The Trilisk AI (2 page)

“Citizens,
this evening I bear grave news for humanity. There has been an incident
involving unknown, and presumed alien, forces that resulted in the deaths of
men and women in our Space Force.”

“Five
Holy Entities,” Telisa whispered.
Are they going public about the incident
at the alien base?

“The
UNSF scout ship
Seeker
was investigating a possible ruined planet at
this location approximately 115 parsecs from Sol,” said the secretary general.
He paused for a three dimensional map to appear in their links for reference.

“The
Seeker
!” Telisa said aloud.

Magnus
put his hand on her shoulder.

“The
ship sent us detailed scans of six constructs of unknown origin. These ships,
or whatever they were, reacted to the presence of the
Seeker
by altering
course. Objects were launched from the unknown vessels. Our scout was tracking
those objects and scanning the other vessels. When the objects approached
dangerously close, on collision courses with no signs of slowing, the
Seeker
responded with a drone and laser countermeasure suite, destroying the incoming
objects, presumed to be missiles.

“The
scout ship was destroyed shortly thereafter by means unknown,” the secretary
general said. “We do know it was destroyed because of other probes that
survived its destruction for a matter of minutes before they, too, were
destroyed. I would like to make it absolutely clear that the
Seeker
took
no offensive action against the mysterious vessels.”

The
secretary general paused. “As a result of this unprovoked attack, I’m declaring
a state of martial law across the commonwealth. We are assembling a grand fleet
to defend ourselves. I assure you that we will protect each and every
settlement with our full capability. No outpost is too small to receive our
full support. Whenever, wherever these unknown forces appear next, we will be
ready to deliver a strong counter to their aggression.”

At
that point, the secretary general started to discuss the names of new ship
classes being assembled, the types of local defenses being prepared by UNSF
forces across the known worlds, and the things civilians were being asked to do
to help the cause. But Telisa wasn’t ready to listen just yet. She was trying
to absorb the news about her father.

“He’s
dead. We’ll never be reconciled,” she said.

“I’m
sorry.”

“I’m
okay. It’s not like I really knew him anymore, anyway,” she said. But she felt
a nebulous loss that threatened to break her surface calm.

“You
know, he died doing what he wanted to do. From everything you’ve said, it
sounds like the Space Force was his life.”

“Well,
this time it was his death. And it sounds like aliens did it, too.”

***

A
male, Asian face appeared in Magnus’s PV. The man smiled. He had short black
hair, except on the crest of his head, where longer hair stood straight up then
turned out at ninety degrees to form a T shape. Magnus didn’t own a hairbender
himself but he was vaguely aware this was the new trend.

“Jason.
Good to see you.”

“Magnus?
I was beginning to wonder.”

“How’s
the agency?”

“Everything’s
good. We’ve been contacted by several clients,” Jason said. “I thought the news
of the alien attack would make everyone scared to leave, but it just caused a
shift of clients. Everyone who gets ahold of the agency now is asking to be
taken out to look for the live aliens.”

“What
did you tell them?”

“I
put them on a waiting list.”

“Okay.
I have good news and bad news. Good news is, you’re promoted. I’m doubling your
salary. We have a few tasks for you.”

“That’s...that’s
great!”

“That
bad news is, we’re not coming back for a while. I’m sending you some money. Get
two androids. Model them after Jack and Thomas. I’ll send you their bio data.”

“Uh...okay.”

“Here’s
the deal. Someone may be snooping around. We want them to see the androids and
think Jack and Thomas are back, see? So don’t let the androids go outside. Just
have them clean the agency and hang out, and leave some of the windows
unpolarized. If someone’s determined to spy on the agency, they’ll think Jack
and Thomas are back. Got it?”

“Sure
thing! Could be fun,” Jason said.

“Set
up a bit to flip if the Space Force shows up there. It’s officially the status
of the second waste receptacle in Jack’s office for our trash service. I’ll
monitor it from here so I’ll know if they show up.”

“The
Space Force?”

“You
didn’t think I was doubling your salary for nothing, did you?”

Chapter 2

Captain
Relachik wasn’t a captain anymore. He’d lost his command shortly after the
fiasco at the alien starbase, where he’d made “incompetent” decisions that
enabled the smugglers and the alien to escape. Now he was just Leonard
Relachik.

Relachik
had taken a calculated risk to save his daughter. He’d since revisited that
decision a thousand times in his mind. Sometimes he called himself an old fool.
He scolded himself for ruining a lifetime of hard work. But at the core of his
being, he knew he had made the only decision he could live with. He had saved
his only daughter, at least for a while.

He
walked through a drizzle near the spaceport on Malgur-Thame. The algae growing
in the clouds gave the rain a green tint, which made him feel like he was
swimming through a slime pit.

He’d
missed some big announcement. At the time, he’d been drowning his sorrows in
the gym, his version of escaping reality. Now he allowed himself to return to
the world. He scanned the headlines in his link’s interface. A news viewpane
was full of them.

Seeker
Lost...Space Force Defeated...Aliens Attack!

“Five
Holies,” he said, stopping in his tracks. He stood and read the stories. He
watched the speech of the secretary general. Slowly the green rain leached away
the residual heat of his workout, but his thoughts raced too fast to care.

His
ship, destroyed. His crew, dead. And he hadn’t been there to prevent it. The
only victory in all of it was that no one even suspected he’d made those
decisions to save his daughter.

This
was his reward.

