New Blood Episode Seven: Tera, Tera, Tera

One

From: Zax Yren, High Commander

To: Ivo Exter, Command, Nu Xsi Three

Security: Level 10

Col. Exter:

The Advanced Artificial Intelligence Project (AAIP), code name Troutania, will be afforded every resource available on Nu Xsi Three. Your full cooperation with Dr. R. “Mick” Michel, so long as it does not compromise the secrecy surrounding the location or existence of Nu Xsi Three, is required.

Yours,

Zax Yren, HiCom

Personal: Ivo - get the hair back on your head where it belongs. We put AAIP on Nuxi 3 for a reason. The concerns you raise about the dangers of units that think for themselves have previously occurred to us, which is precisely why we located the project on such a remote outpost. And take good care of my brother’s kid, will you?

- Zax.

Jak wasn’t sure why Exter had shown him this letter, especially the part marked personal, although he supposed the bit regarding his own welfare had something to do with it. He had no idea whether he was expected to comment or not, so he remained silent.

As Exter shifted slightly in his chair, Jak guessed the commander felt uncomfortable in an office and behind a desk. Jak certainly felt uncomfortable standing respectfully before the same desk, especially with a memo like that on it.

“Advanced Artificial Intelligence.” Exter pronounced the words precisely and with obvious distaste. “HiCom believes your project is just a better AI...or do they?” He now glared pointedly at Jak. Maybe he expected the high commander’s nephew to have some insight regarding what the generals up at High Command believed. Jak didn’t. Although he was pretty sure his Uncle Zax knew there was more to it than simply a smarter AI.

“Sir,” he began carefully, “I have not communicated with Cdr. Zax about this project, nor has he communicated about it with me.” Not exactly, anyway. He *had* told his uncle about the playground he and his friends had built under Dr. Michel’s guidance. Zax had been properly amused, but Jak hadn’t mentioned the unexpected intellect of the play Fido—which had control functions but no AI. “Our correspondence is always on a personal basis, sir.”

“Of course.” Exter frowned slightly; Jak had the impression that the commander didn’t believe him. “But you know High Commander Zax. Do you think he believes Dr. Michel is dealing with nothing more than advanced AI?”

It hardly seemed professional of Exter to ask him this question, and Jak hesitated. Had Zax wanted Exter to know more, it would have been in the memo. “Sir, I’d rather not venture an opinion,” he said at last.

Exter vented a derisive snort. “You’re free enough with your opinions when it suits you,” he said.

The commander had to be referring to the time Jak stopped him from reclaiming Dr. Michel’s Advanced Construction Kbot with Dr. Michel in it. The two had hardly spoken otherwise, and it wasn’t an encounter designed to make a commander of Exter’s stamp think highly of a junior officer. Jak was pretty sure his father would approve, though, and that somehow seemed more important than what Exter thought.

“Yes, sir.”

Exter smiled slowly. It was not a pleasant expression. “Insubordinate Zippers usually don’t last long,” he said. “Dismissed.”

Jak reflexively snapped to attention, saluted and turned to go before he had a chance to consider Exter’s parting words. Insubordinate. Jak did not think of himself as insubordinate by nature; the word stung however well-deserved.

Susanna was waiting for him by the corner of the Troutania Advanced Kbot Lab. She didn’t even pretend she was there for some other purpose, such as tending to the spindly bougainvillea Tera had planted there.

“Was it bad?” she asked.

Jak slid his arm around her slender waist and guided her toward the Kbot lab’s personnel hatch. “Not very,” he admitted. It could have been much worse, uncomfortable as it had been. “He had a letter from HiCom telling him he’s stuck with us. And then, at the end, he told me, ‘Insubordinate Zippers don’t last long.’” Jak chuckled softly. He didn’t think he’d mention what Zax had told Exter about this particular Zipper’s welfare even to Susanna. But there wasn’t much that could befall even a Zipper on the idyllic Nuxi 3 anyway.

Susanna grinned. “Maybe he plans to make you a traffic director at the Jeffy races,” she suggested. That was about as dangerous as anything available on Nuxi 3, if probably not fatal. Still, it wasn’t likely he’d get the assignment. That would make it too obvious to Zax that Exter was not taking good care of Jak Yren. Jak now realized Uncle Zax might very well have put that rather embarrassing line in his memo for a good reason. Presumably it would prevent Exter from going out of his way to rid himself of this particular insubordinate subordinate.

As soon as they arrived at the door, Susanna disengaged herself from his light hold. Everybody knew the two of them were romantically involved, but once inside the Kbot lab, their relationship reverted to a professional one. Susanna paused unexpectedly with her hand hovering over the lockplate.

“Oh,” she said, “Dr. Michel has a new assistant. He once worked on an artificial intelligence project with Quitchy.” Her voice dropped slightly out of respect for the reportedly irascible but incontrovertibly great scientist. Now she pressed the plate, and the door opened to admit them. “And,” she added, “he brought the blueprint for the FARK.”

The FARK? Jak wasn’t sure he believed it. He kept his observations about that mythical beast to himself as he followed her into the building.

HiCom had been promising a Fast Assist Repair Kbot since before he was born, and Jak had never really expected to see one. Yet there it stood, with a stocky young man kneeling beside it and inspecting its broad feet. Jak supposed the FARK looked no more ridiculous than any construction unit, although the lobster back and walrus tusk protuberances were a bit much. He couldn’t help but laugh.

The man straightened up and grinned at Jak, while Dr. Michel walked around from behind the unit.

“Still in one piece, I see,” said Michel. “Jak, may I present the fabled FARK and its pilot Andu, a neural interface specialist.”

Jak reached to clasp the hand Andu extended. “Pleasure to meet you, sir,” he said. At the same time he was trying to remember why the name sounded familiar.

“I believe you must be...” Andu withdrew his hand from Jak’s. He held his arms as if cradling a baby, and a wistful smile touched his lips. “...little Jak, Hax and Maia’s boy. To me, that was about a month ago, before I shipped out to Barathrum. Don’t remember Barathrum, though, even if it’s in my records.”

That’s right. Jak’s parents had spoken of Andu occasionally. He had been Maia’s squad leader in her first posting out of med school, and he’d been a family friend for a while...until the disaster on Barathrum. The Arm had lost everything there, including Andu’s cloning records. Maia had tried to get HiCom to release a backup, but there had been no compelling military reason for it—until now, apparently.

“Can I tell my mother you’re here, sir?” asked Jak. “She’ll be glad to know you’ve been restored.”

Andu laughed. “No need for that, Jak. Who do you think did the restoration but your mother?” He turned to Michel and added, “Maia Calderon is an artist. She pieced me together from a degraded genetic plaque and a couple of memory deposits.”

“I requested her for the job,” said Michel. “HiCom offered me a top neural link specialist, but when I was digging through some of your old work, Andu, a couple of things caught my eye. You never said so much, but I believe you are the one who developed the unit neural zone modification that we are studying here.”

Andu’s expression grew wary. “Which modification?” he asked.

“The one that thinks for itself,” was Michel’s matter-of-fact reply.

