Seraph’s Gambit- Episode 54
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Vlasa
“They’ve jumped!” Olivia’s panicked voice sounded in Vlasa’s ear.
“Vlasa, trigger the hack,” Ariana ordered.
Stepping away from the hatch to engineering and the sounds of gunfire being exchanged between the
“Captain, they must have figured out what we did. The hack is no longer receiving queries from other AI sources. It tried to overload the FTL when I reattached it.”
“Damn it.” Ariana said, “Well,
“They could be anywhere. The systems near
“But we can eliminate many of those possibilities,” Vlasa said as he made calculations in his head. “They must remain within range to communicate with the drone force at
“Okay, I can filter those out. But that
“Take your best guess, Olivia. Think like our enemy,” Ariana said.
“I don’t know how to think like an AI.”
“You do not need to think like an AI,” Vlasa said, flinching involuntarily as a bullet ricocheted through the hatch door. “The AI is being controlled by a human. A human who you’ve met. Think like him.”
“I’ll try,” Olivia said, unenthusiastically.
“You do not need to hurry. It will take me some time to remove the hack from the FTL system. There is approximately a forty percent chance doing so will render the FTL inoperable, and an eleven percent chance it will overload and kill us all.”
“Oh, good. That means I have the easy job.”
“Indeed,” Vlasa said, turning his attention to the open panel that led to the hack. Dropping to his knees, he crawled in as far as he body would fit. The first part was easy, severing wired connections he had only recently installed so that the hack had full control of the FTL.
With those done, he studied the AI hack closely. His cybernetic eye magnified the remaining connections the drone had to the FTL. Wires snaked and twisted through each other. The hack itself had been attached near the primary computer processor. If there were any security defenses, it could destroy that processor.
Reaching his cybernetic hand toward the hack, he activated the screwdriver in his third finger. Meanwhile, he shifted his vision through the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums. Nothing new was visible in those spectrums. He decided he had to risk an x-ray scan.
Starting with low energy and quick pulses, Vlasa studied the hack. He slowly turned up the energy until he was able to see through the outer casing. What he saw made him jerk his hand back. A wire connected to the access panel he had been preparing to open, led to a small explosive device. If he detached the access panel, it would trigger.
With a sigh, Vlasa pulled out and back into the main engineering room. Weapons fire continued to echo from outside. He cursed his luck. He would need to come at the hack from the opposite side to disable the explosive. That meant going down the corridor toward the boarding drones currently trying to get in here and kill him.
“Medical drone!” Quish, one of the Rokma shouted, “We require your assistance.”
Vlasa dashed to the doorframe and saw Pou, the other Rokma, slumped to the deck. She still breathed, but a burned and gaping wound was evident. One Rokma down doubled the chances the boarding drones would make it through to engineering, killing him and destroying the ship. He didn’t really have any choice in what he needed to do next.
Bending low, Vlasa dashed through the hatch to the injured Rokma. He turned to face Quish, “How many more are left?”
“Only one more remains. It is about five meters down the corridor, taking cover in a hatchway.”
Vlasa nodded as a plan began to form. He glanced down the corridor and pointed, “I need to reach that panel over there. When I do, I will vent some of the reactor steam into the corridor. Those drones primarily function on infrared vision. It will quickly switch scanners, but for a brief moment, it will be blind. Be ready.”
The Rokma nodded and hefted her rifle. Taking a deep breath, Vlasa focused on the reactor control panel across the corridor. Putting aside the rapid calculations that promised his inevitable demise, he dashed forward through the open space.
He collapsed before reaching the panel. For some reason, his leg would not respond to his attempts to move it. Prone at the deck, he puzzled over this until the pain receptors finally caught up to what had happened.
Through gritted teeth, he used his arms to pull himself the final meter to the panel. Fortunately, the controls he needed were low on the board. He hefted himself up with one arm and pulled the emergency vent lever. Steam hissed into the room and the temperature rapidly increased. The lights flickered as the generators suddenly lost power, but the backup batteries took over.
A thunder of steps and the rapid report of a rifle echoed through the room, bringing Vlasa back to the moment. He closed the steam release valve, and then allowed himself to slump to the floor. Either Quish had succeeded, or a drone was about to come around the corner to kill him. Whichever happened, he wanted to be more comfortable.
“The intruders have been eliminated,” Quish announced.
Vlasa sighed. He wanted nothing more than to lay here permanently, but he forced himself to shout, “I need you to carry me to the wall panel.”
The Rokma returned to view, a deep frown on her face. She bent down and pressed a hand to Vlasa’s leg, sending an excruciating amount of pain through him. “I do not believe you should move until the medical drone arrives. Your leg is losing a lot of blood.”
Vlasa glanced down at the spreading pool of blood, and the sudden wooziness he felt made a lot of sense. “Oh. Well.”
Shaking his head, Vlasa forced himself to sit up. Quish continued to put pressure on his leg. After a moment, the whir of approaching tracks announced the arrival of Mesu. Quish shouted, “Drone! In here. You must tend to the engineer.”
Vlasa shook his head, “No, your friend was hurt worse.”
“We do not need her to complete our mission. But we do need you.”
“No, no.” Vlasa protested weakly, but as the world started to grow dark, he couldn’t think of anything more coherent than that.
Mesu trundled into view and extended his arms. A sharp jolt in Vlasa’s arm suddenly brought the world back into focus. Mesu had inserted an IV into his arm. Already a new source of blood flowed in along with what Vlasa assumed was some kind of stimulant keeping him awake.
“This leg will require extensive and immediate surgery. The odds of you bleeding out are sixty-four point seven percent.”
“Just cut it off,” Vlasa said, his words slurring a little.
“Severing the appendage will increase the rate that you would lose blood. Your knowledge of medical matters is frailer than most biologicals.”
“No, cut it off and cauterize it. Do it quickly. I have work to do. And you have other injured crew to tend to.”
“That would alleviate the immediate danger, but I would not be able to reattach it. My ethical subroutines forbid me from causing unnecessary harm.”
“I want a new cybernetic leg.”
“Oh, well, in that case,” Mesu said, and then extended an appendage. A bright flash of a plasma scalpel left an impression on Vlasa’s one retina before he was forced to close his eyes from the pain. He thought he screamed, but wasn’t sure because the world vanished for a minute.
When he regained his senses, he opened his eyes to see Mesu and the Rokma still standing over him. The pain had receded to a dull throb. He glanced down to see a burned stump where his leg had been. It was the third limb he had removed, but unlike the previous two, he had been awake for this one.
Fighting back the revulsion at seeing his leg like this, he focused on what had to be done. Looking to Quish, he said, “Now, please carry me to the wall access panel. I must disable the AI hack.”
Continue to Episode 55
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