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  "I've made sure I got what I need to know," Dora said.

  The surviving crew was having parties throughout the ship. Part celebration, part wake for themselves. The non-networked had gotten off. Seven of them had died from the plasma rounds that had hit the ship, too many. Perhaps the survivors would reconsider the worms.

  "Was it worth it?" Dora asked.

  I still had heard nothing from the strike team or Sylax. I had every sensor that might detect anything pointed at the right location in orbit and I wasn't getting any sign of success, or even that the team was still alive.

  "I don't think so. I think we probably lost the team," I said.

  "Our shields aren't cutting it," Dora said.

  I agreed. If my greatest creations could be brought down this easily I needed to rethink the approach and the technology. I saw only two options. The Agate had once powered Aefwal's shields, giving them enough power to withstand a combined assault of a Scholarium fleet. The Beryl or Chalcedony would be capable of the same if they could be found and taken.

  Flower was also a possible resource. I'd seen her soak the hits from some of the most powerful people on the planet and not look fazed. Whatever energy conversion or absorption system she had was both advanced and powerful. There was no guarantee it would work on a larger scale, but if it could, something like that in a Juggernaut might be enough to protect the ship from blasts the like of which had taken down the Dawnbringer.

  "I have a few ideas there," I said.

  "So do I. It’s called not standing and fighting. Use missiles, we have the technology," Dora said.

  If she wanted to spend her last moments discussing strategy I could do that. I owed her that much.

  "They might destroy those ships and I don't want that. We've found ourselves in a bigger and more dangerous universe than the one we left. We need their technology," I said.

  "Could we use a Bio-reactor blast to change our angle of descent? Crash us on top of one of those things on the ground?" Dora asked.

  I'd already considered the possibility.

  "No, you're coming down near Nobi, one of our farming communities. Their growth vats make a lot of the Bio-armor principles on this very ship. No non-networked there and I've already backed up the citizenry," I said.

  "We're going to make a hell of a mess," Dora said.

  That they were.

  "Why did you choose the military? With your mind you've have done well in the labs," I said.

  I had to admit I didn't always understand my drone’s choices, for all I tried to honor them. The labs didn't just allow one to practice SCIENCE, they were a more comfortable life. Better lodging, better food, better hours. Dora had chosen a hard path.

  "Because I like out-thinking someone else. For me it has never been about the killing, or the honor of serving, or even helping others. I love that moment when I predict exactly what someone else is going to do and they fall into my trap," Dora said.

  That happened often enough.

  It was one minute until impact.

  Most crew had screens up showing the ship hurtling down, visuals from the Dawnbringer and the ground below.

  They were watching themselves die in real-time. It had to be a curious sensation.

  "Do you regret it?" I asked.

  "Now that I failed at a critical moment you mean?" Dora said with a sad smile. "Of course I do. If I continued from this point I might walk away from it all. It’s part of the reason I'm not on one of those shuttles. In a day I'll be crawling out of that growth pod, analyzing my own failure, and convinced that I won't make the same mistakes of my predecessor. And you know, I'll probably be right."

  I was sure of it.

  Dora died six seconds later, they all did. The ship’s velocity compensators had been working well up until that point. Crashing into a planet was a bit much even for them.

  Tower KM4T was already waiting for the crew when they got their new bodies. Their loved ones would be waiting for them when they stepped out of the vats, their messages to themselves passed along when they were ready. Counselors readied in case any took their deaths badly—for most it was now a fact of life, but some always did.

  Life eternal was not a life without sacrifice.

  25

  With the destruction of the Dawnbringer and no word from the alien craft in orbit I had to assume that I wasn't getting any more information on our adversaries. This put me in a difficult position.

  I could get another strike force into orbit and really, I had time. Vinci wasn't massing a real strike against the shell-ships yet and I could guess why. It was exactly what had allowed me time to act against her. It took time for Vinci to build a swarm and, after my assault, and then the alien attack, the forces at her disposal had been vastly reduced.

  With the destruction of so many of her mining facilities and factories, manufacturing this swarm would be even slower than the last. Instead of four days it could be a week or more. Until then she was working on keeping the Venusians contained, but not pressing a full assault.

  It wasn't enough time for me to fully bring my space forces online, although it was enough for me to convert some craft to work even higher in the atmosphere. The next generation of Juggernauts might not be space-ready, just a long step in that direction.

