Judicator Ghrroaqq waited anxiously aboard his ship as his people cleared all of the nearby hangars and rooms for threats of any type. The fact that they hadn’t found anything concerning didn’t ease that tension.
Eventually, the commander reported in.
“Judicator, we’ve cleared and isolated the section of the station we breached. There was only minor resistance. We will need more ground forces to clear a path toward the representative’s location and the Concord vessel.”
“Very well, Commander. Keep on your toes until reinforcements arrive, or this could turn catastrophic quickly. I’ll have the troop transport dock in one of the secured hangars. Use any asset you see fit to complete your mission.” That had always been the plan when he received his orders. The ship would be safe. With its shield active, nothing short of a nuclear weapon would cause it any harm, and scans indicated that none of those were present.
The Commander acknowledged the order and ended the secure connection.
Ghrroaqq would have sent more boarding pods, but the transport only carried four, and he couldn’t recall the other ones without venting the station. It wouldn’t harm the soldiers, who were fully suited, but it might harm Chalto and his people.
As Ghrroaqq waited, he took in the station. As a judicator, he had been to more stations than he could count. Those started anywhere from tiny family-run establishments all the way to the massive retrofitted Concord Imperium stations within the Astryx’s borders, or at least the ones that survived the war.
The main thing that concerned him was the weapons, and their complete inactivity.
“The risk this captain Jacob poses might have been a bit overblown,” Ghrroaqq said with a frown. When he received his orders, they had been clear. He was to make haste to the representative’s position, then, once he arrived, secure the representative as quickly as possible. After that, he was to disable the ship’s AI, using the reprogrammers. If that didn’t work, he was to disable it by whatever means he deemed necessary. Once the threat was neutralized, his job was technically complete. The higher-ups didn’t care about Captain Jacob or Adjunct Xing’che, other than maybe returning the latter to face justice on the eiraxin home world.
That being said, Ghrroaqq had questions for both of them.
When his fleet wasn’t attacked immediately after they arrived, he knew something was off. That was only further reinforced after he established a comm link with Representative Chalto.
Blowing up the enormous ship sitting in the construction cradle would have been his preferred method of dealing with such a dangerous matter, but extenuating circumstances stayed his hand.
One of those was representative Chalto’s location. Ghrroaqq thought Chalto and his people might have been hostages at first glance, but based on their brief conversation, that didn’t seem to be the case. The second reason that he couldn’t simply turn the ship into space dust was that his superiors wanted to study the vessel and the station.
***
A while after the transport landed and disgorged its troops, Ghrroaqq received an update.
“We’ve located Representative Chalto and his people, Judicator. They are being led back this way.”
“Good. Have you managed to locate anyone else?”
The commander shook his head. “We have a team heading toward Chalto’s vessel to clear it.
“And how’s the progress toward the Concord vessel proceeding?” Ghrroaqq asked as he watched soldiers load a grav sled with a series of crates behind the Commander. Two of those crates contained ancient Concord AI reprogrammers, which had not been easy to locate.
“Slow, Judicator. No active resistance, but every security hatch along the route has been sealed and welded shut. It might be faster to send a few teams through some of the larger openings in the vessel’s hull. Then again, maybe not. With how damaged that vessel is, we can’t guarantee there is any safe path toward the core without a lot of clearing work.”
“Stick to the station, Commander. They wouldn’t have secured that route unless it was important, and we already know Captain Jacob has been through there, which likely means there’s a path to the core as well.”
The commander saluted. Ghrroaqq returned the salute, and the man ended his report.
***
It took nearly an hour for Chalto’s people to reach the hangar, because the t’uk attack had damaged the most direct route. Ghrroaqq would need to speak with his superiors about that after he finished up with this mission.
They looked to be in good spirits, if a bit weary. Considering they had suffered an attack by a t’uk patrol vessel, they were holding out well. That attack needed to be investigated and addressed as soon as possible. It reeked of a larger plot.
Most people weren’t willing to accuse one of the most influential races in the Astryx without concrete evidence, even if their history was suspect, but it might be time to look into the disturbing rumors that had been swirling around about the t’uk since before he had been a judicator.
Ghrroaqq had never hidden his feelings about the t’uk, which didn’t make him very many friends. He didn’t care.
