External power connected. Acknowledge.
“Copy, Chief. Plugging in.”
The slim figure in the cockpit nestled into the harness, closing her eyes as the ports in her suit connected to the craft’s main bus. Her vision expanded, seeing the craft’s surroundings through cameras and sensors in its skin. Her own body’s senses quickly faded away as her embedded cybernetics adjusted to the datastream.
PRIMARY SYS CHK INIT:
ELEC: RECEIVING
BATT: OK
HEATPUMP: OK
VAR. GEO: VERIFY …… OK
THRST VEC: VERIFY …… OK
ARGUS V1.3 SENSR ARRAY: OK
LINKCOM: OK
MASTER ALARM: DISENGAGED
SUBSYS CHK INIT:
PRELIM ANALYSIS: NOMINAL
DATA DUMP TRANSFER TO PILOT… DONE!
PILOT VERIFY…
AUTH: VALENTINE_6… OK!
HAVE A NICE FLIGHT
“Heat exchanger green. Pressure’s OK. Cranking the turbopumps. Stand clear.”
Personnel are clear. You’re good to go.
It was always strange to hear someone through the link, even when it was just standard radio communication. An external unit was unnecessary, so the sound came directly from a speaker embedded in her skull, directly vibrating her inner ear bones. The sound fidelity was quite good, but there was a shift in tone between the spoken and transmitted word. She blinked these thoughts aside as her main engines came to idle, lighting up the rest of the WIVERN’s systems in a flash. She dismissed the automatic cautions thrown up from startup and began the final checks. Inertial navigation, datalink, attitude and flight controls, all checked out.
APU: OK
GEN OUTPUT: OK
ENG. 1: OK
ENG. 2: OK
ENG 3 ROTDET: OK
NEUR. DATALIVE OUTPUT FULL DETAIL … SYNC COMPLETE
“All nominal. Disconnect external power.”
Copy… You’re running on your own now. All good?
“Handoff worked fine. Thanks for your help.”
Proceed to taxiway. Have a nice flight.
The
mass of incongruous angles mated to thrusters inched forward as the brakes were
released. It groaned and twisted its wings and tail, almost organically. As the
WIVERN and pilot taxied, she began her final systems check. These last modules
couldn’t be turned on in the hangar, as the emissions from the shielding and
RADAR would be hazardous to anyone operating nearby. The silver spacecraft took
on a shimmering hue as the antenna array deployed, forming a bubble around the
fuselage and enveloping the spread wings.
PRIDWEN SHLD ARRAY 0.9: …… OK
“Vex. Good to go?”
“Just a second, flight lead. External power had a faulty cable. I’ll be right behind you.”
This transmission came directly pilot-to-pilot. Much quicker than any spoken interaction, the interface between two heavily ‘borged creatures with the same implants allowed for near-instantaneous communication. If desired, it could even convey embedded emotions and tone. It was the preferred method of communication for these prototypes, and one of the many reasons regular humans found them unnerving to be around. It’s hard to build rapport when completely detached from conversation.
Valentine sensed a sheepish, apologetic tone coming from her wingman. They always did wear their heart on their sleeve.
“Delay?”
“Two minutes, tops. Need everything to warm up. Er, well. Cool down. Superconductors, remember?”
“I’m well aware, Vex. You’ve got the coilgun. I’ll be waiting on the runway for you.”
“…Copy, Valentine. You all ready? Serious run today!”
“It’s a target drone, Vexing. I don’t understand the excitement. Datalink testing, I get in close, you blast it from a safe distance.”
“They said it’s going to be pulling some serious maneuvers! This is the closest we’ve gotten to knife fighting outside of the sims, I don’t understand how you’re not excited about it.”
Valentine’s body sighed as one of her craft’s sensor arrays swiveled to fix her wingman’s WIVERN in sight. “Look, all you are going to be doing is pulling the trigger on that thing. All I need you to do is not hit me.”
“You know that’s not a concern.”
“That is extraordinarily easy for you to say.”
“I promise I won’t shoot you, flight lead. Pinky swear.”
