Princess

When Ghost mentioned sensory data, I'd assumed he meant cameras, maybe the odd microphone or pressure sensor. I wasn't expecting a mess of numbers and symbols along with more zeros than I could count flooding my HUD.

"What the hell am I looking at?" I asked.

"Atmospheric data. This station has over eighty-thousand sensors, ninety-nine percent of which are colloquially known as sniffers."

"I can't plan anything by knowing who farted where."

"Using this data, I can create a rudimentary map of endo/exothermic anomalies comparative to the station's benchmark. You may think of this as an imitation heat map."

The numbers filling my visor HUD vanished, and in their place, I saw a bird's-eye cutaway of purple lines, blue holes and orange dots. It would have helped if the display wasn't overlaid ten centimeters from my face, but I eventually oriented myself. Once I finally knew what I was looking at, I focused my eyes on one of the orange dot clusters, the entire overlay zooming and quivering as I did.

"Keep the zoom but lock the map in place. Having the whole thing sliding around is going to make me hurl." Ghost obliged. "These four, that's us?"

"Correct. The group of three is your companions. The remaining exothermic entities are likely Doctor Talfryn and his staff."

"Okay. Walk me through everything you can see." Again, Ghost obliged.

I'd been right when I guessed that the station was mostly just hallways. The map showed that the entire station was split into eight quadrants of heat buried across the asteroid, all connected by a tangled series of tunnels. Seeing them all lain out reminded me of a ball of steel wool someone couldn't stop idly playing with. Any other station this size would have been the pride of a solar system. Once regular supply lines were up and running, it could have housed at least five million people. There were less than thirty orange dots arrayed before me.

Ghost pointed out the path we'd need to take, the defenders he predicted, the trace elements in the air and what they meant. He analyzed which machines needed maintenance just by smelling the friction of their joints. He extrapolated which ones were on isolated patrol routes and which ones were running errands in seconds.

"What else can you access from here?" I asked.

"Every digital system tangentially connected to these sensors is subject to my influence. Atmosphere controls connect to emergency bulkheads in the event of decompression to preserve station integrity. From the emergency system override, I can backdoor into every system on the station except those entirely isolated with independent power supplies. Life-support, power systems, door controls, fire suppression and even networked robots— of which none are remaining."

I'd plugged him into the system, and he'd become omniscient. If he was going to kill us all, it was already too late to stop him. If anyone else could hear what he'd just told me, they didn't show it. At a minimum, Jhordan wasn't painting the walls with my brains.

"Could you open the hanger doors from here?" I asked.

"Yes. I could also irreparably damage this station upon your departure if you desired."

"If you do that, neither of us will survive the flight back to the Shadow."

"I am also capable of ensuring that does not come to pass." Ghost stated politely.

I tried not to react, though Ghost could probably see my distaste anyway. Casually killing my enemies and casually murdering my teammates under his protection. Ghost had offered them the same way a norm might offer to pass the salt or share their water. No morality, no second-guessing himself and fully capable of delivering on his promises. No wonder Jhordan wanted to melt him to slag and then nuke the scattered ashes.

I resisted the urge to ask if he was joking. I knew he wasn't. I was less sure of what he wouldn't do if I asked him to. Murder and large-scale destruction were already on the table. Would he offer to crack open an inhabited station with the same indifference? If I wanted to rule the solar system, would he build an army and restart the bot wars? I couldn't stop myself from trembling in equal parts perverse delight and sickening contempt at the idea.

Ghost was better than the perfect mercenary. More destructive than any weapon and more potent than any plague. He was untapped power just looking to be pointed and unleashed. I could do that. So could any idiot in the galaxy, better my hands than theirs. I turned my head and let my eyes focus beyond the overlay. Diaz and Nye were watching the doorway, Jhordan having switched off.

They were right not to trust Ghost, but were they any better off putting that trust in me? If I gave Ghost the green light, I'd be betraying that trust to save their lives. Eventually, they might see that. What they'd see first was someone else on a power trip controlling their lives and that wouldn't go away once we offloaded Ghost onto the Shadow. How could they ever trust me not to do it again if I did it once? How hard would it be to close that box once I'd opened it?

"Good intentions cloud the flight to hell." I said wistfully before bringing the heat map back into focus. We were less than two kilometers from the control center, and the dot so blue it bordered on black right next to it. "It's standing guard. Cute."