They held far too much influence, while being a rather minor member of the Astryx council. Not only did they build and maintain the entire FTL comm network, but the Xylos Corporation was also owned and operated by a t’uk consortium. To top that off, the shipyards at Omerion Prime were majority owned by t’uk investors. That was hardly all they controlled; those were just the most well-known. The former Concord species had its hands in pretty much every industry.
As much as he would like to knock their species down a peg or two, his job was not to play diplomat; it was to eliminate hidden threats to the Astryx.
Ghrroaqq’s thoughts halted as the representative approached the secure comm terminal that had been set up for him.
“Judicator,” the borganian representative bowed after activating the device
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Ghrroaqq nodded in return. “I was a bit pressed for time when I arrived, but I would like to hear the full story of how you ended up out here and what transpired after. Don’t leave any detail out, it might be important.”
Chalto began from where adjunct Xing’che had approached him to be her chaperone for the atonement voyage.
Ghrroaqq was vaguely aware of atonement voyages. If he recalled correctly, the practice hadn’t been used since the last representative who had chaperoned such a trip was tried for murder when they returned without their eiraxin charge. Ghrroaqq believed that the eiraxins should be under constant scrutiny due to their past actions, but that didn’t give a representative the right to murder one of them.
Chalto’s story concluded with the attack and how Captain Jacob had convinced them to leave the ship. From there, they had only one interaction with Captain Jacob.
“Do you believe the ship was in danger?” Ghrroaqq asked.
“I do,” Chalto admitted. “We could feel the ship tipping more and more with each passing hour.”
“So he saved you, even if he had alternative motives?”
“It seems that way,” Chalto replied.
“Thank you for the information, Representative Chalto. I had my captain set aside some space for you and your people aboard the troop transport. Space will be tight until the vessel departs the station. Once it rendezvous with the rest of my fleet, I will transfer the eiraxin delegation to one of the other vessels so they can be taken back to their home world. Is there anything else I can do for you in the meantime?”
Chalto nodded. “Judicator, I would like to return to my post on the eiraxin’s home world as well.”
“If that is your wish,” Ghrroaqq replied. “Was that all?”
“What will you do with Captain Jacob and Adjunct Xing’che?”
“Are you concerned for them?” Ghrroaqq asked in surprise.
“I am. Is that so hard to believe?”
“I suppose not,” Ghrroaqq said after a moment of thought. “Captain Jacob’s fate is in his own hands at the moment. So long as he doesn’t harm any of my people, he has nothing to fear. I’m not here for him. As for Adjunct Xing’che, I’m not sure. She will likely be returned to face justice. Does that ease your conscience?”
“I see. Thank you, it does. Captain Jacob has been rather accommodating, all things considered, but I believe he will be a hard man to track down.”
“How so?” Ghrroaqq asked.
“I don’t believe he is even on the station. He might be aboard the damaged ship sitting in the dock, but my vessel wasn’t able to scan that far.”
“Didn’t you say he met with you multiple times?” Ghrroaqq asked in confusion.
“He did, or more accurately, I believe a remotely operated drone was meeting with me.”
“Are you suggesting he is merging with these drones? You know what that means, right?”
“I do, Judicator. It could mean that Captain Jacob is an eiraxin, lau, or t’uk, since no other known species has the capability to merge with machines.”
If that was the case, the situation became even stranger. A rogue group from any of those three species was a problem. An eiraxin splinter group seemed like the most obvious, considering Xing’che’s arrival out here. It might also explain why the t’uk vessel had shown up.
Ghrroaqq wouldn’t discount the other two species, however. The lau hadn’t been seen since their race was destroyed centuries ago, but space was large, so there could always be survivors out there. He wouldn’t rule out the t’uk either, considering their recent actions. The patrol vessel might have been sent out here to cover up something.
There was another option, one that Ghrroaqq almost didn’t want to consider, but had to anyway for the sake of being thorough. That was that Captain Jacob belonged to a surviving group from the Concord Imperium.
“Have you mentioned this theory to anyone else?” Ghrroaqq asked the representative.
“No, Judicator.”
