A technician approached Gharl, a look of concern on his face. “Sir, I think there’s something wrong with the combat drones.”
That got Gharl’s attention immediately.
“Can you be more specific?” Gharl asked.
“It’s their processors, sir. They are more active than they should be. I ran diagnostics on all the affected units, but they came back as clean.”
Gharl licked his lips to keep them moist. The standard environment in an Astryx depot was much too dry for his delicate myraan skin, but he bore it without complaint.
“What about the power systems? Could they be causing some sort of weird feedback signal?”
“I considered that, sir. I reached out to Xalos to see if they could help diagnose the problem or send a certified technician, but they just told me they would have to look into the issue.”
Gharl burbled in annoyance. That was the problem with requiring specialized technicians. “I’ll kick your concern up the chain. Perhaps someone above me can get some answers.”
He was about to turn back to his own work when he heard a clatter and shout from across the service center.
Gharl and the other technician hurried out of the bay to see what was going on. Another group of technicians was running from a bay at the far end of the service center, followed shortly by a combat drone.
Gharl’s large eyes went even larger when he saw the drone’s weapons powering up. He slammed his hand on an alarm. “Run!” he yelled at the stupefied ivathian technician who had come to him.
Chaos filled the service center as technicians raced for the exits. Bright flashes of energy weapon fire punctuated the sound of alarms as the malfunctioning drone fired randomly into the room.
A hot bolt of energy ripped past Gharl, searing his already dry skin and causing it to crack, shrivel, and bleed profusely. The pain was excruciating, but he didn’t stop as more and more fire filled the space as other drones clomped out of their repair bays in different states of repair and joined the first.
One could be chalked up to a malfunction, but more than that was an attack. He needed to tell his superiors. He rounded the corner, another bolt of energy barely missing him, only to come to an abrupt halt as the technicians in front of him desperately tried to reverse direction.
A gap opened up in the press of bodies, and Gharl saw what had everyone running back the way they came. Two more combat drones were coming down the hallway and had already killed over a dozen people. They were trapped.
Gharl closed his eyes and let out a croak of despair as technicians shoved past him in a desperate bid to escape. He pictured the damp environment of his home and very much wished he had never left. He never saw the blast of energy that took his life.
***
Chizzit turned and fired his energy rifle before desperately diving behind the next corridor junction. Not that it had any effect on the drone. The combat drone’s return fire melted large divots into the steel beams supporting the corridor, but Chizzit was already back on his feet and running.
He didn’t know where he was running to, but he needed to get away from the combat drone. He wasn’t even sure what was going on. He was eating in the cafeteria when someone ran in shouting. That person was followed by the defective drone, which had opened fire on everyone.
Chizzit had been one of seven people to make it out of the cafeteria alive, and as a ground forces grunt, he was well aware their survival was only due to sheer luck. Combat drones were designed for taking out larger armored or dangerous targets. The only reason the drone hadn’t killed them was that its targeting systems were on automatic and not being controlled by an operator. That didn’t stop the drone from cutting people down with impressive accuracy. Chizzit was the last man standing among the seven survivors who made it out of the cafeteria, and that was only because the last survivor with him had managed to damage the drone’s targeting systems.
Chizzit wished it had been intentional, but it wasn’t. The unnamed hero’s body had exploded, and his viscera had coated the drone, reducing its accuracy just enough for him to survive so far. It wouldn’t last forever; the drone was already compensating for the reduced visibility.
He rounded the next corner as the combat drone smashed into the melted wall and twisted to follow him. He needed to get to the main armory to find something to take out the rogue drone.
***
Judicator Ghrroaqq’s face was flat with annoyance. They had arrived at Naal’s progenitor’s house a few days ago, only to find the place had been ransacked and the resident missing. Despite that, he had his people tear the building apart looking for any clues.
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So far, they had come up empty. Whoever had ransacked the house had done a thorough job of cleaning up any evidence. Ghrroaqq was considering his next course of action when the commander of his personal guard hurried over, looking worried. The haste alone would have stiffened Ghrroaqq’s spine.
“What happened?” he asked.
“The fleet is under attack by malfunctioning combat drones,” the commander breathed out.
“AI?” Ghrroaqq asked. It was the only thing that made sense.
“The captains are not sure. The attack is still ongoing.”
“What about my flagship?”
His commander shook his head. “None of our combat drones are out of control. The captain had the engineers remove their power cores just to be safe.”
That was a smart move, but it didn’t explain why the drones aboard his ship were functioning properly. An AI attack shouldn’t have been possible, but if it had happened, the AI would have infected all of the drones before striking.
Honestly, a rogue AI probably would have taken control of the entire ship or fleet before showing its hand. This was something else.