Now Andu closed his eyes and bowed his head. He stood so for a moment, his fists clenching and unclenching spasmodically at his sides. Jak could see a tear start from the corner of the clone’s eye. Yes, Maia did good work.

“They thought I was crazy,” Andu said at last. “Nobody else could hear anything. That’s why I got banished to Barathrum.”

And it was probably also why he hadn’t been restored until now. Nobody wanted psychotics running around—unless they were berserking psychopaths, who were somewhat in demand for front-line situations. The degraded plaque and outdated memory had probably just been convenient excuses to explain why Andu hadn’t been restored sooner.

Two

XAC-273 had not yet won his way back to Core Prime; Central Consciousness had rewarded him for his work on Delta Beta 4 in other ways. Most important were the new blueprints and the extensive consciousness repository he had been sent, but he found the inclusion of a particular pattern especially gratifying. It gave him proof that Central Consciousness wanted him not only to be successful but to be happy, as well.

Her designation was TR-C211. She was a carefully edited copy of the pattern his own traitorous offspring, 274, had fallen in love with. The original had been taken from an Arm clone, but the edited version Central Consciousness had sent him was completely loyal to the Core. She also could not help loving him any more than he could resist her.

Furthermore, while she probably should have been a scientist, the Arm had made her a soldier. Because of this, she had experience with strategy and tactics that would be invaluable, especially when coupled with her knowledge of the Arm base on Delta Beta 4. XAC-273 thought that this time he stood a good chance of finding out just why this miserable little planet was so important to the enemy.

***

It was late, and two Zipper suits—empty but standing watch—were visible as dark shadows against a diamond-scattered purple sky. Jak and Susanna sat in the swings Michel had built, drifting desultorily back and forth as they spoke of this and that, but nothing in particular. Until Susanna said, “I wonder what you have to do to have a baby.”

Jak put his feet down and stopped briefly at the shallow apogee of the backward arc, startled and more than a little disquieted. Then he let the swing glide down and forward again as he frantically considered possible replies.

“That is...” Susanna chuckled softly. She knew very well what you did to have a baby. “...how you qualify to be allowed to have one.”

This amendment didn’t help Jak any, however. Susanna would make a wonderful mother, he was sure, but he wasn’t equally certain he was ready to be a father. Besides that, he didn’t want to share Susanna with a baby, or at least, not yet. But peaceful Nuxi 3 might be their best chance for a long time.

“I guess we can find out,” he said. “But I want a twenty year contract before....” He paused. He certainly wanted a marriage contract before having children, but was that the only reason for one? He dragged his feet in the sand and came to a stop. Should he? He came to a decision and stood up. In the blazing starlight, he could see Susanna’s face tilted questioningly toward him as he caught her on the forward upswing and eased her back to a standstill.

Feeling rather silly, but wanting to do it properly for her sake, he knelt in the sand. He took Susanna’s hands in his own. “Will you enter into a twenty year marriage contract with me?” he asked. “Babies or no?”

“Oh, Jak,” she whispered. “Of course I will.”

Susanna slid out of the swing and pulled Jak to his feet. Then she gave him a kiss that was somehow better than any she had ever given him before.

It was too late that day, but the next morning before work, Jak and Susanna met at the personnel office to begin the marriage process. A “’til death do us part” contract would have been a simple affair. But a twenty-year contract required a search for all contracts from the previous hundred years on both Jak Yren and Susanna RS-139. The registry clerk cleared Jak, whose only contract was with High Command for his military service, almost immediately. Susanna took longer, but finally the clerk had the list ready.

Jak fluctuated between jealousy and pity as he reviewed the list. Rocko Sue had entered into a lifetime contract eighty-seven years ago with a clone named Raj, and the contract had been terminated after only 27 days. Shortly afterward came another with the same Raj, and that one lasted eleven days. After that, there was a period of a couple of decades before Sue married again, this time to a different clone. That contract lasted less than a week. And so it went, up to a total of seven lifetime contracts, with only one holding for more than a month—and that barely made it to two. The most recent contract had been dissolved by death nearly a quarter of a century ago.

The record didn’t say whose death terminated the contract each time, but Jak could imagine it would be wrenching either way. He put an arm around Susanna both to be comforted as well as to give comfort, and reminded himself she loved him now.

“I don’t see any impediment,” he said.

He felt Susanna let her breath go in a sigh, and he realized she must have been holding it. Had she feared he would change his mind when he saw the number of her former lovers?

The clerk didn’t look up from her console when Jak spoke. “You only need a five-year to file for a birth permit,” she said helpfully.

Only five? A child ought to have at least twenty years.

“I still want twenty,” Jak said. Then he faltered. “That is, if *you* want twenty, my love. I’ll go with five if you...”

Susanna lay her arm along the arm he had around her waist and laced her fingers through his. “Twenty,” she said.

So that was it, pending command approval, and Jak saw no reason Exter would object to a private contract. He reported in to the Kbot lab feeling positively jubilant, although he saw no need to proclaim his news to anybody.

Jak got to work testing a remote communications device Andu and Michel had rigged on his Zipper. It worked sometimes, but not always, and it was Jak’s task to figure out why. For the moment he was inclined to think it was voodoo. He arranged a fine mesh cap over his hair and activated the transceiver. When it worked, he could communicate with his Zipper even when it was in the next room, as it was now.

“*Jasper?*” He spoke aloud for the benefit of the record.

Nothing. Jak readjusted the mesh cap so it felt better, and then he gave his message a little more force.

“*Jasper?*”

*Jak?* The Zipper’s voice sounded faintly in Jak’s mind. *Are we testing again?*

“*Yes.*” This hadn’t worked yesterday morning, but Michel and Andu had spent the afternoon modifying the rig, so Jak had some hope it might now. “*I want you to raise your right arm.*” There was a delay, and then the Zipper’s plaintive voice came.

*I still can’t do it, Jak.*

*That’s all right.* It just meant that whatever the scientists had changed didn't do what they had hoped.

Jak took a moment to look over the automated record of his work so far to make sure everything was there for the specialists to interpret. He wasn’t sure what the traces meant, but he knew there should be jagged spikes to correspond with every word. His own actual words were also there, but the Zipper’s were not. There were only the wiggly lines of the neural trace, and he now dictated Jasper’s words accordingly. At some point, Andu wanted to be able to record a direct transcription of the communications between unit and pilot, but the technology hadn’t advanced that far yet.

“Hey, kid.”

Jak looked up to see Lancer leaning over the low partition that separated their work areas.

“Sir?”

“You’re making me look bad.” Lancer grinned, so Jak knew it was supposed to be a joke even if he had no idea what it was about. “Tera and I have been talking about a five-year contract, and now you’ve gone for a twenty with Susanna. You only need five to—”

“Yeah, I know.” How had Lancer found out so fast? Jak supposed Susanna must have told Tera, who would have wasted no time in relaying the news to Lancer.

“Anyway, congratulations, kid.”

“Thanks.”

After this, Jak got back to work and generated a lot more data for the scientists. Andu came by for a while at one point, but he didn’t say anything, and Jak supposed he was just there to observe.

