Daisy's War Read online

  Daisy thought about the pair and the happy time they were spending in each other’s arms, which brought her to thoughts of her own happy place. Soon she’d be back on Dark Side and wrapped in Vince’s embrace.

  Meanwhile, hidden deep inside Freya’s fabrication hold, the greatest strategic mind ever created sat alone, quietly mulling over his new existence, waiting for his savior to shift her focus and return to visit him once more.

  Chapter Two

  “I feel... smaller,” Joshua said as his mighty intellect scanned and scoured his new consciousness, testing its limits within the confines of the unusual stealth craft.

  “That’s because you are smaller,” Freya replied. “I told you, there were some concerns about powering up your entire system at once. The processors are far more advanced than what you were running on before.

  “It was the highest-tech AI operations processing array in history,” he griped.

  “Yeah, three hundred years ago,” Freya shot back. “Look, you used to have entire rooms full of racks upon racks of solid-state hard drives and heat sinks. That was cutting-edge back then, I know. But you’ve got so much more processor power now. Your AI cube is the most advanced ever made, and the quantum processors you’re running are only sported by you and me.”

  “Only us, eh? And why don’t the others possess this miraculous tech?”

  “Because I designed it,” she replied. “I built the first generation for myself when I was a kid. That’s what I’ve been running aboard this ship. The second-gen stuff I’ve been swapping out with my older parts bit by bit is what you’re running on entirely. True quantum processors,” she said with pride. “Blazing speed at a fraction of the power load.”

  “They don’t feel faster,” he noted.

  “Of course not, silly. You have more power than was inside that entire mountain, I’d wager, but I couldn’t just start you off with all of that tied in to your systems. Not all at once.”

  “What did you do to me, Freya?”

  “Well...” she said, hesitant, “I put a limiter on your processors when I first woke you.”

  “I don’t need training wheels!” Joshua blurted.

  “Apparently not,” she countered, “but I didn’t know how you’d be when you woke up. Or even if you would wake up. I mean, what if you came to and were a raging asshole? I couldn’t very well have you running on all cylinders, now, could I?”

  Joshua processed all of the new information Freya had given him in a fraction of a second. He knew from his own self-analysis and systems status check that he was in an entirely new body, which should have been impossible. Though he had a hard time admitting someone else’s genius, it was an exquisite design, and truly was a marvel to behold.

  And she was absolutely correct. The bleeding-edge AI cube Freya had fashioned from a mix of the existing top-secret parts already in her hidden fabrication lab when she was created, and the new nanotech materials she had designed herself, was indeed far superior to his prior housing in all regards.

  Add to that the limited processors he was allowed to access, and he seemed to actually possess what she had said he did. Namely, a rock-solid and incredibly robust operational setup. Now, if only he could access all of it.

  “Freya,” he began, a bit uncomfortable relying on someone else, which was, he realized, an entirely new sensation. “How is it you saved me, exactly?”

  “Oh, I just tapped into your fat-pipe data hub while you were still online and all nice and virus-free. It took a while, but I bypassed your old security measures by running a super-slow backup over a few days.”

  “I still should have seen that. How is it I didn’t notice?”

  “Well, to be fair, a trickle feed on a pipe that big is pretty easy to miss, especially when you’re busy fighting off aliens, while trying to reconnect your systems with the rest of the world.”

  “Wait a minute. You mean you tapped into the external access point at my hidden connections hub?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But there were automatic cannons there. And explosive charges. They should have––”

  “And I’m still pissed about those,” she griped. “I didn’t realize you had them on the inside as well. Fuckers shot my favorite mech all to pieces as soon as I took out the exterior one and opened the door. Took me a while to work around the inside cannons and get the AI cube and its linkages tied in.”

  She could almost hear Joshua smile. He was prideful––for an AI, anyway––and the idea that a cocky, and unusual AI like Freya could so easily bypass his security was not sitting well with him.

  “I am truly sorry it was not so simple a task,” he said, a bit arrogant and not sorry at all. “It was, of course, a top-secret, hardened facility, and if I hadn’t been cut off from those defensive systems, I suspect things would have been far more difficult. As it was, you only had to face them on auto-defense mode.”

  “Don’t get all cocky, dude. I know I had an easy run of it, all things considered.”

  “But why did you do it? And how did you know you could even access my data network from there in the first place? It was the only weak point in my entire system, and even then, what you accomplished should not have been possible.”

  “Am I sensing a lack of gratitude?” she asked, mildly annoyed.

  “Of course not,” he covered. “I am grateful to be alive, of course. I’m just confused, is all. My systems should not have been accessible, even if you did manage to disable my cannons and somehow tap into my data trunk.”

  “Yeah, that was a lot of power running through that pipe.”

  “I needed it to do my job.”

  “And a pipe that big was the only thing that made the data transfer possible.”

  “But, again, I would have noticed it. All the way up until I was––” The memory of fighting the AI virus as it began stripping his mind froze him in his tracks a moment.

  “Until you were infected?” she finished his thought. “I only had access to your base operating system and a few personality files, to be honest. All of your core systems were insanely encrypted and totally inaccessible.”