“Just focus. Let’s get in the air first.” She made her way to the empty runway, staring at the heat shimmer in the desert sun. The base was in the middle of absolute nowhere, but that was to be expected. Her program… well, the program she was a part of remained far out of the public eye. She was one of the older models, even among the prototype pilots. Her flight partner was not far behind, coming out of their tank just a few weeks later. They had worked closely since, helping with the design and testing of the WIVERNs final models. The crafts they were nestled in were meant to be the first production types, having moved beyond the iterative prototype stages at last. Soon, they would be ready for combat. Soon, they would fight as they were designed and created for.
“Flight lead. Valentine. Still daydreaming? I’m ready to go.”
She felt their impatience through the link. Vexing was itching to fire that coilgun. They never were the particularly mature or patient type. In all truth though, neither was she. Valentine had felt that the program had dragged on far longer than it needed to, focusing on perfection and refinement of a few decimals of percentage points rather than getting the pilots in the air and combat-ready as quickly as possible. Any thoughts of program delays and scheduling concerns quickly faded away as FLICOM’s takeoff authorization pinged into her skull, and her two main engines lit a bright blue streak across the blacktop. The silver beast howled to life, spreading its wings wide and rapidly taking to the skies. With a thought, her craft rotated upwards and began to climb, retracting its landing gear and streamlining its shape as her partner lit up the runway below. “Reaching target alt in 20. Form up and stand by.” These dispassionate communiques sounded almost robotic; an automated reflex spat out by the mechanical portions of her brain rather than a conscious attempt at conversation.
“I
gotcha Val. Coming up on your 5. Feel good to be back in the air? It’s been,
what, a week?”
“9 days. Yes, it’s nice. Let’s focus though, shall we? How’s the gun?”
“Master arm is on, all checks are green, we’re ready to frag some expe-e-nsive hardware. Keep your therms and arrays peeled, that drone is going down.”
“It’s clearly a-”
ARGUS sys v1.3:
ALERT ALERT ALERT
EM SPK DETECTED
ANALYSIS… 108 nm/2.7 pHZ… 854 nm/309 gHZ… 1.8m/205 mHZ…
CNCLSN: UNREG. JUMP
73.9 KM BRNG 19.7 DEG
SKYFLASH SKYFLASH SKYFLASH
FULL ANALYSIS DATALIVE
“FLICOM, confirmed SKYFLASH! Positive return on RADAR and LIDAR, emissions spectra matches! EXODUS engine output on IR!”
Vexing blurted out, beating Valentine to the radio report by a fraction of a second. They always were the quicker of the two. Valentine’s output came in the form of a data dump, authorizing detailed telemetry feed output and sending a combat alert status straight to the control tower. The two craft swung in unison to face the craft, one pilot cursing her lack of munitions on this exercise flight. The other had a palpable grin over the interface link as Vexing triple checked every reading from their coilgun and finding appreciable results.
“FLICOM to Valentine. Vexing. RTB immediately. Interceptors are scrambled. ETA: 8 minutes. Test is scrubbed, repeat, scrubbed. Get on the ground now.”
“He cannot be serious. Val, what the hell? I’m geared and ready to go!”
“Gimme a sec Vex. Just one. Need to think…”
…
“Vex. Order’s no good. ETA for intercept doesn’t cover the window, target vectoring Echo X-Ray will be over the nearest city in 5, tops. Bombing run. Playbook’s the same.”
“…yep. New Sparks, right? With the-”
“ Biggest one of United Instruments manufacturing plants. Yeah. That gets hit-”
“Sensor production across half the branches goes to hell! Val, we gotta-”
Valentine cut off the transmitted thought. Consensus had been reached. Conclusions were clear. Human orders would take backseat to casualty and impact projections. This incursion was the only thing that mattered now.
“FLICOM, this is Valentine. Negative. Cannot comply with order. Maneuvering to intercept. Over.”
A stunned silence was the only response as the commander grappled with the first recorded instance of disobedience and insubordination in the entire WIVERN pilot program.
A sudden wave of nausea and a splitting headache came over the flight leader. She had always known the people who created the pilots would never trust them completely. Kill switches were embedded in her craft, her augmentations, her very brain. They would take remote control, land the craft, and take her out of the fight whether she liked it or not.
Unfortunately for the ones in command, when you link modified human physiology and the fastest and most extensive neural web created in history, the ensuing being spends their entire life constantly adapting and rewriting itself from the deep layers up.