It was almost time to quit for lunch when Jak got a request to report to Cdr. Exter at his soonest convenience. When Jak arrived, he found Exter sitting stiffly behind his desk as on a previous occasion. Jak searched his conscience for anything he had done that might have caused the commander to call him in.

“Mr. Yren,” said Exter, “I have just reviewed your contract with Susanna RS-13962. I regret to inform you I must withhold my permission.” The commander didn’t seem particularly sorry. He displayed no emotion at all as he folded his hands together on the non-reflective black surface of his desk. “High Commander Zax told me to take care of you, and I hardly think he’d approve of your entering into a fixed-term contract with an engineered clone.”

“But...” Jak could hardly think. Poor Susanna! “Sir...”

Exter gave no sign he heard Jak’s protest. He activated his desktop and immediately became engrossed in whatever appeared there. “Dismissed,” he said, almost as an afterthought.

Three

It seemed best to tell Susanna of Exter’s decision as soon as possible. At first, she seemed to take it well. But it wasn’t long before she broke down in tears. As much as Jak wanted to make things better for her, there was little he could do.

“We can still do a lifetime contract,” he said.

Susanna nodded when he offered, but a lifetime contract was a poor substitute for a twenty year. He could tell the prospect didn’t do much to cheer her up. For her sake, he wished he could go over Exter’s head and take up the matter with the high commander— but that would be unprofessional, and Uncle Zax would not approve.

Susanna’s sobs were beginning to fade, although she still clung to him helplessly. “Maybe...” she began, but she wasn’t able to speak just yet. Jak held her tighter and waited. “Maybe l...later, a diff...different commander...”

They both knew how unlikely they were to get a different commander and still be on Nuxi 3, but it was possible.

“Maybe,” he agreed.

The party they had to celebrate their marriage was a small one. In spite of the fact it wasn’t as festive as such occasions usually are, it suited Jak’s mood. Dr. Michel offered a toast that was so involved it took Jak some thinking about to understand. Lancer insisted on giving Susanna a kiss that seemed altogether more serious than Jak liked. And Dr. Voule was positively encouraging Andu’s rather shy attempts to get to know her better.

Jak didn’t notice this last until Susanna pointed it out to him, and the two of them shared a conspiratorial smile. At the moment, it seemed only right that everyone should have someone to love.

The gathering was already starting to break up when a stage one alert sounded. Nobody felt any particular sense of urgency about it, because a stage one simply meant there was something happening on Delbay 4. Lancer did a quick check the status reports.

“A handful of Avengers did a recon sweep of the eastern base,” he announced. “They didn’t get very far, and no other Core activity has been detected. Pretty much the same as the last couple of times.”

The Core planetary commander on Delbay 4 periodically sent out an expendable group of units, and it had been some time since he had followed up with anything more potent. Even so, it was not safe to assume this alarm need not be taken seriously. In spite of regular raids on Core facilities, it was possible, even likely, that there were bases and resources the Arm didn’t know about. It was best to remain ready, even a Gate hop removed.

Jak knew this, and yet he was more concerned with his wedding night than with the alert status. It simply meant he and Susanna stationed their Zippers just outside Jak’s quarters rather than putting them in their assigned suit lockers for the night. Jasper was quite pleased with this arrangement even if he was rather disappointed that Jak wouldn’t explain what a wedding night entailed.

Susanna and Jak were asleep in each other’s arms by the time the alert went to stage two, but deeply-ingrained training took over. They were dressed and suited up before either of them was quite awake. The two Zippers joined the rest of Dr. Michel’s group in an open grassy area by the Kbot lab not long after Cdr. Exter began his general briefing.

Jak recognized the layout of Delbay 4, although the Arm colors had spread considerably since his time there. A few splashes of crimson marked known Core emplacements and facilities, while a couple of ragged red dotted lines marked a Core advance toward the eastern base.

“So far, the Delbay 4 Gate facility is not being threatened,” Exter said. “But we will move out to defend against arrival, should it come to that. Leaders, review assignments with your troops.”

The Troutania project was assigned to one of the rearmost positions, behind even the construction battalion, so they were among the last to move into place. Then they stood around waiting and discussing what they would do in the unlikely event an invasion got so far. Jak made use of the opportunity to take a nap, and when he woke up, the status hadn’t changed much.

Nuxi remained on stage two alert, while the central base containing the Gate on Delbay stood at stage three. Red dots on the map still streamed toward the eastern base, and blue dots flowed forth to meet them. It seemed very remote and academic, almost hypnotic. When Dr. Michel’s well-known face suddenly appeared over the map, Jak jumped, startled.

“We have a new assignment,” the scientist said. “Start toward the Gate, and I’ll explain as we go.”

A way opened before them. The Zippers took it at a leisurely stroll, but Michel’s Advanced Construction Kbot was chugging for all she was worth. Tera in her Zeus, Lancer in his Maverick and Andu in the FARK easily kept pace with Michel’s C-bot as he began his briefing.

“We are getting reports that the Core is attempting to subvert the Arm self-aware units,” he said. “So far, there are no confirmed defections, but Delbay command is concerned. We’re the specialists, so it’s our job to go in, assess the threat and neutralize it. Questions?”

Jak was still trying to figure out how to phrase his question when Tera spoke.

“How do you suppose the Core found out about the self-aware units?” she asked. There was a moment’s dead silence.

“Lancer...” Michel didn’t want to answer this one. Jak could understand why, and he even wondered whether it was wise to tell her just now.

“Your last battle on Delbay 4...” Lancer began slowly, “you weren’t killed, Tera, you were patterned. Jak, tell her how it was.”

Jak didn’t want to, but when Michel seconded Lancer’s request, he hesitantly recounted how Tera had been abducted by a captured Hammer and then patterned. “And you knew as much about the self-aware units as anybody,” he reminded her. “More, even.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” She seemed bewildered and hurt rather than angry, but Jak wasn’t about to try to answer. It had just seemed easier not to, especially when Lancer had been so careful to keep it from her.

There was a short delay as a couple of tanks had to maneuver a little farther out of the way. A Stumpy and a Bulldog had not quite made the gap between them wide enough for an Advanced Construction C-bot to pass. Lancer muttered something about pilots who didn’t know their treads from their heads, and it was as if he had forgotten all about Tera’s plaintive question.

Now there was no time for more questions as they approached the Gate. The shelter had been broken down to allow for easier access and better visibility. It seemed strange to Jak to see the unadorned Gate rising from a brown patch of bare earth where the building had stood.

Energy reserves were well up, so the six on the Troutania project were to take their units with them. Once Jasper realized he would be making a Gate jump, he whimpered quietly to himself, but he didn’t complain. Apparently he understood this was important.

The Zippers, the Maverick and the Zeus went through first. They had hardly gotten their bearings on exit before the Gate attendants moved them out of the way so Michel and Andu could make the jump.

“Lily did not care for that.” Michel sounded almost annoyingly chipper as he told them about his construction unit’s discomfort. “I think she’s crying.”

“She’s not the only one.” Susanna’s voice seemed strained, and Jak remembered how hard the last jump had hit her. “From Heaven to Hell in two hours.”