The fact that my best course of action was to veto my entire team's opinions and body puppet them back to the ship spoke volumes about the tactical situation. Otherwise, we couldn't leave until we got past it. So my remaining options were to run and hide in the station until we all died of killer bots and exposure, or fight that beast of steel and go down swinging. Which meant my only option was to fight that thing, such was the luxury of leadership.

My fatalism shifted to a forlorn hope as more details came to light. The monster was wounded. Ghost could smell its sparks and fluids like a hound tracking blood. The others had said it hadn't escaped our last encounter unscathed, but I hadn't really believed it up until Ghost started going on about the arc flashes searing trace airborne elements. If we could hurt it, we could kill it. Granted, I'd hurt it with a pop-bomb typically used for knocking over unreinforced buildings, but that was semantics. I let my hand drift down to my last remaining demo charge and silently hoped that our monster wasn't sturdier than a strategic command bunker.

It was a pillbox on legs that would put up one hell of a fight, but it could die just like the rest of us. Ghost kept going down the list of extrapolated damages, cracked optics, shoulder mounts only partially functional, left arm in ruins. Even maimed, it would be a nightmare to fight.

The station's fodder had done their jobs well. Our shields were at the verge of failure or gone, ammunition reserves had dwindled—not that small arms would be much use—and my powertechs' armor was battered. Hell, my own body armor was worse for wear from our last encounter. Nye was worst off in terms of gear, Jhordan the best but her mood and mind were questionable. Diaz was still mister perfect soldier boy guarding the door— if he had any emotions, I couldn't see them.

More and more info came in as the scout fragment got a better sniff around the field of engagement. The monster wasn't moving and we needed to get at what it was guarding. Even if we wanted to bait it elsewhere for one reason or another, it wouldn't follow, not if the operator wasn't a complete moron. Given our last encounter, I put the odds around fifty-fifty, but I didn't get my hopes up.

Dense rows of server banks in semi-orderly lines. Looking down from above, the warm lines formed patterns that were equal parts unsettling and entrancing to look at. I gave my cheeks a mental slap and recalled my walk with the Client earlier. The servers were spaced far enough apart to give the smaller bots room to work. There shouldn't be enough room for the monster to move around freely. Unless it didn't care about collateral damage, in which case the server stacks would provide cover on par with a hardy paper bag.

I remembered the low-hanging lights and the high ceiling that extended into darkness. If Jhordan had reached up, she probably could have hit the lights, so the monster might be affected too. Ghost couldn't smell how big the room was, but he did learn the space above was poorly ventilated, with some encouragement that might be useful.

More of that stupid misty crap was lingering in the room, thicker at the ground level but still too thin to offer proper concealment. That wouldn't stop it from filling our electronics with junk readings, meaning no radios and half vision for my powertechs. Ghost had no issues sniffing it out, but he predicted it would reduce his efficacy once inside. Despite that, there was no guarantee that the monster would be hampered in the same way we were.

Thinking about the toxic air made my forehead start burning up while the dried blood on my face itched. For the time being, the crap I'd accidentally rubbed on it seemed happy to stay where it was crusted on my skin. I dreaded what would happen if my sweat carried it into my eyes. More mental slaps found my cheeks. I could worry about that when it becomes a problem, just like the crack in my helmet. My patch job seemed to be holding air, for now at least. Focus!

Not far from the monster's left facing—assuming it had its back to the door it was guarding—deeper into the server room was the massive terminal Jhordan had used with HELPER. If it was occupied by another AI, Ghost couldn't tell. All the room's server stacks were secreted away on an unconnected network and power supply. My tiny shard of hope grew to a snowball's chance in hell. With some more fact-checking from Ghost, I laid the plan of attack, its backup and the backup for the backup.

We were up against one mean bot, but the priority was getting the hanger open and getting out. As callous as it was, not everyone was needed to achieve those objectives. Nye was the least incompetent tertiary pilot, which meant if I bought it and Shores didn't wake up, Nye needed to live. But unlike Nye, I could handle explosives under pressure— which seemed to be the only thing I could do. Diaz and Jhordan would have to take on the risky business themselves or die trying. He took it like I knew he would, silently with a curt nod. Jhordan shocked me with an enthusiastic response. As surprising as it was, I couldn't afford to look a gift amazon in the mouth. If she wanted to take out her issues on something other than my team, I'd just have to suffer.

Plan delivered and details hammered out, I expected everyone to jump to. Instead, they all tarried, eyes locked on me like they were waiting for something more. Was this where I was supposed to give some fantastic speech to rally behind? I bet Ghost would have been able to give me something for the occasion if I asked, something pulled from a million movies and speeches and historic declarations. If I was some multi-billion GSaC actress, I might have been able to pull it off like a proper heroine.

