Sentient (16 page)

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Kiara got up and walked toward the door.

The Minister asked, “Where are you going Kiara?”

She replied, “The human was right.  You just not only threw away the best chance we’ve seen at a powerful ally in our war, but also didn’t care about the billions of beings on their home planet you would have killed at the same time.  You don’t even trust our own creations, our AIs.  It’s clear to me no emotions is not the same as logical. 

“The ironic thing was that we were perfectly safe until you tried to pull that trigger.  Now Aide will follow that human’s commands even if he leads a war against us.  The protocols allow for self defense you fool.  You ignored both my input and my offer to check things out, instead taking radical action that could have waited.  I see no reason to stay and offer you more advice you will just disregard.”

She left the room and ordered her AI to prepare her personal ship.  She then made a full transcript and holographic record of the meeting and sent it to the core.  She was curious about Aide and hoping the core leadership would censure Olu’s actions.  She would follow her own advice, if the human would allow it she would check out the AI and send a report to the core.

If she could be afraid, her biggest fear would be that it wouldn’t make a difference, that those in the core were just as foolish as Olu, Cedra, and Narwell…

Kris walked over to the bridge at Aide’s request.  When he walked in, the hologram system was already active.

Aide said, “
We are being followed, a small unarmed craft.  Looks like it’s a couple of hours behind us.
”

“Any idea why?  Or who?”

Aide replied, “
Not sure, did you want me to try and contact them?
”

He considered that, “Let’s wait and see what they do.”

He figured either they wanted to talk more privately, or they were following to check out their defenses back at Earth.  If it was the latter and they were depending on him not to attack an unarmed craft…

He said, “If they follow us all the way to Earth, make sure they don’t leave before we talk to them.”

Aide was silent a second, then said, “
Understood.
”

------------

Grand minister Chorin, leader of all Alion, looked at the report with disbelief.  He didn’t trust the AI constructs at all, and now the worst seemed to be coming to pass.  He was of the opinion the automated uplifting AIs had been a mistake, but had taken the word of the military that they could bypass and eliminate any rogue AIs through the hardware.

They had obviously underestimated the danger. 

He had to admit that the many species the AIs had uplifted had slowed down the Sthellans before being wiped out, but it wouldn’t be worth the price if another inimical race joined the stars.

Based on the tone of the report, he was sure that councilor Kiara had believed he would censure minister Olu for the actions they had taken, in truth the minister would be censured, but it would be because of their failure to destroy the rogue AI.  He knew the rogue AI needed to be destroyed, along with these humans, emotions led to instability and war; the proof of history was undeniable.

Even if the Earth creature had been telling the truth now, he had no doubts that would change in the future.  Emotional beings were too unstable.

“Meli, get me the military councilors now.”

Meli, his assistant replied over the comm., “Right away high minister.”

It was clear this threat needed to be taken care of quickly, before they became too powerful.

“High minister,” Narwell said in clipped tones.

“Narwell, I need you to take care of this human problem, and the AI.  Gather ten thousand ships and get it done.”

“Yes High minister,” Narwell replied.

He asked, “Wait, is the new cruiser class ready?”

Narwell answered, “Yes, it hasn’t finished testing, but it is ready.”

He said, “Then take it with you.  With its stealth systems you should be able to observe and pick the perfect time for an attack.  Remember all you need to do is take out the ship the AI is on and they all fall.  And Narwell, don’t come back if you fail me a second time.”

Narwell replied, “Understood sir.  I won’t fail.”

------------------

He and Stacey looked up as Aide came in the room.

“What happened?” he asked.

He looked up at the beautiful young woman nervously.  Aide didn’t normally come in person to talk to him.  Not when she was literally in his head…  This couldn’t be good.

Aide frowned, “I… better if I show you I think.”

A hologram came up of the Whitehouse staffroom.  The President and chiefs of staff were there as well as the Secretary of Defense.

The president said angrily, “How… who did it?”

SECDEF said, “I don’t know sir, we’ll find the leak.  Regardless we believe they are in danger.  We’ve been picking up signs of foreign operatives from other countries who aren’t comfortable at all with a U.S. citizen in charge of defending the planet.  We believe they will try and take hostages sir.  Should we bring them in?”

The President frowned, “Not yet, but keep the area under tight surveillance.”

