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CHAPTER 34


The ship made contact with the loading bay floor approximately two seconds before loud thumping echoed from the door. Talinn, still midstep toward Otie, sealed her helmet before opening the doors. Too soon for the external atmosphere to be fully trustworthy, given she had no idea how long the bay had been open while they were gone.

Jeena and Caytil, fully suited, surged inside, Jeena closing the door immediately behind them. Caytil placed a portable server on the floor, and Jeena checked something on her arm. Atmosphere readings apparently, because she quickly cracked first her helmet, and then Otie’s.

Caytil stepped out of the way, pulled off her own helmet and gestured to Talinn. Once Talinn’s head was uncovered, Caytil yanked her in for a hug. “What under every sky in human space happened out there?”

Talinn couldn’t pull her gaze from the unloading process between Jeena and Otie’s unresponsive body. The other woman was breathing, but would she recover?

“We have to get out of the system.” Talinn thought she murmured the words, but Jeena jerked as though she were about to turn around, so it had been louder than she meant. She forced her voice low and hurriedly shared the highlights, such as they were, with Caytil. “And you all?”

“The interference disappeared about an hour and a half ago. We couldn’t pull you up on comms, but are pretty sure our contact with Pajeeran Fall actually happened, so that’s something. Sammer bled from his ears a little and said he and the Leis were shut down for a full sixty seconds after they got a sideways wallop they couldn’t explain.”

“The defense array didn’t like our trying to access it, turns out.” Talinn rubbed the back of her neck, then added, “Sammer’s recovered, then?”

“Headache the size of the array, sounds like, but doesn’t look like he got hit as hard as she did.”

“‘She’ can hear you.” The voice was not recognizably Otie’s, and barely human. More croak and strained, wheezing vents.

Talinn’s shoulders sagged with the release of tension before she snapped them straight again, and a moment later, Bee returned fully to her awareness.

Let’s never do that again, yeah?

“Which part? Accost a defense array, load-in to my clone’s head with your AI counterpart, half take over a ship in the middle of space?”

Yes. Unequivocally yes to all. None of that is defined in my parameters.

“Jokes already?”

Already? I’ve been silent and in twists for hours! Can we disrupt the jump point on the way out so no one ever comes here again? Sorry to the colonists, but also, it’s only a matter of time before that array goes fully bonzo and explodes the primary or something.

“We have to talk about the defense array.” Talinn pitched that loud enough for everyone, then laced her fingers behind her neck and stretched until her spine popped. “Because I’m pretty sure it said all the defense arrays everywhere are equally bonzo, and we’ve got to figure out where to go out of their way.”

“Don’t you mean ‘what to do about it’?” Otie asked, even as Jeena attempted to pull her attention back to the orienting questions.

“I absolutely don’t, other me. Best bet is to get out. Of this system, of this cracked attempt at disrupting the war, all of it. But let’s get you clean, and everyone together, because we’re going to want to fight this out, and I’d rather do it just the once.”


It didn’t take long, and the interference from the array didn’t noticeably reestablish itself, so everyone was conscious and in contact with their AI partner when they gathered in the information room.

Talinn stood where Otie had when they first arrived, and considered pulling a stool up to the table given she had nothing to display. Too much energy surged through her, so she decided pacing in front of the large screen was better than sitting, and then realized she was thinking about that to avoid the matter at hand, which made her immediately start talking.

“Call the Pajeeran Fall and tell them we need to be out of here as soon as they can finagle their orders.”

“I thought this was going to be a discussion,” Sammer said mildly, his hands flat on the table in front of him.

“What we do next can be a discussion, though my mind is made up. Getting out of this system is a nonnegotiable. The defense array didn’t give me a timeline, but I can’t imagine it’s going to be long.” Talinn rocked from her heels to her toes and back as a general hubbub of complaints and questions answered her, then held up both hands.

“Please keep in mind the array is absolutely full-on glitched and cracked, all the way bonzo, and given I have no idea how a simple logic program gets that twisted, I don’t even know for sure if it’s going to let us out of the system. I don’t even know for sure what happened, folks, but it hasn’t blown us up yet and it wants us out. So we get out. It’s our best chance to live. Everything else we can figure out later, if we can do that.”

She partially tuned out the resulting arguments, instead letting Bee detail all the different sensor readings she had had access to on the passenger ship, and then Caytil snapped, louder than everyone. “Stay at Deep End if you want to blow up. Out is the way—it’s the how we have to figure.”

Talinn raised her eyebrows, and Caytil shrugged. “You’re right—we don’t know if the jump point is safe. We shouldn’t all load into the Pajeeran Fall and hope for the best. I don’t know what our alternatives are, but staying here and asking the defense array to come visit can’t be one of the options.”

“As long as we go.”

“You are not in charge here—” Otie sat upright, which impressed Talinn more than she’d admit. It didn’t stop her from shutting down that particular direction of conversation.

