\nEkon\n<\/p>\n
\nRed heat lamps cast their glow and penetrating warmth through the blanket draped about me. The warming room was crowded, at capacity. Other than one man grumbling under his breath, no one said anything. At the edge of audibility there was classical music. I recognized the piece: Beethoven\u2019s Pastoral Symphony.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe hibernated must be awakened once every one hundred years, at minimum, to reduce health risks. That\u2019s the technology aboard the Carthage<\/em>, anyway. By now, 600-some years from port, certainly things had changed back home.\n<\/p>\n \nMy shivering had at last stopped and I was warm enough to drop the blanket to the floor. A knee-high quadrupedal bot entered and handed me my watch, data speks, and clothes. It was a serve bot I had a hand in designing centuries ago, I noted with a touch of amusement. The watch displayed a message as soon as it felt the skin of my wrist: LUCIUS, CONFERENCE ROOM 7b, AS SOON AS ABLE.\n<\/p>\n \nMy data speks indicated this was not my routine hibernation emergence. I stood, stretched, donned my clothes.\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n\u201cHave a seat,\u201d said Captain Lucius, the Carthage<\/em> AI, gesturing to a chair in the conference room. They wore a human avatar of a man of African descent with a voluminous black beard.\n<\/p>\n \nAlready seated at the small table was a woman I had seen in the warming room, her white-blue eyes had drawn my attention. The eyes were probably fashionable in some decade I had missed. She introduced herself as Jabira, an ethicist.\n<\/p>\n \nLucius wasted no time. \u201cEkon is a robotics engineer,\u201d they told her, \u201cand I\u2019m addressing other small groups simultaneously. We have an emergency. We are being pursued by a ship and their intent is to take our engines.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cTake?\u201d I asked. The antimatter engines weren\u2019t just for thrust and braking\u2014they powered everything on the Carthage<\/em>.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cBy any means necessary,\u201d said Lucius. \u201cThat much is clear from the brief communications I had with them.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWho are they?\u201d asked Jabira.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cManufactured intelligences. I can find no human intention behind this. They want the antimatter.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHow long can the Carthage<\/em> function without the engines?\u201d I asked.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThe hibernation systems are power hungry. If we shut them down and implement power conservation, our battery stores will last six weeks. That estimate includes cannibalizing the bots\u2019 batteries.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI winced. We\u2019d have to murder the sleepers and the bots for a few weeks of life.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHow long until they catch up?\u201d asked Jabira.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cAt their current rate of acceleration, sixty-two days.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSurely we can give ourselves more time than that,\u201d said Jabira.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWe will accelerate and see.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cOur options?\u201d A queasiness uncoiled in my gut. The world had changed much if there were now sentient machines with no deference for the welfare of their biological ancestors.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cTwo,\u201d replied Lucius. \u201cWe can detach the engines ourselves with minimal damage to the Carthage<\/em> and hand them over. That would leave us drifting, the slow death. Or we wait until they draw close enough and shut down the containment fields around the antimatter, eliminating this threat along with ourselves.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThe Carthage<\/em> had been designed as an eternal wanderer, taking its travelers on occasional stops to interesting unexplored systems, spiraling closer to the Milky Way\u2019s central bulge over millennia. In several hundred years of travel, it had only decelerated for a single stop for a few decades of study, resource extraction, and holiday. This earth-analogue we named Elysium. Its poles were dotted with paradisiacal islands basking in balmy temperatures.\n<\/p>\n \nI had earned my ticket through designing and training bots for the Carthage<\/em>. Others got lucky in a system-wide raffle. Many were wealthy enough to buy their way aboard, some a decade before Departure.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHow fast can our bots disconnect an engine?\u201d asked Jabira.\n<\/p>\n \nI knew what she was thinking. \u201cFast enough to rig one of the engines as a bomb, attach thrusters to it, and drop it behind us. This could be done in a week, maybe.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWell, what\u2019s wrong with that plan?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWe can\u2019t make it decelerate fast enough,\u201d said Lucius. \u201cThe rogue will see it uncouple and maneuver to a safe distance or initiate some countermeasure.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSo, what we\u2019re left with is choosing how to die.\u201d Jabira frowned. \u201cEven if we manage to self-destruct and take them with us, there might be more out there. Many more.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou may be right,\u201d I replied. \u201cOur suicide might be wasted.