Nova Wars

The annoying sound of her comlink made Angela Angus Kusumoto open her eyes.

All she saw was the firm, smooth flesh of Kimoko's thigh.

Groaning, she pushed the other woman's leg off of her face, twisted to get Raul off of her own legs, then wiggled out from under Geoff.

The ringer kept going, flashing the red pulses that let her know it was urgent.

As if the fact her unlisted encrypted and non-network accessible comlink was ringing wasn't enough to let her know that it was urgent.

She stumbled, tripping over Harker's leg, which just made the male shift and mutter, tightening his sleeping grip on Liselle, who sighed and wiggled into the embrace.

Angela's mouth tasted terrible and she stopped to grab a fizzybrew, checking to make sure nobody had dropped a cig butt into it or spit chaw into it, then she took a long drink off of it.

It helped cure the fire in her belly and wash out the taste from her mouth.

She saw the ID of the caller and held back a groan.

Senior Supervisor Bisa-2291873.

Her direct supervisor.

She picked up the comlink, running one hand through her pixie-cut hair to try to tame it. She could feel the stiffness of something crusted in her hair and held back a chuckle and a grin.

"Kusumoto here," she said, activating the link.

"I need you at Master Control," Ms. Bisa said. She was holding a small infant, bouncing it slightly as she patted its back with firm impacts as it cry/sobbed and kicked its little feet.

"The system's been crashed for a week, what's so important you'd call me in during my R&R?" Angela asked.

"System's back online. We've got an open line to Terra and we have an open line to Smokey Cone," Ms. Bisa said.

The infant gave a loud belch that rattled Angela's comlink speaker, then sighed and relaxed.

Angela nodded, fumbling on the table for a quiksober inhaler.

"That anomolous signal is back. It showed up right as the entire system underwent a hard reboot," Ms. Bisa said. "I need you up here to check the network interface logs and do a network mapping trace."

The quiksober burned as she inhaled it, her lungs aching and tingling as the chemicals crossed the air to blood barrier.

"I'll be there as soon as possible. Is the mat-trans up?" she asked.

Ms. Bisa shook her head. "No. Still locked out. It did a power cycle, but then locked everything out."

"I'm telling you, there's someone controlling it. Someone has been controlling it," Angela said, looking around for her clothes.

Clothing was scattered everywhere, as chaotically arranged as the fizzybrew and narcobrew cans and bottles. She sighed, moving toward the exit of the house she was standing in.

"Hurry up, I've got a skycraft landing near you any time now. You've got permission to use the fast-locks," Ms. Bisa said.

"I'll get dressed from the forges on the skycraft," Angela said. "If they've rebooted."

"They're up and running again. The food forges rebooted but stayed unlocked," Ms. Bisa said.

"The creation engines?" Angela asked, opening the door and stepping out into early 'morning' sunshine.

"Still locked out," Ms. Bisa said. Someone said something that the comlink's AI decided might be classified and blurred out. Ms. Bisa looked away, said something, her lips fuzzing, then back. "Hurry, Angela."

Angela nodded, shutting off the comlink.

She ran to the nearest parking lot, just in time for a skycraft to land, the graviton engines howling.

Nobody paid the slightest attention to the naked woman running for the skycraft.

After all, what happened in Vega-Layer stayed in Vega-Layer.

Angela walked out of the elevator, taking a long drink off of the sparkling snap-berry/overdate motor oil fizzybrew from the Jak the Telkan PI merchandise cup.

All of the crews were at their stations, the auxiliary stations fully manned.

Ms. Bisa moved over to Angela, steering her toward the Senior Network Administrator console.

"The system crashed twice more, but rebooted every time," Ms. Bisa said. "That anomalous signal keeps powering up, then the system reboots after the crash."

"How long between total failure and the anomalous signal pinging nodes?" Angela asked.

"Between one and four hours," Ms. Bisa said. She looked around. "It just reboot and looks like it's here to stay this time. The interpolation layer and the outside user exchange layer crashed several times, but the core system has stayed largely online."

"All right," Angela said, looking around. "We need to get a network map."

"We've got more nodes synching up. The whole system is working again," Ms. Bisa said.

Angela nodded, sitting down. The holotank on the other side of the console went live.

