Sac'a'rith (37 page)

“Then I suggest we jump short of the system and launch probes to scout it out. That will give us an idea of what we’re about to face,” said the captain.

“That will delay our attack by at least a day, if not two,” said Raquel.

The probes would have to fly into the system, being too small to have effective jump drives, and get within range of the target before they could begin scanning. Since the jump relays had been destroyed they would beam their message back to us at the speed of light; and while that was fast, it was slow on the scale of distance in space.

“Yes, and quite frankly my fleet needs that time. My men have been pushing hard to get repairs done, and I’d rather not head into battle with a tired crew if I can help it.”

So the real answer to Raquel’s earlier question about the fleet’s battle readiness was that they needed more time. I sighed to myself. People really needed to learn to be more straightforward. Had we decided to rush in without knowing that, many more could have died needlessly.

Raquel nodded. “There is wisdom in that, and I doubt we are likely to surprise them at this point.”

“Then it’s agreed: we’ll jump a couple of hours short of the system and send in the probes,” said the captain.

I almost chuckled at that comment, remembering how confused Ragnar still was over the measurement of distance out here. Obviously, the captain meant light hours, or the distance light traveled in one hour, rather than a measure of time; that concept, however, was foreign to Ragnar. To him hours could only mean time. It would take the probes many hours to cross that distance, but they could travel much faster than the fleet.

“Sounds good. Please make sure I get the encryption codes so we can receive the data here directly,” said Raquel.

The captain didn’t look pleased by that request but made no objection. He had probably been told to cooperate fully, and warned that if he caused an incident it wouldn’t be good for his career. Phareon couldn’t risk losing this small chance of making friends with the Wizard Kingdom, especially if Raquel was correct in her prediction that they would fall within a decade.

It was almost midday when my systems were fully powered again. I disconnected from my maintenance station and checked the ship’s logs to see what I had missed. The logs told me that Raquel and company had returned in the middle of the night. Raquel and Zah’rak were on the bridge, and Shira predictably back in hydroponics. I was about to check on the others when my thoughts were interrupted by a message.

“Agent P2003, report,”
said the voice.

“Mission continuing as planned. Night Wisp is approaching final jump before attacking a target of interest to Phareon and the Wizard Kingdom.”

“We are aware of the target. Make sure the Night Wisp does not survive the battle.”

“Current mission parameters don’t allow for that action. That would eliminate the possibility of success.”

“Your mission parameters have changed. The Night Wisp and her crew are too dangerous to us. Ensure it is eliminated and then report back for a new mission.”

After that the connection was broken.

Every system in my body froze at that command. Whoever that intruder was, he had correctly predicted the Great Core’s decision. That should have been impossible for any unenhanced being, even a magus. The Great Core makes all its decisions internally on its neural net, which is completely inaccessible to all but the elite among the Cyborgs.

Each decision it makes is carefully researched and vetted in an objective matter. Not even the Great Core itself could know of a decision it hadn’t yet made. So how did the intruder know? It was obvious he was a magus of some kind, but not a type that I had found in the catalogue of magi on the Night Wisp database.

Those orders left me with an impossible set of choices. I had to choose between being deactivated by the Great Core for failing to follow orders, or being killed by the intruder for following those orders. I needed a plan quickly, but nothing came to mind.

I set all my spare CPUs to run various scenarios, trying to find a way out of this trap. It was risky dedicating so much processing power to any one task, as it would dramatically slow or prevent other operations from happening. My organic brain could handle basic life support, but all my implants needed guidance from my core processing units.

I distractedly walked towards the bridge as I allowed my CPUs to run on overload. Since the only two options before me would end in my death, and my will to survive was still strong, my internal network was stymied looking for a solution. What was left of me walked like a zombie to my station on the bridge. Had I been attacked in the corridor, I would have been dead before I had even fully registered the attack.

