D. It’s registered in the Free State.”

Which doesn’t tell me a lot.

“Can’t we just call someone to help us?” I don’t know who the Numbers are, but we are a corporation, right? Humans. There have to be humans around, right? Right?

“Unfortunately, according to databases, 97% of human countries and organizations consider Truthseekers Corporation’s assets a Kill-on-Sight target.” What?! “The same can be said for 100% of groups of non-human origins.”

“WHAT?! Wait, are ‘we’ the bad guys?!”

“Depends.” A brief pause as if the Nymphae was gathering its thoughts. “According to said database, the reasons for that treatment include: Multiple violations of Geneva Conventions. Multiple violations of Icarus Accord. Multiple violations of 17th July Compromise. Multiple acts qualified by the Supreme Tribunal of Mankind as crimes against Mankind. Multiple acts qualified by the Supreme Tribunal of Mankind as acts of genocide. Multiple acts qualified by the Supreme Tribunal of Mankind as acts of xenocide. Multiple…”

“Alright, STOP.” So the Truthseekers guys ARE bad guys of the setting. Not exactly the feeling I had after seeing the most beautiful and pristine (before the massacre) way they designed the interiors of their ship. But I guess you shouldn’t judge the book by their cover.

Then again, they were cloning humans to use them as expendable cannon fodder - despite them being obviously as sapient and sentient as normal humans…

“We are getting close to the front half of the ship. Beginning deceleration.” Aaand… home sweet home.