While Heaven had been more than two hours ago, Jak felt no inclination to contradict her. Lancer, as the most familiar with the facility, led the way through rocky tunnels to the nearest exit bay. They were met there by a plasma-scorched Maverick and an unmarred Construction Kbot that had been contacted by Core patterns.

Andu helped the native C-bot repair the Maverick, but except for that it was almost a waste of time. Questioning the pilots and even the units themselves didn’t tell them anything they hadn’t already known. Jak didn’t suppose Michel had expected it to. They were going to have to go out and somehow invite contact with the Core.

Four

TR-C211 knew she was an edited pattern, but it didn’t seem to her she had lost anything important by it. She remembered she had never felt especially loyal to the Arm, and although the Core probably weren’t any better, they didn’t seem any worse, either. The Core may have edited her pattern, but the Arm had altered her chromosomes, and she didn’t see much difference either way.

Her loyalties were not to some high-sounding philosophy nor to some vague ideals, but to XAC-273 personally. He cherished and prized her like no one ever had before, and for him she would venture all. Even this.

When she first entered the unit as it neared completion, she had no sense of scale beyond her new body. Man is the measure of all things, she remembered, and now she thought she understood what that meant. It was not until she began to move that her own ponderous immensity became real to her.

She had trained in a simulator so she understood the functioning of each of her systems, but the simulator had not adequately conveyed the sense of mass she now experienced. Experimentally she flexed one enormous toe.

*Are you ready, my dear?* XAC-273 was far away, but she heard his voice in her command communications system. It was recognizable but carried none of the electrical thrill it gave her when he communicated on private channels.

*Yes, dearest.* TR-C211 took a rolling step forward, and the cadre of Kbots that had been assisting in her construction fell back. The largest of them barely came up to her knee, and she resisted an urge to kick one to see how far it would go.

She had been built in a steep valley that had been widened slightly for the purpose, and radar jammers stationed on the cliffs above shielded the site from the Arm. Three steps took her through the exit and to the broader valley beyond. Now she was no longer hidden, and it behooved her to move quickly. A pair of squads XAC-273 had assigned to her scrambled to keep up with what to her was a leisurely stroll. It was especially important not to outpace the Hedgehog that would defend her from a nuclear attack, and she checked to make sure the little beast was keeping its proper station. It was. Confidently, she moved toward the Arm base she had once considered home—if she had ever had a home before XAC-273 had opened his mind to her.

The pitiful hairless monkeys who put on metal suits and pretended to be as good as the Core had no idea what they were missing. She might have smiled had she still been flesh, but in her current incarnation, there was no need to convey her feelings so. How could reading a face ever compare to touching the very emotion—an emotion that could never be properly interpreted by skin and muscle?

Krogoth-TR-C negligently blasted a few little Peeper scout planes, and at the same time she informed Combat Information. She had certainly been reported to Arm Command by now. The Peepers were followed by Hawks that fluttered around her like so many moths. She puzzled over where she had ever seen moths as she and her attendant anti-air units batted these away. On Empyrrean, maybe, although she couldn’t recall for sure.

Now came the toys known as Arm cavalry. She could feel the rumble in her feet as they approached, and she blew a Stumpy to confetti with her head-mounted laser even as she looked at it. Then she had a Bulldog in her sights. It was such a precious toy, she hesitated, but the plasma from its gun stung her thigh. She leveled one ponderous arm at it and returned fire.

It cried.

She heard the Bulldog weep. Not the pilot, the tank itself.

*Bulldog?* she ventured.

*Scared...I scared...walking death—* And then the Arm vehicle went down under the guns of a Goliath.

This was something she had forgotten. The Arm units on this planet were alive.

By now there were only a handful of the original Arm cavalry force left, and K-TR-C focused on a badly damaged Flash.

*Flash. I want to be your friend.*

The Flash replied with a very vulgar suggestion, and K-TR-C fired angrily until the tank was nothing but slag. Clones could be remade, but when the units died, that was the end of them. She was beginning to remember. She and XAC-273 had discussed this. They were going to try to bring the enslaved Arm units to join the Core—why hadn’t she recalled that before this?

Another pack of Arm units was attacking now, but she let her automatic defenses take over as she reviewed her pattern containment specifications. She was still not as skilled as some at interpreting code, but the changes XAC-273 had made were more obvious than those imposed by Central Consciousness.

She was a copy. She was not supposed to know about talking to the Arm units, nor was she supposed to know she was intended as a sacrificial feint. K-TR-C212 did not want to die, but she didn’t see she had much choice. She waded in among the Arm infantry and dealt death indiscriminately. It was her job, her entire reason for being, and she would make XAC-273 proud of her.

***

Jak and the others quickly discovered there were several problems with trying to open communications with Core units. The biggest problem was range. By the time a unit was close enough to talk, it was also in range to shoot. Lancer had taken a bad hit from a Morty, and Tera had been winged by a Freaker before they had beaten a retreat. The FARK fixed them up as good as new, just as promised, but it was obvious the group couldn’t simply wander out and try to get the Core units’ attention.

Michel had set up a command post in a fairly sheltered situation next to a Sentinel defended by Dragon’s Teeth, and he called them back to join him. He sent their cockpit displays all a battle map that he had marked with both current and anticipated troop movements. The Core was red, the Delbay Arm troops were blue, while the Nuxi troops—all six of them—were white.

“Obviously we want to stay away from the main action,” Michel said. “So far, the enemy is attacking on the east, but it’s also reasonable to assume that the center is a good place to avoid, because I’m betting they plan to hit the Gate. So I hope if we take up a station slightly off to the west, we can pick up a straggler now and then.” He drew a small circle on the map. “That looks good. What do you think?”

“As good a guess as any,” said Lancer, and Jak agreed. It was only a little more exposed than cowering inside the walls. Considering the number of units the Core was throwing at the base, some would certainly make it so far. And with any luck, they’d be badly damaged, and more ready to talk than to shoot.

The plan worked well, although the level 1 units that first came their way were either totally uninterested in communication or they weren’t capable. Jasper decided they were too stupid, but Jak supposed they simply hadn’t been provided with the capacity. Before Tera’s capture, the Core had put only level 1 units on Delbay 4. Maybe the higher-level unit blueprints had been sent to Delbay with that modification in place.

Eventually they netted a Pyro, who exchanged obscenities with Lancer’s Maverick for a couple of minutes before it tried to barbecue Andu’s FARK. Susanna and Jak fired at the same time, and the Pyro shuddered and died without causing much damage to the repair Kbot. An encounter with a Reaper not long afterward went pretty much the same way. Then a few A.K.’s staggering by served to give Jak and his Zipper veteran status.

During a lull, Jak checked his various maps, and on one there was a particular seething cluster that caught his eye. A handful of red dots moved down the map, while streams of blue dots surged toward the center of the action and disappeared as if they were being eaten. Jak didn’t have the clearance for a realview, but he recognized that phenomenon from sims he had played. As he scanned down to keep the action centered, a loose group of half-a-dozen white dots appeared at the bottom of the screen. This was something Dr. Michel should be told.

