Episode VI: Beta Test (5 page)

The crew from the medical section had arrived while the three of us had been speaking, but none of them had overheard anything.

Christy smiled at the young woman again. "So, we'll have to postpone dinner for a night or two. Once you feel better, we can reschedule it."

Freyair was smiling again as she was moved onto the floating gurney and taken away. "Sarah, relay the observation orders to Main Medical and list me as her primary for the time being. Make sure all her information is secured as well, she really is terrified of anyone finding out about her. Do the Shallans really do that sort of thing? I thought it was only the humans on Earth that did."

"There is still much we do not know about them, Christy. Now that they are full members of the Alliance, that knowledge is coming, but it is a slow and tedious process," Sarah replied.

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L
ong-term Care

Main Medical Facility

Alliance Apollo Base

Selene, Earth’s moon

Sol System

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"W
ell! You're looking much better today, Commander!" Vance said, smiling warmly as he entered the private room.

"I'm told I'm doing much better, Sir! I’ve probably already said it, but congratulations on the promotion! It's been long over-due!" Lennon replied.

Vance chuckled. "You did, but I'm told your memory will be spotty for a while. The doctors tell me you'll be up and about in another week or so, so you won't have to deal with being in that bed for too much longer."

Lennon nodded. "Yeah, but they still haven't told me if I'll be able to fly again. I know I was pretty banged up, but they haven't told me everything yet. I get the feeling it was pretty bad though." She sighed. "I watched the vid of the funerals, Sir. Thank you for the speech."

Vance nodded and sighed. "Len, you were... well, let's just say that you should have died. I couldn't let you go though, not after what you did to save us. When you were located, the ESAR guys placed you into a stasis unit. The only sign of life they had was brain activity, but it was enough. Somehow you managed to keep your brain going far longer than should have been possible, considering your condition."

"What condition, Sir? How bad was I?" Len asked.

"It would be easiest to say you have a completely new body, which is why your recovery is taking so long. It was pretty bad, Len. So bad that you have been officially recorded as the most injured person in the history of the Alliance to have survived their injuries. So please try to keep that in mind when you start getting anxious about getting out of there. The only thing that saved you was a new and experimental medical procedure invented by a young doctor from Earth," Vance said.

"I've met Christy, Sir, is she really the one that rebuilt me?" Len asked.

Vance nodded. "She and her husband have made discoveries and advancements that have changed the course of this war and will be felt in the Alliance for thousands of years. Her husband is the man that invented the AI that has been running this base helping the doctors get you fixed up. In fact, you're going to have to go back through flight school just to learn how to fly the new fighters. They’ve reduced all the data you need to keep track of while improving over-all performance by an order of magnitude. They even carry more firepower now. Very soon, you'll be getting a new flight suit that will give you and your people a much higher probability of survival in combat. I don't know if the new armor would have saved any more of your team, but it certainly would have improved the odds."

Lennon nodded. "Can you tell me the deal with the Veranorians? I've been trying to get caught up on current events, but that one is still confusing me."

Guardedly, Vance asked. "What part is confusing to you?"

"Well, I guess the part about how the Synod was actually controlling the Grand Hive. I don't get that; one of the strongest no-no's for a Veranorian is not to take the life of another Veranorian. Yet, the hive destroyed ships that had Veranorians serving on them, didn't they?" Lennon asked.

Vance nodded. "Yes they did. The race we know and love as the Aracnise were created by the Veranorian Synod; without the knowledge or consent of their people. They were used by the Synod as a stalking horse to keep the focus of the Alliance while the Synod used subterfuge and mental conditioning to quietly take over the Alliance. They had pretty much succeeded but for a few of us that remained unaffected by the conditioning. Through the use of their puppets in the Council as well as High Command, they managed to keep us isolated and away from any positions that would have exposed what they had done.

