Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles 2: Redemption (18 page)

The super-mind sent a team of drones to begin the process of extracting the AI core by physically disconnecting it from the surrounding structure. The super-mind did not know if the AI core was still viable but analysis of even a damaged unit would be invaluable. Additionally, power fluctuations within the target area gave it cause for hope.

The work took several days
but at last the section that had been identified was free and drones were even now moving it to its new home in the asteroid belt. Minutes after the unit was removed, drones detected invaders within the main structure.        

This probability had been anticipated. The super-mind responded by dispatching several hundred of
its newly developed combat drones.

"No! Not good. I told you food is for eating not playing."

A peculiar giggling like sound flooded his encounter suit radio at about the same time three twenty
-pound insects did belly flops in the central nectar fountain a few hallways removed from the hatchery. Nectar splashed everywhere and cleaning robots popped out of hidden recesses in the walls to deal with the mess.

Mike Jeffries surveyed the scene in front of him. Eighteen feisty, exuberant
, and completely normal juveniles were running amok in the time honored tradition of kids anywhere.   The fact that each of these juveniles had an exoskeleton made of chitin and vestigial wings, did little to change their nature. 

It looked like a bug exterminato
r’
s worst nightmare; except in his heart he knew these were not bugs, not anymore. These were his children.

It had been rough at first. Cricket
, which was the first of his kids to be born, had almost died within half an hour of hatching until Mike reasoned that what it was pining for was food. He bundled the small creature in his arms and raced for the nearest nectar fountain. It had gone limp in his arms and he had been afraid it had died. He cupped some the precious fluid in his hand and placed it near the creature's mouth parts.

Instinctively the little
Bugger reached out with a tiny proboscis and began greedily sucking at the life-giving liquid. Within twenty minutes it was squealing in delight and running in circles around the GCP officer.

Mike talked to the hatchlings constantly. Explaining everything he was doing over his suits short-range radio. He was delighted and quite frankly impressed when first Cricket, then
Jiminy, began to echo his comments. That began the language lessons. The children were incredibly fast learners. It seemed that once one of them figured out something the others picked up on it in mere minutes. He supposed this was a consequence of their organic radio interlinks.

They were two weeks old
and he was already teaching them calculus and basic science.  The one question he was dreading finally came up earlier that day. Jiminy and the youngest, Tiny Tim, had come over to where he was placing eighteen nectar bowls out for their mid-morning meal when the question came out of nowhere.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, Timmy."

"When will I turn all pink and soft?"

"I'm not sure I follow?"

"I don't think we are the same. Jiminy and I are the same. Roach and I are the same. But you are the same but not the same."

"That's true. I'm a human."

"Daddy, when will I be human?" Jiminy asked.

"That might be difficult." Mike answered. "You and I are different species. You and Cricket and all the other children are what my people call Hymenopterans. I am what my people call Human."

"Hymenopterans are not human?"

"No"

"Why?"

***

The corridor was filling quickly with wispy white smoke.  Chief Wroblewski crouched behind some type of transformer.
Carstairs and Jackson were on his right and a few feet behind. They were using a cover and crisscross method for movement.

The
KayBees were using laser rifles. Jackson had a nice hole in his shoulder care of their first introduction to these new weapons. Fortunately GCP medical nanites were very effective. The laser had cauterized the wound and the nanites deaden the pain centers. Jackson, for his part, grunted and dropped his pointer.   Grimacing, he simply bent over and picked up his weapon with the other hand.

"Chief, I'm not sure we are going to make it going to the right.
What if we cut back and try going around those crates over to the left?"

Wroblewski checked his wrist mounted
Tac-Vid. Both routes were filling quickly with red dots but there was a natural choke point on the right that would be bad news if they got caught in it. He had an idea.

"Carstairs do you have any of that C7-A left?"

The young man held up three fingers while his face spread in a widening grin at the prospect of blowing something else up. The Chief saw a lot of himself in Carstairs; the thought frightened him in a strangely pleasant way.

He signaled the young man to toss one of the charges to him. He saw the look of disappointment on the young man's face and repressed a smile.

"I'm going to place this one between the wall and that transformer. Hopefully we get a nice bang and a new door."

Looking directly at Carstairs he let just a touch of a smirk touch his eyes as he continued. "Meanwhile I
want you to hold one in reserve; take the other and place it here," he flagged a location on his Tac-Vid. "Set it to detonate when we cross over to this junction here." He indicated a position twenty feet from their current location.

"Roger that
, Chief," the younger man said with a renewed grin. He set the smart-detonator to auto initiate when the local positioning system indicated the prescribed change in relative positions.

Sergeant Jackson leaned forward to look at the
Tac-vid.

"I'll drop a squeaker off to the right. That should get their attention and let us scoot once you open us up that new door. It's better than killing them outright. I assume you are going to use a shaped charge for the door?"

The Chief scowled at the sergeant. "Ya know, this ain't my first dance."

"That may be true Chief
, but I've seen what you call dancing and the fact that the missus still married you is a testimony to the limitless grace of the human spirit!"

"Sergeant
, don't you have a squeaker to drop?"

"Roger that
, Chief!"

Squeakers were flash-bangs that had been modified to emit a short range broad spectrum radio burst. The burst would travel several kilometers
but anything within a few hundred meters with a radio receiver in its head would have one hell of a headache. Cinnabon had assured the team that such a weapon would be effective even given that the KayBees were not currently linking with their organic nodes. Even so, the Chief was reluctant to use them except as a last resort. No one knew the permanent effect on the KayBees.

