"The far end of cycles of war and occupation found the edge of the colonized Hyperspace Expanse. But this was not enough for the Domain, driven as it was by a spirit of conquest to never be sated. This infernal mechanization lusted on for celestial spheres beyond, and beyond, and beyond; it would never stop devouring God's creation." - The Sermons of Caprican Spaceborn, Brassica Paperwrights, Gilead
"It's like they can predict our every move. Run a scan, find out if they managed to break our encryption. ... Yes, thank you. Send transmission to the High Hegemon, Alabaster Five. Tri-Tachyon broke into the network, advising shutdown." - Commander Kane Gleise during the opening engagements of the Second AI War, c.189
~{•••}~
"Wire them up to the servers, we're working on a schedule!"
"Calibrating first set, should be done in five!"
"Where the hell is the Ludd-damned connection port!?"
The cacophony of shouts and orders intermingled with hurried steps and clicking of boots was just about the only thing one could hear inside the server room they were in. Everything that needed to go was being rigged to detonate, and anything else needed for the future was to be moved shortly before detonation. Why everything was going slowly was just about anyone's guess.
Jangala stood as the only planet with a relay strong enough to provide coverage for the entire Corvus system, and additionally stood as a central pillar in the hyperwave network's infrastructure. Take it out, and the network would be malfunctioning for months. Take out the Hegemony's part of the infrastructure, and the entire network would go dark. That was the plan - destroy the hyperwave network and deny Tri-Tachyon an easy-to-use resource that they had managed to backdoor to hell and back. The added benefit would be denying its usage to the Persean League and the Diktat splitters that mutinied during the Askonia Crisis, of course.
Teodor Cardona, a stout man with a bushy beard, balding hair and piercing blue eyes oversaw the destruction effort on Jangala. The High Hegemon's orders had been clear - destroy everything so that nothing like this could ever happen again. Some would consider it overkill, but Cardona saw it as a necessity.
And evidently, so did almost everyone else in the Hegemony. The Strategic Council agreed on a plan and presented it to the High Hegemon. The High Hegemon forwarded the plan to ComSec in order to see if it could feasibly be done. And once they said that it could be done, and that it could be done in a highly reasonable amount of time, the leadership collectively signed off on the order. Bringing his gloved hand to his chin, he continued overseeing the destruction effort with a great deal of attention poured into it. After all, they had to bring down the entire network in one fell swoop for this plan to work properly.
"I see you changed a bit. Trimmed that beard a little, maybe?"
He couldn't but groan silently, not even bothering to turn around. The person came from behind all the same, leaning onto the railing of the alcove he was coordinating from. Sporting the same uniform as he did, but with brown trimmings instead of orange, the woman had chestnut-coloured hair in a pixie cut, as well as, curiously, violet eyes. A woman by the name of Carla. Last name unknown, former affiliation unknown.
The only thing the Hegemony did know, however, was that she was a pre-Collapse engineer fished out of a drifting cryotank a cycle ago. The woman was infuriatingly cagey and vague with what she did before her entombment into the cryotank, and the fact command still gave her a rank and place within ComSec, and more importantly, in this operation was even more infuriating.
Carla fished out a cigarette from Ludd knows where, given her uniform had zero pockets, and procured a lighter at the same time. Lighting her cigarette, she took a drag from it before puffing the smoke out in a slow, drawn-out fashion. "Got twenty more packs of these, you know." She said, gesturing to the cigarette in her hand. "Highest quality nicotine ever made before everything fell apart. Certainly beats the crap made in this dump of a Sector."
He frowned. "As you've told me the last eight times." His retort was useless anyhow. He was pretty sure he saw her smirk just now. "What's the status of the bombs?"
"Well... they're not exactly what I'd call 'quality workmanship', but hey, close enough is good enough." She tutted a second later, silencing him. "Can't expect me to dish out miracles with subpar materials and a rushed schedule, now, can you?"
