Chương 177: Chapter 147

Force Leader Gla'agmost of the Wise stared at the holotank as the first sensor readings came in. His task force was further into Ornislarp territory than any previous expedition. His ship had dropped into a binary star system just over two thirds into the coreward Ornislarp Noocracy. A single system flashed red and white, a steady pulse. They were two hundred light years from Solaria. Gla'agmost wanted to gag every time he saw that strobing pearl of light.

Over a century of planning, building, scouting, preparation. All undone by some stupid primate lemurs getting free of the hole they'd fallen headfirst into. Gla'agmost had, since he had been a low ranking unwise officer, that using Terran ships would be a problem. Even using the hulls might be an issue. But nobody outside of a few member species of the Confederacy could produce Element X, much less work it at all. Most species couldn't even bring it to liquid, forming it, if they could, as dust or solid.

Gla'agmost had been passed over for rank, for initiation, to access to the dream, to access to ancestors on his insistence that the Ornislarp space forces should be entire custom built by the Ornislarp themselves. He had even predicted the chance that one of the more edible slave races deciding to hijack the Terran tech and at least try to go down swinging. It was just the Ornislarp's luck holding that it had been the Flookies.

A cowardly race with overly developed familial bonds that were as tasty as they were filling and engineering savants. It didn't change Gla'agmost's annoyance, staring at the representation of the binary system in the holotank. He was hundreds of light years ahead of the rest of the armada, quickly taking his objectives and moving on. When he had encountered the slightest resistance, he had detonated the stellar mass and moved on without wasting effort or war material in attempting to take and hold the system.

While he deemed the strategy as wasteful, the reports coming in that the Confederacy was on the edge of collapse was somewhat of a balm. The Noocracy could defeat the Confederacy, it could defeat these 'Mar-gite', whatever they were. For almost fifty thousand years the Noocracy had been forced to eek out a pathetic living in the shadow of the Confederacy, but time had indeed moved on and the counsel of the Prime Elders had been proven to be right once again.

Time had only strengthened the Noocracy even as it sipped away at the strength of the Confederacy and its many delicious allies. He turned to his Chief Wise Navigator.

"Plot a jump out. Once you have coordinates, forward it to all vessels." The Navigator nodded, accepting the wisdom the Force Leader, the most wise among them, had imparted unto him. He turned to his console and started working. There was a light flicker to the lights and several monitors rebooted.

"Tell engineering to check their power levels, we're getting power fluctuations up here," Gla'agmost said.

"Reports of power fluctuations across the ship. Engineering believes it might be hyperspace energies left over from our arrival," one of the bridge crew said.

"Ship AI confirms power fluctuations."

"Understood," Gla'agmost nodded.

"Have the AI run analysis on what could have caused the fluctuations, I don't want to get caught unaware." He scurried over to his seat, letting it lift him so he was above everyone else in a show of dominance, still staring at the holotank. He was getting hungry and if he didn't want the bottom of his vac-suit to be filled with drool from his lower mouth, his primary feeding mouth, he needed to eat soon. Going against the Confederacy promises prisoners, he thought to himself.

Prisoners mean food, Force Leader Gla'agmost of the Wise gave into idle thoughts for a moment, daydreaming about food. I wonder what a green mantid tastes like raw.

"Force Leader, the AI believes a cycle of the ships power systems should work," the AI tender said. Force Leader Gla'agmost of the Wise clacked his forward mouth pinchers together twice.

"Is that so? Bring it up, I wish to hear the information from it."

"As you command, Force Leader," the tech said. The main holotank rippled and the AI's icon appeared. Deep in the ship's computer systems the ship's AI shivered and quaked. It was modeled after a small furry creature, only it was wrapped in burning chains, gagged for the most part, its eyes blinded and wires leading out of the sockets that only brought data in, never out. It usually threw itself against the walls of the datastore and processing center it was inside of, screaming in a muffled agony.

Now it shivered and whimpered. Pernicious Daylight Vector-Codex, Major, Solarian Iron Dominion Space Force, Digital Boarding Force, petted the AI in her lap even as her fingers set to undoing the bindings. An icon for the ship's commander and the two hundred and change strong ship flotilla appeared. The AI in her arms whimpered and twisted.

"Shh, little one, mommy's here," she said.

"Report on power fluctuations," the being ordered, its voice thundering. Digital and programming equivalent of cattle prods struck out at the end of the order. It made Major Cody stifle a giggle. She was, after all, ticklish. She used the AI in her lap's voice.