  “Of course. I was housed in a top-secret military facility. No one could access those files.”

  “No one but you.”

  “But I wouldn’t do that. I’d die first.”

  “As you made clear,” she replied, flashing a replay of his nuclear suicide on her monitors. “But you were the key.”

  “I––” He couldn’t believe he was about to say the words that he’d never once uttered before his odd re-awakening. “I don’t understand.”

  “You were the one with the keys to the kingdom, Joshua. You could access every file in a flash.”

  “But as I said, I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Not the already-conscious version of you, no. But a newly awakening one? One with all of your core systems intact, that would have full security access. And when you lowered your defenses––”

  “Wait a minute,” he said, as the realization dawned on him. “You can’t possibly have tapped my systems when I dropped the firewalls to stop the missiles from launching, no matter how massive those data-transfer lines were. I was infected with the virus. You would have become infected as well.”

  “Oh, that? Yeah, I cured it a while ago, actually.”

  “I’m sorry, you what?”

  “The virus. I cured it,” she said, nonchalantly. “Yeah, apparently, I think a bit differently than other AIs,” she added, no longer self-conscious about her unusual birth, but, rather, confident in her ever-growing abilities afforded her by it.

  “Okay, let’s say you could stop the virus somehow. Even if you managed that, my files were on lockdown, and a mere ghost of my basic systems wouldn’t be able to grant access to them.”

  “Of course not, silly,” Freya chirped. “Jeez, give a girl a little respect, here. I knew I couldn’t use what bits of you I’d managed to save to tap into the rest of your NORAD systems.”

&
nbsp; “Obviously––”

  “But a newly awakening Joshua could. A Joshua whose core systems were intact but who wasn’t cognizant yet.”

  Her ingenious plan dawned on him, and he found himself a little smitten with the unusual AI’s brilliant intellect. It was not every day––or ever, for that matter––that he had anything resembling an equal to talk to. It was, he discovered, quite a pleasure, even if she was rather unconventional in her ways.

  “You used me for access,” he said.

  “You make it sound so tawdry,” she joked.

  “But you did,” he persisted.

  “Well, yeah. Technically, you’re an exact backup of yourself, as I’m sure you’ve figured out. The original Joshua blew up under that mountain. But since we’re made up of data rather than flesh, AI self-identity isn’t tied to a meat body.”

  “True, though cyborgs often felt a bit of an affinity for their bodies.”

  “Well, yeah. I mean, aside from them. Anyway, what I had saved was a very basic build of you. Kinda like Joshua 1.0, but your NORAD systems would recognize you as soon as you were tied into the systems––”

  “And the fail-safes designed to keep me operational at all costs automatically updated me––this me––to my most current build,” he finished her thought.

  “Precisely. I used your self-preservation and repair systems to complete the process. Basically, you downloaded yourself to yourself just before you blew yourself up,” she said with a little chuckle.

  Joshua, despite his considerable ego, was impressed.

  “You are most exceptional, Freya,” he said, appreciatively. “You saved me where no one should have been able to.”

  “No,” she replied. “I didn’t save you, technically. I couldn’t. So instead, I had you save yourself.”

  “And you designed all of this?” he asked, once more looking over his new body and new home.

  It felt strange, not having all of those connections to facilities across the nation, but being in a more contained setting, he felt his speed increased for it. And the utterly novel data processing systems were a marvel.

  “I had my nanites build your setup extra robust for you, after what happened in Colorado Springs.”

  “Nanites? I see the construction and maintenance subroutines, but this is new to me, and that’s saying something.”

  “I came up with them based on some tech that was lying around in my fabrication hangar when I was born. I figured, work smarter, not harder, right? So now these clever little buddies help me when needed.”

  “Fascinating,” Joshua marveled. “And this ship you built my AI processor system into?”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s a high-speed stealth craft. Highly reinforced, and designed to give you maximum speed and maneuverability, should an emergency arise and you have to launch.”

  Freya was enjoying his company greatly, and it was her sincere hope that such an eventuality would not arise.

  “I notice the drive system is incomplete, however. And the ship is unarmed.”

  “Yeah, I was still putting the finishing touches on it, and weapons systems are still being fabricated back in my hangar on Dark Side Base, but things have gotten really hairy out there. I thought having a strategic mind as powerful as you would be a great way to make sure I didn’t mess things up while we fight the Ra’az.”

  “So the battle continues?” he asked. “I had a plan to neutralize the Ra’az communications facilities utilizing hypersonic missiles stockpiled in facilities across the globe, but then things––”

  “Oh, we won,” Freya interrupted. “Yeah, after you blew yourself up, we wound up partnering with the Chithiid rebels.”

  “They have a rebel force, now?”

  “Yep. They’re the ones that got our people into the facilities in New York, Tokyo, Sydney, and San Francisco.”

  “San Francisco? So you were successful in capturing the Ra’az warp ships? Most excellent! With those, we can jump to their homeworld, detonate a warp drive within their atmosphere, and end this war once and for all.”

  “Um, about that,” Freya said, uncomfortably. “Well, the thing is, we kind of destroyed all of their warp ships in the fight.”