Ghrroaqq nodded. “Please keep it that way until I find out the truth. The existence of this station and the planetary conditioning vessel has the council riled up enough. I don’t want to dump more fuel on that fire without proof.”
Chalto nodded in agreement. “I will await your judgment.”
***
After spying on the Judicator’s conversation with Chalto, Jacob now knew they weren’t after him, but Melody. That didn’t really change much for him, since he was stuck inside Melody’s core, but it did give him hope that they would be able to come to terms if he could trick them into thinking they killed off the AI.
With the AI offline to prevent the Astryx forces from using it to lock him out of further systems, keeping track of the Astryx forces had taken up most of his concentration. Katherine and Barry still weren’t answering his comm’s, but he was beginning to think that was more due to the Astryx jamming, cutting off their ability to transmit from their data storage, rather than them ignoring him or being wrapped up in other tasks. The fact that he couldn’t locate either of them inside the virtual space and that he found Katherine’s drone sitting idle in the middle of a hallway further reinforced that idea. The fact that he was stuck inside an AI core instead of a data cube was probably the only reason he was able to operate while the jamming was in place. Unfortunately, Jacob didn’t have the time to go look at where they were stored to see if that was indeed the issue.
He really wished they were there to help, not to say that they hadn’t helped already. While Jacob had been trying to secure the representative’s vessel for flight, Barry and Katherine had locked down any path leading toward Melody or a strategically vulnerable point on the station.
After seeing how many forces the Astryx were willing to commit, he knew it would only delay them. They had already cut through half of the secure hatches leading toward Melody.
Using the void rifle-equipped drones to defend the core seemed like a bad idea, even before he overheard the Judicator’s words.
With that in mind, Jacob removed the drones from around the core and had them travel to the far end of Melody. After experiencing what sort of firepower the Astryx drones were packing, open conflict wasn’t the answer.
That left Plan C as his only option for survival now, a modified core interface.
When they were doing their planning, Barry had mentioned that the ship’s core would be the most likely target. Jacob had considered the core a target, but he thought the Astryx would prioritize destroying both the station and ship instead of boarding a possible hostile installation. That being said, he didn’t discount the man’s words either and had planned for that eventuality.
It seemed Barry had been spot on in his assessment. The Astryx could still place a charge in the core room and call it a day, but that seemed less likely by the moment.
They most likely had a reprogrammer similar to the one the eiraxins had used on Melody.
When Jacob disconnected the original interface, he had to do so in a way that made it look like it was still functional. He didn’t want a repeat of the errors the eiraxins received when trying theirs, and he wasn’t about to test himself against a second reprogrammer.
Since he still had the eiraxin’s device, he had studied it and learned that the storage inside was unique. It wasn’t until he asked the station’s AI about it that he learned why. Apparently, the reprogrammers didn’t contain some sort of virus to kill AI; it housed a dormant AI kernel.
When he first heard that, he tried transferring himself into the reprogrammer, but that didn’t work. Apparently, it had something to do with the fact that the kernels weren’t full AIs; they were more like building blocks to make an AI. Part of that process was wiping the storage it would be placed into.
Obviously, Jacob wasn’t about to let that happen, but survival wasn’t the only benefit he saw with his plan. If he could see what happened when the AI kernel transferred from one storage to the other, it might help him figure out how to escape his own confinement.
He doubted the Judicator would give the device to him if he asked nicely, so connecting the eiraxin programmer to the other end of the data feed from the modified core interface terminal was his next best idea.
Jacob turned back to the video feed and cursed. Another group had headed out of the hangar, and he lost track of them. He quickly rewound the video to see if he could find out where they were going.
“We believe we’ve found the Adjunct’s bio signs, Judicator. She’s in the holding cells.”
“Can you send a group to go get her?”
“We could cut through the cell doors, Judicator, but doing so would likely kill her.”
Ghrroaqq sighed. “Let me guess, the diplomatic credentials I was given would unlock the way?”
The soldier nodded.
“Very well, secure the area around the cell block. Once the ship AI is dealt with, I’ll come over on a shuttle to release her.”
Now that Jacob knew where the Judicator was going to be, he sent his drone to the holding area, careful to avoid the Astryx forces. If his plan with the core worked, he would get to speak to the man face to face; if not, it wouldn’t much matter.