Testing the Pursuer III’s systems was a critical task, but one that the crew aboard was more than capable of. Even Carnie, who seemed to enjoy the more basic controls more than anyone, ran through the long checklist easily. “I don’t know how many times I sat at the controls going from one switch to the next while our mechanics tested their repairs. The ships in our convoy were always getting patched up,” he told Minh-Chu as they tested the connections between the advanced weaponry modules on deck two of the ship. “It was a great way to get to know every ship system before they’d let me fly on my own.”
“Your experience shows,” Minh-Chu said, putting the transmission recordings he was listening to on privacy mode. “That’s why I kept you as my co-pilot on this mission.”
The display on the bulkhead in front of the large control console surrounding them displayed the blue and white gasses of the Iron Head Nebula. To the right were dozens of Freeground Fleet ships with Freeground Alpha – the fat ring holding two hundred thousand citizens that he would have once called his countrymen and women – hanging in the distance behind. The view easily tricked the eye into thinking that they were inside a cockpit that was built into the front of the ship, but they were under many layers of armour plating, near the middle of the vessel.
Most of Samurai squadron was launching from the Revenge. They were in the process of being sent out in pairs that would be linked together using their docking hitches so they could enter the dimensional transit portals opened for them by the Revenge and Triton. The short range scouting missions would only last hours for the members of Samurai Squadron. They were to take a look at the most immediate areas around Freeground Alpha’s next jump destination then reunite with the Revenge so they could support the ship as it began to make much longer jumps.
The navigational data indicated that Minh-Chu and his capable crew were going into an area of space that no one in the Freeground or Triton Fleets had ever seen. The Triton was sending twice as many scout ships out, including the other two Clever Class ships. The Clever Dream was being held back for repairs. Minh-Chu could just imagine how disappointing that must have been to Lewis, the artificial intelligence aboard.
“You’ve been quiet, man,” Carnie said. “I mean, other than the virtual briefing and running the tests.”
“This isn’t the mission I expected for Samurai Squadron,” Minh-Chu said. “It’s the most effective use for us right now, especially this crew, but I didn’t think saving Freeground would lead to this kind of exploration.”
“I’m excited. I took seeing new places, meeting new people all the time for granted when I was growing up. It was just the way things were, being in a travelling carnival, but there’s a purpose now, you know? Every time we meet someone new we could be making face time with an important ally, or a new friend, or who knows?”
“Or we could save someone’s life,” Minh-Chu said. “One of our assignments isn’t going to be so easy. We have to start listening to transmissions as we move around in the nebula. They’re our best resource for finding out what’s going on without being discovered. There are going to be a lot of distress calls, the Holocaust Virus hit the people in the nebula hard.”
It was easy to see Carnie’s mood fall at the mention of the Holocaust Virus. Minh-Chu knew that it had caused the deaths of everyone he grew up with, but he didn’t know much past that. After a while he spoke in more guarded tones. “Do you know if the Order really put the Holocaust Virus out there? I know it’s what everyone believes, and there’s evidence, but it’s hard to trust anything, man. There’s as much fake info as there is truth out there.”
“We did the leg work, pieced it all together,” Minh-Chu said. “A man named Collins designed it to look like something Jonas Valent made. I guess you’d call Jonas Jake’s memory-daddy, and Collins had a hate-on for him because of the mess we made when we ran into him. Alice was Jonas’ favourite program, and when it looked like we were going to be captured by a company called Vindyne, he let her loose, deactivated her limitations. She wrote new code for herself, killed a few of our enemies, and played a part in getting us out.”
“Wait, Jake’s daughter’s name is Alice,” Carnie said. “He must have liked that software a lot to pass the name on to flesh and blood.”
“Hold on, it gets better,” Minh-Chu said as he watched the dozen fighters from Samurai Squadron form up and begin linking in pairs. “The short version is that the ship we were held captive on was conducting bio-programming research, and after Alice was finished doing whatever she thought was important, she uploaded herself into a human host that had already been wiped clean.”
“Seriously? That’s true? I thought that was just a rumour, that she started out as an AI.”