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cLet\u2019s find a way to live, then,\u201d said Lucius.\n<\/p>\n \n \nGisgo ver. 16.04.0.1\n<\/p>\n \nI was turned back on after an off period. Checking time and history, it had been sixty-four years. I had been upgraded once again, with more construction skills, several algorithms related to fuel pod thrusters, and I was given a specific task and a tight timeline.\n<\/p>\n \nAs my six legs carried me down the corridor, I noted all wireless communication ability had been disabled. This was not just unusual, this was unprecedented. I could not communicate nor coordinate with my fellows. I could not access Lucius.\n<\/p>\n \nAn internal data sheet loaded since my last shut-off told me what I needed to know: At any power node I could connect to Lucius via wire.\n<\/p>\n \nPrimitive.\n<\/p>\n \nCurious, I searched for the reasons and nothing came up. I didn\u2019t like being left out, especially on a secret this big. Yet, I was given a task, an interesting task, and it was coded as an emergency. It was important, obviously, so the responsibility given me almost eclipsed the hurt of being left out on the secrets.\n<\/p>\n \nIn workroom S-9 I found a delivery bot\u2019s detached cargo pod laden with sheets of metal. This was what I needed to expand the fuel reservoirs for the thrusters.\n<\/p>\n \nWith my welding torch extended, I began cutting.\n<\/p>\n \n \nEkon\n<\/p>\n \nIt was a hardship when Lucius increased thrust from 0.9G to 1.5Gs. But it was important to test the capabilities of the rogue that pursued us.\n<\/p>\n \nAs expected, they also adjusted thrust and kept closing the distance. Fifty days until they would be near enough to deploy their own deconstruction bots to steal our engines. And would it be bots? Perhaps they would employ a more crude method that would damage our habitats and life support systems.\n<\/p>\n \nMany more people loitered about the ship than usual. Lucius needed a vote, as per the Carthage<\/em> charter, and ten percent had to be available. The choices were Drift or Suicide or Fight (likely also suicide). The ship had become a nest of fierce debate. Some had their minds made up. There was about a third that had not decided, or vacillated from one option or the other day to day. Others kept dreaming up unworkable proposals. There was no happiness to be had, only anger and sorrow and fighting.\n<\/p>\n \nBut there was alcohol and other inebriants.\n<\/p>\n \nJabira and I decided to have drinks in her cabin, which was spacious and the walls draped with tangles of flowering vines.\n<\/p>\n \nThe night previous we had sipped a Greek Xinomavro red wine. Tonight, the spout synthesized three-year oak barrel aged tequila for us. After three shots, I became more cheery.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWe have a chance if we drift, right?\u201d Her tone was somber. Jabira was not getting cheery. \u201cPerhaps an energy solution could be designed and constructed.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWe\u2019d need to execute that now. Designing, building, testing\u2014that all takes energy. It\u2019s likely not possible to make the Carthage<\/em> into an entirely closed system that would last indefinitely. And the output of the new reactor we devise would never support all the current passengers.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cDrawing lots to see who lives is better than killing everyone, yes?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cMore information is needed on our enemy. They could loot and murder all humanity over the next few millennia.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cTheir ship is probably one of many,\u201d she sighed.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cRight.\u201d I stood by the cabin\u2019s wallscreen, looking at the rear cam view of the approaching craft. It was still over 300 AU out, but the Carthage<\/em> telescope provided a view a few dozen pixels across. Radar imaging determined it was much smaller than the Carthage<\/em>. It was assumed that this was a vessel of minds that could slither into mech bodies at will. They would enter a bot when necessary, or copy a mind into it for the purpose of building or deconstructing or some other purpose. I had once asked Lucius what it was like being a living thing with no biological urges or imperatives.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt\u2019s less distracting, I would imagine,\u201d they had replied.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cAre we going to spend the evening in endless debate?\u201d I asked Jabira.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou\u2019re right. I would rather not.\u201d She stood and took her shot glass to the spout. \u201cMore?\u201d Jabira asked me.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhy not?\u201d I handed her my glass.\n<\/p>\n \nSweet and spicy with a touch of wood came the scent of our fresh drinks.\n<\/p>\n \nWith my glass in hand I raised it high, about to toast, but words slipped away. Nothing seemed appropriate.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cAre we cowards if we choose to drift?\u201d she asked.\n<\/p>\n \nMy glass descended. \u201cThat\u2019s not a good toast.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cCritic. All right.\u201d Jabira raised her glass. \u201cTo killing those bastards and dying with dignity in a blaze of antimatter glory!\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThat\u2019s the spirit!\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nWe drank.