He pointedly chose not to reply. In spite of all her quirks and annoyances, even he couldn't deny her engineering skills. "Besides, the bombs will work. Trust me on this. I've seen worse."
"By disarming or arming?"
At that question, she grinned. "Wouldn't you like to know, Father Christmas?" She took another drag. Wait, who was Father Christmas? "But, if you really have to know, it was when I had a job back on a colony called Draupnir." He perked up at that in spite of the earlier comment, paying some more attention to Carla now.
"Nasty business, that planet. Puts Chico to shame, you know. Both in industrial output and the pollution it kept pumping out. Still, I guess the air scrubbers were alright..." Trailing off, Carla let his mind wonder off on the implication of that statement. Not that it was a controversial implication at all - the Persean Sector was behind virtually every other settled expanse of the Domain. "Point is, I did a little bit of this and that on Draupnir. You wouldn't imagine the amount of machinery that broke down every single day. Could've been rich if I settled down."
"Then I should be honoured that you didn't." He remarked, sighing as he learned almost nothing new about her. Why was ComSec hiring someone who they knew very little about? Were they truly that desperate to pull this off before Tri-Tachyon caught on? "ETA until we're done rigging the place?"
She flicked the cigarette away as soon as she was done smoking it, not answering immediately. Or at all, given what she said next. "You know, none of this would've happened if you just pounced on Tri-Tachyon immediately."
He furrowed his eyebrows. "We weren't able to do it because they attacked us first."
"Not what I meant." She sighed, finally turning around to face him, still leaning onto the railing with her back. "Kind of odd that madame High Hegemon Molina didn't instantly lay down the big scary law on the Sector's inhabitants when the battlegroup arrived. Would've assumed that would be everyone's number one priority."
"Your point?"
"I made it before you misinterpreted what I meant." She shrugged. Kicking off the railing, he watched her starting to walk out, lighter and - again, from Ludd knows where - a pack of cigarettes in hand. "I'll call you when command is ready to blow it all sky-high."
He didn't bother turning to face her. He had an operation to oversee, and he was tired of her antics either way.
~{•••}~
It had been nearly a day since her impromptu talk with Cardona, and Carla was bored out of her mind!
Sure, reading live updates concerning the war was entertaining, but knowing that it would soon come to an end put a damper on such fun. As did the fact she was all but forced by the Hegemony to help ruin the Sector's last remnant of actually good pre-Collapse infrastructure. Horrible stuff.
And she had doubts that they'd simply let her go once this operation was completed. Either they sequester her to a new, but completely useless project so that they could officially keep her under lock and key, or they kill her because they finally figured out she'd been rummaging through their files without any sort of authorization or justification. That was on them for having such sloppy InfoSec practices lately, war or not.
"Alright, let's see what's new..."
Scrolling through her TriPad lazily, Carla parsed through the information available to her through constant CommNet surveillance. Legs kicked up onto her table, she made herself comfortable, knowing that no one would disturb her unless her presence was requested by a commanding officer. Which was exceedingly rare.
An alert for a new session of the Strategic Council was up first. Unimportant, given she didn't forge herself credentials with a clearance level high enough to remotely follow the meeting or at least be aware of the details. Another Tri-Tachyon backdoor plugged, nothing new there. Some academy dropout named Orcus Rao started cooperating with the Hegemony. Curious, but she wouldn't pay much attention to him.
Ah, this was most interesting.
Someone was making a call on a secure channel. A very secure channel. She let it ring for a while, see if anyone picked up.
No one did.
Frowning, she started typing away at her TriPad to see where the call was originating from. If this was a secure channel, and it managed to reach her, there were two things. Either those scanning communications channels were finally fired and repurposed for some other job, or the call was only reaching her. Whatever, she'd see who exactly was calling either way. Replace that line of code with her little concoction, and-
The Corvus Gate.