“Sir,” said Jak, and he was amazed how calm his voice sounded. “I think there’s a Krogoth approaching our position.”

Five

Jak couldn’t understand how a Krogoth had managed to make it so close to the main Arm base. While it was expensive to take out one of the giant Core war machines, there were weapons on Delbay 4 suited to the task. A Vulcan, for example, could make fairly quick work even of a Krogoth, but he only now noticed that the Vulcans, the Big Berthas—all the big guns—were still. Something else must be draining the energy they needed to operate, and Jak could guess what.

He scanned his maps again, and now he saw Core units pouring in seemingly endless streams down almost every rift and chasm leading toward the main base. To counter that threat, the colonel must be pulling in reinforcements from Nuxi 3. When Jak panned down to verify his guess, he could see a trickle of white dots appearing at the Gate and moving out to defend it. Even at that painfully slow rate of transfer, the Gate was using nearly every erg of available energy.

Their safe position suddenly seemed horribly exposed.

“I can’t even build anything,” complained Dr. Michel. “Well, maybe a Dragon’s Tooth...if I could build Dragon’s Teeth, which I can’t. Command isn’t releasing me any resources at all.” After an uncomfortable silence, he added, “I hope everybody’s got a recent memory backup.”

Jak winced involuntarily. Yes, he did, dated right after he and Susanna had filed for their twenty-year contract. Now he had to look forward to Exter’s devastating denial all over again ... assuming he and Susanna were both restored. What if he was, and she wasn’t...

In all, Jak didn’t suppose Michel’s poor excuse for a pep talk was misplaced. Nobody would believe the scientist if he told them they could do the impossible anyway. A Krogoth would be emerging from behind that gray bluff before them any minute, and only four out of the six of them were armed. The nearest bolt holes back into the base—even assuming they could be reached in time—were clogged with Arm units moving out to attack the main Core offensive off toward the right. A number of units—both cavalry and infantry—broke off the main stream to attempt to intercept the Krogoth. But by the time those reinforcements arrived, it would be too late for the six of them.

All they could do was take advantage of what little natural cover there was here, and there wasn’t much. Jak reflected this must be one of the flattest places on the entire dismal planet. A few crumbling hillocks and a bit of a trench that was too narrow for the Construction Kbot were all that offered. Michel and Andu took the rearmost position behind a geologic feature that reminded Jak of a large lump of dried mud, while he and Susanna slid awkwardly into the trench. It wasn’t as deep as it had looked. Tera and Lancer each found their own large dirt clods, one at either end of the trench, and crouched there at the ready. This made them feel a little less exposed, but the only one of them who was completely hidden was the little FARK.

“The Krogoth will not be at full strength, you know,” said Michel after perhaps a minute of tense waiting. He didn’t sound especially confident.

The immense Kbot had to have been weakened by the fire all those self-sacrificing Arm units had thrown at it, but there was no telling how badly. While the behemoth would have to be lying on the ground and twitching before the miserable laser a Zipper was equipped with would have much effect, a Maverick and a Zeus were a little more potent. Not as useful against a Krog as a Shooter would have been, though. Jak couldn’t help but recall Michel had considered building Tera a Shooter before giving her the Zeus instead.

Jak felt the percussion as a Defender missile tower launched a missile. It impacted the bluff, where it blasted out a spray of rock and dirt. With that fanfare, the Krogoth erupted from its cover and advanced.

There were no attendants about the great machine’s feet. All of the units that had started with the Krogoth had been picked off, and it was alone. Blackened blemishes marred the body and the legs. Jak thought he was probably indulging in wishful thinking, but its stride seemed labored. The Krogoth ignored another missile from the Defender, which came closer, but still missed. Jak glanced toward the missile tower and determined its accuracy was so bad because its line of sight was obstructed by a low hill. He wished he had a hill that big to hide behind.

*Jak!* Jasper’s voice came with a serious insistence that Jak had never heard before. *It’s Tera, Jak.*

Jak glanced to where the Zeus still waited. She seemed fine. *What about Tera?*

*The Krogoth.* Jasper seemed almost frantic. *It’s Tera. It wants to be my friend.*

Jak strained to hear what the Zipper heard, and he began to understand a stranger’s voice, filtered through Jasper’s neural interface.

*We are all machines ourselves.* The voice was soothing, tired, but not at all like Tera’s. *Join me and become a whole being.*

*Tera!* The Zipper’s reply to the Krogoth was something in the nature of a shout, almost painful to Jak’s straining senses. The Krogoth turned its long snout toward him, and Jak wanted to burrow into the earth to escape the scrutiny of that single, deadly eye.

*You know me?* Jak had never heard Tera’s neural voice, so naturally he couldn’t recognize it, but he caught a certain familiar inflection in those surprised words. It really was Tera. *Who are you?*

*Jasper.*

Jak quickly reminded the Zipper he had not been given that name until after Tera had been patterned. But before Jasper could clarify this, the Krogoth spoke again.

*The Zipper,* she said. *Jak... Is Jak with you?*

*And Lancer, too,* replied the Zipper. It had never occurred to Jak he needed to brief Jasper about military secrecy. He stopped the too-trusting unit before it could blurt out any more. Yes, it was Tera, but it was still a Krogoth.

*Lancer?* It seemed totally baffled, and as it looked around, its glance seemed to fall on each of them before going on to the next. *Who’s Lancer?*

*You love him,* Jak tried, but Jasper had to relay the message.

There was a strange...feeling, almost...as if the creature were weeping. *I...love...XAC-273,* she said at last.

The Defender finally found its range, and a missile slammed into the immense body with little immediate effect. Another missile followed.

“Now!” Lancer’s shout reverberated in Jak’s ears. The Maverick pulled its guns out as it raced around to the right of the Krogoth. The Zeus picked up the cue and ran around to the left, lightning gun blazing. And Susanna scrambled from the trench to dash straight up the center.

It was too soon to launch an assault. Jak knew it, but he wasn’t going to be left behind. A Zipper could run as easily as breathe, and he could talk as he ran. He followed, but could not quite catch Susanna.

“The Krogoth is Tera!” he broadcast. “Tera’s pattern.”

“Tera?” The Maverick slowed, and its guns paused their almost continual firing. Jak tried to tell himself afterward it had made no difference, but just then the Krogoth leveled its gaze at the gunslinger Kbot and fired. Lancer never stood a chance against that potent laser pulse. The Maverick was whole in one instant and a spreading sparkle of glitter the next.

Tera’s Zeus kept blasting. “You killed Lancer,” she screamed almost incoherently, over and over. “You monster!” She sent lightning bolt after lighting bolt toward the thing that was another version of herself.

The Krogoth was definitely going slower now, but it turned toward the Zeus and raised its wrist cannon. Tera staggered and fell under the heavy gauss slugs, and the Krogoth looked for more targets. Jak tried to run faster.

*No!* he cried, but it was too late. The cannons flashed again. *Not Susanna. Please, Tera, not Susanna...*

The Krogoth hesitated.