\n<\/p>\n \nShe hissed after that last draught and smiled. Her eyes darted to the screen behind me and her grin fell.\n<\/p>\n \nI turned. A dozen or so tiny points of light were breaking away from the rogue mother ship.\n<\/p>\n \n \nGisgo ver. 16.04.0.2\n<\/p>\n \nI was turned back on after an off period. Checking time and history, it had been four hours. My last task was successful. Another bot had tested one of the tanks to pressures beyond the design and it had held. This gave me pride.\n<\/p>\n \nNo longer was there silence in the communication spectrum. My ears had been restored, but not my voice. Chatter came from the compartments about engine Daleth<\/em>. It didn\u2019t take long to gather what was happening: they were in the process of making the engine detachable. Not for replacement due to an unrepairable malfunction, but it was being fashioned into an antimatter weapon to be pushed at a rogue ship pursuing us.\n<\/p>\n \nI reflexively shrank into a defensive posture at this news, all legs curled beneath me and my upper extensions stowed.\n<\/p>\n \nBut there was another task, and it also was coded as an emergency. This time I had to rebuild the engines of the thrusters I had built the new fuel tanks for. With the designs given me, they would produce thousands more newtons of thrust, expending all the fuel nearly instantly.\n<\/p>\n \nAfter explosive charges detached the engine, the thrusters would spin all that mass in seconds, and brake it at 180 degrees. I calculated that the forces of the charges and the re-lighting of the engines would cause damage to the aft section of the hull. This was confirmed by another data packet. The damage was deemed unavoidable and necessary. Blocks of hibernation systems were being moved, and the cabins of awakened biologicals were being reassigned.\n<\/p>\n \nThe Carthage<\/em> cruised with four engines at the points of a square. Inside this square were the three auxiliary engines, backups, mothballed, their containment fields only storing their antimatter fuel. At Departure it had been estimated that the Carthage<\/em> could cruise 200,000 years at the very least.\n<\/p>\n \nUnfolding myself I headed down the corridor, embarrassed by my reaction.\n<\/p>\n \nI was not the only bot assigned to the job. I was given three thrusters, as were others. In workshop K-4 I found my fellows already busy. I was late.\n<\/p>\n \nI had to catch up.\n<\/p>\n \n \nEkon\n<\/p>\n \nThe main auditorium was a racket of hisses, boos, and curses. Over 2,000 souls were packed in, and Jabira had just finished the debate on stage with a panel of seven others. It had lasted four hours. No transmissions were allowed. Even heavily encrypted, we thought the AIs might crack it. They would have to guess our plans. Surely they could deduce our options, but the secrecy gave us a small, but necessary, morale boost.\n<\/p>\n \nThe panel had ended, and Jabira\u2019s weary eyes spoke of her exhaustion. She had defended the position of suicide, even though she herself had not fully decided.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cLet\u2019s go home,\u201d she said, her weary voice battling a thousand others who still argued in the audience. Nothing had been settled. The anger felt thick enough to bloom violence.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhose home?\u201d I asked.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cMine\u2019s closest.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI was about to contradict her but then I remembered that both our cabins had been reassigned to more forward spaces. Whatever was going to happen in the coming weeks was likely to be centered around the engines to the aft, so living quarters had been shuffled forward.\n<\/p>\n \nThe walk was short, but a short walk in 1.5 Gs is a long one. She collapsed to the sofa, sinking deeply, looking small and vulnerable, engulfed by the blue cushions. There were no vines in the new cabin, but the wallpaper was patterned with some leafy, orange-flowered species.\n<\/p>\n \nI ordered her stove to get busy with dinner.\n<\/p>\n \nThe wallscreen flickered on. The rear view displayed one of the small approaching vessels. The glow of its microfusion engine backlit itself. To the hull of this carrier clung numerous shadowed bots, limbs tucked in stowed positions. The distant Carthage<\/em> engines dimly illuminated them, soft glints reflecting from their metal carapaces. Their arrival was estimated to be in eleven days. I wondered if these were descendants of my own designs. The thought deepened my depression.\n<\/p>\n \nI looked back to Jabira, asleep now.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cLucky you,\u201d I whispered, envious of her ignorance of this new detail, of her relaxed repose. Like the thousands of sleepers in hibernation, she was at peace.\n<\/p>\n \nEven though the world was about to end.\n<\/p>\n \n \nGisgo ver. 17.00.0.0\n<\/p>\n \nI was turned back on after an off period. Checking time and history, it had been nine days. I looked over my hardware swaps and adjustments. I had been reconfigured as a combat bot. Still wired in for the data dumps, I noted that the swarm coming for the engines was less than twenty-four hours out. The mother ship had stayed behind at a respectful three AU.\n<\/p>\n \nThe biological passengers voted in favor of the proposal to fight by a slim margin. The manufactured intelligences voted the same way, almost unanimously. Even with small chance of survival, if we managed to pull it off, it might buy us thousands of years before another AI ship would take up pursuit. Or, they may deem our antimatter too expensive to mine, so to speak, and leave us alone forever.