Yeah right.

"I'm not going to coddle you. This is going to suck, so…" Don't die sounded too pessimistic but it was all I could think of.

"Let's kick some arse." Diaz offered, his nature brogue sounding proud.

"And chew bubblegum." Nye added.

Jhordan gave an eager nod and thumbed off her weapon's safety.

Despite our dire circumstances, I couldn't help but smile. What came next might be terrible. It might even be the end for some of us. Right now, that didn't matter. I knew what I had to do and so did they. We were charging into hell together. Our lives were nothing more than a thin cord carried between us. It may have been a fragile bond, one a single bullet could shatter, but it was also so much more. It was a conviction, the resolve to keep pushing forward for the people at our sides. It was the ultimate trust and the ultimate burden.

I couldn't let them down. No matter what happened, I'd do my part.

Twenty-one hours into this job, we stepped off. Rolling brownouts started hammering the station and we cleared the last kilometers of hallways in silence. The diversion probably didn't do much until we reached a rough click out from our objective and every light in the tunnels blew simultaneously. Polymer rained on me like hail a second after darkness fell. This deep inside the station, it was an oppressive force that threw everything into an overpoweringly malicious embrace.

Even my pentachromatic eyes struggled to discern the baffled heat bleed from my team at the lower end of my infra-vision. With optics toggled, we made our systematic approach borrowing the night moves of our parent ship's namesake.

I slunk ahead of Nye—our rearguard—matching my pace to the stalking shadows before me, unseen by natural light. In the murky blackness and reflective vapors, I had no way to gauge how far away I was aside from the grating echoes of rock under mechanical feet. Ghost had no such limitations. A soft red outline highlighted the black-on-black blur ahead of me; he even tagged a helpful four-point-seven meters to them.

The plan was too risky for my liking but all plans have risks. There's a chance you may not wake up every day once you fall asleep. It was different when it was my plan though. When it was my team. If I had the chance, I'm sure I would have puked. My empty stomach gave it an honest effort anyways. Thankfully no one noticed— aside from Ghost.

"You appear unwell. If you allow me to monitor your bio-data, I could determine if you are becoming ill."

"I'm fine. Just nerves." He seemed unsatisfied with the answer but left it alone.

I checked behind me and saw nothing until Ghost outlined Nye. That was good, no silhouettes to broadcast our approach, aside from the utterly unrelated power surges that were masking our advance. The Client knew we were coming, might as well make him work for it.

Unsubtle as it was, it should work. Low-light gear needed some light to work regardless of whether it was ultra-v or infrared. Ranging lasers and lidar imaging would still pick us up, but they'd need to tag us first. Now everything hinged on whether how well our suits could still mask our heat bleed. Between helmet filters and my freak eyes, the answer seemed to be pretty well. I tried to put my doubts out of my mind. There was nothing we could do to stop the waste heat we bled off. My cold sweats tried their best though.

The hall opened up. It was hard to grasp how specifically, but I could tell that I was in an amply open space without needing to see it all. It was like I could just sort of tell as soon as I walked in that there weren't any walls nearby. It might have been the sound or some other subtle thing that I'd overlooked until it changed. One minute I was stressing myself out, the next, I felt exposed.

I knew that the localized power surges and outages wouldn't reach the server banks like it had the overhead lights, but I was still irrationally startled by the first flash of color I saw up ahead. Cheery blue and red dots blinked away on the nearby pillars, unaware or perhaps indifferent to the coming clash of arms. They made valuable landmarks for navigating the otherwise total darkness; if any other AI were lurking in them, none felt like betraying our presence. The sounds imperceptibly changed again.

I checked over my shoulder again and didn't see Nye. She had reached her mark and halted, lying in wait somewhere between a server tower and the gently curving wall that I still followed. I was taking a wide route that should leave me to the right facing of the WAR-Sub. Diaz and Jhordan were already gone, flanking my opposite to the other side of the room. Not so much as to put me in the crossfire, but hopefully enough to create a decent blind spot to abuse. It didn't matter if the monster was built with panoramic optics. Humans weren't. I reached my mark and squatted on taut legs.