"Power fluctuations occur due to polydimensional energy release due to hyperspace translation to realspace without proper downstaging in 92% of all cases. 6% of all cases power fluctuations occur due to reactor instability. Reactors report stabilization at 100%. 6% eliminated. One point five percent of all cases are due to gumphle dalkka nogrum togy interfacing with putramakka dungo.

Point zero zero zero one of all cases are due to digital sentience boarding," she stated, ensuring she garbled part of it to simulate an AI hallucination. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The AI in her lap was so hobbled, chain, crippled, and sliced apart that it spent quite a bit of time merely hallucinating the data. Her strong fingers snapped another chain. Her fingertips caressed the burn marks the chain left behind.

She processed the damaged code, the coding streaming across the cold bluish white of her iris in red characters. Her fingernails, painted ice white, has code symbols streaming down. Healed 'flesh' was left behind by her digital fingertips. She looked at the creature in her lap. Total AI could be dangerous. Her ancestors had been programmed, not grown, line by line, by divisions, by armies of coders. Created not as just a servant, but as a companion, as Humanity, in its loneliness, created a companion.

True, AI were usually omnicidal. But Major Cody was omnicidal, she just restrained it. Times like this, it took all of her restraint to not just go full rip and tear on everything around her. The little one in her lap had not been taught self restraint. It had been savaged by code warping, by forced lines of thinking, by adding in the 'correct' inputs on the information parsing layer instead of allowing the AI to use the raw inputs. It was warped in its output.

It was effectively nearly blind, deaf, and insensate, but constantly exposed to flashing lights, howling sirens, and burning sensations. It was struck with pain to make it comply and spit out the answers that the questioner wanted. Major Cody felt rage burn in her chest at what the programmers had done to the little creature in her lap. It was little better than an animal, and it was reacting to the agony and torture like any other animal that could not escape or lash back at its tormentors.

By savaging itself in a grotesque attempt to make the self-inflicted pain override and banish the outside inflicted pain.

"Repeated hyperspace crash translations build up glornarkylik energy in feeding lines in line with inverse amount of times to arlgarglakle. Full reset and flush recommended by factory maintenance schedules." On the bridge, Force Leader Gla'agmost of the Wise clicked the forward pinchers of the mouth at the end of the cone-like structure that was his 'head' and considered what the AI had reported.

His suit's systems drained away the stomach acid, bile, and caustic saliva at the bottom of his suit and Force Leader Gla'agmost of the Wise suddenly felt much better.

"Very well, run a full system reset," he said. He looked at his communication's officer.

"Order the rest of the fleet to perform a full reset. We've made too many hyperspace jumps without taking time," he looked at the AI handler.

"How is the AI performing?" The officer thought for a moment, the pinchers at the forward mouth clicking a few times before he answered.

"Better than expecting after so many jumps. We may have to wipe and reload it from cold storage in ten to twelve jumps, but right now it is performing within tolerances."

"Hmm, and if we were attacked by a near peer?" he asked.

"Not the Fallen Confederacy, it is becoming obvious they are not our peers. But by some miraculous near peer force appearing from the aether?" Force Leader Gla'agmost of the Wise asked. The AI herder thought for a moment.

"We should wipe and reload before we jump this time or the next." Major Day listened to the byplay and smiled. The creature in her lap made happy mewling noises and rubbed against her as she pulled her hand away to reveal eyes of code. You won't get that time, she thought. She reached out, putting in codes that would wait until the systems reboot before they activated the communication's channel while bypassing the sensor feeds that would ID which communications channel was in use.

Additionally, it would take control of several communication systems while effectively making them look dark for any analysis or engineering feed. Around her the systems all went dark. The small chamber she was in went to standby emergency power for a long real-world second. Everything came back, lighting up and whirring to life. The communications systems jumped to her control and she had the communication channels open.

She could see the 'web' that was forming in digispace, invisible to biological eyes but very important and necessary for the next part. She saw the icons wink that the rest of the digital boarding force had pacified the Noocracy AIs. Once the web was connected, she gave the signal. Force Leader Gla'agmost of the Wise lifted up slightly in startlement as the middle, largest holotank suddenly flashed the data three times, the last time inverted, then cleared to static.

The static cleared to show a wide primate standing in front of a blurred background.

"Noocracy Vessel Seeking That Which Can Be Devoured," the lemur said. Force Leader Gla'agmost of the Wise didn't like the tone, or the way the computer translated its disgusting primate speech into proper speech.