Not from near the Gate, but from the Gate itself. That... couldn't be right. No, that couldn't be right at all. Now she was extremely curious as to what was going on. Running an encryption algorithm she was gifted way back when, with a moment's hesitation, she finally accepted the call. "Jangala customer service, how can we help you today?"
"This is admiral Arthur Orion of Battlegroup XIV of the Domain Armada, identify yourself immediately."
Oh shit.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
Kicking her feet off the table and bolting upright, Carla began panicking as she searched for her past life's credentials. No, no, no, this couldn't be possible, could it? But that voice, it was identical. She heard it thrice in the past, and she wasn't one to forget. But it'd been almost 200 years, so unless he went into cryosleep, how the hell was he alive? Where even was he? Clutching the physical copy of her IDENT-Chip, she started rattling off the data on it. "Uh, 722-CLL-8591-AZURE-5, sir." She let out a long sigh. "Civilian contractor."
The man on the other end hummed. "I expected someone from the government to respond to this."
"Quite frankly, I didn't expect to be called by the 'Hero of Draupnir'."
'Hero'. Domain-speak for 'someone killed a couple thousand people and ended an insurgency'. Shortly after she had left the planet, as she recalled, Battlegroup XIV pulled off a planetary blockade and bombed the major military bases into dust before landing troops to retake the planet. The fact casualties were only in the tens of thousands didn't bother the Domain at all. Apparently, they were expecting far more. "So... I take it the Domain's still alive and kicking somewhere?"
Orion remained silent for a while. For what reason, Carla could only suspect, but it'd been a while before he deigned to talk with her again. "You were a blockade runner during the siege of Draupnir."
She grinned. Well, that settled that - Arthur Orion was the real deal.
She might've ran past the blockade a few times, but she wasn't there to aid the rebels, no. She was there to evacuate whatever was hers, and hers alone. Most especially her prized possession and pet project, 'Toybox'. She wondered how the Hegemony didn't find the thing when they fished her out of the cryotank. Incompetent or careless? "That I was. But as you should also know, I was only there for my stuff."
"That you were." He paused again. "Jangala, hm... Persean Sector, correct?"
"Yep. And it's somehow way worse than it probably was when colonization was just starting." Carla started drumming her fingers on the table. Oh, she'd have to take some time off to process this conversation in full once it was finished. And she did not envy her future self, not one bit.
"Explain."
"Time to pull the band-aid off..." She muttered to herself, before launching off into a rather... animated retelling of recent events. "Well, let's begin with whatever is happening right now, shall we? Let's see... Tri-Tachyon's declared war on the survivors of Battlegroup XIV, who're calling themselves the Hegemony now. The Hegemony found out they installed a million backdoors into the hyperwave network, and instead of trying to plug them all, they're instead going to blow it up in a few days or weeks-"
"Stop." He sternly demanded. She could hear a long, audible sigh escape his lips. Carla already had a mental image of Orion rubbing his forehead in frustration. It was mildly amusing, she would admit. "What instigated this... war?"
She shrugged. "AI regulations, apparently. All thanks to the fact your maybe former colleague, Kali Molina, didn't immediately start enforcing the law when they arrived and after she formed the Hegemony."
"She formed-" A barely audible slamming sound was heard from the other end of the line. That wasn't good. "How long ago was that?"
"Mm, around a hundred-and-forty years ago, maybe. Or cycles. Never really understood why they started calling years 'cycles'." She pondered out loud. That was a bit stupid, she thought. Years were years, they didn't need fancy names.
"I'm going to have to converse with a few people when we get back." A pause. "Why is the system flagging you as a lieutenant? And why do you have the clearance level of a major?"
She raised her hands in mock surrender, as if he could ever see her. "They forced me into this crappy job. My task is to make bombs for them to blow up or purge the servers hosting the net's infrastructure. As for the rank, well... let's just say I got bored."
"You know you can get a court-martial for this."
