Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Pursuit (26 page)

"A prison," Halley completed
his sentence.

"Exactly," Web agreed. 
"This doesn't look high-security enough for POWs, though," he
continued.  "We need to find out if that's what this place is."

"Ok," Halley replied easily,
"you go find out what's going on.  Feel free to beat it out of somebody if
you have to; we won't be here long.  I'll go hit the server room and get the
ring data."

"With a plan like that, what could possibly
go wrong, eh?"

Web walked up to the glass wall and paced
its length until he came to an access point at the far end, complete with a
Priman guard in a secure booth.  Web summoned all his confidence and authority
and strode right up to the glass, then tapped on it with his fist and pointed
to the police badge on his chest.

The Priman guard looked startled, then
angered as he realized an outsider was in their secure area.  He drew his
blaster from its holster and keyed the intercom.

"You are intruding in a secure
area," the Priman began, "put your hands up and prepare to be
disarmed and detained."

"You're serious?" Web played
along with his cover.  "Have you seen what's going on outside?  There have
been insurgent attacks on three city blocks worth of your facilities.  My
people are here because of the agreement we have with you; we're supposed to
check in and offer assistance as your liaisons.  If you don't want our help,
that's fine with me; I'll go find someone who does.  But you try to take my
weapon and we're going to have words."

That made the Priman mad.  "You
forget yourself," he snarled.  "You work for us, at our mercy.  I'm
coming out; make a move and I'll be within my rights to shoot you."

The Priman opened the door and stepped
out while Web incredulously held his hands high in the air. 

"Sheifah; you
are
serious!" Web said in a startled voice.  "When my
supervisor hears about this-"

The Priman made a move to grab Web's
holstered weapon.  Web brought his right elbow down on the man's hand while
slapping the man's gun away with his left hand.  Web kept the man's hand
trapped with his right elbow while he brought his left elbow in for a strike at
the man's jaw.  The Priman recovered and tried to bring the butt of his gun
around to hit Web in the head; he partially blocked it with his left arm after
taking a glancing blow and released his right arm to hit the Priman in the nose
with a wicked open palm strike.  The Priman staggered back, nose gushing
blood.  A follow up roundhouse kick to the temple and the man was on the
ground.

"Oww," Web muttered as he felt
his left temple with his fingertips.  They came away with a bit of blood on
them, but nothing that struck him as alarming.

He dragged the man into the guard booth
and sat at the terminal, trying to make sense of the computer system.  While
there were only so many ways to store data, the Priman file structure was not
familiar to him.  He tried looking for a schematic of the prison and was
rewarded after a few attempts.  More tapping and gesturing brought him to a
screen where he could tap on a cell to see the information about the prisoner
within.  It was of course complicated by the fact that he couldn't read more
than a few dozen words of the Priman language.  The first few names didn't do
anything for him, but they seemed familiar, like he
should
have known who they were.  The fact bugged him and he
worried he was using up what had to be extremely limited time.  He picked the
next cell in line and instantly knew who was inside.

"Oh damn."

Halley found the server room without
incident, avoiding a roaming guard rather than trying to take him out.  The
more of a ruckus she caused, the sooner they'd be discovered, and their mission
was too important to take any more risks than necessary.

After all the work they'd put into
researching the ring data, corroborating Velk's claims, then getting here to
Callidor and into the facility, it all felt a little anticlimactic to be
standing here simply copying everything to a data cube.  She was also backing
it up on a data pad and had set up an external connection to send a copy to an
anonymous storage service she'd set up before the mission.  This data would get
out; every misdeed, every crooked, illegal and treasonous act the Senator had
made in his bid to control what was left of the Confederation.  They'd bring
his crooked act down and make way for someone else.

The data transfer was just about done
when the alarms started going off.

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

Merritt and Cory pulled into the carport
and parked next to the hovercar already sitting there.      

"Well," said Merritt slowly as
he surveyed the area after getting out of the vehicle, "this isn't weird
or anything."

"Welcome," they heard from the
side, and Merritt spun towards the voice with his blaster drawn.

They saw a smiling human man in his early
twenties standing there, arms held out from his sides a bit in what appeared to
be a nonthreatening gesture.

"Commander Elder, Captain
Sosus," the stranger continued as Cory walked abound the other end of the
car from Merritt, weapon also drawn.  "My name is Echo.  Well, it's a
nickname your friend Commander Stone gave me.  He's downstairs viewing some
information; I assume you know what he's here for.  I request that you give him
some time to examine the material before going to see him."

"Do we know you?" Cory asked
skeptically.  "You look familiar."

"We weren't properly introduced, of
course, but I was at the dinner you two attended the day before last.  I was
masquerading as a waiter.  I'm one of the AIs you've come to find."