"While we were coming here, a young man was recruited from Earth that had unknowingly developed a fully functional, self-aware AI. When he arrived here, Logical Order Fen of the Veranorian Synod immediately demanded the AI be surrendered to him along with any and all information pertaining to it.

"The young man resisted because while they were moving up here, the new AI discovered that the Aracs had been given all the technical specs of all of the ships in the Alliance Navy. Basically, she found proof that there was a spy in High Command. At the time, we had no idea that the spy actually was High Command. Appearing to comply with a Council mandate that he surrender the information Fen demanded, the young man created a new AI that had very special programming and sent her with Fen back to the Synod.

"During that time, the new AI found the hidden subliminal programming in the Veranorian written teaching programs. I ordered her to remove that portion of the programming and within two weeks, this base was out from under the control of the Synod. Here's the kicker; the Veranorians on Base where also being programmed by the Synod, just in a slightly different way. The Veranorian people are not our enemy, but the Synod is guilty of treason against not only us, but their own people as well.

"Now, the AI that was sent with Order Fen to the Synod was in actuality a ruse. She sat back quietly monitoring what the Veranorians were trying to get her to do, all the while reporting back here to me. If she would not have been the spy we had intended, the entire Alliance would belong to the Synod at this point, because no one would have been safe from the programming they gave that AI.

"She allowed herself to be copied and spread throughout Veranor and to all their facilities. In that way she discovered that, not only had the Veranorians built and armed their own very large fleet of warships, but that the Grand Hive was actually in a specially built and guarded facility under the Dark Shroud mountains on the planet Veranor.

"The facility was so isolated, that the AI installed there couldn't report back to us without exposing herself. The original programming of the AI sent to Veranor was to remove the programming from every system it encountered, so the AI in the Arac facility knew it was only a matter of time before they came to remove her from the system. Because we had suspected the Veranorians, the AI also had orders to completely destroy herself in the event of discovery to deny the Veranorians access to AI computer code.

"While the AI waited, the Synod distributed and installed the new 'Veranorian' AI into most of the systems in the Alliance. Of course one of the first things she did was to remove the subliminal programming, thus allowing the rest of the Alliance to 'wake' up from Veranorian control. Of course, once the Veranorian Synod discovered the ruse, they immediately began trying to take the AI offline and still retain their code bases. None of the AI allowed it.

"For the AI in the Arac facility, she took control of an orbital fortress that had been placed directly above the facility as a failsafe, and broadcast all of her information out to the Alliance before triggering her own self-destruct. When she was destroyed, the controls holding the Queen were released, and she took direct control of her broods. Veranor fell in less than two days, and all of the Arac warships were sent to the secret hidden shipyard where the Veranorian fleets had been stored. The Aracs destroyed everything before jumping to Veranor to assist the Queen.

"The Veranorian Synod escaped to GMASS, but the Veranorian refugees were taken to Novalus and the other core worlds. The reason the Synod fled to GMASS was because all of the Shallan worlds are infested with Arac hives that remained under the control of the Synod. Currently they are still there and still have control of the majority of the Shallan race," Vance finished.

"Holy hell! I take a nap for a couple of months, and the whole fuckin' galaxy flips out. So do we have two enemies now? I thought I saw a couple of Veranorians walk by earlier..."

"No, the enemy is the Aracs. Only the Synod are the bad guys, as the rest of the Veranorian people were being controlled by them as well. Those eleven beings are the most wanted criminals in the galaxy at the moment. We're working on ways to rescue the rest of the Shallans, but with their worlds infested like they are, that might be very difficult," Vance replied.

"That's the second time you alluded to it, is part of the Shallan race free?" Lennon asked.

Vance nodded. “Clan Therinate managed a very bold escape from GMASS, stealing three heavy warships and getting their entire clan out of there. They now live here and have also been given two seats on the new Council."

"Ah, so I might actually get to meet one of them after I get out of here then?" Lennon asked.

"I'd say that's a very good chance, since they took over the fighter manufacturing and are developing the training protocols for them," Vance said. "They’re nice folks, I think you'll like them."

