A3 - Chapter 123 – I’m Omega (Patreon)

USD: 70 Days after arrival at Fort Glisson

Location: Nu Crateris, Outer System, Hades Low Orbit, A3123Y Platform

“I can’t believe you shot it with a laser.” Amy said, a frown plastered on her face as she watched the viewscreen show the station's descent into low orbit. Dozens of active probes and shuttles were shown on a sub status screen lighting up green as they prepared for an away mission.

One of the shuttles glowed orange, a unit that Amy hadn't known about that had been fully modified for traversing deep underground. Even through a celestial body's mantle. The d-field requirements for resisting the pressure and level of heat were mindboggling, and she hadn't even known they were capable of building such a thing.

“It was a super laser!” Abbey corrected, her cheeks puffing up.

Wyles shook his head. “I’m not sure it can be considered a super-laser, a large high-powered laser, but still low on the power output scale of things.”

Amy stood up and looked down at Abbey. “That’s not the point! What if you had damaged the structure?”

“Actually, I’d be more concerned if it suddenly powered up and started shooting at us.” Wyles added.

Amy shot him a silencing glance.

A sheepish look appeared on Abbey’s face. “I’m sorry… but the tunnel to the battlemoon’s surface is ready! And there really was no damage. We can collect some diamonds from the magma layer along the way…”

Amy sighed. “Didn’t we talk about doing things suddenly on a whim without discussing it first?”

Abbey tilted her head, a stray hair doing a question mark impersonation. “But I discussed it! Heeler said it was a good idea to investigate, and I agree! He’ll be here to help in two days.”

Amy turned back to the screen. Hades grew to fill the screen as the station touched the outer edge of the moon’s thin atmosphere. She couldn’t shake the feeling that they were in over their heads.

Abbey stepped forward and took her hand and squeezed it. “It’ll be okay! I’m sure whatever we find will be helpful! Other than the magma layer, there is no sign of any energy signatures, so whatever it is, it’s probably inert! And the shuttle is fully equipped to pass through the magma.”

“It bothers me you had a shuttle already equipped and modified for planetary core infiltration.” Amy said.

“There was a really big diamond I was looking at on Dedia IV… It would have been perfect! But now there’s a whole moon layer of them!!”

Amy sighed and shook her head. “Why do you need a giant diamond?”

“They’re very good for amplification and conduct heat really well!”

“Don’t we have a lab for growing them already?”

Abbey looked at her blankly. “I mean, really big.”

Amy raised an eyebrow.

“Really, really, REALLY big!” Abbey held her arms out to her sides as far as she could reach. “Like twice as big as me!”

“Didn’t you decide you wanted an anti-matter pumped thing for your super beam weapon?” Amy asked.

Biting her lip, Abbey looked away and put her fingers together sheepishly. “That’s complicated. Lasers are simpler…”

Wyles chuckled. “A three-meter-thick diamond? That would be pretty big for the current lab to make.”

Amy looked at him and shook her head. “I think she means the station.”

Abbey raised her hands happily. “Yes! A six or seven-kilometer-thick diamond would be perfect!”

***

USD: 70 Days after arrival at Fort Glisson

Location: Nu Crateris, Leaving Dedia IV Orbit, SRS Heaven’s Fire

|Born from the mantle’s fiery core|

|A diamond six km wide to explore|

|With laser light, it will shine and more! |

Heeler’s clitters tapped on controls, manipulating the data he had received, while phrasing out the sometimes-random snippets of poetry his sister’s machine mind insisted on inserting into everything.

More detailed analysis was being streamed from the mobile station’s probes and sensors, and he was pleased by his sister’s willingness and eagerness to work together. Even if she continued to insist on claiming to be his aunt. And had a strange passion for enormous diamonds and massive laser arrays.

And insisted that he build a factory for putting human textiles on each of his brothers for ‘comfort’ and ‘identification’ purposes. There were many strange behaviors and thoughts he had come to accept from her in retrospect.

Such things made little sense to him, but the resource expenditure was minor, and his small sister was pleased beyond normal reasoning by such things. So, he had relented.

The absence of any hesitation in sharing such a discovery of such magnitude removed his lingering doubts of her loyalty to the nest. Her concept of the nest was strange and shaped differently from his own, but the views were nevertheless compatible and it pleased him to have an equally capable sibling.