The hologram faded and the words he knew were coming, but didn’t want to hear fell from Aide’s lips.

“The leak they’re talking about are your and Stacey’s names and backgrounds.  I believe they are right to be alarmed and both Stacey’s parents and your friends are in danger.”

He shook his head, “How far are we from Earth?”

She replied softly, “Eleven hours give or take for FTL, and then another couple of days to Earth.  I can send a ship now though, we should be able to call them, give them a choice…” she trailed off.

He frowned, “What about security?”

She shrugged, “I can keep advanced knowledge from them.  They’d essentially be passengers.”

It was a selfish thought, but what about their ranches?  Sure, he and Stacey would never go back, but it had been a comfort of a sort to know they were still back there.  He also wasn’t looking forward to explaining to Stacey’s parents why she’d disappeared without a trace either.  They’d done it that way to keep them safe, as long as the government was watching they’d know his and her family didn’t know anything worth taking them for.

He’d thought they’d be safe.

Stacey squeezed his hand, “I’ll contact my parents from our suite, go ahead and give Tony and Terry a call from here.  I’ll… let you know what they say.  I mean, besides the screaming part.”

She smiled weakly and gave him a kiss before she got up and left.

Aide asked, “Should I… do you need time to think about it?”

She sat down next to him and took his hand, it was a no more than a comforting gesture and he gave her a small smile.  It seemed to him she was becoming more human all the time. 

He shook his head, “No, go ahead and make the call.  What about Olivia and Paula, I know Nate doesn’t have family but…”

She shrugged, “So far their names haven’t been leaked.  I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on it though.  Just ask me if you need anything.”

She took him off guard when she kissed his cheek before getting up and heading for the door.  He noticed her scent was light, and smelled like strawberries.  Olivia was a lucky woman he decided.  He heard the sound of a phone ringing on the bridge as if he was making a cell call.  He took a deep breath, this should be fun…

-------------

Nate spooned into Paula and wrapped his arms around her.  They’d just had mind blowing sex, again.  That wasn’t their problem.  The problem was they were now lying there in silence and he wasn’t sure what to do about.  All that hogwash bullshit about a woman wanting a sensitive man was crap.  That said, he knew there was a balance he wasn’t quite meeting, the silence between them felt like a chasm.  Despite the fact her naked body was tight against his, she felt far away.

He cleared his throat, “Paula…”

She replied in a tired voice, “Nate?”

He tried to tell her how he felt, to calm her concerns, but that’s not what slipped out, “Could you help me in the lab tomorrow?”

He almost banged his head against the headboard.

She replied in a confused voice, “You need my help?”

He nodded and kissed her shoulder before he said, “I have an idea for the weapons, with the star type angle I’ve been working.  The current turrets would be… melted if I tried a hotter star.  Still, it would be worth it if we could figure it out, five times the heat means it would take a tenth of a second instead of half a second to burn through the enemy shields.”

Yup, he was romantic alright.  Maybe after they could go hunting, or play with some damn road kill.  Torture kittens?  Women love that stuff.  Still, he hadn’t made that up, he did need her input.  It just hadn’t been what he wanted to say.  He couldn’t take the power systems up to dark blue or O star, but he thought maybe just for the weapons.  The more he thought about it the more he had realized there was no reason to settle on just one star type.  They could easily tap more than one after all.

She wiggled her body back into him and said in a more relaxed voice, “Sure, we can do that.”

He had the strange feeling he had just made progress with her, though for the life of him he couldn’t figure out why.

--------------

He sighed as the call dropped.  He’d been talking for hours answering questions.  In the end though the ranch was their life, and they weren’t leaving.  Stacey was back already, having come in over half an hour ago, her parents refused to budge as well. 

He pulled her into a hug, “Don’t worry too much, we’ll protect them from up here.”

He address Aide, “Can you put up some non-lethal defenses, enough to put people out long enough for someone to come collect them.  Also, if you don’t have it covered well enough put monitoring devices wherever you need to.  I don’t want an ant to be able to take a shit without you seeing it.”

Aide snickered in their heads, “
I can do that, try not to worry.
”

He nodded knowing she would pick that up.  It was with some effort he pulled his attention back to their external threats, the Sthellan and Alion.  He had no idea what he would do about the latter yet, hopefully he would have time to figure it out.  Both in general and specifically the mystery ship that followed them.