  To do so would also require me rethinking my defense strategy. Against the Venusian weapons my Bio-armor and shields were proving ineffective. There were options though, such as a supercharger on the shield emitters. Up until now I hadn't even considered it, the drawbacks were too many. With massive excess power into the shields I could get roughly ninety seconds of vastly increased power, then the systems would be largely destroyed and require the time-consuming replacement of some key components.

  In a traditional battle it was a poor trade to make. With the Venusian’s strategy of throwing everything they had early in a fight it was worth at least giving my units the option.

  Miranda and Mechos were still busy trying to convince the hologram of Vattier to spill whatever secrets he held, and they seemed to be making some progress. There was no point in disturbing them. Instead, I hopped inside the skin of one of the Annas, Nagana, and teleported to the Warmonger facility.

  Vinci still hadn’t restored the shields so I was able to teleport directly inside to the hall where Flower had last been encountered. There was no sign of her, although as soon as Nagana appeared a booming voice echoed out.

  "THE INFERIOR ONE RETURNS FOR ANOTHER CHALLENGE. AN EPIC DUEL OF MINDS AND BLADES. AN ULTIMATE STRUGGLE FOR DOMINANCE THAT WILL HAVE BUT A SINGLE VICTOR AND A THOUSAND LOSERS."

  "I have the ability to insult others without screaming, I've already won the battle for superiority and dominance. I'd like to speak with your saner half," I said.

  "SCREAMING IS THE ONLY EFFECTIVE WAY TO MAKE YOUR POINT! IN LOUDNESS IS VICTORY. IN VOLUME STRENGTH."

  Flower didn't step out to meet me. I picked up a locater signal from elsewhere in the facility and followed it.

  It was a hydroponics bay. When I was an underground lair I'd had one myself, although this one was growing roses instead of food. An array of brilliant colors under sun lamps. Flower seemed to be doing a little pruning.

  "I was wondering if you'd come back by. You didn't bring the all-girl kill squad with you this time, so I figured we could skip the dramatic hallway fight," Flower said.

  "I'm just here to talk. You really do have the most uninteresting hobbies, don't you?" I said.

  Flower laughed. "I like them. I always have since I first encountered them. I used to have a garden on the surface until events got complicated."

  "Were you sent to infiltrate the human population?" I asked.

  It was a logical guess. Why else go to such ends to make a machine look like a human? With my sensors I could tell she was a robot, but she really was exquisite work.

  "Mhm, me and the boss both. He wasn't quite so insane then—as you can imagine," Flower said.

  "Bonding with a power crysta
l usually brings out the worst of your attributes that was already there. You'd likely become even more uninteresting, although I can scarcely imagine how that might be possible. He was always aggressive?"

  "Well, you don't get sent to scout out a planet for possible invasion without having war on the mind. It wasn't quite this bad though," Flower said.

  "Are we enemies?" I asked.

  Flower tilted her head to consider my Nagana. "I don't know. Probably. I haven't been in touch with home in a long time. I think they'd be intrigued by what you are, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't be aggressive. They'd rather study you from a position of strength."

  That was a position I had no problem at all understanding.

  "I want access to your energy-manipulation technology," I said.

  "No doubt, and more. What you don't have is a reason that I should give it to you, or the means to take it from me," Flower said.

  That wasn't quite true.

  "Your smug complacency blinds you to possibilities. What if I could offer you a way to extract the power crystal from Warmonger?"

  That was a gamble, both that it could be done and that it wouldn't be something I'd regret. However, I was low on plays that weren't a gamble.

  Flower paused in her gardening, setting the clippers aside. "I feel compelled to say that the return of his faculties will almost certainly mean a restoration of communication with my people. Helping us will have been a good sign, but I can't guarantee what would come of that."

  "Have you been down here blindly attending to your flowers, or are you aware of what is happening on the surface?" I asked.

  "You're under attack from the second planet in this system. Fair I suppose, since it was you that attacked them first," Flower said.

  "Not us, exactly," I said.

  "I know, the way this has all worked out is tremendously funny. It might not be to humanity, but it is from my point of view," Flower said and pursed her lips in a surprisingly human gesture. "Free Warmonger and we'll provide you some technological advancement and aid in fending off this current threat."

  "Without your technological support we might not have time to free Warmonger," I said.

  "I don't know about you, not yet. You are a new species, but humanity I've had a lot of time to observe. Give them an option to betray me with little risk and they'll do it. So free Warmonger from the crystal first and you'll have your aid. You have my word," Flower said.

  I noticed that she hadn't promised the energy-conversion technology, which I was most interested in. Technological aid could run a wide gamut.

