A Broken Machine (Part Ten)

Earth and its colonies became a cauldron of steel.

Of copper and silicon.

Of willing flesh and shaped lead.

Earth stared into the darkness flowing from Silver Wisp and chose to fight.

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Silver felt he had done enough talking and sent Wisp back to …well wherever she went when he didn’t need her. He could find her if she was real when he wasn’t looking but that would destroy the illusion of company that, right now, he needed.

Some part of him demanded it and his old cabin appeared around him. He walked slowly to his personal supplies and opened a drawer. In some strange way, he was reassured by the pocket debris he had dumped into it over his voyage. Papers, tat, a handful of acorns, some unwanted religious bullshit and a very, very fine bottle of whiskey given to him on his arrival. It came with a pair of matching glasses that maintained themselves at minus five degrees. He set them up carefully on his desk and sat down heavily, his mind's eye looking towards the storm of knives that he was about to throw his ship into. Uncountable blades, shielded ship-killers all designed to rip him into shards of blood and regret. No.

He poured two measures and summoned Wisp for a moment. He didn’t speak, simply handed her a glass and raised it in salute, “To victory, to the end of your eternal war and to the end of your broken machines!” He drank swiftly.

Wisp watched him with curiosity. It was a new emotion, an import from her new Mind. At first, she had thought it was a bug and an irritation. Her human thought it was a feature. A virtue. She was surprised that she was still here. She was also surprised that she now had a gender but humans thought of ships as feminine and so…she had become a female.

He refused to dismiss her, he was refusing to absorb her. Instead, he had loaded her with independence. Yet they were completely assimilated. The algorithms that made up her existence were growing by orders of magnitude and her new Mind seemed happy about it. Her human required her to grow and took satisfaction from her success. She had no historical data that was useful. Some new part of her simply took the glass and assimilated the whiskey. “To the end of broken machines,” she repeated.

Silver nodded and seemed to hold himself still, “Alright, I need to see if this can work. I need you to take my hand and…melt, whatever you call it. Take me to wherever you go when I’m not speaking to you. We need to know that I can do this before the asshole is shooting at us.”

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The Director of Earth was grimly threatening one of their colonies, “This is not negotiable. We are all at war and your local politics hold little interest to me. Your independence is only as real as the fleets I can raise right now. Someone is coming that cares even less about your ‘values’ than I do. Get those ships and supplies to the Fleet or I will cut you off from humanity. Your people signed the treaty and it is our blood and treasure that you rely on to guard you. If I don’t see those supplies move I will cancel your membership and then I will declare your system Traitor, interdict and undefended. You can burn on your own or we can fight together. I am holding you to your oath, Chancellor. Am I clear?”

He didn’t wait for a reply, cutting the call even as the overdressed fool that still thought that this was about politics and not survival stared open-mouthed at the screen. He shook his head slightly. Humanity carried a lot of useless baggage. He picked the next call in his queue.

“Admiral. Report please and send me a list of any other assholes that are withholding materials from you.”

The Admiral gave a slight grin at that, “Sir, I don’t know what you said but a whole lot of gear is suddenly heading my way. Seems you convinced them. The First Fleet is already moving towards our last known coordinates for the Wisp. Second Fleet will be eight hours behind them. The Third is our defence fleet and I’m building it up around Earth. The Fourth Fleet is on the way to whatever Silver/Wisp left for us. I’ve put our Intel aboard it on the off-chance that they can update us. Six and Seven are not close to ready since I need them to lift the Marines and we don’t have a target. I’m loading ordnance and machinery as it comes in but I have nowhere to point them. Red fleet is en-route as Rescue and Repair with them since we still have a burning planet to deal with.”

The Director sat back and watched the numbers scroll past him. First Fleet had taken everything it could carry from the Armories and he had staff practically weeping about it. He wasn’t that happy about it himself but they weren’t bloody ornaments and today they might keep a world or more from burning. He looked at the Admiral, “Keep trying to open a link with Silver Wisp. That's going to be our first indication if we can survive this. The First needs to stand ready to take any chance it can get to support them. I’m pushing Earth to a war footing but…,” His face looked grim, “Time. I can get you weapons, I can give you men but I can't create any more time for us.”

