Goddess of the Galacticide Episode 12 - Down to the Core

Episode 12

“I don’t know any hackers,” said Linuka Omga.

The Traaz went silent. I’m not an impressive criminal, thought Linuka. Her new smuggler friend and temporary host became impatient with his human customer, especially when Linuka revealed that her great prison break lacked not just a few, but all details. She didn’t know where Cha Dzeeny and his marines were held, or if the 2nd Experimental Warfare penal unit was even stationed on the Assembly World. Or in this system.

“You cannot expect to find any of this information on your own, using a public access terminal. If you find that unit at all, the public information will tell you it is part of the Levy Fleet, nothing more.”

Oonzu was right. If that was his name, which Linuka doubted as she sensed deception when the Traaz introduced himself. She had given the Traaz her full name. Of course I did. I’m so bad at this! Were you really a ward of Zihriik? he had inquired. Linuka explained how she spent much of her childhood at the Traaz ruler’s palace. Oonzu knew everything about her. She knew nothing about him, except that he made a better criminal.

“Wait,” said Linuka. “I met an Amnesty AI core once.”

“A what?” asked Oonzu.

“You know of the Dark AI remnants terrorizing the darkstrings?”

“I am a smuggler. I know every danger in space.”

“Some Dark AI want out, quit the pirating, and reintegrate into the Isonomih collective.”

Oonzu did not react. Maybe he, too, hoped to leave smuggling behind and return to a more honorable profession within the Traaz society at some point. Linuka had not seen his offspring on-board Oonzu’s ship. This small vessel couldn’t conceal a young Traaz for her three rotations aboard. Traveling alone, the Traaz must have had a safe spot to leave his offspring, or someone he trusted.

To Linuka, however, this was a safe haven. The unregistered freighter’s anonymity shielded Linuka from Assembly security, should they pursue her.

“Some AI cores contacted the Assembly,” said Linuka. “Seeking amnesty for services.”

“What services?” asked the Traaz.

“The illegal kind.” Linuka knew the human faction of the government tried to replicate multi-awareness, but decided keeping some secrets for herself.

“I see. But how does the core fit into this story?”

“The amnesty core I met was specialized in hacking,” said Linuka.

Acknowledgment radiated from the Traaz, just like when Oonzu realized Linuka had actually met the Traaz ruler. “A multi-aware quantum computer? That’s who you need.”

“I don’t know what happened to it…” said Linuka.

The Traaz remained silent. Lofty goals, no details. That was how he perceived Linuka, no doubt.

The hacker core. Out of all people, Assembly Member Lotnuuk Rrupteemaa had brought it along on their adventure, ending up with the takeover of the battle cruiser, the very event Cha Dzeeny and his team faced punishment for. The core possessed vital information, but had to be bribed to reveal it to the group. What happened to it after? Everyone got arrested on the battle cruiser, but who took the core?

“Lotnuuk Rrupteemaa!” said Linuka.

“Who?” asked Oonzu.

“An old puygo of an Assembly Member. He must have kept the core. It was just a small compute unit, not a full Isonomih core. Small enough to hide it in his robes. I bet no one searched him.”

“I do not understand what this means, except that you have no access to this hacker core.”

Oonzu had no confidence in anything Linuka was saying. A partial prepayment for the smuggler’s services had been the only effective appeasement. When thousands of untraceable Assembly zmoo transferred from Linuka’s transic node to his, the smuggler got reminded what this arrangement was about. The dilapidated state of his ship showed his dire need for money. But being separated from his young offspring during the critical Uurmi-forming phase revealed genuine despair. Even if Linuka’s stories seemed fabricated, her claims outlandish, and her plans foolish, her currency remained strong and real.

Linuka wondered if her father, who gave her the well-filled node ‘for emergencies only’, could have foreseen her using it to buy illegal passage from a meat smuggler for a bunch of mutineers—even while digging deep into multi-awareness. Was her life so messy because she inhabited a fringe reality, where only weird nreedz happened?

Linuka shook her head. “Perhaps we can still locate it. We traded it a brand new Isonomih body for some information. The hacker core was suspicious, so all the adults signed a contract, confirming the trade.”

“You had access to one of the newly built Isonomih cores?” Oonzu’s patience had evaporated. “This makes no sense. They are hard to produce.”

“Near impossible, without the right equipment. There is only one place in Assembly space where they make them. A central government lab here in Omech Krreng.”

The Traaz stream of dismissive thoughts stopped. He considered what she had said.

“If you know what Isonomih core body the hacker was supposed to get… that is on public record.”

“Yes,” said Linuka, “to avoid illegal trading of these bodies. Also, if Lotnuuk Rrupteemaa had the core and gave it to the lab—the contract he co-signed about transferring that hacker core into a new body…”

“A civilian contract is also a public record when an Assembly Member signed it,” said the smuggler, for the first time revealing how well he had studied the market for his illegal activities.

“I know the core body ID.”

“How would you?” asked Oonzu.

“It’s a long story. A core I knew was in line to receive a new body. We traded it.” Linuka tried to hide her shame from the Traaz. Not my proudest moment.

“That’s illegal, you just said it yourself,” said Oonzu. “Maybe you are a real criminal after all.”

“Do you have a terminal connection on board? Can we do the search now?”

“Follow me.”

Oonzu led her to the cockpit section of the ship, unusual in its location on top of the rear hull, just behind the reactor core. It must be deafening in here while traveling a darkstring, thought Linuka. She passed by here a few times when navigating the vessel en route to her small and not very private alcove, but the Traaz never invited her inside. When the door slid shut, the animal stench which permeated all other parts of the ship became mercifully unnoticeable. The breathing gas filters were much more powerful here, or better maintained.

Oonzu morphed his body’s base flat onto a polished square plate in the cockpit’s center, his pointy legs morphing into the alien’s abdomen. Traaz weren’t blind, but vision was far from being their primary sense. His body base, however, was sensitive to vibrations, and susceptible enough to interpret complex data streams by sitting flat on that plate interface—standard on Traaz vessels.

Linuka gave Oonzu the ID and repeated the other search parameters. She searched the cockpit for a seat, but the wait was shorter than expected.

“It is just like you said, my puny human. The lab you mentioned is not too far, indeed.”

“And? What about the hacker core?”

“There is only one mention of it being eligible for a core body. But no entry that it ever received it.”

“Nreedz,” said Linuka. The body probably still needs to be made. We’re too early.

“No, it looks like the body was completed, and the Assembly Member you mentioned signed for and released it, using the contract on file.”

“Rrupteemaa? So he still has the core? And the body?”

“He only signed out for them. These records show both the AI and its body got transferred to the military.”

“Why would he do that?” asked Linuka. “To hide them somewhere in the Levy Fleet?”

“No, they did not leave this world. They remained at the lab, but moved to a different division. The ‘2nd Experimental Warfare Unit’.”

Linuka sat down on the floor next to the silicate. “The prisoners we’re going to free have been sent to the same unit.”

Rrupteemaa was involved? Why assign an amnesty AI core to a penal unit? And its body, too? Linuka shuddered at the ways how the marines could fit into this unholy equation. “We need to get them out!”

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