“We’re past that, I think.” Talinn shrugged. “You can be the boss of whatever else, but you’re not the boss of me.” A weird thing to say to someone who was, essentially, the same person as her, but Talinn decided she’d made her peace with it. “And you were mostly functionally unconscious during the entirety of the encounter with the defense array AI, so I’d like to think we both have sense enough to not get into dominance displays over this.”

Otie pursed her lips for a moment, then dipped her chin, and a small knot of warmth briefly unfolded some of the knots in Talinn’s midsection. She tamped it down and nodded in reply. “A large concern is the defense array basically told us to bump down and stay out of the IDC-UCF conflict.”

An immediate chorus of overlapping questions, and this time she didn’t wait it out, but continued talking. Talinn was long trained to give succinct reports, and the discipline of the other Eights kicked in for them to listen. They became remarkably quiet—as though this were a real briefing on a real base with Base Command leading—though it was a whole new flavor of silence after her last point.

“Bee doesn’t think the defense array is any kind of normal AI.”

A lot of staring, a lot of stillness, and then Otie dragged in a deep breath. “My Bee agrees.” Those three words broke the holding moment, and several Eights shifted, muttered, or leaned forward.

“There were no weak points for us to slide our EMP drones in to ward it off physically, and it was exactly like that for the pulses we attempted to send. There’s no opening, nothing to receive, the way any normal program would have.” Otie didn’t shudder, but she held her arms so close to her body it seemed she was forcing herself still.

“So is this defense array corrupted beyond recognition, or . . . ?” Caytil looked between the Talinns, her expression neutral.

“Do techs run any courses on defense arrays?” Sammer asked, swiveling in his seat toward Jeena. She shook her head, paused, then shook it again.

“There’s no organic component, so there’s no real need for us. That would be more . . .”

“You keep hesitating. What’s catching you up?” Talinn didn’t snap the question, but Sammer put a comforting hand on the tech’s arm. Talinn put effort into also not frowning, because while coddling Jeena wasn’t helpful, neither was alienating her.

“There is an actual classification for AI coding, and it’s under the tech branch. I know a few people who got tapped for it, but I don’t know anyone who’s done anything with defense arrays. I would have said it’s because they’ve all been programmed for a long time, and nothing ever takes them out, but . . .”

“There should be maintenance. And someone has to switch them over from IDC to UCF when system control changes. And you’d think that would be part of warfare, getting them to change sides, so someone should specialize in defense-array programming. And counterprogramming.”

“Something like that might be kept top line, need to know.” Xenni tapped her fingers on the table. She didn’t sound entirely convinced of her point, and Caytil’s answering head movement was equally noncommittal.

“Maybe something the Spacies would have insight in.” Otie stood, went deathly pale, but didn’t stagger. Talinn had to admire the discipline, even as she worried why what little blood the other woman had left had decided to flee her facial region.

Tiernan left his chair in a hurry, and though he didn’t put a hand on Otie, he hovered close by her. He murmured a question Talinn couldn’t quite hear, and Otie shook her head, dragged in a breath, and continued speaking.

“We’ll ask them when we see them. In the meantime, we use the emergency evacuation plan. Scatter through the system in small ships, circle the jump point. See where the attention goes.”

“How do you want to test the safety of going through the jump point?” Caytil’s voice was a study in neutrality.

“Either we’re sitting targets here, or finer points out there. Going through the point itself . . . I’ll talk to the Pajeeran Fall. There’s a meeting point. See what risks they want to take.”

“Do you think—”

“That’s not entirely reassuring.” Hops frowned, eyes on the table between them as he spoke over Xenni.

“Does anyone have a better suggestion?” Arnod grunted and waved his hand as though to dismiss any response.

“The facts are these, folks—whether it’s that something is wrong with the defense array or it’s fundamentally a bonzo weapon, it wants us out. And not just of this system, but of the conflict as a whole.” Talinn made an effort to keep from rocking on her toes. “I think we should get out as quickly as possible, but . . .”

“I agree with Otie.” Sammer leaned back, tension clear across his shoulders. “We get out from here, split up, go under—find our way from there.”

“We need to continue upsetting the balance—keep Command off-balance and primed for collapse.” Tiernan crossed his arms and glared, though he kept his focus on Talinn rather than Otie.

“Sure, yeah, great call. And how will you fight off the defense arrays when they notice?”

“It’s one broken program, you said yourself. How can it—”

“That’s . . . not what I’ve been saying. We talked about looking further into the defense arrays, but nothing’s come of it, is that right?”

“Enough.” Otie stood, wavered for a brief moment, and locked her body into attention. “You’ll pair up. You’ll go to different places. You listen, and you learn, and gather what you can while I make sure we have a path out of Exfora.”

“So we scatter, we wait . . . we find answers.” Xenni’s voice lifted on the last word, but her nod was definitive.

“The fight isn’t over.” Jeena stood close enough to steady Otie, but the older woman didn’t shift. The tech straightened her back and met Talinn’s gaze squarely. “We’re taking it on the move.”

Finally.


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