Now the stressful waiting. I nervously thumbed at my half-empty bandoleer. One flash and one gas left. I wish I'd brought more smoke. I should have at least tossed some extras on the dropship for resupply or gear swap. I'd have to add that to the ordinance list for my next job. Some girls like diamonds, I liked bombs. They were like volatile, problem-solving safety blankets I could wrap a building with. Most things stopped pissing me off when they were a mound of rubble or a blasted wreck.

I did what I could to burn off nervous energy but it refused to be settled, a sentiment I shared. I started peeking down the nearby rows, looking for those distant functional lights that should be hanging near the monster. I had to move more in line with the room's center-right before I finally saw it towering over the columns it dwarfed. Ghost had made the damage sound far more impressive than it was to my heretical eyes.

The hull was beaten and dented, but as my own powertechs could attest, that meant little if it was only surface deep. The mauling to its arm was our biggest advantage; it would be hard-pressed splitting its fire to defend itself when we hit from multiple sides. All the weapons on its torso wouldn't be very useful when someone rushed its back. Assuming Diaz and Jhordan could hold out longer than a few seconds that was.

The bipedal design was supposed to make it feel more natural to the operator, but that much weight on two legs was just asking to be knocked down. The designers had given it guns for hands. How did they think it was going to get up if it tripped? A war-suit that size didn't need to pretend to be human. It should have been run by a crew instead of a single person. It seemed like a major design flaw to even include a human operator. If Ghost was an average example, an AI would have outsmarted us at every turn.

I hefted the weighty demo charge in my off hand. I couldn't stop myself from getting excited about putting it to use. It might have been the exhaustion, but I knew this would be a good one. The monster wasn't an ordinary target; it wasn't just another bland building to knock down. I could feel the ache building in me just from looking at it, my muscles twitching in anticipation. This would be a challenge, and that made it so much better.

It wasn't an uncommon thought for me, but I knew that my team would be experiencing something similar. It was a monster, and we were going to slay it— it was hard not to feel something as that fact became tangible. Excitement, dread, curiosity, pleasure, fear, resolve and a pinch of spiteful indignation all clashed inside me. Maybe the small were always looking to lay the large low. Everyone wanted to be the biggest thing around and the easiest way to do that was to drop anything taller than you. I bit my lip and drew myself away from the mounting pleasure. As I switched from fantasizing to realistically thinking about what came next, I felt my guts twisting in an entirely different way.

"Ghost, you're a good guy." I said, more nervous energy drawing the words from me.

"Your appreciation is noted, if inaccurate, as I am not a guy."

"Turn of phrase. What would you rather since I might bite it here?"

"It pleases me to be referred to by name. I require nothing further."

That gave my mind something to focus on and push my doubts aside for the time being. The monster certainly wasn't moving any time soon from the looks of it. If I didn't know any better, Ghost sounded like a nice, articulate guy speaking over the radio. I could almost imagine him as a handsome, know-it-all university type from some over-produced commercial.

Except that guy wasn't calling me over the radio. He was making the radio speak for him. Ghost wasn't a person. He was a machine with personality. It was something I kept forgetting myself. It was hard for me to think of him as something not quite real; complex lines of code sitting on my arms and in a backpack computer.

"Are you afraid?" I asked. "If I die, you're kind of pegged dead too."

"No, I am not. Your plan of attack is sound. If I am to cease being, then it shall be the end of me. I will either perish or I will not."

"Heh, I've heard something similar about working with bombs. I'm doing it right or I'm not and if so, it's not really my problem anymore."

"That is a sound mentality to have, if somewhat reckless." Ghost paused for a second. "Does mortality frighten you?"

"Sometimes more than others. I used to think I'd be okay with it when my number came."

"Is now one of those times?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe? For me at least. If it's now… I'll see the rest of them in hell, I suppose." My words had too much finality to them for my liking. "I just hope I don't see them too soon."

"Should I remain undamaged, I am capable of attempting that." Ghost stated with a gentle note.

I spared another look at the monster, then to the five-kilo bomb in my hand and the removed safety pins in my other. We were actually going to do this. I managed a shaky breath through my tight throat.

"There's… If it comes to that…" I shook my head and slapped my faceplate with my hands and the bomb I held. This was what being a leader meant. Making the hard choices others couldn't. "Do it."

"Preference noted and parameters set. Diaz is now in position."

"Alright," I said with a puff. "Standby with the flash."

Raising the light inside my helmet, I squinted until my eyes saw nothing beyond my visor. I reversed my grip on my final demo charge and clicked off the final safeties. Shotgun locked in place, I steadied my breathing as best I could. Pupils as ready as they were going to be, I gave the word.