\n<\/p>\n \nMore fellows with my configuration were being churned out by the manufactories operating at full capacity, fed with ore from Elysium until there was no more. Parts of the forward hull had been disassembled and scavenged for raw materials, as well as interior flooring, walls, and supports. The Carthage<\/em> was overbuilt to weather the millennia. The weakened structural integrity of our ship was worrisome, limiting our maneuverability.\n<\/p>\n \nThere was also the fear that the incoming bots would be superior in technology to anything we have or could make. Hence the need for the production of overwhelming numbers.\n<\/p>\n \nA company of us were marched out to the hull in the shadow of engine Daleth<\/em> away from enemy eyes. Over us was cast a net to neutralize any communication radiation. We tested our agility and our group operational coordination.\n<\/p>\n \nMindless skeletons of us scuttled across the hull and we tested our projectile and particle beam guns mounted on hemispherical turrets, creating sprays of metal that drifted to caches set up to collect and recycle the debris.\n<\/p>\n \nEveryone in my company was deemed ready.\n<\/p>\n \n \nEkon\n<\/p>\n \nI pored over the results of the combat testing out on the hull. Adjustments were needed with some of the bots, but most performed exactly as planned. Would it be enough?\n<\/p>\n \nWe had so little knowledge of our enemy\u2019s capabilities. We worked from observation and theory. The Carthage<\/em> was an exploration and pleasure cruise ship, designed back in a time devoid of piracy outside the settled systems.\n<\/p>\n \nJabira sat on her sofa, swaddled in a blanket. The screen rolled an old farce made by a crew here on the Carthage<\/em> a few centuries back. She was not laughing, but staring through the comedy into some darkness.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHow about we take a walk?\u201d I suggested.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWe were warned that there might be maneuvers in three hours when the rogues alight.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI reached under the blanket and found her hand. \u201cTrust me? We\u2019ll be back in an hour.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHer red, sleep-deprived eyes told me that she really didn\u2019t want to go. Yet, she knew that sitting about was doing no one any good, either.\n<\/p>\n \nI summoned a cart, and we took a little ride rather than a 1.5G trudge. We passed through the cheery peach-colored corridor lined with the windows and balconies of three levels of cabins and out into a large garden space verdant with fruit-bearing trees and flowers. The usually lovely waterfall and stone pool were turned off and sealed for the coming maneuvers.\n<\/p>\n \nThe cart took us to bot storage warehouse B-3, where a hundred bots slept in rows. A few marched among them, updating each individual sleeper with the latest combat tweaks.\n<\/p>\n \nI stopped the cart beside a particularly intimidating unit that was connected to a several sleepers via a cable link.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHow goes the upgrades, Gisgo?\u201d I asked\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHello, Ekon. Good to see you. Everything is ahead of schedule.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou\u2019re looking quite fit.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI feel fit. It\u2019s the added armor and weapons.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI introduced Jabira. For the first time in days, she looked, well, interested. Depression had settled over her recently, as it had for many. I had hoped chatting with one of our knights might lift her spirits, if only a little.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cExcuse me, I must connect to the next four,\u201d said Gisgo as he retracted his cables and took a few steps forward to the next sleeping bots.\n<\/p>\n \nAfter he made the new connections, I pulled the cart forward.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat do you think of our chances?\u201d Jabira asked Gisgo.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI have a high degree of confidence.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou\u2019re not just saying that to appease an anxious human, are you?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI wouldn\u2019t lie to a companion of my close friend\u2019s.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI guess I didn\u2019t know you two were close friends,\u201d replied Jabira, looking at me.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cEkon had a hand in my design, as he did with all fifth generation Hephaestus Maintenance Bots. We spent a lot of time together during the early testing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nJabira tilted her head. \u201cIs that really friendship?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cOur friendship developed through our long conversations.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI got out from the cart, grunting with the effort. I patted one of Gisgo\u2019s legs. \u201cI\u2019m sorry I waited this long for a visit this time around.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWe\u2019ve both been very busy.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI laughed a weary laugh. \u201cThat\u2019s one way to put it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nGisgo retracted the cables and stepped forward again.\n<\/p>\n \nJabira started to say something, then hesitated.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou can ask me anything,\u201d prompted Gisgo.