In addition to the squeakers
, the Chief had an experimental modification to his pointer that allowed it to send a directional radio burst. In this case the radio burst included a computer controlled pattern designed to disorient. Again there had been no testing of this particular weapon and the Chief was reluctant to use it until it could be determined that it did not cause permanent damage to the radio node within the KayBees.

The handful of
KayBees that had been rescued from the asteroid assault ships, along with Cinnabon, had shared that KayBees could become radio deaf when exposed to powerful radio noise. It was in fact the attempt to treat this condition that had caused the KayBees to develop entangled quantum communication technology.

"Alright boys. On my go
, move out. As soon as we are through the hole I'm fix'n to blow in the floor, I want Carstairs to seal it with some of that battle foam each of you has strapped to where your momma slapped you. I don't want any Buggers following us through."

When both men had nodded their understanding
, the Chief said "Go!"

***

"CAT!" Ben yelled. "Did you invite anybody else to this party?"

"Depends
, did they bring any beer?"

"Well
, they brought something but it isn't beer." This last comment was accompanied by a large boom and a whole lot of smoke.

"You OK?" Cat yelled over her shoulder as she continued to run down the corridor towards the last control point.

"Yeah. I tossed a smoker and one of the KayBees lit it up with a laser. I guess they're not designed for that."

"I guess not
," Cat agreed. She placed the last nanite pack and triggered its deployment protocol. The pack dissolved as the nanites within it began to seek a route towards the main computer core. All the other networks had reported in. They would have control of each of the major systems including propulsion, weapons, navigation, and, most importantly, the Heshe AI once this last network finished installing itself.

They slowly worked their way back toward the shuttle and the rest of their team.
After several minutes Cat stopped and checked her internal AI for confirmation.

"Cal, I did not get a linkup '
ACK' from the last quantum net. Can you confirm?"

"
There has been no acknowledgement. The network was unable to reach the computer core.
"

Ben scratched his muzzle.  "Did we place the pack in the wrong place?"

"
Negative Commander. Based on telemetry I have received from the nanite web the core is no longer at the expected coordinates
."

  Suddenly suspicious
, Cat asked her AI to confirm her suspicions.  "Cal what is currently at the target location?"

"
A three thousand cubic meter void.
"

Ben padded up to her. "Does that mean what I think it means?"

"It means," Cat said through teeth gritted in frustration, "that the hive has stolen one of the most advanced AI cores in the known universe and we have no idea where it is. What we need to do..."

She never finished her sentence.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw three KayBee's round a corner and draw a bead on Commander Ben. Instantly she charged into action. Her Heshe enhanced muscles contracted and she jumped through the intervening space between the KayBees and her friend. Her own weapon targeted first one then a second of the attacking drones. The third however got his shot off. The laser caught Cat mid-chest and burned a hole the size and shape of a baseball through the space that had formerly contained a Heshe enhanced human heart. She was dead before she hit the ground.

"Damn
," Ben thought. He grabbed her corpse by the hair and began a fast trot down the hall, away from the fightin
g
– dragging her bumping and scrapping through the debris. Cat may be dead, but if Ben had learned anything from his time with her, she wasn't likely to remain dead.

Ben toggled his
comm link. "Chief, what's your status?"

"We are just getting to the shuttle now.
I
t’
s still cloaked. Doesn't look like they've realized i
t’
s there yet."

"Don't tip your hand yet Chief. These guys are
a hell of a lot smarter than we are. You can be sure they know i
t’
s cloaked and may well be following you just to get to it."

"Understood
, Sir. What are your orders?"

"Hold fast and make sure you have your breathers on. We ran into a bit of a hiccup up here and may need to get creative." Ben shut down the
comm link.

Five minutes later the Heshe nanites in Cat's body had done their work
and she opened her eyes as it nothing had happened. Ben simply grunted.

Cat looked at her six legged friend. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Does it involve chocolate?"

"
No."

"Probably not
, unless you're thinking of asking Cal to take hold of the WhimPy's new control net, jumping us home, and hitting the KayBees still onboard with some aerosolized anesthetic."

"Pretty close
," Cat acknowledged rubbing her chest where the laser had made the hole. Her uniform was a bit more risq
u
é than she would have liked, but such were the fortunes of war. At least she was alive.

"I think the anesthetic might be problematic.
If I'm not mistaken Cal should be able to assume control of a limited number of the statio
n’
s nanites and physically restrain any KayBees with nano-fiber cords until we can disable their Quantum nodes."

"See
, that's why you're the Commodore and I'm just the mutt that carries the bags."

Cat scratched him behind an ear. "I was one of those bags there
bub; and by the way, thanks.  Cal, implement protocol 2B. Take primary control of the platform and restrain any hostiles."

Immediately
, the lighting came up in all sections of the ship. "
Commodore, the ship is temporarily secure, however, I am unable to restrain the hostile KayBees. As soon as I restrain one the hive mind overrides my control of the local nanites and the restraints are dissolved.
"

"Understood" Cat said. "What would
you estimate the threat-level is for the hive learning to fully control the nanites?"

"
Extreme. I am already encountering physical anomalies in the control interfaces to this ship. The hive is attempting to reconfigure and regain control.
"