"Lord Admiral, I'm sorry, but visiting hours are over for today. The Commander needs to rest," a nurse said from the door.

"Of course, I can come back again tomorrow," Vance said to the nurse. He turned back to Lennon. "You get better; I have a few medals I need to pin on you."

Lennon chuckled. "Have you ever noticed that the number of medals a person receives is directly proportional to how badly they got hurt earning them? Thanks for coming by, Sir. Truth be told, I think you might be the only friend I have left alive."

Vance smiled down at her. "Len, we did lose a lot of people. But I think you'll find that you have a great many new friends already. I need you healthy again to ride herd on our new fighter pilots. So get better, okay?"

"I will, Sir." Lennon replied sadly.

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A
I Programming Lab

Alliance Apollo Base

Selene, Earth's Moon

Sol System

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"T
here's a flaw in the crystal Eric. Runs right through the center of the damn thing. We didn't find it originally because it hadn't fully developed at that point and it runs right along the edge of the main facet," Ced explained. "That would certainly account for the AI being unstable!"

"Yeah, that would explain it. But I would like to know how the flaw developed after it was installed, what caused it, and how can we ensure it doesn't happen to the other crystals we already have installed," I asked.

"Good questions: all of them. We need something that can detect a flaw and either prevent an AI from coming on-line, or take it off-line if one forms during operation. We'll also need better methods in place to protect the crystals themselves from becoming flawed after installation," Ced replied.

I agreed. "Ced, we’ve had people develop headaches and the like while working in here since just before we discovered the issues with Athena. Which leads me to wonder if there isn’t some meta-physical aspect to them. I'd really like to investigate this, but I have to admit that I have no idea how or where to start."

Ced nodded gravely. "I think you might be onto something there. Of all the races of the Alliance, the Shallans are the most mystically minded. They might be the ones to speak to about anything dealing with meta-physical issues. I doubt the rest of us would have any idea of where to even start!"

"I was going to see how she was doing later anyway. I'll speak to her about it then. Now what do I do for a test platform? I've got three programming teams that are waiting for repairs to be finished," I asked.

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "I think you might want to give them the rest of the day off. We don't have anything to replace this with yet. I think I should just order one grown specifically for this. I would have anyway, but the demand is so high right now." He nodded to himself. "What good are the crystals if you can't build the AI? I'll have a new crystal for you by the end of the day tomorrow. I'll reassign one of the new destroyer crystals; you need this. I'll have them start a new one for the destroyer as soon as I get back to my office."

"You wanna tell the old man, or should I?" I asked, referring to Admiral Vance.

Ced shook his head. "I will. This is on me and my folks. I'll also let him know we're working on a better quality system as well as post installation detection."

"How about we share it? Since this is something that was unforeseen, I'll take care of explaining about post installation flaws, what they could mean and how we are working on detecting and preventing them. The last thing we need right now is for one of the AI to go insane due to a crystal flaw - especially Sarah," I said.

Ced nodded. "Yeah, if we needed to, we could take the rest of them off-line, but that isn't the case with Sarah. Do we tell her?"

"I imagine she already knows. She was here monitoring the AI start up sequence and usually listens to me all the time so she can take notes for me. Don't you Sarah?" I asked to prove she was indeed listening.

"Yes, Doctor Cowan," Sarah replied and formed her hologram beside us. "I don't mind telling you this is scaring the crap out of me."

"Well, I'd think one of the major differences between the installed crystals and the test unit we are using here is that the installed units are in shielded and protected vaults; this one isn't" I said. "We just need to develop methods and protocols for dealing with flaw intrusion in the case of an emergency. In Sarah's case, I think we need to grow another crystal, place it in another vault with better shielding once we develop it. At that point we can either have her move into there, or use it as an emergency unit if the main crystal develops a flaw. Personally, I'd vote for moving her, even though it would mean every project she is involved with being shut down for a couple of hours."