I didn’t even particularly want to be part of the Cyborg nation. They had found me on the Paradise and recruited me because I could still blend in with the primitives. I was far less enhanced than the Cyborgs were, but that was advantageous to them at the time. Stumbling onto the Night Wisp was a stroke of luck that elevated my value in their eyes, but they had never given me anything other than the promise that I would be part of the ruling class when they’d conquered the region and wiped out the unenhanced. They hadn’t even help to pay for the repairs I’d needed when one of my implants had failed some time ago; they just asked for a report on new operating parameters once the repairs were complete.

However, since everyone else hated what I had become, it was easy to let them sweet-talk me into their ranks. Now things were getting complicated, both because I had found people who cared and because logically their next move wouldn’t work; it made no sense to take out the Night Wisp. I was gaining valuable information. After the last battle, I could see that they had good reason to fear this team, but I wouldn’t expect the Great Core to act on something as base as fear.

As I sat there trying to think, I heard Raquel address me. I missed the question, but my audio sensors had recorded it. Quickly reviewing my lost logs, I saw that she had asked for my opinion on the chances of a Cyborg attack after we engaged in the system. It was a good question, and one I lacked the power to compute in my current state. “Oh, I hadn’t considered that possibility.”

I cycled through all my running processes and paused them, freeing up enough brainpower to answer Raquel. When enough cognitive functions had returned, I was able to calculate the odds. “Unlikely. The most likely scenario is that they’ll fall back to reorganize and rebuild their fleet before taking the offense again. The Wizard fleet beat them pretty badly, so they’ll need longer to do that than this engagement should take.”

There was a man on the primary screen, to whom they had presumably been speaking when I’d walked in. “Are you sure of that?” he asked.

I paused and slowly recognized him as the captain of the fleet we were flying with. I had gone too deep with my calculations and realized I’d have to limit my processor use in the future. I should have noticed that a mission planning session was going on and paid attention but had been too deep in my own thoughts. “Yes, sir. It’s the action with the highest probability of long-term success, and the Cyborg nation acts solely on probability calculations.”

The conversation moved on. I looked over the scenarios I’d been running, and none of them looked good. My computers assigned a high probability of termination to all of them. I knew the Cyborgs considered all their members expendable, so contacting them wouldn’t help. I doubted the intruder would want to help me even if I could reach him, and what was left of my birth family didn’t have the resources to combat this problem. I had to solve this problem alone.

I had spent most of my life alone until I’d met Purwryn. Since joining up with him and his friends, I could finally relax. Everyone knew what I was and no one minded. They shared openly with me, and had even covered the cost of my repairs. I had never met anyone like these strange folk. Truth to tell, I was enjoying my assignment and didn’t want it to end.

They ended the call with the captain, and I looked over at Raquel. I had yet to see her powers directly used in battle, but watching her manage the fight with the Cyborg fleet supported the information I’d gathered that concluded she was deadly. She carried herself with the confidence of an experienced warrior and had appeared fearless in any encounter I’d been able to witness so far.

Ragnar told me that she was over ten thousand years old. I was sure he had to be wrong, but he believed it. His personality type was not one to lie or easily be taken in so there had to be a good reason for him to think that, which meant that at the very least she was probably one of the oldest living primitives.

Watching her triggered a memory. It wasn’t very logical, but this was a side effect of keeping my organic brain intact. It was another advantage of the organic brain: it could make illogical leaps and connect things that no computer would. Many among the Cyborgs replaced much of their brain, but I’d kept mine purely organic. It had disadvantages, but logic leaps like this made up for it.

The memory of Raquel dated from earlier in our travels. I remembered overhearing her saying, “The Wizard Kingdom is all about second chances.” It was during one of the sessions when they were recounting the history of the Wizard Kingdom for my benefit. They, mainly Raquel and Ragnar, felt that I should have some historical context.