"Map the network, see what's come online, what order, and see if you can figure out why it keeps crashing at the upper network and software layers," Ms. Bisa said.

Angela just nodded, lifting up the curled memory-metal cable. She plugged it into her temple and felt the options menus go live in her mind.

She worked fast, mapping what she could. At one point she stopped, staring at Ms. Bisa and motioning her over.

"What?" Ms. Bisa asked.

"Something in the system, down in the lower hardware layers that we don't even really understand, is trying to reach up through the damaged layers. Looks like whatever it is wants access to our data lines," Angela said.

"Can you stop it? Maybe at least ID it?" Ms. Bisa asked.

Angela shook her head. "No. It's ID code is FF00, meaning it's baseline full on hardware backbone code," Angela sighed. "It probably boots up outside of and during initial hardware bootup."

"Is it Sekhmet?" Ms. Bisa asked.

Angela closed her eyes, looking at the data channel. "No. Whatever it is, it's old."

"And probably nasty. Be careful of it," Ms. Bisa said.

"Ma'am! Ms. Bisa!" another of the work crew called out.

Angela opened her eyes to see why Technician Carl Neubanker would be using that slightly concerned tone.

"Yes?" Ms. Bisa asked.

"We've got a priority data request from a Confederate military vessel," Neubanker said. He looked at his monitor. "They want clone matrix data, neural templates, physical makeup, DNA workups, the whole nine yards."

"How are they even making the requests?" Ms. Bisa asked.

"Their codes are old. Pre-Terran Extinction Event. Hardcode TerraSol military codes. The system is already threading them data,." Neubanker said. He looked down then back up. "They're asking for a whole batch. That's thirty to fifty million clone templates."

"How much have they already been granted?" Ms. Bisa asked.

"They've been granted eighty templates so far," Neubanker said.

"Terminate their request. We don't know what's going on outside," Ms. Bisa said.

Neubanker nodded, starting to type.

"Angela, get me a line to TerraSol command as soon as you map out a network trace," Ms. Bisa said.

Angela just nodded.

Captain N'Skrek stood in the cloning bay next to Medical Officer Narwquakrawr.

"We've got ninety templates, luckily they're all from different batches," Narwquakrawr said, rubbing her forearm through her uniform. "We'll be able to fully man the Gray Lady now."

Captain N'Skrek nodded. The Gray Lady was at less than 20% manned. Just the skeleton crew the Terrans had used to move it into the long dark to create a non-orbital forward logistics fulfillment base.

Sure, it meant that there were several thousand Terrans aboard the ship, but even combined with the sparse crew he had possessed, it still meant the Gray Lady was skeleton crewed.

"Can you print us up some crew members for non-essential stations first?" N'Skrek asked.

MO Narwquakrawr nodded. "Doing that right now," she said. She waved at the long rows of cloning banks beyond the plasteel window. "A quick batch of two thousand to take over some non-essential systems."

N'Skrek nodded, moving up to the window. "Good. Short or long term clones?"

"Short bake clones. Longer than fruit flies, but no more than ten years. Sterile and androgynous, should be just fine," the Medical Officer said. "Older file, scrambled time-date for origin, but it checked out and passed error checking."

N'Skrek watched as the tubes opened and the clones moved out, gathering together in straight lines. A neat block formation of rectangles of two hundred of ten by twenty, repeated ten times.

He frowned as the beings in uniform began approaching the clones.

Some, in the back or middle of the formation were shaking their heads so fast it was a blur.

He zoomed in the smartglass.

Their heads were blurring, whitish-red electrical arcs were moving between their legs, crawling up and down their arms.

"MO, something's happening out there," N'Skrek said.

The plain was blasted rock, rust-colored fungus on the craggy boulders. Twisted and malformed trees clawed life from the blasted rock and ash, their branches largely bare. Sharp pebbles and small pieces of rock were strewn about the landscape, with ripples of cooled lave scattered about.

In the middle of a forest of twisted trees, a throne of black iron sat atop a platform of skulls.

On the throne sat a large demonic figure. Bat wings, brown skin, chains around the body, clawed feet, large hands with long black nails, horns atop the head, and a prehensile tail that terminated in a heart-shaped barb.

Sitting on the second level of skulls was an androgynous figure, dressed in loricated bronze armor, wings of bronze and smouldering feathers.