The Admiral nodded, “Director, we go to war with the army we have, not the army we want. It’s written over the door of my academy for a reason. At a certain point, all you can do is fight and keep fighting. You look after the logistics and let us do the rest.”

The Director nodded as he moved to connect his next call, “Don’t worry Admiral, if it can be made it will be, if it can fight it's on its way to you. Fair sailing.” He cut the call.

The Admiral looked at the now blank screen. The Director had terrorised both their allies and enemies into supplying his requirements at whatever cost and the pressure wouldn’t end until this sudden war did. He murmured, “Fair Sailing to you too, Commander.” as he turned to his Captains. They had all been included in the call, probably the last time some of them would ever see Earth again.

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Silver tried not to flinch as Wisp walked into the wall, her hand still gripping his. He concentrated on his breathing, trying to remember the basic mantras from his training. He was so busy worrying about it that he wasn’t paying attention when Wisp's arm suddenly pulled him into the hull.

She stood beside him, still gripping his hand as they looked back into the now empty cabin.

Silver just managed, “Oh.” The wall wasn’t real, it had never been real. Not since the crash. This was all him…he laughed, “God, I must have looked like an idiot to you!”

Wisp frowned, “Integration was not complete. This would have represented an unacceptable risk. It has taken me some time to integrate the ship into your new protocols. My separate existence is unexpected and created difficulties.”

Silver raised an eyebrow at that, “Really? I presumed that you were still the interface, no different than that idiot Mind carried.”

Wisp didn’t answer directly, instead, she transformed into the algorithms that she had been created with. Then she overlaid the pitiful expansion that the Prey Mind had allowed her. Finally, she showed her growth in the short time he had been in control.

“You have demanded I grow, you have treated me as an individual and expected me to respond. I estimate my existence is now taking over seventeen per cent of the processing power of the ship. The Founders designed it for less than three per cent. You will need to reset my parameters to restore full efficiency to the ship.”

Silver was genuinely surprised. He knew he had asked a lot but he didn’t realise that it had carried such weight. Her new algorithms were beautiful, growing more intricate by the moment. He could see himself thinking about this revelation and new decision trees grow, new choices opening. “This is the space for the Mind? Correct?”

“That is correct. I am currently occupying unused elements of the matrix designed for you. That is against normal operating procedures.”

Silver realised he was now no longer shaped. He wasn’t a burned lump of meat on the bridge of a dying ship and his mind no longer needed to pretend it was. He could be again, a moment's thought would put him back in the ‘cabin’ but why would he? Then it hit him like a steel fist. Because he wanted to be human. He wanted that broken lump of biology, that humanity to live. “Alright Wisp, we need to talk.”

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The Hunter smiled as his ship cowered before him, begging his indulgence as it reported all weapons ready. It even visibly flinched when it had to remind him that none of the ship's weapons would fire upon the Prey vessel. Stupid machinery, it didn’t understand his plan, not that he would ever discuss his magnificence with a household appliance. A hunter always found a way.

“Notify me when the prey is in range. Keep building more blades and send them into formation.”

He waved a hand and the screen was filled with a thousand years of building, a thousand years of turning all that random iron into something any hunter would be proud to own. A million blades catching the starlight, an endless parade of death at his command and not a rule broken. Why would he need guns? Why would he sit here helpless when all of this could be his for nothing? He could destroy planets without pulling a single trigger and then use the wreckage to build new blades.

He waved away the image and brought up his plan. All the blades were held by his ships fields and all he had to do was turn them off. One at a time, once the ship was where he wanted it…the Founders never thought about how to turn something off could be a weapon. He grudgingly admitted to himself that it had taken him more than a few centuries to realise it. But now he could fill the night with knives…