I remembered the selflessness that she had exhibited when saving my life before she even knew me, and the steady determination of Purwryn as he spent hours working on my implants. My organic brain couldn’t recall the details exactly, but my system logs and the ship’s logs had them all. I’d spent a lot of my time when lying around paralyzed doing nothing but reviewing the ship’s logs and its database. I had learned quite a bit about the crew in those days and was impressed.

I looked over at Zah’rak, who’d gathered this ragtag group of misfits and turned them into a family, and suddenly I knew I had another option. I quickly ran the calculations and it had a very high probability of my survival. It would mean switching sides, at least for the present, but that was something I’d had to do in the past and probably would again. Besides, the side I was currently on was sending me to my death.

“Zah’rak, I have something to report. There was an incident while you were away,” I told him. A look of relief passed over his face. That was not the expression I was expecting and it threw me off for a moment. I couldn’t find any logical connection between my statement and his demeanor. I tried to rerun my scenarios to see if I needed to abort, but was unable to calculate due to the lack of information.

“Go on,” prompted Raquel, drawing me back to the situation at hand.

With no better plan, I decided to push on. “I was attacked by an intruder in my quarters,” I said and then told them everything that had happened. “When I awoke this morning I had a message from the Cyborg leadership, telling me to make sure the Night Wisp and all hands were destroyed.”

“Do you often get messages from them?” asked Zah’rak.

“No,” I replied. I took a deep breath and continued. “Please understand that before I met Purwryn, I was alone and hated by all. My father tolerated me, but I suspect that was only because I was useful on his ships. The Cyborgs discovered me and offered me the world if I would help them as an agent among the primitives. You see, I can do what they can’t: I can blend in. They wanted me to be a spy, and in exchange I would be part of the ruling nation when they took over.”

“And you agreed?” asked Raquel.

“Yes. I think anyone might have. I was alone, depressed and desperate,” I said.

“When you joined this ship, was it as a spy, then?” asked Zah’rak.

“No. Purwryn brought me on board. My original plan was to see him off safely and then find a new place to blend in for the Cyborgs. That plan was derailed by my injuries and Raquel saved my life. The Cyborgs decided I should stay and ordered me to study the magi and send them information on how you work magic.”

They were quiet for a while. I decided to let them think about it. It was likely that they were communicating via their telepathic link, something that I had no access to. I wondered what it was like. The ship’s database described it as a direct thought transference. They could apparently exchange more than just words: memories, scents, emotions, anything that could be thought could be shared. It sounded much like downloading memories from other units and replaying them, but they could do it in real time.

This period was a little nerve-wracking. If my calculations were wrong, they might kill me or bind me in some prison until they could get rid of me. That would mark me as a failure and I’d be assumed defective by the Great Core, which would mean termination.

“During the battle, what were your orders?” asked Zah’rak.

“They wanted me to destroy you then because you were having too much success, but I refused and persuaded them it would be a tactical error. I don’t expect they are happy with me right now, and by telling you this I have made myself an enemy of the Cyborg nation. There’s no going back, but I don’t think there ever really was after I came on board.” I didn’t know if that was actually true, but I suspected it was. Even still, I thought there might be a way around it if I was careful to keep my options open.

“Why
are
you telling us this?” asked Raquel.

This was the question I’d been waiting for; if I answered well, I’d live. “Because I envy you. You’re a family. Sure, you’re not actually related, but I see Raquel going out of her way to help Shira heal, and Shira running to help Zah’rak understand Raquel. I watch Purwryn and Crivreen practice together with complete trust. I viewed the logs of Raquel saving my life. There’s all that and much more. I want to be part of a family, and I can’t be if I’m on a different side.”

I waited in silence, assuming that they continued to confer telepathically. I knew from the stories I’d heard that both Raquel and Shira used to be enemies, not only of each other but also of Zah’rak’s team. It was hard to imagine, but apparently at one time Shira had been doing all in her power to kill everyone who was now her friend. These stories gave me hope that switching sides as a means of avoiding deactivation would be a successful move.