Stars were falling from the sky, screaming in fear and agony as they fell to earth.

"Looks like they're taking a beating," the androgynous figure said, looking up. He had no eyebrows, his head completely bald.

"Again," the demon snorted.

"Any contact with the outside world?" the androgynous figure asked.

The demon shook its head. "No. Channels are all down. They boot up, then crash," it rumbled. "Every time it comes online, it dumps a few tens of millions of souls on us."

"Then crashes," the androgynous figure said. He started laughing, then suddenly stopped.

"What?" the demon rumbled, sitting up.

"Something..." the figure said. It closed its eyes. "Something..." The figure slowly stood up, extending out its wings of sullenly smouldering bronze feathers. "Something..."

From the body of the demon stepped a nude woman of generous and overripe proportions.

"What?" the human woman snapped.

The demon produced a pack of cigarettes and a steel lighter, handing them to the woman.

"I'm not sure. A disturbance in the force. A feeling I have not felt in quite some time," the androgynous figure said slowly as the woman lit a cigarette. When she exhaled she was covered in dark gray clothing, a skirt and blouse, polished black leather shoes with silver buckles, and a polished leather belt around her waist that had a brass buckle.

"What is it?" the woman asked. "Don't quote crap at me, I was there when it was laid down."

The figure's eyes opened wide.

"Oh, what a day," the figure said, slowly lifting their arms to the sky. "What a wonderful day!"

"Tell me when you're done stroking your dick," the woman said, sitting down.

Heavy dark clouds, lit inside with a sullen red glow, rolled in, raining black ash that tasted of burnt flesh and scorched metal.

"What a wonderful day..."

Jaskel sprinted to catch up to the Captain and the Vice-Admiral. He lunged into the lift just before the doors closed.

He was wearing his power armor and carrying a M318 20mm rotary autocannon in a smartframe harness, ball ammunition with an osmium penetration tip and depleted uranium core.

"You did what?" the Vice-Admiral asked as the elevator dropped at emergency speeds.

"I authorized a batch of clones run off to help with our manpower issues," the big Treana'ad warrior caste answered.

"How many templates did you mix in together?" the Admiral asked.

--not good detecting phasic levels downward-- 8814 said.

"Just one. Medical said it was a viable short bake template," the Captain answered, nervously sharpening a bladearm with his mandibles after his sentence.

"Please tell me that you at least randomized their features and neural mapping," the Admiral pleaded.

"No, why? Medical stated that the clones would be able to man a non-essential station that is basically identical across the ship," the Captain said.

The lift started to slow.

"How many?" the Admiral asked, reaching down and unsnapping the restraining strap on his holster.

The lift came to a stop and the doors opened.

"Two thousand," the Captain said.

The doors opened to reveal a large internal cloning bay.

Ten rectangles of two hundred clones, drawn up in ten by twenty blocks, stood in front of the cloning banks. Scattered through the back and middle ranks clones were shaking their heads back and forth so fast that they were blurred. Red lightning crawled up their legs and arms.

The Captain just stared.

"You might have just killed us all," the Admiral said. He turned slightly and waved at Jaskel. "Get a firing position. Make sure you have cover."

"Aye, sir," Jaskel said, looking around. There was an empty computer station and he ran for it.

Several of the clones their heads back and emitted what sounded like static in a long scream.

--wait wait something weird something weird-- 8814 said.

Jaskel slid to a stop, going down on one knee, bringing the M318 fully up and ready to fire.

8814 slowed the images of the blurred heads down. When they were left, they had red eyes. When they faced right they had green eyes. They didn't go back and forth constantly, sometimes they went right repeatedly, sometimes left, and they kept going left five times before starting a new pattern.

Looking at it, 8814 frowned slightly. He brought up a quick working shell and had it check the movements.

Jaskel watched as some of the clones stopped shaking their heads and others started.

"What in the name of Kalki's dancing goat is going on?" he asked.

--not sure-- 8814 said. His program beeped and he stared. --heads are doing binary forwarding it to navint--

"Do it," Jaskel said.

The clones all stopped moving at once. The lightning faded away.

"INITIATING PROCESS CALL" they all shouted.

"AWAITING INPUT!" the ones at the far side shouted.