"Loren always has the most
interesting adventures," Merritt said in approval.  "You don't mind
if I check out the place a bit, do you?"  He took a step towards the door,
curious to see if their new friend would try to intervene.

"Not at all," Echo replied. 
"But I ask you stay out of the sublevel elevator until Loren comes
upstairs."

Merritt nodded and stepped inside.

"You're still not convinced of my
credentials?" Echo asked Cory as she gave him the eye.

"Can you do something that would
convince me?" she asked with a cynic's glare.

"I can tell you something," he
replied evenly.  "I've looked at your service records, the same way I
checked into Loren's.  I saw your last visit to your ship's flight surgeon;
your post-EVA checkout.  It's all classified and privileged from the crew of
course, but your Doctor Elrad is concerned about your health.  She mentions
survivor’s guilt and mild post traumatic stress.  She thinks you can deal with
it but is worried."

"You stay the hell out of my file,"
Cory said angrily, though hearing the words spoken out loud and become real
instead of just an abstract concept caused something to shift in her.

"I mean no disrespect," Echo
said quickly.  "I pass no judgment, either.  You've been through a lot;
all of you have.  It would be stranger if you didn't show some sign or other of
dealing with these issues."

Cory stared at him, the harshness gone
but the glare still in place.

"If it helps to hear it," Echo
continued, "you're not alone in experiencing it and I daresay you're not
alone if you want to involve your friends here, especially Merritt.  And on a
more solemn note, I can tell you that it's something I've felt as well."

Cory's look changed to one of guarded
surprise.

"I may be an artificial life
form," he said, "but I'm not just algorithms and programmed
responses.  I have awareness and emotions just like you.  And in that capacity,
I've already lived several of your lifetimes.  I've seen more people die than
you've seen live.  It doesn't get easier, Mrs. Sosus, but you learn to accept
the constants of the universe and enjoy the people you know while they're here,
then remember and honor them when they're gone as you keep making new
memories.  You don't have to take my word for it, but it wouldn't hurt to
try."

Loren stood transfixed by the data
scrolling across the screen.  Specs, results, costs, more demonstration video,
testimonials- it was a perverse ad campaign for one of the most heinous weapons
in recorded history, the developer proudly touting the cost-effectiveness and
mobility of the weapon system.

He didn't want to make the decision, but
somewhere deep down he knew he'd already made up his mind.  It seemed that when
a person couldn't decide what to do, they really did know someplace within
themselves what had to be done but just couldn't quite find a way to put it
into words.  Perhaps there were no words for what he'd been watching.

Finally, he closed the case and slowly
made his way to the lift.  He needed to tell Echo what he thought they should
do with the data.

"They're here," Echo said
solemnly as he stared out into the night back towards the way Cory and Merritt
had come from.

"Who?" Cory asked as he
unconsciously tapped the slide of her SSK with her right index finger.

"The Primans.  Lots of them."

"Loren!" Merritt said in
surprise as Avenger's XO appeared from a hidden panel in the wall.         

"Merritt," Loren said in relief
as he stepped out to greet the other man.  "Been here long?"

"No, but we did meet your friend. 
The one who says he's an android."

"Interesting, isn't he?"  Loren
asked.  "He brought me here to show us some tech to see if it might be of
use to us."

"The Admiral will be doing
cartwheels when he hears that," Merritt replied.  "Anything we can
use?"

"No," Loren said with a
straight face.  "But I'm going to have him help me destroy it so the
Primans don't get a whiff of what we were looking for."

"I'm glad you've made a
decision," Echo said as he and Cory walked into the main gallery towards
Loren and Merritt.  "Because the Primans are here, in large numbers. 
There's a service exit we can use from the sublevels; it's how the collector
gets the larger pieces into the place."

"You two go and get started,"
Cory said confidently.  "Me and Merritt will start at the back door and
fall back to this lift, then head down to meet you.  We'll hold as long as we
can."

"I'll call you if we need you to
head down earlier," Loren completed the plan.  "And don't do anything
stupid; we don't need much time."

Loren and Echo rode the lift to the
sublevels in silence, which Loren broke once they stepped off the lift and
started down the white corridor.  "I've made a decision."

"So you said," Echo replied.

"You need to help me destroy that
tech.  I don't think anyone should have it.  Nobody is virtuous enough to
handle that kind of power; nobody should be able to decide to destroy a
planet.  Sooner or later it'll be misused, stolen, fought over; nothing good
can come of it.  And even if it means we can't use it against the Primans, it
needs to be gone.  Forever."

"I'm glad to hear you say
that," Echo replied.  "Not too surprised, based on what I know of
you, but a number of my peers had their doubts."

"Would you have let me have it if
I'd asked?"

"Yes."

That made Loren pause as they entered the
huge storage room.

"What about the part where you
worried about all the potential cultures being wiped out?  Surely that's just
as much a danger if the Confederation has it as if the Primans beat down the
galaxy."