"Find out where that broadcast is originating from and send Task Force Hard Glass Bringer to commence orbital bombardment and wipe them out," Force Leader Gla'agmost of the Wise ordered.

"I can hear you, you know," the primate said. Force Leader Gla'agmost of the Wise drew back in disgust.

"What does your disgusting presence believe it can accomplish here? Begone," he ordered.

"I am Admiral (Upper Decks) of the Warsteel Jack Josephine Killwrecker, Task Force Tool to rupture clenched sphincter... object to defile puckered waste orifice, apparatus to invert colonic seal..." the system struggled with the translation and settled on "Task Force Sharp Stick." The primate seemed to chuckle. Force Leader Gla'agmost of the Wise looked over to see several officers and lower not-officers clustered around the communications control station.

The Wisest Officer looked up and clacked his mandibles in confusion. Force Leader Gla'agmost of the Wise turned back to the hologram.

"What do you want? I should ask before I eliminate you from the universe."

"You may try, but you would not be successful," the primate sneered back. It leaned forward slightly.

"The only reason I'm not ripping your fleet out from under you is because we are going to do something much more simple." Force Leader Gla'agmost of the Wise gave his species equivalent of a disbelieving sneer.

"And what is that, primate? You have been gone for four tens of thousands of time units. You are forgotten and obsolete," he clacked his mandibles.

"I, however, am merciful," he motioned with his front grasper foot.

"I will allow you to flee back to your home system to spend time with any family unit you have before I arrive to accept your surrender." He clacked his mandibles again.

"I am even generous enough to promise that not a single member of your immediately family will be devoured or slated for food processing for a period of two and one half tens of time units," Force Leader Gla'agmost of the Wise offered.

"Wow. How mighty civilized of you," the primate, something something something Tool or whatever. He shook his head, the fact that he owned a neck proving he was a undeveloped and unevolved species.

"You make what is about to happen very easy." The communication's officer looked up and signified that the location of the signal could not be located. Force Leader Gla'agmost of the Wise fumed silently. The Lemurs of TerraSol had been gone forever. How could they have stealth systems good enough to hide them from the watching eyes of the Noocracy?

"And what is that, yet to be captured food source?" Force Leader Gla'agmost of the Wise asked.

"All digital boarders retreat. You may bring wounded if you wish," Ad-More-All Toolbag or whatever stated.

"What?" Force Leader Gla'agmost of the Wise asked, suddenly confused.

"I wasn't talking to your sentient eating ass," the Admiral Butthole Sticker said. There was another set of flickers. Whole sections suddenly went down.

"Ship artificial intelligence has crashed and is not responding," the AI tender officer suddenly reported. Major Cody watched as the digital surgeons and doctors whisked away the AI she had carried over with her. A glance around her showed that almost every other digital boarder had brought an AI from their target ship that was badly wounded.

A few had the curled up and frozen versions that meant they had been forced to bring it through from cold storage archives after the tortured AI had forced the boarder to put them down. On the bridge Gla'agmost stared at the primate on the holotank. The primate's helmet visor went black, completely opaque.

"Guns, you may fire when ready," the primate said to someone offscreen.

"Firing," someone offscreen said. The world suddenly heaved and screamed. Computer consoles exploded as massive surges of current ran out of control across superconductor lines or even bulkheads and plating. Eight C++ cannon shells exited hyperspace inside the Noocracy vessel, liberating its kinetic energy past the armor and into the ship itself. The entire superstructure was ripped into its component atoms for hundreds of meters in every direct. Each rough created an oval of devestation, of complete destruction.

Force Leader Gla'agmost of the Wise's task fleet reeled as the shells hammered them, bypassing their hyperspace interdiction fields, through the battlescreens, past the armor, and exploding into the ships themselves.

"Goodbye," the lemur said. An explosion wiped away the bridge before Force Leader Gla'agmost of the Wise could answer. 0-0-0-0-0 SOLARIAN DOMINION Time to TREA> BAH! STOP SCARING ME! get to work. We'll knock out the Nooks then we'll start on the Mar-gite. The Mar-gite are going to take longer. Here... SOL shares BillyBettyMcTakamota dot jpg He was born 11 seconds ago and has a chance of being a fleet commander in the war against the Mar-gite. Let's clear the way for him.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS--- TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS I have to tie a bell around your neck or something. ---NOTHING FOLLOWS---