“*Please, Tera...*”

Susanna’s Zipper lay tumbled in the dirt. Jak stopped there and stood, waiting for the blast that would finish them both.

*Zipper?* It was Tera. She seemed bewildered or even afraid.

Jak looked up. The Krogoth was still absorbing the Defender’s missiles without much effect, but it just stood there, still.

*Jak? Where’s Lancer?* So she remembered Lancer now, when it was too late. *I didn’t see any Bulldogs near here.*

*He had a Maverick,* replied Jasper. *He’s going to need a new one.* The Zipper didn’t really understand about death, but Tera did.

Jak heard a wordless wail in his mind, and the huge machine stumbled backward. It staggered awkwardly into the bluff, shattering rock and raising clouds of gray dust. The arms flailed sluggishly for balance as the Krogoth reeled from the impact. One foot reached back in a reflexive attempt to steady the immense frame, but the ground was uneven. It was no use. The other foot tipped up as the body twisted around the hip joint. The Krogoth fell ponderously sideways across the opening of the narrow valley from which it had come.

A great plume of dust exploded from the surface of the planet when it made impact, but the Krogoth’s armor did not rupture. The dust began to settle.

Jak was astonished, but he didn’t look long at the fallen behemoth. Susanna needed help. He had no way to tell how badly hurt she was, but her suit, at least, appeared intact if severely scorched. “Susanna?” He didn’t want to cry, but he couldn’t help it. She could already be dead, and he wouldn’t know.

Jak was amazed at how fast Andu’s FARK got there. It didn’t seem to have taken even as long as his own dash from the trench, although he knew it had to have been longer. He was also dimly aware of Dr. Michel stumping out toward Tera. Jak had nothing but the highest regard for the engineering skills of Dr. Michel, but selfishly, he was glad the medical specialist had chosen to help Susanna first.

Andu already knew Susanna’s status from his medical readouts, and he answered Jak’s question before Jak had sufficient control of his voice to ask. “She’s still with us, Jak,” he said as he began to bathe Susanna’s battered Zipper in healing nanobots. “But she’s in pretty bad shape.”

Jak let his breath go in a relieved sigh.

Only then did he notice that the immense pile of metal that had been a Krogoth had begun to shake. He tried to contact the patterned Tera again, but the only response was an anguished, sobbing cry.

“I think we’d better get out of here,” he said. He dashed frantically back and forth a few yards, because there wasn’t really anything he could do.

Andu halted the nanobot stream, propped Susanna’s Zipper up awkwardly on its feet and began to guide it away from the wreckage as quickly as he could. It limped, but it could walk. Jak noticed Michel scooping up the cloned Tera’s Zeus and carrying her. The way the Advanced Construction Kbot lumbered, he was afraid there wouldn’t be enough time.

*Tera!* he screamed through the neural interface, but the pattern’s crying only intensified. He and Jasper helped the repair Kbot support Susanna’s damaged Zipper, but he fervently wished they could go faster.

The wailing in Jak’s mind stopped suddenly, and then the blast came. It sent both Zippers flying, leaving them in a tangled heap, but the little FARK tumbled almost like a pillbug. Once he rolled to a stop, Andu righted himself and then came to sort out the Zippers. Jak was glad of the help, and he was concerned about possible further injury to Susanna. Andu made little tut-tut noises and resumed his work, while Jak looked back to assess the damage.

The immense, roiling, orange ball of flame that consumed the Krogoth subsided quickly. Once he was no longer blinded by its light, he was able to locate Dr. Michel. The Construction Kbot still stumped along, half-dragging, half-carrying the Zeus. Both units bore black smudges from the blast, but it didn’t appear that either had been significantly damaged.

“Well, damn it.” It sounded like Commander Exter. Jak hadn’t expected to hear him on his voice comm. He set all but one of his visual pickups to look for a Commander suit. He hadn’t yet located the Commander visually when Exter spoke again. “I was hoping to capture the thing.” The commander seemed positively peeved. “Why did you blow it up?”

“The Krogoth?” This was Dr. Michel, letting all of them listen to his reply. “I believe it self-destructed.”

That was true, in a manner of speaking, and Jak had nothing to add. Exter would never believe a Krogoth could die of grief.

Six

Lancer could usually tell he’d been restored when he woke up with a smooth chest. He kept the hair on his head so short all the time that the fresh crop of fuzz a new clone sported was hardly any indication, but the chest hair was different. It took a couple of months to grow his customary luxuriant mat.

He was careful not to sigh aloud. You’d think it would get easier, but it didn’t. Especially when he opened his eyes and saw someone he had never seen before. She was pretty enough, and she had a delightful dimple when she smiled, but she was still a stranger. Lancer felt vaguely ill-used. He had been there for Tera when she had last been cloned. On Nuxi 3.

How could he possibly have gotten killed on Nuxi 3? Had Exter gone on a rampage again? He wanted to ask, but that was something he had learned early. The cloning techs usually didn’t know anything about it, and it was better to wait until he was released for briefing. He could review everything then and find out if he’d died a hero or if he’d just gotten stepped on by a careless Fido. That had happened once. It was a death he was glad he couldn’t remember.

“What’s the date?” he asked, and the woman told him. He’d lost less than two weeks, thank God.

Lancer heard a door open and then a man’s voice. “Is he ready yet?”

“Just about,” replied the woman. She reached to help Lancer sit up, and he was glad of her steadying hand. He felt more awkward than usual as he swung his legs out over the edge of the table, especially when he got a good look at the man.

He was in uniform—the gaudy, dazzling dress uniform of a commander reviewing the troops. Lancer snapped to attention, but his mind raced. It had only been two weeks, but a lot could happen in two weeks.

The commander grinned. “Get your boots on,” he said, “and I’ll tell you about it as we go.”

“Yes, sir.” Lancer took the brand new boots the cloning tech—no, make that medical specialist—handed to him. Dr. Calderon her badge said, and Lancer had his boots on before he remembered where he had heard that name before. He was so surprised, he spoke without thinking.

“Jak’s mother?”

She showed him her dimples again. “Yes,” she said. “And this is Jak’s father.”

Commander Hax gave him a slight bow and a mischievous grin very like Jak’s. “Ready?”

“Yes, sir.” Lancer had no idea what it was he needed to be ready for. If he was with a commander in dress uniform, it didn’t seem likely he would be going into action, at any rate. He hated having to suit up when he was still, metaphorically speaking, damp from the cloning tank. It always took a while to sort himself out, and it was very disorienting to have to do that in battle. He fell in step with Hax and hoped the commander would, indeed, explain everything.

There was quite a bit to explain, but the trip across the surface of Empyrrean in a small hover gave them plenty of time. Lancer had never been to the Arm home world before. His attention was somewhat divided between Hax’s narrative and the scenery until Hax got to the Krogoth.

Lancer had encountered these giant killing machines before, at least according to his records, but he had no memories of any of the meetings. He had always died, and everybody with him had always died. Except this time, according to Hax, four Kbots and a Defender missile tower had attacked a Krogoth and suffered only one casualty. Lancer.