"I think these guys broke a few regulations first by hiring me and not noticing I'm using fraudulent credentials." The counter to his statement was a spur-of-the-moment decision, but perhaps she could make it work. See who got the last laugh.
"You bring up a valid point. Inducting civilians isn't done without consultation." Taking advantage of the pause, Carla started loading the data packets she had already prepared for her own convenience. Loading in this many was a risk, but at this point she'd take anything to get out of the Hegemony's dead-end job. "That still leaves us with you, however."
"If I may," she finally responded "I have an offer to make."
"...go on."
"You need information on what's going on in the Persean Sector, fine. I can give it to you free of charge. I just need two things to make it work." She raised a single finger. "Firstly, I'm going to need a guarantee you won't name me when asked where you got the information from."
"For what reason?"
"I like not being in the spotlight too much. Lets me focus on myself, you know. And I'm certain some Hegemony loyalist is gonna kill me for one reason or the other if I'm implicated."
He seemed to have considered it from the fact there was no reply for a while. "Very well. That can be arranged."
"And secondly..." She raised another finger, face suddenly bursting into a smile. "I'm going to need your crypto-key temporarily."
"Why?" The reply came the instant she finished. Fair enough, she was asking for a massive thing. Crypto-keys were, after all, not just a way for people to share contact information physically and in-person. They could also double as access codes and, in some pretty rare cases, universal 'keys' to every single restricted file present on the local net. An admiral's crypto-keys could open up a massive amount of 'doors' for her - she'd have practically uncontested access to everything ranging from ComSec reports to the Ministry of Naval Affairs' documents, dossiers, memorandums and in-progress investigations into conduct violations and such. While files from the ComSec Director-General, the Strategic Council, Grand Assembly, Ministry of Data Standards and the High Hegemon would normally be off-limits, Orion's crypto-key very likely had the decryption algorithm strong enough to punch through whatever meager electronic defenses those files had. She was willing to bet on it.
"Let me put it like this." The sales pitch was about to start. Collecting her thoughts, she took a bit of air in before starting. "The Domain's been gone for more than a century, now. Total radio silence, you know. People are more than a little superstitious nowadays, and not a lot of people are alive that lived in the Domain before the Gates shut down. Even the Hegemony isn't completely aware of what the Domain's capable of anymore. So, here's my idea." The moment of truth.
"I give you everything that I possibly can. You scan it, look at it, parse it through any software you have to authenticate it, whatever. By that point, you'll have a full, unbiased report on the actual state of the Sector, straight from the reports that I imagine the Hegemony wouldn't want you reading. Why not give them a reason to believe you were watching them from the start? Give them a little fright."
She could already imagine it. The High Hegemon himself, sweating bullets in his office inside the towering spires of Chicomoztoc as he listened to someone claiming to be from the Domain rattling off every dirty little secret the Hegemony didn't want a resurgent government to know about. That. That would be hilarious.
"You gain an overwhelming advantage over them. No need to compromise when you can twist everyone's arms into following your lead no matter what. In short, you get to do whatever you want with the Hegemony." The added benefit would be the fact that the high-and-mighty pseudo-nobility of Eventide would be made a laughing stock within the Sector, but she'd keep that one to herself.
There was a long period of silence following her elaboration, the pregnant pause growing heavier with each minute. Ultimately, however, it was broken with a loud beep coming from her TriPad. Grabbing it to see what the alert was about, her eyes practically bulged out of her eye sockets.
He just sent her his crypto-key signature.
"You have thirty-six hours to use it. Try to copy it and it will self-delete and you will be arrested. Once the time is up, it will expire. As soon as you have everything deemed important, send it to this frequency. Understood?"
"Y-Yeah, yeah. Understood!"
"Good. I have much to think about." Unceremoniously, he ended the call. Carla slumped into her chair, suddenly short of breath.
"Holy shit..."
Two realizations had hit her at that moment. The first was that, soon, hopefully within this week, she'd finally be free from the Hegemony and go back to doing what she did best. And the second...