“Tell the engineers to power up our drones and send them over to help the other ships in the fleet.”
“Are you sure, sir?” the commander asked.
They both knew how risky that could be.
Ghrroaqq gave a curt nod, and his commander relayed the orders to his flagship. He wanted to return to orbit, but it was actually safer on the ground at the moment, so he waited until the fighting had ended.
Even with combat drones of their own, it took over an hour for them to finally take down the rogue units. Three of the ships in his fleet were now floating coffins, their entire crews killed by the homicidal drones. Another four ships had their crews reduced to such an extent that they could no longer operate the vessels effectively. None of the ships, bar his own, had been spared. And he still lost four soldiers and six combat drones during the operation.
“Have any surviving engineers tear into those drones. I want to know why they went rogue, and ours didn’t.” A direct blast from an energy cannon didn’t tend to leave a survivor, so it was a small mercy that few of the survivors were injured.
It took time, but eventually a grizzled engineer from one of the abandoned ships slammed two power cores onto the table in front of Ghrroaqq. He would have winced at the man’s rough treatment of the very expensive power cores had they not both been severely damaged.
The engineer’s ire was clear in his actions, so instead of demanding an answer, Ghrroaqq motioned for him to speak.
“We pulled these out of two separate units, sir. One from your ship, one from a drone aboard my own ship. These cores aren’t the same.”
Ghrroaqq took a close look at the cores, but he wasn’t an engineer. They looked identical to him. “Explain.”
“One of the cores is an old Concord core, the other is a Xalos core. I only know this because I’ve been maintaining these drones for two decades.”
Ghrroaqq motioned for the engineer to wait, then called up his own. The man appeared a few minutes later, holding a tablet. He nodded in sympathy to the older engineer and handed the tablet over to Ghrroaqq.
“You asked if we still utilize old Concord power cores, Judicator, and we do. We were scheduled to get a fresh batch during our next refit. That’s the list of all the power cores aboard.”
Ghrroaqq flipped through the list and stopped at a third model. It didn’t have a model name; it was just listed as ‘C2’. “What’s this?”
His chief engineer shifted uncomfortably. “Those came from the Concord station, sir. We badly needed some replacements, and they were readily available. I purchased a few with my expenditure budget.”
Ghrroaqq was mildly concerned that his people purchased anything from that station, but his people had discretionary budgets for a reason. “Where are these power cores now?”
“In the surviving combat drones,” the chief engineer admitted reluctantly. “They performed better than the aging units, and there is nothing to indicate they are compromised.”
Ghrroaqq didn’t bother mentioning the fact that none of the other drones had shown signs before the attack either. He mentally crossed Captain Jacob off as a possible source of this attack. As much as he didn’t trust the man, he just couldn’t see him doing something like this. And if the planetary conditioning vessel’s AI had survived, it would have ensured no survivors, especially since his people had brought aboard what could have easily been infected hardware. He made a mental note to run everyone through AI survival training once again before turning his attention back to the two cores.
“Is that all?” he asked.
“No, sir,” the first grizzled engineer said. “When we cleared the ship, we found multiple combat drones that hadn’t activated. We checked those, and they also had either old Concord power cores or a mix of new cores from that Concord station, along with some Xalos cores. The ones with the mixed cores were showing abnormal signs, so we quickly pulled their power.”
Ghrroaqq set the tablet down. He had already reached a decision even before that last bit of evidence, but it was good to have more. “It seems our next destination is the Xalos manufacturing yard. Set the abandoned ships into reserve status. I will alert the fleet repair yards to retrieve them. Then gather the remaining undermanned crews onto one vessel. Be quick about it, I have a feeling our troubles have just begun.”
***
“The attack was less successful than our predictions,” Senlor said in disgust. “I warned you this could happen. We should have taken direct control of the drones; they would have been much more effective.”
“And that link would have been detected and blocked, rendering your point moot. We’ve been over this,” Sael replied tiredly. “We did what we had to do.”
“We did,” Senlor admitted, “and now we must move on to phase two. The judicator behind the investigation into us has survived.”
“I’ll manage him,” Sael said. “Is the fleet ready?”
“They should be at the human’s planet within a few weeks,” Korfis said.
She was the admiral of the t’uk military, and also the only female member of their conspiracy at the moment.
“You do realize,” she continued, “that if anyone looks into the timing of our attack on the humans, they will quickly pick apart the lie?”
“It is a risk we will have to take. Besides, if any of the humans do survive, it will be our word against theirs. We have standing within the Astryx, while they consort with the eiraxin.”
Korfis made a noncommittal noise at the statement.
Her opinion didn’t much matter. The plan was in motion, and they would see it through.