"Oh, there are terrible risks,"
Echo admitted.  "But your moral dilemma proved that if anyone should be
allowed to possess the weapon, it could be you."

"No pressure," Loren said,
trying to feign a lighthearted comeback.

Echo stepped up to the data pad and
terminal connected to all the crates associated with the weapon and started
tapping commands into the system.

"You know," Echo continued as
he worked his magic on the data terminal, "my people have sometimes
considered offering to make our presence known in the interests of helping you biologicals,
and I'd make that offer to you right now.  We'd make ourselves available to be
observers, facilitators, a sort of nonaligned force that would have no powers,
no weapons.  We could help prevent conflicts like this with the Primans from
happening."  He paused in his work to look at Loren's reaction.

"If you had no powers, who would
listen to you and why?  I don't say it to belittle what you're offering, but
until the Primans came along I like to think we did alright.  Besides, plenty
of people wouldn't trust you, no offense intended, and many would worry they've
just exchanged the possibility of the Primans from being in power to the
possibility of you somehow ruling us instead."

"Valid concerns," Echo admitted
as he got back to work.  "We'd swear allegiance to you."

"Confed?"

"No,
you
."

Loren laughed, a short bark that made
drew Echo's eyes to him.  "That's a lot of power to offer one person,
Echo, and I suppose I'd have to say that for a brief moment I wondered if I
could use it wisely.  But the truth is, I don't think I'd want that kind of
control.  Nobody should have that kind of power.  It's the height of arrogance
to think that I know what's best for every last person out there and that I
should be able to tell others how to control their lives.  People who want that
kind of power are, frankly, the ones least suited for it.  You're better off
working in the shadows and giving us a nudge here and there like you're doing
right now."

"Thank you for that honest
assessment.  We plan to do just that, in fact.  And for what it's worth, all of
my kind knows what's happened here the last few days.  If you ever see us
again, you'll see us as friends."

Loren was about to reply when he heard
the deep report of SSK blaster fire upstairs.  He unholstered his own and held
it ready, eyes darting back and forth between Echo and the door to the hallway
and the lift beyond.

"I'd suggest you go help," Echo
said with what Loren could only call sadness in his voice, "but I fear we
have a problem."

"Define 'problem'," Loren
countered.            

"The house's security system has
multiple redundant safety features that are going to prevent me from wiping out
the data stored in the system," Echo replied.  His hands now rested  on
the table, their lack of motion a sign that his work was going nowhere. 
"There is a way to wipe out all the data, but it might be considered
somewhat, let's say, extreme."

Loren's heart sank, because for all the
options that rolled through his head, there was only one that seemed to fit the
situation.  "Does it involve a large explosion?"

"It does."  Echo gathered
himself and continued.  "The computer system will execute an emergency
dump of all information if it detects certain types of tampering with various
parts of the owner's collection, which is what I plan to do.  Transfer of the
information, of course, is what we're trying to avoid. 

“The home is self-powered using solar
cells, batteries, a small fusion plant and a backup generator.  Put them all
into a loop, channel energy in the right place at the right time, and I can
make the reactor overload, despite the safeties that would prevent it.  But I'd
need to go and manually open the valves at the power plant at the right time. 
They're not automated, for just such a reason."  Echo paused, and even the
supercomputer that was his brain had to search for the words he needed. 
"Someone has to die in order to make it happen."

Loren nodded to himself.  Damn his luck
for always being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Or maybe the right
place at the wrong time; somebody else would be the judge of that someday.

"Then I'll do it," Loren said
firmly.  "It's my people, my war.  Tell me where to go."

Echo only shook his head.  "I
thought you might try that as well, Mr. Stone.  No, this is a job for me."

"I thought you were neutral. 
Besides, you can die just like I can, right?  No magical last-second
uploads?"

"Correct on all counts," Echo
said softly.  "For what it's worth, my kind needs to see you survive the
day.  We know you, trust you, and for lack of a more sentimental reason, want
to maintain the stability of our relations with you.  I will trigger the
overload.  Go get your friends and bring them down here; the loading docks are
out the rear of this room."

Loren stood there, unable to move. 
Everything made sense, at least in a vacuum.  But when the decisions had to be
made, when the results affected the real world, he didn't want to have to admit
what would happen.  So he stood there, for lack of a better thing to do,
wishing there was another solution.

"There is no other option,
Loren," Echo continued.  "You don't like the choices, you wish there
were more, I understand.  But your delaying action will eventually reduce our
options to just one, in which we all must die.  So go, and then get back here. 
There's one more thing I want to tell you before we part ways."

"Problem?" Halley asked as she
ran to meet Web at the security booth where Web was still hammering away at the
controls.

"You're not going to believe who's
in there," Web said.  He motioned Halley to look at the display.