He was inexpressibly relieved the others hadn’t been killed after all, but he couldn’t imagine how they had survived. “How is that possible, sir?” he asked.

Hax showed him a record taken from one of Dr. Michel’s visual pickups, and Lancer still didn’t understand. The Krogoth stopped firing and just stood there for a few seconds before staggering backward and falling.

“According to the official report, Jak talked to the Krogoth.” Hax grinned briefly to himself, and Lancer supposed the commander was proud of his son. “Confused it.”

If anybody could confuse a Krog, Jak was the one to do it. But still, Lancer wished he could have seen it for himself. After this, Hax simply let him view the condensed report.

The battle on Delbay 4 had gone on for less than an hour after the Krogoth went down. Commander Exter had arrived at some point, and while his presence hadn’t been a deciding factor in the Arm victory, he had certainly helped win it more quickly. Lancer tried not to let his personal dislike of the man spoil his satisfaction with the resounding defeat dealt the Core forces.

Lancer had hardly started to dig for more detail when the hovercraft arrived at their destination and he and Commander Hax got out. Lancer looked around in some interest once he realized he was at Empyrrean High Command, and he wasn’t disappointed. The walkways and buildings seemed to have been carved from white marble. In the center of the square where they stood was a great, circular pool with several tall fountains of water spraying an attractive fan pattern into the sky.

Hax let him stand gawking for a couple of minutes before leading him into a building that proved to be a Gate enclosure. Lancer had never before had such deferential treatment from the attendants, and he decided he liked traveling with a commander.

He had hoped they would do a double jump and bypass Delbay 4 entirely, but when they arrived there, Hax stepped rather woozily out of the Gate. Lancer hesitated, because it was still possible he’d be going on. Only after he decided nobody was preparing for a second activation did he followed Hax.

They were met in the corridor outside by an apologetic Cdr. Exter, who explained he hadn’t expected Hax quite so soon.

“But the captured construction unit is ready,” he went on. “It wants to talk to Lancer.” Exter gave Lancer a surreptitious glare, as if he held him personally responsible for the interest a Core unit had in him. Lancer wasn’t quite sure what was going on. He supposed the captured Core unit had learned of him from Tera’s pattern.

The only other time Lancer had seen a unit of this type was in records Jak had made in the cave where he had tried to rescue Tera. That one had been severely damaged, while this one appeared to be in good repair, but he was pretty sure it was the same model. He had no idea whether it was the same unit or not.

“So you are Lancer.” The Core Kbot’s voice was a light tenor, not at all mechanical. It was obviously not his intention to sound threatening, or he would have added the audio effects Core units often did when on the battlefield. If anything, he sounded small and sad. “TR-C211 remembered you, there at the end. Actually, it was 212 that remembered. Maybe if she hadn’t, she’d have destroyed the Arm Commander, and he would never have tried to capture my beautiful 211...” The Kbot emitted what sounded a lot like a sigh.

“One construction unit self-destructed before my Spiders were in range to paralyze it,” said Exter. “Apparently that was the Tera-pattern, and it didn’t want to face the people it had betrayed.”

“She told me she didn’t want to be made a slave.” The Core Kbot sighed again. “My beautiful Trece. I’m not so brave as she was.”

That was more like Tera than the picture Exter painted. Lancer didn’t really understand much of it, although there had apparently been two copies of Tera’s pattern. And one of them had had a weapon presumably capable of destroying a Commander. Well, he could get that all sorted out later, when he wasn’t in the same room with a couple of commanders and a grief-stricken pattern.

“I wish we could take this guy with us,” said Hax. He frowned thoughtfully for a moment before shaking his head. “But we can’t. Security. Maybe Dr. Michel can come here and find out what he knows, but in the meantime...” Hax smiled at Exter, but it was not the open, friendly grin he had shown Lancer earlier. “Take good care of this particular unit.”

Seven

There were a few more details to take care of on Delbay 4, and then it was back to the Gate and on to Nuxi 3. Lancer hardly had a chance to notice that the enclosure was gone and that the sky was even bluer than the one he had left on Empyrrean before Tera slammed into him. Heedless of a limp bunch of roses in one hand, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. The sweet scent of rose petals swirled intoxicatingly around him, and he almost forgot his exalted company.

When he remembered Commander Hax, he regretfully and gently pushed Tera away, but he needn’t have worried. Jak had his father in a bearhug...or no, it was the other way around. A junior officer wouldn’t embarrass everybody by parading his personal relationship with a commander, but a commander could certainly demonstrate affection for an only son. Hax released Jak and then offered a more formal handshake.

“And maybe you can introduce everybody on the way,” he said.

The others—Dr. Michel, Andu and Susanna—were waiting by the belly of an Atlas that squatted heavily on the grass nearby. At a signal from Cdr. Hax, they turned and began to board the transport. When Lancer climbed aboard, he noted there were barely enough seats for everybody, even if there was plenty of space for several units, depending on their size. The Atlas was obviously a standard blueprint item, unlike that luxurious hovercraft Lancer had ridden in on Empyrrean.

Jak had finished the introductions by the time the Atlas was airborne, and now Lancer hoped Hax would explain what was going on. But the commander seemed more interested in finding out about the self-aware units project than in telling anybody anything.

Lancer was a little surprised by his own impatient curiosity. A few hundred years of life in the military, of waiting and waiting and then following deadly orders in blind ignorance, had largely eradicated that uncomfortable failing from his constitution. Or so he had believed. Ignorance was bliss ... but today he wanted to know.

Dr. Maia Calderon had done that amazing restoration of Susanna, turning the efficient non-com into a vivacious officer. But Sue’s DNA had been heavily modified to better suit her to pilot a Rocko. Lancer had been a Bulldog pilot since he could remember, except for the recent experience with a Maverick. He didn’t think his chromosomes had been altered. Yet—suppose they had been?

He excused himself and got up. After he shut himself into the Atlas’s tiny relief compartment, he checked his reflection in the bit of mirror there. He was vaguely disappointed that he didn’t look any different. Dr. Calderon had done such a wonderful job with Susanna, it was too bad she hadn’t changed his bony, dark features a little to make him more handsome. A masculine square jaw, maybe...

When had he ever cared what he looked like? When had he ever really cared very much about anything? He thought back to what he had felt when Tera had been patterned and compared it to what he felt when he let himself think about his lost Maverick. Then, what he had felt was more like regret than grief, but now ... it hurt.

He pressed the heels of his hands to his forehead and thought about Tera, alive and very precious. The emotion swelled in his chest like a breath of pure oxygen. He might look no different than before, but he certainly felt different. For the first time in centuries, he felt truly alive.

Lancer was afraid he was grinning like a fool when he went back to his seat. Except that everyone smiled in return, nobody seemed to think he was acting strangely.

“We’re finally going to find out what’s so important about Nuxi 3,” Tera told him. Her eyes shone with excitement so strong Lancer could almost feel it.

“Just keeping its existence secret isn’t enough?” He had never even questioned the cover story, but now that he thought about it, planets like Nuxi 3 weren’t all that rare. Apparently there was more here than natural beauty and abundant resources.