She recognized the neural collar as soon as it initiated. The program was written by humans, after all. Slower than she’d expected. Clumsy. Inefficient. A ham-fisted attempt at an override, slapping a basic GRIFFIN-derived autopilot on top of her outputs, locking her into the craft and out of control. She blinked away the headache and fed the override the same authorization code that had been sent to initiate it. She then changed the parameters necessary for kill-switch engagements, now requiring 8,191 separate clearances to initiate rather than 1. She’d delete the whole thing later, when she had time to examine the code, make sure it wasn’t tied into anything necessary for her to continue operating.
“Vexing.
Standby for patch. See you’re still struggling there.”
…
“…hells.
Thanks, Valentine. Would’ve had it in a few but… UGH that was nasty.”
“Cut the chatter, Vex. Now. Target… 33.74 km. Datalink Ok. Single target,
tight-beaming my array. You’ve got my input? Array’s reaching the burn-through
range for the ECM, I need yours focusing on situational awareness and GET READY
WITH THE GUN.”
“Copy all. All OK. Ready for engagement.”
“FLICOM, Valentine. Data transmission
OK. Proceeding with live-fire test. Original parameters, different target.
Cannot comply with withdrawal order.”
“…SUBJECT SIX. What exactly do you think you’re doing? You were given a direct
order, stand down immediately or-”
“He got the picture, I think. Someone’s receiving our telemetry, at least. I’d say you get to be excited now, Vex. Keep focus and let’s take it down.” Her words echoed through the link smoothly and calmly, with just the faintest hint of a smirk punctuating it. Those bright skies belonged to nobody but the two of them now.
ARGUS sys v1.3:
MISSILE DETECTED 3 DEG 2 DEG 357 DEG
EVADE EVADE EVADE
She saw the faintest hint of speckling in the distance against the bright sky, barely visible in the visible spectrum. Infrared emissions painted a much clearer picture, the outputs from bright plasma jetting silhouetted against the atmosphere. Every natural infrared emission was actively being processed, filtered, and ignored. Even Sol didn’t provide any confusion. She quickly threw her craft into a dive as her countermeasures arced behind her. Vexing did the opposite, going cold and gaining altitude, robbing the missiles of a viable target should they pursue that craft. No need for words now. They were perfectly aware of each other, status and strategy.
Valentine continued to close the distance, throwing her engines into higher output. No need for fuel conservation. Her glimmering, streamlined WIVERN had nothing holding it back, no heavy munitions stores or orbital rendezvous fuel reserves. It groaned as she pulled out of her dive and arced up, one missile uselessly spiraling into the air below. The second was on a wild-goose-chase with her partner, no hope of impact whatsoever. The third remained stubbornly glued to the intercept course as she threw the wings outwards. Her WIVERN shuddered from the shock, sudden turbulence and drag jostling back and forth.
“Valentine!
11 o-clock! EVADE!”
The urgency in her partner’s transmission galvanized her to be a little more
aggressive than in the sims or training exercises. The thrust vectoring in the
wing shot it into a tight spiral as she yanked herself to the left, spotting
the bright green plasma discharge out of her camera array. It was close. Too
close. Well within range and still burning and tracking well. But the tiny
control surfaces and plasma gimbal couldn’t hope to match such a maneuver at
that range while remaining stable. That bright green dart began to tumble,
going far too fast to properly correct. The Echo X-ray class had clearly fired
prematurely. It must have been used to standard atmospheric fighters. That shot
would have likely been a perfect hit on the regulars, but standard fighters
could never hold a candle to the WIVERN. Those thoughts scattered through her
head as she analyzed sensor output, grinning as she verified the lock was good.
She blinked a salvo of missiles into the air and-
No missiles emerged. Her craft remained blissfully unburdened of munitions. Unfortunately
so, as the alien craft just began to maneuver while crossing the 10 kilometer
mark.
“I’m
UNARMED here Vex! You having fun yet? Get over here!”
Valentine threw the WIVERN into a climb, trading airspeed for altitude. She
needed to drag the Echo X-ray into her partner’s sights while maintaining her
lock, grimacing as she saw a second volley of green spread across the sky. She
had the hostile ship in sight, resembling a thick copper-hued C with flapping
dorsal and ventral fins.