She needed time to process whatever the hell just happened today. After grabbing the data.
~{•••}~
The black coffee they made on this ship was somehow even better than the coffee made on the Citadel.
It had been a good few hours of conversation with Hannah Shepard yesterday, and Vislani couldn't remember the last time she could actually unwind properly. Their topics were rather inconsequential and innocuous, but enlightening nonetheless. Who knew that Shepard was apparently a fan of rock music? She'd probably have to introduce her to the "Three Armsmen" sooner or later.
Sitting cross-legged once more and drinking from her cup of coffee, Kaliya enjoyed the solitude provided to her for the time being. Her room wasn't anything special, but it did provide just enough to not feel spartan or utilitarian. At least not completely. Playing around with her TriPad for a while, she started searching for the Citadel's frequency. They were nearing the Coronal Hypershunt and she had already managed to send the all-clear signal to the Exploraria vessels, which only left contact with the others on the Citadel. The comms equipment here was surprisingly sophisticated. Limited in range, but surprisingly sophisticated nevertheless.
It took her a while, but eventually, she connected to the frequency she was looking for.
Sending a text to Orion, she took another sip of her coffee and patiently awaited a reply from him. "Anything to complain about, Arthur?"
She needn't wait too long, apparently. "The Council asked about the purpose of your trip again, despite our explanation. They might be suspicious of something." She frowned. Suspicious already? That wouldn't do, not at all.
"Is Boyle handling it?"
"He is."
Good, that was one less thing to worry about. He was slimy, but he was the most experienced politician they had. Having ties to the Domain Council itself had, once again, proven to be invaluable.
"With the Hypershunt reactivated, we won't have to stall for much longer." Wait, what?
"What do you mean? I haven't reached the Hypershunt yet."
The pause in texting was much, much more telling than anything else. Alarm bells started ringing in her head, and she had to put down her coffee for the moment. Opening up another tab on her TriPad, she raced through the messages she'd received and sent, searching for those originating from the drone fleet. First, second, third, fourth... none of them mentioned any remote activation!
"Problematic. But not unsolvable. We have another issue on our hands." Another issue? She paused her message browsing spree, curiosity piqued despite her somewhat panicked state.
"What issue?"
"I made contact with a military officer in the Persean Sector."
The worst case scenario. They were linked to that backwater. Involuntarily groaning, Kaliya found herself downing the rest of her coffee in one go. The Persean Sector was the least of her worries right now - she had to remind herself of that. The first was the Citadel Council starting to breathe down their necks. That was concerning because they had no political leverage nor military power to oppose them in any meaningful way. That, and she still couldn't read aliens properly. And the second... she would solve the second worry soon enough. "And?"
"It's far worse than anticipated. Battlegroup XIV remnants are engaged with Tri-Tachyon in a war over AI's. The remnants apparently formed the Hegemony, a successor state to the Domain following what they call the 'Collapse'. The founder was Kali Molina - brilliant tactician, awful strategist."
Far worse? She already feared just how bad it could possibly get. "Do we know anything else?"
"The officer I contacted agreed to supply us with information concerning the Hegemony and the current state of the Sector. They proposed we strong-arm the Hegemony into total compliance when we reactivate the Gate and reveal ourselves. Their deadline is 36 hours from now."
That was good, she nodded. Orion managed to take the initiative and establish a plan of operations. Yes, yes... "Give me time to deal with the Hypershunt issue. Pass on the information to Boyle and Mansley when you get it, wake up any other politicians still in cryosleep. I'll be busy using McKenzie's data to force a connection to the linked Gate in the Persean Sector."
"Alright. I'll be in touch." She turned off her TriPad following Arthur's last message. She needed to breathe, she needed to breathe...
In.
Out.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Stand up. Straighten out the uniform. Fix posture. Relax for a moment...