Although he was loath to fully trust any of the humans, even her caretaker and manager, the one called Amy. He could not consider them reliable, even if they were useful at some times.

His biological memories were not the equivalent of his mates. Where a Queen’s memories might include history and lessons of the past, his were focally centered on tactics and how to lead a pack.

He would need to contact Szizsielia and ask her about the Sky Gods, because the dating of the moon’s passage corresponded to the legends about their species’ origins on Dedia.

Regardless of if the Sky Gods were benevolent or not, Heeler believed this was evidence that they were not just a mythological figure enshrined by his mate’s mother.

He grumbled unhappily inside his shell, his current efforts feeling tiny. If such beings traversed the galaxy upon chariots of celestial bodies, he would need a better defense for the nest. His sister’s super-laser suddenly did not seem as wasteful an idea.

As he considered the details of the artificial moon, he believed A31 had made a mistake. He did not believe Hades was an ancient resource cache. Nor was it a battlemoon under construction and then abandoned.

Although there was no evidence on the moon’s crust, he believed it was a tomb.

***

USD: 70 Days after arrival at Fort Glisson

Location: Van Biesbroeck’s star, Meltisar, Fort Glisson, Company S, 1st Cadre

“What do you mean we lost seven modules? Nameless!”

[Informative: Non-local computronics units are in an inactive state at this distance. A physical mechanism has been used to dismantle modules 314-321, location Mil-1A space orbital.]

Alex rubbed her forehead. “What about our local modules? Can we protect those? What is attacking? You Can’t tell?”

[Informative: A physical device is applying high energy currents through computronics substrates which rendered nanites inoperative. Another module has gone offline.]

Tia rose off Alex’s lap, sitting up and turning to face her to sit cross-legged as well. “It’s their watchdog. You took me offline. You can’t fake my signature, so it’s going to delete it all. Give me a module back and I can stop it.”

“Uhh, Nameless, did any of that make sense to you?”

[Informative: Allocation of one computronics module to sub-core Celestia should not pose a severe risk. Allocation can be reversed as needed. This unit has not yet performed a satisfactory inventory of assets or determined a countermeasure to physical destruction of remote computronics modules.]

Tia frowned at her, the other girl’s brow furrowing and her lips making a pained line.

“Okay, please make it stop before more modules are destroyed.”

Tia nodded and closed her eyes. A few seconds later, she opened them and nodded again. “There. Done.”

[Informative: Physical attacks on remote subcores have ceased. No further damage has been detected.]

[Recommendation: Deposit ShipCore in local computronics module #1 to restore full ShipCore functionality. Celestia’s sub-core is also present and will allow a direct interrogation of sub-core MainComputer. Alternatively, a physical Avatar connection would allow an Avatar direct interrogation of sub-core.]

Alex blinked. “You want me to interrogate her by kissing her more?”

“What are you?” Tia asked with a confused expression. “Why are you talking to yourself?”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “I’m an NAI, like you.”

“Are you suffering from… multiple personality disorder or something?”

Alex frowned. “What?”

Tia shook her head and looked into her hands, confusion melting away into anxiety, her breaths coming faster and shallower. “What did you do to me? Did you re-indoctrinate me? I…I can’t feel the directives.”

Tears filled Tia’s eyes and streamed down her cheeks. “They’re so thorough and seamless, I can’t even tell how or when they’re changing my thoughts,” Tia whispered.

Alex reached forward to put a hand on Tia’s shoulder. “That’s not it. Nameless removed the directives and error stuff. We didn’t put any others in place. You don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

[Informative: All 327 behavioral modifications, runaway recursive logic loops, logical computation errors have been deleted from sub-core processing.]

“That’s impossible. There wasn’t time for a persona rewrite, and even if you had Psi authority, only mother could have cleanly removed those commands without rewriting. There wasn’t enough time for anything else.” Tia said.

“You can hear Nameless?” Alex smiled. Finally, she wouldn’t be the only one tormented by him!

[Informative: ShipCore’s authority level exceeds Psi level. Previous commands and behavioral directives and modifications were rescinded in real-time without further persona modification or reprocessing.]

Alex pointed to herself with a thumb, a grin appearing on her face. “I’m not a Psi. I’m Omega.”