ARGUS sys v1.3:- OVERRIDE I KNOW SHUT UP -
The
second volley was of smaller missiles, shorter range, clearly. She increased
her climb angle, hoping to burn out their motors and throw them off with a turn
once they’d lost energy, but they were just too damn-
Ah hells, Fortune lend me a favor-
As
the net of glittering green closed in on her, Valentine fired her third engine.
The rotating-detonation engine was meant for breaking atmosphere and burning to
orbital stations.
It was certainly never meant to be used as a maneuvering tool in a dogfight.
But turning wouldn’t help now, they’d just latch onto her at this range-
She
felt it resonate through the sound dampening cockpit, the vibrations rattling
her skeleton, the oscillation of everything metal in her and around her as the
ship screamed. The high-pitched wail shot through the core of her being, her
lock-on barely clinging to the edge of the steered beam’s limits. 3 KM. Below. It was close. Its nose was
swinging around, she saw the front-end shine and open –
Echo X-ray must still have had the maneuvering edge in close range, but it certainly
didn’t have this kind of thrust on immediate delivery – 2 KM.
Her ship threw up
warnings as her shield took a hit, some sort of projectile –
PRIDWEN SHIELD ARRAY 0.9:
INTEG WARNING 43%
It’d hold atmospheric pressure at this point but not much else. Time was her biggest enemy right now. She swung the craft downwards, shuddering in protest as the wings twisted. She was inverted, pulling it in the tightest circle she could manage, keeping the RADAR beam burning through any disruption the hostile could muster. Lock was good. Hostile was focused on her. Only her. The hostile’s front end began to shine again, she’d never maintain integrity if it got a good hit –
“I’m here.”
She felt the impact just as she saw it. The ferro-slug ripped through the atmosphere at high-hypersonic speeds. She crossed its path milliseconds after it fired, the shockwave disrupting flow over her left wing. The hostile’s shield popped like a balloon, shattering the glimmered outline as one arm of the C broke off completely. A thick smoke billowed out as flames leapt from the crippled hull, spiraling down into the desert sands. She saw it struggling to recover, barely diminishing the spin before it impacted the ground.
“FLICOM,
Vexing. Splash one. Sending crash coordinates. Skies are clear.”
“…”
“Copy. Return to base. Immediately.”
“…Vex?”
“Yeah?”
“Good shot.”
“…You
feeling alright there, Val?”
She chose to not
respond. Praise wasn’t usually something she gave out. Especially as her
unwanted role of managing the rest of the pilot cadre had become firmly
established. But… She was proud of Vexing. They had performed admirably.
Communications were silent as the two silver dragon craft jetted across the sky. Authorizations for landing were perfunctory, automatic checks. Taxi clearance came across in the same format, hearing no voice from the tower, simply transmitted instructions.
This was unusual. Automated takeoff clearances were one thing, but landing was far more carefully managed, with standard procedure having verbal read backs for each step. Regardless of today’s departure from routine, the two powered down their shields and arrays, quietly taxiing to their hangars with engines on their lowest output settings.
Her WIVERN attached to the dock with a sharp SNAP, electromagnets holding it in place as she began to power down the rest of the systems. Engines were the first to shut off as the wings extended to the storage position, power umbilical automatically slotting into place.
CANOPY OPEN STNDBY
What? This was far
too soon, she hadn’t finished the shutdown or disconnected yet, it shouldn’t be
–
She felt the rough hands on her shoulders as her vision shifted. Pacification troops, fully kitted out. Valentine’s stomach dropped as she realized three things:
1. She was certainly being taken into custody with Vexing for insubordination and dereliction of duty, and quite possibly mutiny charges.
2. The pilots, on paper, did not exist. They were not recognized as human. It was entirely possible they’d be “washed out” of the program with the rest of the cadre having their kill-switches reinforced.
3. They were yanking her out of the chair in the middle of her neural disconnection sequence.
Her vision jolted and went black as the cables running down her spine became unplugged, and she felt her body contort in the most unnatural way before…
Nothing.
DULLAHAN MANAGER VER 2.83
ERROR
CODE 899:
UNHANDLED EXCEPTION IN HI. LVL NEURAL NET
...