Just as the moment passed, a knock came from the other side of her door. Prepared, she went to open it, finding one of the marines standing on the other side. "Ma'am, sorry if I'm interrupting. The captain wishes to speak with you since we've arrived."
They finally arrived? Odd, she hadn't even noticed. "Very well. Lead the way, soldier." With nothing else to speak about, the two went on their way as soon as Kaliya stepped out and closed the door of her room. TriPad in hand, she used this time to mull over the recent revelation she'd been given by Arthur. This was bad. This was very bad. The Coronal Hypershunt was activated by an unknown third party, and she had no intel about it. There was nothing to suspect, after all. The transmissions coming and going to and from the Hypershunt and its custodian were normal, meaning they weren't defeated or even encountered yet. That perplexed her. AI's weren't capable of activating the Hypershunt on their own, meaning either it got help (unlikely), or it found a way to override those safeguards. The latter line of thought was particularly disturbing in its implications.
It took her a few minutes longer than usual to reach the bridge, but once she did, the marine escorting her left. Finding her way to where the captain was, she found the man - a tall one in Alliance uniform - near one of the consoles operated by a fellow crewman. "Captain." She greeted him cordially.
He turned his head around. "Ma'am." He politely replied. "We've just finished our travel, we're now in-system. Ready when you are for the final approach."
"Good. Please turn on your communications array, however. I believe there's been a change of plans."
The captain raised his eyebrow. "Anything to be concerned about? With all due respect, I'd rather not risk the crew." She nodded, in return. It was an understandable sentiment, one she happened to be against, but understandable nonetheless. In her profession, the ends often justified the plethora of means available to her.
"For the time being, nothing. I'm doing this so that we can confirm whether or not to be worried while we're still at a safe distance."
"Very well, ma'am. Ensign, activate comms, switch to broadcasting." Receiving an aye aye, the captain and Kaliya watched as the ensign tapped away at the holographic display before the three of them.
"All active. You can speak now, ma'am." The ensign informed her, the woman softly thanking him. Straightening out once more, she cleared her throat before starting to speak. She'd rehearsed exactly what to say on the trip here, after all.
"Attention all Exploraria elements and Coronal Hypershunt custodian. This is minister Kaliya Vislani of the Ministry of External Intelligence. We've noticed that the Coronal Hypershunt is active, and request elaboration on the means of activation. Respond immediate-"
"Coronal Hypershunt custodian activated. Minister Kaliya Katrin Vislani of the Ministry of External Intelligence, Coronal Hypershunt activation has been preempted as your immediate goal. This unit has only acted within available parameters to ensure timely activation."
She stood still, the only thing jolting her out of her dumbfounded state being a ping on her TriPad. Turning it back on, she looked at what the ping was about, and then froze once more.
Name, serial number, production tag. Everything concerning the AI custodian was contained within the message sent to her. Including the classification used by the Ministry of Data Standards and the defunct Technological Regulatory Committee.
Omega-class Artificial Intelligence Core.
For the first time in a long, long time, she felt...
Fear.
And that's a wrap for this chapter! Hope y'all enjoyed it! Let's get to the reviews.
Frankieu - Oh yeah, there's gonna be some HOT debate about the Geth among the Church and Tri-Tachyon, but we'll get to that soon enough.
JustBazik, RandomReader and the random Guest who joined in - Wow. I... don't think I am brave enough to weigh in on the discussion you're having. Each one of you has made excellent points and, most importantly in my opinion, done so in a civil manner. Keep at it, gents, love it when I see readers engaging in discussion in an orderly manner.
Sseth Sleeper Agent Guest - Yeah, don't know what to tell you chief. This ain't gonna be it, sadly. Might I recommend Johnnieboy11's Starsector x Halo fic? It's got the UAF as a central faction.
This chapter was brought to you by Contractor Carla and the Starfarer Mechanics Group. From the arcologies of Janus to the factories of Draupnir, we maintain the march of progress.