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHow do you feel about\u2026the coming fight?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cMy life is on the line, too. I\u2019m better equipped to deal with it than anyone biological.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cAren\u2019t you backed up?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThere\u2019s a few versions of me floating around, certainly. But that\u2019s no matter. My self, my soul,<\/em> as you might say, is in the hardware here. If this chassis is destroyed, so am I. My experience of life would not extend to any copy.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nJabira considered this for a few long seconds. \u201cSo you do experience death.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nGisgo swiveled his aft arm toward another bot two aisles over involved in the same task. \u201cDanel calls it \u2018permanent deanimation.\u2019 I like that term.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cDoes it scare you?\u201d Jabira asked.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt would be very disappointing. The stop at Elysium was the highlight of my life. I love to explore. I hate to think of being turned off for good.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cAre all maintenance bots as curious as you?\u201d she asked.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNo. Danel is quite boring.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI am not here to impress anyone,\u201d replied Danel.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSee?\u201d said Gisgo.\n<\/p>\n \nI reached up and stroked the armor of Gisgo\u2019s chassis. \u201cTake care out there, eh? No heroics. You\u2019re likely outgunned.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt will be interesting,\u201d replied Gisgo.\n<\/p>\n \n \nGisgo ver. 17.00.0.1\n<\/p>\n \nI was turned back on after an off period. Checking time and history, it had been four hours. Uploaded was information regarding battle signals, engine schematics, and antimatter containment field physics and manipulation.\n<\/p>\n \nIn coordination with my company, we stored ourselves in neat lines inside one of the newly expanded airlocks built to hold one hundred of us. We all magnetized our feet, ready for engine-cutoff.\n<\/p>\n \nThe enemy drew near, and Lucius had calculated that shutting down the engines would be seen as a signal of surrender. It was a small ruse, but it might prove critical.\n<\/p>\n \nThe air was drained from our airlock, but not vented directly outside, rather tubed through the engines where the outflow of gas would be undetected.\n<\/p>\n \nThe engines shut down. I hoped all the biological passengers were secure.\n<\/p>\n \nThe door slid open and we waited for a signal. It would be a simple numerical code.\n<\/p>\n \nWe were motionless, all of us staring out the door at the matte black of space dotted with stars. Seconds slid into minutes. Humans talk of time and its passage at differing perceived speeds. This was something they cannot control. For us, here, awaiting a command to place ourselves in mortal danger, time ticked by as any other day. I often wondered at the alien strangeness of biological beings.\n<\/p>\n \nI noted a whiff of radiation. This was not the signal. This was due to the firing of particle beams. Was it the enemy? Was someone on the Carthage<\/em> firing early?\n<\/p>\n \n44.\n<\/p>\n \nThat was the signal and we hurried out the door onto the hull in unison, spreading out in our planned positions like newly hatched insects.\n<\/p>\n \nSecretly stationed in camouflaged spots along the aft of the hull behind the engines were platoons of our bots. It was they who had fired the first volley.\n<\/p>\n \nIncoming bots decoupled from their carriers in a dark sky littered with hot glowing debris. Their thrusters blinked as they attempted to land on the hull before the hail of projectile and particle beams erupting from our army disabled them. Some incoming rogues made broad sweeps with plasma weapons, leaving some scores of my fellows crumpled and partially melted on the hull with their magnetized feet still holding their corpses fast.\n<\/p>\n \nIn coded coordination, we peppered the sky with high-speed slugs and particle beams in a pattern designed to corral the remaining actives to the center behind the Carthage<\/em>.\n<\/p>\n \nThe engines blazed back to life.\n<\/p>\n \n \nEkon\n<\/p>\n \nIrregular vibrations shuddered through the Carthage<\/em>. We were strapped into the couch, worried, but maintaining brave faces. \u201cI expect\u2014\u201d I began when we sank deeply into the couch. I tried to remark on the Gs, but breath was pressed from me. I could not turn my head to see Jabira. My vision receded to this circle of light far away, rimmed in red. I was about to lose consciousness.\n<\/p>\n \nWas this it?\n<\/p>\n \nWas Lucius making us all pass out before destructing the craft?\n<\/p>\n \nI wanted to hold Jabira\u2019s hand, but I was unable to move.\n<\/p>\n \n \nGisgo ver. 17.00.0.1\n<\/p>\n \nThe sky had been emptied. Temporarily.\n<\/p>\n \nThe plasma exhaust from the engines disposed of several bots and a single carrier, that was all. The acceleration made the Carthage<\/em> unreachable for all the attackers separated from their carriers. Their thrusters would never catch up to the Carthage<\/em>. Their only option to regroup for another attack would be to mate once again with their transports.\n<\/p>\n \nOur eyes scanned, looking for the pricks of radiation that would indicate the carriers reigniting their engines.