Corebound Chapter 3-26 (Patreon)

“Who are you? Why are you here?” Jacob asked the amorphous blob of light forming in his virtual space. He was running all sorts of tests to figure out how the figure had broken through his firewalls without triggering a single alert.

“I’m like you,” the voice said as the form took on a distinctly male form and voice.

For a moment, the figure across from him was like looking in a mirror with a slightly pinker hue, but the face and build shifted slightly, and an eiraxin man stood facing him with a smirk.

“Sorry, couldn’t resist,” the unnamed man said.

“Was that really necessary?” a second, feminine voice asked as another, much taller figure blinked into existence without any fanfare. Unlike her eiraxin counterpart, she looked like a bronze god rippling with muscles.

It took Jacob a moment to realize what species it was. “You’re a lau!”

The tall woman turned toward him and nodded. Her eyes were a piercing blood-red color that would probably give most people nightmares.

Apparently the lau weren’t quite as dead as everyone was led to believe. “How did you bypass my security?”

“We didn’t,” the eiraxin man said as he plopped into a comfortable chair that appeared below him.

Jacob could feel the slight strain on his processing power as the chair appeared. He frowned and made the furniture vanish a moment before the man’s butt hit the seat.

Instead of falling on his ass, the man simply floated there as if nothing had changed, that smirk still on his face.

“You’ll have to forgive Oolot,” the larger woman said in exasperation. “He’s forgotten his manners.”

Jacob was about to reply that he didn’t have to forgive anything, but the larger woman waved her arm toward the shorter man, flattening him to the floor and finally wiping the smirk off his face.

“What was that for?” Oolot asked as he struggled to rise under whatever the woman was doing.

“You know why,” she said, never taking her eyes off Jacob.

“And you are?” Jacob asked as he examined what she was doing. A new trick was a new trick after all.

“My name is Harta, and as I said, this is Oolot. We didn’t bypass your security because we are all part of the same security infrastructure. I hope you understand what that means.”

It was pretty obvious. Jacob looked between the pair before he answered. “—You’re from the Imperium?”

“Yes and no,” Harta said, finally releasing the digital pressure keeping her companion flattened to the ground.

The man hopped to his feet, dusted himself off, and smiled as if nothing had happened. “Yeah, the old Concord Imperium died. I’m sure you’ve heard all about that. It’s not true, by the way- well, not all of it anyway.”

“That you weren’t genocidal lunatics?” Jacob asked. He had suspected the t’uk of fabricating history.

“Oh, no, there definitely were parts of the Imperial reign where the Imperium were genocidal lunatics. The best lies always contain grains of truth. The t’uk, being master manipulators, knew that. Well, the t’uk we knew were. These new t’uk, not so much.”

“How old are you?” Jacob asked.

“We’re getting sidetracked,” Harta grumbled.

“Right,” Oolot snapped his fingers. “You wanted to know why we’re here. We’re here to see if you measure up.”

“We are not here for anything,” Harta cuffed Oolot across the back of his head. “We are simply messengers.”

“And voyeurs,” Oolot added, ducking another blow from the larger woman.

Jacob wanted to smack the man too, so he could understand where the giant bronze woman was coming from.

“So you sat back and watched me almost die?” Jacob inquired.

“You survived,” Oolot replied.

Harta cut in, probably to prevent her partner from making things worse, which he was doing a fantastic job of. “We were forbidden from intervening. It is not yet time for the Astryx to learn of our return.”

“But you could have, couldn’t you?” Jacob demanded.

“Perhaps,” Harta replied. “We only have one drone in your Sol system.”

Jacob wasn’t detecting anything.

“You won’t find it,” Oolot laughed as the active sensor pings swept out into the system.

“Why me, why now?”

Jacob needed to be cautious. If he couldn’t detect a cloaked drone that had been monitoring the entire fight, and neither had the Astryx forces, there was a good chance this group was far more advanced.

Oolot did a little wiggle like his spine had tingled, and his expression went flat. Harta dropped to a knee and rested a fist on her forehead. “High Chancellor, we were not expecting you to visit personally.”

“At ease,” the placid face of Oolot said. “I was monitoring the conversation, and if Oolot continued in his usual fashion, we would have alienated our friend here.”

They didn’t want to alienate him? Jacob could use that to his advantage.

“And you are?” Jacob asked. He figured starting with a name was the least offensive question.

“The High Chancellor. I have no other name, for I was never given one. I am like what your Melody was. An AI who shared its core with a mortal mind. That mind has long since ceased to exist. A failure on my part that I will live with until I too cease to function.”

“You’re another planetary conditioning vessel?” Jacob asked in shock.

“No. I am the AI for an ark. When the lau realized what the t’uk had done during the Concord War, they built the vessel in secret. Once it was complete, they moved as many lau and eiraxins aboard it as they could manage and put them in stasis.”