Relachik
started walking again. Now his muscles were cold. He headed back to his cheap
hotel to take a shower and think over what he would do with the rest of his
life. He stayed in the shower a long time, meditating on his life under a thin
stream of hot water, though in this remote locale it had cost him almost a
standard credit to use so much water.

I
have enough.

Fortunately,
a Spartan life in the service had left him with a considerable amount of
savings built up. That money could keep him comfortable for a long time.

Or,
he could double down on finding his daughter.

Relachik
didn’t need to think on it. He opened a new metapane in his mind’s eye and
started to peruse the net for private military firms.

***

Relachik
walked into the moldy office building. The place was deserted. The water
containment had started to fail just a bit, enough to make the place one giant
green stain. The only way to recover a building after this happened on
Malgur-Thame was to re-establish the water barriers, block out all the visible
light, then UV gun the place for days. The wall struts, at least, were
inherently water impermeable, but every inch of textile in the place teemed
with microorganisms.

He
had an FTF with another potential hire, a man called Arlin Donovan. Of course
the man offered virtual business consultations, but for what Relachik
wanted...better to keep it offline. Relachik found the man in a single-room
office. A real wood desk and a couple of chairs dominated the middle of the
space. A dusty, old filing cabinet took up space in the corner, probably empty.

Or
filled with weapons, maybe
,
Relachik thought.

Arlin
stood tall. He had light brown hair and blue eyes. His nose looked smashed by a
few too many solid jabs from a cage fighter. The man was in shape. Relachik’s
first impression of Arlin was positive. This was exactly what a mercenary
should look like: strong, fit, determined, and a bit roughed up around the
edges.

It
reinforced what he’d already found on the net. Arlin had a solid military
background and it all checked out.

“I’m
Relachik. You look the part,” Relachik verbalized his thoughts.

“Arlin
Donovan. You look like a soldier yourself,” Arlin observed.

“Navy
man, actually,” Relachik said. “But you knew that already.”

Arlin
nodded.

“Then
you know I can afford the contract. We’re going to find my daughter.
She’s...fallen in with the wrong crowd.”

Arlin
nodded again.

“I
know you aren’t broke, and I know you’re not a screwup. Which puts you two
points ahead of my last employer. So I’m glad to work with you. Just one
concern,” he said. “With due respect to the man footing the bill: Your
daughter’s of age. She’s old enough to choose her own course. Are you asking me
to take her back against her will? That could impact the bottom line.”

“We
should agree on a contingency for that. If she’s being abused, or if she’s been
brainwashed, I can imagine scenarios where I’m going to take her back against
her will.”

Relachik
had told Cilreth that he had no intention of taking Telisa back if she didn’t
want to go. But he had since had time to reflect on the possibility that Telisa
might have been coerced with violence, drugs, or more sophisticated behavior
modification. In those cases, he had decided, he would extract her from that
environment and rehabilitate her before letting her decide what to do with her
life.

“I
tell you, though,” Relachik continued, “What I’m mostly worried about is the
other smugglers. If they’re bad news, it may get ugly.”

Arlin
nodded. “Okay, I’ll touch up our agreement to include that possibility.”

“Your
info packet said you could cover the transportation angle,” Relachik said.

“I
have an arrangement for transport. I can get us wherever we need to go, on the
frontier or beyond.”

“Is
there another man involved? I mean, will we have a pilot tagging along?”

“No.
The ship’s reasonably modern. I can handle her. As long as we don’t run into
those aliens that deep-sixed the
Seeker
.”

Relachik
nodded.

“Do
you feel lucky or unlucky you missed it?”

“Unlucky,”
Relachik answered immediately.
He understands me well to ask such a
question,
he thought.

“But
since I’m still around, I’m going to try and clean up this mess with my
daughter,” he continued.

“And
if your daughter logs me?”

Relachik
understood Arlin meant: What if Telisa logged him as the target of her weapon
and prepared to open fire? Arlin could hardly be expected to hold back and
allow himself to die.

“This
isn’t a suicide mission. I know I can’t pay you enough to lay down your life.
But I hope you focus on the extra 5000 ESC you get if we come back home with
her still breathing.”

“Then
we understand each other,” Arlin said. “I’ll be ready to go tomorrow.”

***

Relachik
sat in his small room on his last night on Malgur-Thame. The woman before him
look fit enough, though he suspected it was from the pills as much as the
dancing she did for her VR packages. She wore a sleek black dress that caught
the eye. Her narrow face was clear and beautiful.

“You’re
about to get your money’s worth. No doubt about that,” she said, walking to the
end of the small room and twirling around. “No more virtual encounters. This
time, in the flesh!”

In
contrast to her sensual overture, Relachik was all business.

“About
that. You’re making some assumptions, and I didn’t bother to alter them. Sorry
about that. I know you’re famous. And I’m sure you get your share of people who
come to Malgur-Thame to enjoy the presence of the Emerald in person rather than
from your VRs. But I’m here about something else,” he said.

Emerald’s
face changed quickly.

She’s
probably thinking she’s made a mistake, that I’m some kind of psycho. Hurry
before she sends for help.

“I
just need you to talk to somebody for me,” Relachik said. “The fee stays the
same.” He spread his hands as he spoke, universal body language for ‘I mean you
no harm.’

She
wasn’t fearful. She walked over to him.

“Okay.
I can’t say I’m not disappointed. You’re attractive. I have a soft spot for
Space Force guys, I guess. Why don’t you just talk to this person yourself?”