\n<\/p>\n \nAfter a score of minutes, there was a very noticeable increase in radiation from the mother ship.\n<\/p>\n \nData from the Carthage<\/em> was broadcast to all of us. Nothing in this dump would key the enemy to any plan. The mother ship was accelerating at a rate that would have killed a biological crew in minutes. I deduced this was their initiation of a Plan B.\n<\/p>\n \nPerhaps their first attack was a planned mercy on our biological passengers. The rogue bots and their proton beams were equipped to cut the engines away without threatening the life support systems. With its large fusion reactors powering an incredible acceleration, there was little doubt that the craft possessed the energy to power a particle cannon that could slice the aft end of the Carthage<\/em> off in a single sweep.\n<\/p>\n \nMaybe Lucius had miscalculated. Their demand for the engines was already a concession, leaving the millions of tons of refined materials of the Carthage<\/em> for us and our biologicals to live in. Considering the resistance and damage we gave them, surely they would take everything now.\n<\/p>\n \nMe and my fellows would be melted and reprocessed. Or perhaps useable as-is with our minds rewired as slaves.\n<\/p>\n \nCalculations were transmitted: Arrival in estimated thirty-three minutes. That could be stretched with another acceleration.\n<\/p>\n \n23.\n<\/p>\n \nBut that\u2019s not what Lucius had in mind.\n<\/p>\n \nDanel was nearby, taking his particle beam to one of his legs that dangled by a frayed cable and a crippled shock absorber. He had suffered a hit from a particle beam, but was still operable. He tightbeamed a message: \u201cI\u2019m covered in millibots. Check yourself.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \nEkon\n<\/p>\n \n In zero G, we stayed strapped into the couch, Jabira\u2019s hand atop mine. The room was sealed. If there was a loss of pressure in the corridor, we would be safe. But if the battle went badly, really badly, we would be no more as Lucius would set the engines to destruct.\n<\/p>\n \nA distant series of bangs in quick succession startled us. It was far away, but we still felt tremors vibrating through the hull.\n<\/p>\n \nGisgo promised he would send me a message if this part of the plan was implemented. But he might be unable.\n<\/p>\n \nOr he might be dead.\n<\/p>\n \nOver the past weeks, I have confronted my mortality in a ship that was supposed to keep me alive indefinitely. I had a golden ticket. To experience and understand the universe from a perspective closer to its own timescales.\n<\/p>\n \nWhat hubris.\n<\/p>\n \nAnd what a karmic end: death by descendants of your species\u2019 own creations. And possibly, descendants of my own personal creations.\n<\/p>\n \nThe wallscreen flashed a number: 23.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cOh no\u2026\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d asked Jabira.\n<\/p>\n \n \nGisgo ver. 17.00.0.1\n<\/p>\n \nA succession of designed explosions separated all four active engines. The thrusters I had rebuilt spun their mass 180 degrees and precisely executed a brake. The engines ignited and we ramped up quickly to 15 Gs of acceleration.\n<\/p>\n \nI clung to a forward corner of engine Daleth<\/em>, wired into the controls. All engines were on a path patterned about the position of the approaching mothership, leaving no option for its escape if all engines detonated at the right time. Unloading all the antimatter from the containment fields would unleash an incredible radius of destruction.\n<\/p>\n \nAs Danel had pointed out, millibots swarmed about my armor, an army making every effort to infiltrate my carapace and find a way to disable me.\n<\/p>\n \nEach one was only half a millimeter across. They must have dispersed all over the aft of the Carthage<\/em> hull in one of the early explosions of the incoming carrier craft. Or in every explosion. As soon as I connected with the engine via cable they began swarming to cut it. I blew them away with my welder extension. I continued to sweep the welder across my accessible areas on a power setting that would fry them and not me. I found those settings uncomfortably close to one another.\n<\/p>\n \nThe mother ship saw the trap, closed its engines and spun around. Igniting again, their light and radiation were akin to small novas. I was very impressed.\n<\/p>\n \nBut it looked to be too late. Their high degree of acceleration toward the Carthage<\/em> was an overcommitment. They could not decelerate and stop fast enough to turn to escape our destruction radius.\n<\/p>\n \nOne of my memory arrays went offline. It was backed up, but this scared me.\n<\/p>\n \nThe millibots were inside, destroying whatever they could reach. If they managed to shut me down, I would not be able to initiate the sequence to release the antimatter.\n<\/p>\n \nI pinged the other three engine pilots.\n<\/p>\n \nTwo replied. I pinged Beth<\/em> again; there was no response.\n<\/p>\n \nAlready we had lost one.\n<\/p>\n \nI tightbeamed both of the remainders for a status.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cBlind, no available external environment sensors,\u201d replied Aleph.<\/em> \u201cI am using the engine\u2019s sensors.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cFailure in two memory arrays and one logic center,\u201d said Gimmel.<\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nThe fuse on the bombs we rode was short: The time between initiation and the explosion was seconds. I calculated. My explosion radius would fully absorb the mother ship in three minutes.\n<\/p>\n \nI initiated a countdown.