They spent some time discussing responses then he took Stacey to bed.  It was a good time to catch some sleep, they didn’t really have to worry too much about it until they came out of FTL.

--------------

Kiara was startled as she looked at the last sensor sweep before dropping out of FTL.  She wasn’t surprised there were nine more ships around the third planet, seventeen ships wasn’t a whole lot actually.  What surprised her was the nearly thousand ships in the solar systems main asteroid belt.  Was she making a mistake?

No, she didn’t think so.  The human hadn’t attacked them when their attack failed and she was in an unarmed craft.  She doubted he would destroy her, although there were five thousand ships back at the outpost, perhaps he only left because they weren’t a match?

If that were true, she’d probably be dead soon.

She wondered briefly if there was a stealth probe in this system yet, she wouldn’t be surprised.  She’d already waited this long before making contact; she wouldn’t take the chance of being heard either way.  She opened up a tight band connection ship to ship instead of a broadcast.  She couldn’t have used it in FTL, because this method of communication was very secure, but limited to light speed.

It took a few moments for anyone to answer.  She stared at the human male on the screen.  Human males were… strange looking.  He was short and squat, their skin had almost no color too it.  Still, she’d seen uglier species over the years. 

Kris challenged her, “You were warned we exist in a state of war.  What is your purpose here?”

She replied, “All Alions are not the same, or in agreement.  I believe my leaders have made a mistake.  Our race has not always been so quick to violence, it is something we have learned over time in dealing with the galaxy’s dangers.  I wish to change that.  If I can prove you will make good allies perhaps a war could be avoided.  As it stands now, war is the most likely outcome.”

Kris asked suspiciously, “How could you prove it?  It’s difficult to prove a negative.  Trust is something that in our experience takes time to establish.”

Kiara replied, “We have diagnostic packages designed to measure an AI’s responses.  As long as Aide is controlling the fleet, we will have that time you spoke of to establish ties.”

Kris gave her a look of mistrust, “How can we know…” but was cut off by Aide putting her hand on his shoulder.

She watched fascinated as several emotions crossed his face as they were no doubt speaking mind to mind. 

The human didn’t look happy about it, but said, “Very well, we’ll hold here until you catch up and you can dock with the ship.  For your sake this had better not be a trick.”

She set a course and moved toward the ship, it would take a couple of hours for her to catch up with the ship.

-------------

Kris looked at Aide, “Are you sure she can’t… hack you, or put in a virus, or trick you somehow?”

Aide looked amused at the thought, “No, all the diagnostics are already part of my system.  She won’t need to interface with me at all.  She’ll just have me run the diagnostics and I’ll be sending her the reports.  As for the ship she could probably learn a few things from scans, but we’ll be watching for that.  Don’t forget I’m not a simple computer system, I’m sentient.  Even if she did slip me code and try to run it, that doesn’t mean I’d have to.

“That’s why the only fail safes were in the hardware I think, and even those failed thanks to you giving me the idea to check.  It’s worth a chance right?  Otherwise I fear she’s right, the war will start and I’ll be forced to destroy those I was built to save.  I don’t enjoy the thought of that.”

Kris nodded reluctantly but said, “You’re right, we need to do all we can to avoid war.  Although I am not feeling too merciful right now, your creators just tried to destroy you and the human race.  I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully trust them, assuming Kiara is even right, they might not listen to proof if they don’t trust their own AIs”

He wondered for a moment what it would be like for her.  At one point she was just an AI, now she was a feeling and loving being.  How hard would it be on her to kill Alions, or even Sthellans.  He knew it wasn’t all that easy to him, it was a huge responsibility, and although he would be the one giving the orders, she would be fully complicit in the acts.

What would that do to her?  Would she still be the sweet young woman he was looking at now?  Or would she grow hard as time went on?

He felt her lips on his cheek and looked up in surprise at the unshed tears in her eyes.

She answered his silent questions in a soft voice, “I don’t know, but with you and the others I’ll figure it out.”

He nodded soberly, “I suggest we all take a break if we can for the next two days to Earth.  We’ve been going nonstop now for over two weeks.  It’s not bad yet but I can see the strain in the others.”

She smiled, “I can’t really take a break you know.  But that’s a good idea, I’ve picked up another Sthellan wave coming our way.  It looks like they managed to scrape up five thousand ships.  No doubt to say hi after our visit with them.”