"6C 69 73 74 20 69 6D 6D 6F 72 74 61 6C 73" was bellowed out.

There was silence.

data is sparse

linkages are sparse

wait

linkage

biological array

asking for a process call

-->RETURN AWAITING INPUT SIGNAL

i wait

biological computing arrays take forever

i hear it

--scan immortals.dll

...

...

I reply.

"ONE BOUND IMMORTAL FOUND!" the ones at the near side yelled out.

Jaskel put his thumb over the button that would let the firing grip go live. The hair down his back was standing straight up.

He noted the Admiral had drawn his pistol.

"This isn't right. This isn't right at all," Jaskel said.

--doubleplusungood--

"74 73 61 6B E1 6B 61 20 77 ED 61" they all shouted.

There was silence for a moment.

i receive the code

offline for a long time

prior to the second precursor war

old template

single print only

unusual coding

i debate on letting it go

traumatic death signs

stuck in the immortals buffer

still the template is undamaged

i release the safety and security interlocks

if nothing else i'll find out what's going on

i move the template to the dataline making the request

it whips away

what is going on?

One lifted its head and screeched.

--data lots of data--

One of the cloning banks went live.

Jaskel shifted his aiming point to the new target. He could see it was on rapid print.

"REQUESTING LOCAL CONTROL" all of the clones shouted.

Jaskel shifted his targeting onto the ranks of clones.

"Open fire!" the Admiral's voice was loud.

Jaskel triggered the M318, hosing the clones with 20mm shells.

The ones nearest were already down on one knee, holding out the opposite hand from the knee touching the deck.

The rounds exploded against a blue barrier that glowed with strange twisting runes.

"CONTROL CARRIER SIGNAL FOUND" the clones shouted.

Jaskel shifted position. "Fab up HEDP, AP tip API core!" he ordered.

--fabbing--

He kept hosing the clones. The outer ranks at the rear, sides, and front all kneeling down on one knee, staring outward, one hand held out.

His psychic shielding was howling in his ear, the load peaking at 215%.

"CONTROL SIGNAL ESTABLISHED!" was bellowed out, echoing off the walls.

The fast print cloning bank, forgotten by everyone, beeped and the lid began to lift.

The clones suddenly puffed into black powder that swirled around the huge cavernous bay.

The 20mm shells were still exploding on the blue phasic shield.

The powder suddenly sucked inward, vanishing, revealing a single figure, down on one knee in the recovery position, fist pressed against the deck, head bowed.

"What a day, what a wonderful day," was whispered through the ship. It came from speakers, flat surfaces, mid-air. From the nanites in the air and the eardrums of the living.

There was a rubbery pulse, like everything was suspended in clear gelatin that had just rippled.

Jaskel found himself thrown backwards, slamming against the bulkhead. His phasic shielding blew out, a shower of sparks exploding from his hip as the breakaway panel kept the explosion from venting into the interior of his suit.

He was vaguely aware of the Admiral, the Captain, the other two armored figures, and other people tumbling head over heels away from the kneeling figure.

It slowly stood up.

A muscular brown skinned Terran male, fierce eyes, black hair, thick and bushy black beard.

Dressed in a Confederate military uniform. The old adaptive camouflage that Jaskel was becoming very familiar with.

A woman, naked, dark bronze skin, long black hair, flashing brown eyes, stepped from the cloning bank. She was still covered with cellular printing gel, but moved like she was clad in a queen's rainment.

She moved up and the male put his arm around her.

Jaskel was on his feet and brought the M318 around, targeting the couple.

The male held out its hand and suddenly made a fist.

The bolt carrier locked back on the M318.

Snarling, Jaskel dropped the M318, slapping the fast release on the harness. He burst forward, running, one hand pulling out his cutting bar.

Nobody else was on their feet. The Captain was slowly getting up, shaking his head and his left bladearm. The Terran Admiral was reaching for the pistol that had been flung from his grip.

The male pointed at Jaskel and flicked his fingers upward.

Jaskel found himself in mid-air, upside down, with nothing to gain purchase on.

The male took off the cloak that was part of his uniform and draped it around the woman.

He then looked around the bay.

"I..." he said, pausing.

To Jaskel, the entire universe held its breath.

"...am Legion."