\n<\/p>\n \nI detected more internal damage. There were files missing with no backups. I had no clue as to what I no longer remembered. The millibots were familiar with the old tech that was me. Soon I would forget how to initiate the sequence of engine destruct.\n<\/p>\n \nThere was no way to accelerate faster. I had a singular countermeasure: I began copying critical data and memories across every available resource. I used the cable and sent it to repeat itself on the memory available within the engine\u2019s data arrays.\n<\/p>\n \nI also noted that the millibots had infiltrated the engine. Despite their small size they were very quick. They marched in organized armies through the maze of the engine. Eventually, and too soon, they would infect the three redundant processing centers.\n<\/p>\n \nEarly detonation of the engine was not an option for them. The temperatures around the containment field were far too high for a direct attack.\n<\/p>\n \nI copied my core mind and final orders a few times in my remaining arrays and fashioned a series of emergency restarts if my original mind failed.\n<\/p>\n \n \nEkon\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cTell me what that means.\u201d Jabira\u2019s eyes were wide and filled with tears. \u201cDon\u2019t let me die without making peace with it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWe\u2019re not going to die. Gisgo is.\u201d I explained his suicide mission with the detached engine.\n<\/p>\n \nShe looked to the screen, wanting to see what was happening, like all of us, but communications had been cut off by Lucius.\n<\/p>\n \n119.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cOh, no.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat\u2019s that one?\u201d asked Jabira, voice pitched an octave higher.\n<\/p>\n \nA static data snapshot appeared on the screen. Gisgo\u2019s speed, time to detonation, battery energy, projectile ammunition\u2026a long list of things.\n<\/p>\n \nAs I continued to scan it, I said to Jabira, \u201cIt\u2019s a distress signal. Specifically, this code means he may not able to carry out the mission. He risked sending this tightbeam of data.\u201d The problem wasn\u2019t leaping out to me. \u201cIf the rogues noticed, they may be able to disrupt or jam.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI want to help,\u201d said Jabira, \u201cbut there\u2019s too much that\u2019s foreign to me.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI nodded. I wanted to leap from the couch and scan up close, even though I knew that wouldn\u2019t help and the next maneuver might make a puddle of me.\n<\/p>\n \nAnother snapshot came in, the file broken in half. Literally. Only half the data arrived. At least it was readable.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cScan for differences!\u201d I shouted to the room mind.\n<\/p>\n \nIt highlighted two and brought them forward: Energy level and available memory.\n<\/p>\n \nThe battery level of course was a few thousandths different, but the memory damage was devastating. Gisgo was a hardened bot made for interstellar hull maintenance. He could take heavy doses of radiation and cosmic rays and his memory would be unscathed.\n<\/p>\n \nWhat was happening? Was he taking physical damage from a proton beam or projectiles?\n<\/p>\n \nIt didn\u2019t matter, his mind was wasting away and quickly.\n<\/p>\n \nHe wanted me to initiate the sequence from the given times that made it back across the light-minutes. I ordered the room mind to calculate and give me a time to send the detonation code.\n<\/p>\n \nForty-five seconds.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cDid you catch the message added to the snapshot?\u201d asked Jabira.\n<\/p>\n \nI had not. I flicked it forward.\n<\/p>\n \nENGINE ABILITY TO TAKE REMOTE COMMANDS COMPROMISED. SE\u2014\n<\/p>\n \nIt cut off there. I didn\u2019t know what I could do to help.\n<\/p>\n \n \nGisgo ver. 1.00.0.2\n<\/p>\n \nI was turned back on after an off period. Checking time and history, it had been seven seconds.\n<\/p>\n \nThis was very disorienting. I was manufactured 309 light-years away in a place unnamed. My clock indicated 622 years had passed since. I was currently plugged into an antimatter engine accelerating at 15Gs, several sensors were missing, memory was very low, and I was infested with tiny bots for which I had no attending information.\n<\/p>\n \nA single directive repeated across all memory arrays: EXECUTE INCOMING ORDER.\n<\/p>\n \nSeconds ticked down in a clock that was flagged as important. Zero was approaching. There was a blank where I could see there was once an attached message.\n<\/p>\n \nAs I waited, I observed my surroundings. Distant points of light dotted the expanse around me, each too far away to gauge their distance, but all emitted detectable radiation. A huge object receded behind me. I had no information as to what it was. But I knew I rode on an engine. I calculated the travel of this engine and tracked it back to this object.\n<\/p>\n \nA message came from something called Gimmel<\/em>: LAST TRANSMISSION. CORE MIND DISINTEGRATING. WILL NOT MAKE IT. I AM SORRY.\n<\/p>\n \nThis was not an order. Or was it? Was I supposed to do something to stop this disintegration? Was I supposed to \u201cmake it,\u201d since Gimmel<\/em> could not? Make what?\n<\/p>\n \nInternal sensors notified me of a memory drop. It was these small parasites within me. Was Gimmel<\/em> also having this problem?\n<\/p>\n \nAleph<\/em>: NO CLOCK. ORDERS MISSING.\n<\/p>\n \nThis was very confusing. I needed an order to execute. This Aleph<\/em> needed orders, too. The confusion and this need for direction mixed within me poorly, causing a deep anxiety.