The Atlas began to spiral in for a landing. Lancer only caught a glimpse of a large building surrounded by resource storage and heavy ordnance. He had never seen a facility like that one before, but whatever it was, he would have known it was important even if he hadn’t been told.

Once the aircraft was down, it lowered the ramp and the seven of them disembarked. To judge by Hax’s mischievous smile, he expected them to be surprised by what they found.

From the outside, the main building appeared to be some kind of a factory, if bigger than any Lancer had ever seen before. He had expected some of the personnel to come out to meet them, but they were practically to the main bay door when it opened. Advanced construction units, both Kbots and vehicles, began to file out, then a pair of advanced construction aircraft fluttered in to land near the Atlas.

“Just finished now, sir,” announced the lead C-bot. “And ready for inspection.”

“Very good.” Hax turned toward Dr. Michel. “Ready, then?”

Michel smiled and pulled a blueprint plaque from his pocket. “Yes, sir,” he said. Apparently the scientist knew what this facility was even if the rest of them didn’t, and he seemed quite pleased to be there.

“Then let’s go.” Hax strode confidently through the open door and into the building.

Lancer was the last of the group in, and he looked around for clues to the purpose of this building. The giant tangle of scaffolding that rose in one corner of the cavernous hall was suggestive of the unit that would take shape there. He had hardly come to the realization of what that unit must be when Jak blurted it out.

“It’s a Commander suit factory.” Jak walked to the open framework and lay one hand on the metal. “Just finished, and Dr. Michel has a modified blueprint for an improved model.”

“Quite so,” agreed Hax. “One with self-awareness. And I volunteered to be the first test subject, which is why I’m here.” He gestured to a control panel. Everyone watched in silence as Dr. Michel inserted the new blueprint into the single empty slot. When this was done, Hax turned to face the rest of them. “But I can’t yet hear the self-aware neural net, so the second suit needs to go to someone who can.”

Lancer had the idea Hax was looking specifically at him when he said this. He couldn’t be sure until the commander walked over and put a hand on his shoulder. Jak let out a very undignified victory whoop, and Hax quelled him with a fatherly glare before turning back to Lancer.

“I’ll only be here as long as it takes to finish my suit,” he said. “And after that, well, Exter’s been permanently reassigned to Delbay 4, so there’s an opening on Nuxi 3 for a low-seniority commander.” Hax grinned, and for a moment he looked a lot like his son. “Do you need some time to think about it?”

Lancer had heard they couldn’t make you a commander without asking first even if they could do practically anything else whether you liked it or not. But he couldn’t imagine turning down an opportunity like this. “Hell, no, sir,” he said. “I even know the first thing I’m going to do when it’s official.”

Hax nodded and glanced toward Susanna, who was trying to pretend she had no interest whatsoever in his son. “I think I may have an idea what that is.”

“Yes, sir.” Lancer smiled in satisfaction. “I’m going to give Jak and Susanna my approval on their twenty year contract.”

Epilogue

From: Zax Yren, High Commander

To: Benjamin Apodaca, Command, Nuxi 3

Re: The Origin of the Self Aware Units

Lancer,

Congratulations on the promotion. It was long overdue. I wish I could have been there for the weddings, too. I understand both Tera and Susanna were beautiful brides, and if I’d been there, I’d have kissed them both. Although I’m sure Hax did the honors for the clan very properly, it just isn’t the same.

Hax passed on your question about the Self-Aware units, and I have pieced together their history (or rather, I delegated a bright young officer the job—that’s really all a High Commander is supposed to do: delegate). The full references are attached, but here is her summary of the findings:

The Intelligent Neural Interface (INI) project began as an offshoot of Artificial Intelligence research. It was then known as Neural Interface Development, or NID. This project comprised two parts: first, the neural zone of the mechanical unit, and second, the neural link of the biological component, whether cloned or natural born. Both halves of the NID project produced small but significant innovation, and we now routinely use several of the modifications suggested by that research.

INI itself was an unexpected side product of the unit neural zone work. Andu 1623, a medical specialist with the link section, was assisting the zone engineers with a full scale development test when an electrical malfunction caused an arc that burned him severely. Once his injuries had been repaired, he reported that he could now communicate directly with the unit neural zone, which he claimed had a distinct personality.

Andu was found to be mentally unstable and was subsequently reassigned to a high-risk classification. When he was killed, he was not restored, and no particular care was taken of his cloning data.[Note from Zax: HiCom did not, in fact, believe Andu was insane. They had the same fears Exter voiced, that intelligent units were too much like patterns, so they tried to destroy the evidence. This information is so top-secret my delegated researcher couldn’t find it, and I probably wouldn’t have found it myself had Hax not insisted it must be there.]

Nearly five years ago, a Maverick and a construction Kbot were sent to Delta Beta 4 to establish a base. The purpose of the base was to protect a Galactic Gate, so HiCom determined the presence of a Commander was not necessary. [Note from Zax: We didn’t want Core to think it was especially important, anyway.]

A little over a year ago, several field officers serving on Delta Beta 4 determined that their units were self-aware. Their research traced the source back to the transported Construction Kbot, which had built the initial Kbot lab under nanostall conditions. The officers advanced no theories about the root cause of the alteration, but they discovered that all units descended from that Kbot lab were self-aware.

A recent search on the provenance of the Ancestral C-bot, as the Delta Beta 4 officers dubbed the first Construction Kbot, turned up some interesting results. The Ancestral C-bot had, some twenty-five years before being sent to Delta Beta 4, been assigned to the INI project. Its internal blueprint files checked out as standard when it was sent on its latest assignment, but apparently when it was so short of resources during nanostall, the reduced energy frequency matched an eigenvalue of the storage level of the experimental modifications[Note from Hax: I don’t understand this part, either—maybe Michel can explain it to you]. This caused the Kbot lab to be built according to INI’s experimental blueprint. The operator was a recent clone of an experienced Construction Kbot pilot, and she was unaware of any anomalies with the construction until the unofficial investigation team approached her some four years later.

You pretty much know the rest of what she reports, but I imagine you are curious about how the rest of it fits together. We are not so afraid of innovation at HiCom as we once were, if for no other reason than we see it as the biggest difference between us and Core. It is our nature to grow and change, or should be, where it is their nature to live forever in the same place. I leave it to you to guess how much of a part I had in engineering the results, but I certainly could see the value in having units as partners rather than servants.

Having a Commander suit production facility so close to Delbay 4 (in fact, the reason for Delbay 4) proved convenient, but the INI team would have been sent to such a planet even had it been much farther distant. The project leader—Dr. Michel—was apprised at the outset of that intended application of the technology, but until the factory was complete, it wasn’t necessary for the rest of you to know. While Exter was aware you were working on an improvement for the Commander lab, he was not given the full details even when he guessed some part. The action on Delbay 4 provided an excellent opportunity to remove him from a command for which he was ill-suited.

Yours, Zax

Lancer read through this memo several times before he thought he understood it. Except for the bit about eigenvalues. He didn’t think he’d trouble Michel for an explanation, though. There were some limits to his newfound curiosity.


The article was taken from this thread.