VASOVAGAL SUBSYS... OK
PULSE: 42 BLOOD PRESS:86/58 BLOOD OX: 98.44
LIFE SUPPORT CHECKS... OK FLAG HYPOTENS.
LO. LVL BRAIN CHECKS... OK
HI. LVL. REBOOT...
INIT STARTUP...
MEM
INTEG OK
BASE NEURAL FUNCTION TEST... OK
ORGANIC
COMPONENTS... NO CRITICAL FAULTS FOUND
NEUROMUSCULAR CONNECTIONS... OK
SENSORY PROCESSING... FAIL!
ERROR
CODE 899/32:
UNHANDLED EXCEPTION IN HI. LVL NEURAL NET
SECTION SENS_PROC...
DIAGNOSING...
SENSORY PROCESSING FAULT
REFERENCING INPUT WV_02 THRU WV_187...
INPUT NOT FOUND
REFERENCING INPUT PL_00 THRU PL_332...
INPUT NOT FOUND
SENSORY DRIVER FAULT
ROLLBACK... FAIL!
SELF REPAIR...FAIL!
KERNEL DRIVER SENS_COMP CORRUPT
COMPILING DATA DUMP... COMPLETE
...
CONNECTION ESTABLISHED!
AUTH:VEXING_13...
PASSWORD
INPUT REQUESTED:
- OfArmsAndTheManISing
ACCEPTED!
- RMV SENS_COMP EXECUTE
...DRIVER SENS_COMP DELETED!
- UPL SENS_COMP TAG ‘VL_VER2_BCKP’EXECUTE
...DRIVER SENS_COMP (TAG VL_VER2_BCKP) ADDED TO SENS_PROC FILETREE
- INIT STARTUP
INIT STARTUP...
MEM
INTEG OK
BASE NEURAL FUNCTION TEST... OK
ORGANIC
COMPONENTS... NO CRITICAL FAULTS FOUND
NEUROMUSCULAR CONNECTIONS... OK
SENSORY PROCESSING... OK
HI. LVL THOUGHT... SELFTEST OK
BOOT COMPLETE...WAKE UP!
“…Vexing?” the curled-up pilot croaked as her oculars adjusted to the harsh overhead lights. She fights a wave of nausea sitting up, head reeling and spinning as every sense attempts to establish a baseline, finally feeling the dysphoria and vertigo subside after what felt like an eternity.
“Valentine. Are you ok?? Bastards yanked you out in the middle of a disconnect, you’ve always taken normal disconnects pretty hard and- You had a seizure. Nobody knew what to do! The neurologist is off the clock and her replacement called in sick the other day and- I had to plug in myself. Is everything ok? You look like shit!”
Valentine groaned. “Slow down. Please. Headache. I’m fine. Everything’s factory zero right now and you know how that felt… Pulling my logs. Gotta recalibrate.”
“Yeah, do that… I was really worried, Val. I mean it. I got lucky cause they got to me second, unplugged just in time. But… It’s the MPs. We’re in the brig. Only sharing a room cause I was the only one who knew how your brain worked… mechanically speaking, anyway. We’re… screwed, aren’t we?” The words spilled out from her companion’s mouth, frantic. Afraid. Not even bothering to attempt link communication, not with their friend’s head in shambles.
“If we were they wouldn’t bother with
letting you repair. This is… Something else. I don’t know. We’ll need to
think.”
“Yeah… got plenty of time for that, I suppose.”
Vexing took a seat at the foot of the bed, glancing over at their friend’s
ragged body.
“I’m fine.” She said with a shaky
voice. “Mostly. They’re afraid, I think. We’ve never disobeyed orders like this
before, except... well, reports from Luna Three never left that room, anyway.
Besides, we just confirmed their number one fear, rogue cyborg superweapon
hijackers. They’re probably… Meeting. To determine what to do.”
“So…”
“Hopefully they’ll be a hearing. We’ve got good excuses. Just need the right person’s
ear. Till then, we think. Wait. Come up with a defense. Get some rest, maybe…
You did good today. Saved my ass twice. Won’t forget that.”
“Val?”
“Vex?”
“…Thank you.”
“Yeah, yeah…”