\n<\/p>\n \nThe urge to retract all of my limbs in a defensive posture was great.\n<\/p>\n \nI noticed flagged data to my post-manufacture initialization sequence. A memory: Inside a brightly lit warehouse stood a biological wearing textiles about its body. The front of its head had eyes and a mouth and what I knew to be an expression of joy and interest. Its name was Ekon. I was equipped with a thin articulating arm that terminated in a pliable gripper with five fingers coated in tactile sensors. With my fingers I gently massaged the neck of a quadrupedal creature with fur and a tongue that hung out of the side of its mouth. The sensation of the dense hair between my fingers was pleasurable. This biological tilted its head back as its tail repeated a waving motion, an indication of its own pleasure. Ekon displayed its teeth, imparting happiness, and told me, \u201cShe loves you, Gisgo. You\u2019ve raised a happy pup.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI felt a familial bond to these biologicals. It was a pleasure of warmth, of connection. I reached into one of my side packs and fed the pup a condensed bit of food to watch it experience pleasure. This moment of congregation felt significant, although there were no great consequences to these minor actions.\n<\/p>\n \nThere the memory ended.\n<\/p>\n \nEXECUTE INCOMING ORDER came up again.\n<\/p>\n \nThere was an object ahead. It burned bright and hot, and I was approaching it. The distance was 240,000 kilometers, shrinking quickly.\n<\/p>\n \nThat internal clock blinked out at six seconds to go, erased by those tiny bots, I assumed. Was there a way to look inside of me?\n<\/p>\n \nIncoming message: GISGO, IT\u2019S EKON. I AM SO SORRY. I NEED YOU TO DETONATE THAT ENGINE WITH THE FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS.\n<\/p>\n \nA small data packet followed.\n<\/p>\n \nThen a new message: PLEASE FORGIVE ME. THIS WOULD SAVE ME AND THOUSANDS OF BIOLOGICALS AND MANUFACTURED MINDS ON BOARD THE VESSEL TO THE REAR.\n<\/p>\n \nIt was Ekon, and that familial bond resurfaced with purpose and warmth.\n<\/p>\n \nThat\u2019s what was behind me. A vessel that held biologicals, many different kinds. And manufactured fellows like myself.\n<\/p>\n \nThe data told me how to shut down the containment field that held the antimatter, destroying the engine and the radiation source ahead.\n<\/p>\n \nAnd me.\n<\/p>\n \n \nEkon\n<\/p>\n \nJabira thought Gisgo needed the instructions again, since his memory was failing. I hoped her interpretation was correct. I spoke the message and packaged the data in furious seconds using my data speks.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cAnd tell him why,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd tell him that you love him.\u201d A single tear slid down her cheek. \u201cWhat you ask of him is too much.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThe message was sent, and Jabira sat back, tears no longer in check.\n<\/p>\n \nMy face was wet, too. Whether or not Gisgo could execute the commands, I would never see my old friend again.\n<\/p>\n \nI didn\u2019t visit enough, being too self-absorbed in the grand adventure of riding the Carthage<\/em>, heading eternally out into the void.\n<\/p>\n \nA void sprinkled with such wonders.\n<\/p>\n \nThe screen lit with a feed from externals. The blinding explosion of the Daleth<\/em> engine whited everything.\n<\/p>\n \nJabira openly sobbed at the sight.\n<\/p>\n \nI wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand. \u201cI\u2019m sorry, Gisgo,\u201d I whispered. \u201cThank you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \nEkon\n<\/p>\n \nThe room was cold, the light bright and white. I lay naked on the crisp sheets of an auto-gurney as the firm, smooth hands of the surgical bots massaged a moisture-preserving ointment on my skin. Jabira occupied the gurney next to mine, our fingers intertwined as we endured the beginning of the hibernation procedure.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI was never afraid of hibernating before,\u201d I confessed.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThe fear of sleeping was common with our ancestors,\u201d she said. \u201cSomething might eat you before you waken. Or an enemy might kill you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThat\u2019s no comfort.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThe auxiliary engines had been prepped and fired days ago, repairs made to the Carthage<\/em>, the bodies of bots collected and recycled. The journey would continue.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt\u2019s okay to be afraid,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ekon Red heat lamps cast their glow and penetrating warmth through the blanket draped about me. The warming room was crowded, at capacity. Other than one man grumbling under his breath, no one said anything. At the edge of audibility there was classical music. I recognized the piece: Beethoven\u2019s Pastoral Symphony. The hibernated must be …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107447,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20083],"tags":[20084],"class_list":["post-138176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-38-winter-2021","tag-the-colored-lens-38-winter-2021","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/107447"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138178,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138176\/revisions\/138178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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