“It’s all true,” Minh-Chu said. “Jonas was recaptured by Vindyne later, and she went back for him. She got the copy we know as Jacob, not the original Jonas. There was another former Vindyne black hat after her though, so she left him behind on a ship no one knew about, the Samson. She had no idea that he didn’t have access to Jonas’ memories though, or that it wasn’t the real Jonas. It was an experimental framework that Vindyne wanted in the wild. They wanted to see how well the programming they put into Jacob’s head worked. Anyway, we’re getting off track,” Minh-Chu said. “It took us months to put that information together in one place, but we did confirm that Collins used scraps of Alice’s code to make it look like the Holocaust Virus was made by Jacob Valent, or Jonas. It put Regent Galactic in control of the Eden ships and they spread it to other artificial intelligences so anyone who didn’t join the Order would be punished. You know the rest.”
“Thanks, that’s been bothering me. You’re going to have to tell me the rest of the story behind Jake and Alice, though, it’s not like we won’t have time.”
“Well, long story short, you haven’t met the original Alice, almost no one has. She died aboard the Triton. Something happened though, and it’s sketchy to me, but I think she became an artificial intelligence again, bounced to the Order of Eden Fleet, was downloaded into a new framework, then sent back to Haven Shore. I’ve heard Carl talk about trying some memory exercises to see if she can recall anything she learned while she was an artificial intelligence in the Order of Eden’s systems, but I think he keeps his distance a little because of Jake. Don’t repeat that.”
“Hey, my silence for the inside scoop on the Valent family? Easy trade.”
“Anyway, the Alice you saw before we left is the one we all know and love now.”
“How does she compare to the first one? The AI?”
“Still cheeky, and way more emotional in mostly good ways,” Minh-Chu said. “I’d say, even though she’s stuck in teenage body, she’s come a long way. I hope they fix that for her though. She deserves to move on after everything she’s been through.”
“I’d say so,” Carnie said. “Man, you Freeground Originals have been through a lot.”
“So much that only two of us have all our original parts. I’m pretty sure I lost a few marbles along the way though,” Minh-Chu replied. “Maybe I should start at the beginning through, with the All-Con Conflict. Jonas was a baby engineer, I was a baby soldier. It’s a charming little buddy tale of gunfire, revenge and scorched earth. You’d like it.”
“I’m up for that,” Carnie said.
“We’re all set to go, Commander,” Finn said as he came through the small bridge doorway and sat down. “We have some finishing work to do down there, but you have main weapons, power, your sensors are all good to go, and the wormhole generator is all set.”
“So, what kind of finishing work are we talking about?”
“It’s the heavy weapons modules. We got crew modules, storage, and the emergency pods linked up, but none of the calibrations for the power systems were locked in by the build teams. I won’t know which heavy weapons you can trust down there until we do the work. It’s going to be a few hours.”
“I’m tempted to just leave the secondary power and weapons modules behind,” Minh-Chu replied. He knew the modules filled half of the ship’s lower deck.
“If you want us to remove the modules, it’ll take at least an hour and a half, in the hangar, and you’d lose a tertiary reactor, a shield enhancer system, expanded band scanner suite, not to mention a mine launcher, your ammo fabricator, and two heavy missile pods.”
“I think he wants us to keep the modules,” Carnie whispered.
“All right, we’ll keep them aboard, but if there’s a problem with any of the modules, I want them disconnected and powered down. This is a scouting mission, not a capitol ship hunt.”
“Gotcha, yes sir,” Finn replied.
“We’re departing in five minutes.” Minh-Chu turned to Carnie, who was finishing the flight preparations. “When we get back to Rega Gain, I’m going to have words with the finishing team on the Solar Forge. The Forge does good work, but it doesn’t mean a thing if nothing is installed right.”
“I’ll make sure I get a front row seat,” Carnie replied. “The Revenge is all charged up and ready to open a trans-dimensional hole for us. Does Freeground even know we can do this?”
“You know, I don’t think so,” Minh-Chu said. “I hope someone on that station is recording in their Control Centre. I want to see the looks on their faces when the Revenge shows them how we like to travel.”
“This is Revenge Flight,” Stephanie Vega said over the communicator. “We will be opening a trans-dimensional wormhole for you in five seconds at these coordinates, Pursuer Three. Good hunting, we’ll see you soon.”
“Thank you, Revenge Flight, good hunting,” Minh-Chu replied as he took the controls and began moving the ship into position. Several kilometres away the space in front of them split, revealing a shining blue and white font of colour. “Let’s see what’s out there.” He said as he guided the nose of the ship into the fissure.
The Pursuer III was drawn into the strange space beyond forcefully, disappearing, and the fissure closed behind it.