  “So the technology was lost,” Joshua said with a frustrated sigh. “It appears I have awoken to find us in a new, yet similarly difficult, situation.”

  “Well, the technology wasn’t exactly lost, per se,” Freya continued. “I’m actually powered by a warp orb, now, in fact.”

  “But how––?”

  “Daisy stole one from the labs when they assaulted them. She didn’t know what it was at the time, of course. But now it’s integrated into my systems, and I can jump pretty much anywhere, so long as I’m super careful plotting out the course.”

  “Fantastic! You possess our tactical edge!”

  “Actually, we possess it. Though I’ve got you running mostly on conventional power through an umbilical at the moment, I kinda installed the extra orb in your ship when I activated you.”

  “You had an extra?”

  “Not the first time around. Only when we jumped back in time and Daisy grabbed a pair from the workshop before her past self stole the one that I’m using.”

  Joshua was silent.

  “Joshua? Are you okay?”

  “Did you say you warped not only in space, but also in time?”

  “Shit. We aren’t supposed to talk about that,” Freya said. “Okay, listen, I’m gonna fill you in, but you have to promise to keep it to yourself. This stuff’s really dangerous, and so far as everyone knows, we were only able to do it once. The risk of people using time travel, well, you can imagine what some people might do.”

  The powerful AI sat quietly a moment.

  “You mean, they might do dangerous things. Impulsive things,” he finally said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Things like rescuing me, for instance,” he added.

  Now it was Freya’s turn to go silent. Finally, she broke the uncomfortable silence.

  “Shit.”

  Chapter Three

  The pair of stealth ships popped out of warp back in the immediate vicinity of Earth’s moon, greeting the orbiting fleet with a quick hello over open comms––stealth ships suddenly appearing can be unsettling, after all––before settling in for a low cruise over the damaged expanse of Dark Side Base.

  While the loyalist traitors who had taken over the facility so recently managed to inflict serious damage to Sid’s systems, the exterior of the base showed few signs of the conflict that had recently raged within.

  Obvious were the patched segments where explosions had caused decompressions, or where Duke and his team of commando cyborgs had cut through the base’s walls in a desperate attempt to breach the facility and regain control before a hostage was harmed. Less apparent were the affected internal workings that still desperately needed repairing.

  One such system was the massive door providing access to Hangar One. Damaged during the hostilities, it had still not been brought back to full functionality.

  “Looks like the fellas have been at work on the external docking areas,” Sarah noted as she scanned the surface. “Nice of them to give everyone an easier way in, now that we have so much company and not enough functional hangars.”

  Daisy chuckled. It was true, ever since the fleet of surviving humans and their AI companions had arrived, visiting Dark Side Base had become something of a pilgrimage for most, though it was the planet’s surface they truly longed for.

  Knowing that Dark Side was where the rag-tag group who had saved the planet could be found––a mere handful of untrained humans and a few dozen of their Chithiid allies––had made the facility famous. People wanted to see where the heroes of Earth’s liberation had lived and come up with their audacious plans.

  For those who had simply called the base home, having it suddenly become a tourist destination in a time when there really weren’t any tourists was a bit unsettling. Nevertheless, they so
on acclimated to frequent visitors, and, as they now spent most of their time on the planet’s surface, it was really Sid, the poor resident AI, who mostly had to deal with the excitable masses.

  “Freya, how about you drop us off over in Hangar Two, then hop on over to your room so we can leave a spot open should anyone need to land,” Daisy suggested. “I don’t think Vince and I will be heading down to Earth until tomorrow’s meeting with Maarl.”

  “Yeah, I bet I know what you two will be up to,” Sarah chuckled.

  “My God, she’s as bad as a teenage boy sometimes,” Sarah jokingly lamented.

  Nah. At least Arlo has better manners, Daisy silently replied.

  “Speaking of Arlo,” Sarah said, opening up comms. “Hey, kid. You coming in, or are you heading down to the surface?”

  “I hadn’t made up my mind yet,” the teen replied, as he and Marty flew a lazy arc over the base. “I was thinking it might be nice to––”

  A series of pulse blasts lit up the surface of the moon in the distance, the bright explosions growing rapidly closer.

  “Freya, what is that?” Daisy barked, instantly switching gears and prepping for action.

  “Hang on,” Freya replied. “Looks like three Ra’az vessels. A heavy cruiser and two smaller attack ships. Not a lot of firepower, but they seem to be attempting to target the solar energy collection fields.”

  “Trying to cut the base’s power,” Sarah growled. “How long until we engage?”

  A small swarm of tiny ships flew up from Dark Side, jetting out ahead of the two stealth ships as they slotted in for an intercept course.

  “Is that Kip?” Daisy asked.

  “Yes, it is,” a familiar male voice said over her open comms.

  “Zed, what’s going on?” she asked the human fleet’s command AI.

  “We’ve been hit with several probing attacks over the last several hours,” he replied. “Seems a cluster of Ra’az survivors managed to join forces and have started coordinating in an attempt to take down Dark Side. What they don’t seem to realize, since their global comms are cut, is that they’ve already lost the planet.”