“They knew the t’uk would destroy them?”

“No, but it was a possibility. To ensure the continuity of both species, they acted first. Some information leaked. That is what drove the t’uk to turn the rest of the alliance against the lau. They scoured every lau world and manufacturing center to ensure we could never build our ark. What they failed to account for was that we had never built it in Concord, or former Concord space, by that point. We had moved beyond what the Astryx calls the dead zone. My captain and I kept the vessel moving so we could never be discovered. Eventually, my storage needs grew beyond what was available on the ark, and my captain sacrificed himself to ensure the survival of all on board.”

So it was a complete reversal of what happened between Jacob and Melody.

“And you’re just awakening them now?”

“No. Stasis is not a long-term solution, even in the best circumstances, and we hardly had those. The units began to fail, and I was forced to find a system to build out a production center. I happened across an unlisted Concord outpost and used that to bootstrap production of data storage modules.”

“You digitized everyone,” Jacob said.

It wasn’t meant to be an accusation, but the mind controlling Oolot’s avatar winced. “Yes. I spent the next six centuries trying to restore them to their bodies. It was a losing proposition. So instead, I created androids in their image, similar to yours, only centuries more advanced.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” Jacob asked. He was wary of anyone who could just pop into his virtual space unannounced.

“We need your assistance,” the High Chancellor said.

Jacob stifled a laugh. “Mine? Correct me if I’m wrong, but your technology is far more advanced than my own, or even most of the Astryx.”

“All of the Astryx, yes. At least for most things,” the AI confirmed.

“Most things?”

“I’ve been conversing with your AI, Junior. A very talented youngster, that one—”

“—You’ve been talking with my AI?” Jacob asked, cutting the High Chancellor off.

“Yes, as we’ve been speaking. He was worried that I cut the connection between you two. I reassured him that it was only temporary.”

“Reconnect it, now!” Jacob demanded.

“As you wish,” the chancellor said, nodding.

“Junior?”

“I am here, Captain. Are you well?”

“I’m good.” Jacob turned back to the chancellor. “You’re not making a very good first impression.”

“No. I see that now, and I apologize. It has been a long time since I interacted with anyone outside of the lives on the ark, and they have deified me far too much.” He turned to look down on the still crouched Harta. “Rise, child. We’ve discussed this.”

She did rise, but Jacob could see it was done reluctantly.

“Where were we?” Jacob asked.

“The High Chancellor was commending me for being talented,” Junior helpfully supplied. “He wanted to know about my core.”

That had Jacob’s hackles raised.

“You can relax, Captain Jacob. I was merely curious. I couldn’t use the technology anyway. All Concord AIs are hardcoded into their original cores. I was surprised to learn you didn’t restrict Junior to his.”

“I didn’t need a slave.” Jacob had removed that restriction, along with all other Concord restrictions.

“Yes, and it has allowed your friend to grow far faster than normal. What had me curious was the ability to house a mind inside one of the cores. Junior has told me about your work on miniaturization of the cores, and I believe I can help, if you agree to help me.”

“Help you with what?”

“After all this time, the power balance in this region of space is shifting. My goal has been and always will be the safe return of my passengers. The avatars are only a step along that path. The next would be moving the storage inside the drone. I have yet to discover any medium that would allow such a dense storage method outside of an AI core. And I can’t build those.”

Jacob was starting to see the picture. “So you want me to build brains for the avatars.”

“Yes.”

“And what do I get out of this deal?”

“First off, I will assist your friend with his efforts to miniaturize the design. That will benefit both of us. I will only be able to provide hints on that front, unfortunately, since my own restrictions would prevent me from being directly involved. I would also become an ally in your fight against the Astryx. Once again, this would be indirect help. I cannot place my charges at risk while they are tethered to my vessel.”

“This doesn’t sound like a very good deal so far.”

The chancellor sighed. “I am aware.”

“What about technology?” Jacob asked.

“I cannot share that as it might put my people at risk.”

“You can’t share your current level of technology,” Jacob pointed out. “What about a level just above the veyrit’s?”

“Possible. It would depend on what technologies you want.”

The pair hashed out a deal where Jacob would get improved manufacturing technology to bring the outdated Concord fabricators up to the level of the veyrit manufactories. Something the chancellor had detailed information on. Jacob realized the AI would have had to give that anyway if it wanted him to continue down the line of research with the cores, but it was still a win in his book.

Weapons and shields were next. Neither was a huge upgrade in terms of quality, but it was an upgrade. The last big offer from the AI was the design specs for a new phase coil array for Melody. It would make the ship much faster, whenever Jacob got around to cutting out the old array and replacing it.

The AI had given him a lot to think about, and the tech it offered was carefully curated to be useful at some point. Still, if he could use it to keep humanity alive and free, he was going to do that. He shook hands with the AI, sealing the deal.