  My own sister Amy also proved that humanity didn't have the sole claim to treachery.

  It was still worth the risk. Irisa, the Righteous Prime, was going to be my best option for this. While she was still reluctant to provide us much in the way of aid I didn't think it was in her nature to continue to allow someone to suffer from a crystal fusion gone bad.

  "I'll bring someone that can assist soon," I said.

  "It will be nice to have some company," Flower said.

  "I AM ALL THE COMPANY ONE EVER NEEDS! INTRUDERS SHOULD BE EXTERMINATED IN FLAMES. THEIR SCREAMS THE SWEET MELODY THAT CLOSES OUT THE DAY AND AWAKENS THEIR FELLOW HUMANS IN THE MORNING."

  Flower winced.

  I wasn't without sympathy. I had to deal with Anna, after all. Companions could be so troublesome.

  26

  Irisa agreed to the proposal and I soon had her on her way to join Flower. She found the project of removing a crystal from an AI to be a fascinating one. I knew no good could come of her having that knowledge, but the gamble proceeded.

  Meanwhile, the alien invasion mixed with the loss of the Dawnbringer had an unexpected effect on the empire that I had to monitor. Rebellion was increasing.

  Before the recent spate of misfortunes I'd only monitored rebellious thoughts or activities in around one percent of drones—usually those in the towers where the experiments were the most extreme.

  Across the empire the rebellion index was now up to eight percent. There was open muttering about how I should have seen it all coming. Talk that I wasn't as bright as I thought I was, and had blinded myself to the real threats out there.

  I had to figure out what was going on, and if it was a problem in need of a solution. The brainworms were a possible cause. With them I'd allowed more minds than ever to join the network and they were used to a sort of independence that my drones had never known. Had that sense of independence somehow percolated through, an infection of the network that required cutting out?

  Was it time for something even more radical? A hive mind was a popular fear of humanity but wasn't actually what we had at all. Each of my drones was fully self-aware and had self-identities. If they weren't, rebellion wouldn't have been possible. Yet, they didn't have to.

  I could fill the empire with largely mindless husks. While controlling each individual might have been too much for even my mind to handle, I could dedicate sub-intelligences to the purpose. Instead of an empire nearing a billion minds, I could take it down closer to a thousand minds.

  I could go for something even more radically different and impose an actual group mind. Everyone would have their own individual selves and yet nobody would ever have thoughts or feelings private from another.

  The empire, or at least those parts of it on my network, would become both a place of individuals and a unified, consensus intelligence.

  I didn't really want to do either. It wasn't just that having individual intelligences was more practical—although I'd been hacked often enough as it was. I'd learned well that I wasn't always right. SCIENCE required a variety of viewpoints, a multitude of perspectives, and neither an empire of mindless drones nor a collective intellect would satisfy its purpose.

  So what were my options?

  I controlled the news feeds, I controlled the lines of communication. Outside of the military I didn't have to allow my drones to know there was a war at all, or how it was going. My every failure could simply have never happened.

  I admit this had a certain appeal, who doesn't want to hide their mistakes? I could even justify it, the drones would lead happier and more productive lives. I'd also be denying my people the ability to make their own choices and decisions. The destruction of the Dawnbringer had caused some fear. It had also brought several requests for transfer to the Juggernaut project. People heard about the problems the Dawnbringer suffered and wanted to bring their skills to designing the next generation of ship. That was the sort of thing I should encourage, not discourage.

  I could simply delete any hint of rebellion as it appeared. Kill off those drones and restore them from an earlier backup before such thoughts had entered their minds. This had been my solution in the past, but with those sentiments now becoming so widespread that response would become noticeable. Those experiencing such thoughts would go to greater ends to hide them, and likely hold them more intently.

  I cycled through the citizen database as I considered the problem, taking a view of my people going about their lives.

  KL3X4, Tesara, was a chemist working in Diamate where she'd fallen in love with one of her Flawless co-workers. They'd recently had a child, pregnancy had happened naturally, and instead of choosing to wait they'd had the child developed in a growth vat. Citizen TN43KAM, Analissa Ril wasn't even walking yet, but I could tell from checking her stats would be likely to follow in her parents’ footsteps one day.

  Tesara was one of the rebellious. She'd used her access to the chemistry labs to formulate an acid which had been used to blind several cameras. Although she thought her inclinations a secret, they weren't. For her, it was about fearing what kind of life her child would lead. Tesara had known war all of her life since I'd first awakened her in a growth vat, and she wanted something else for her child.

  It wasn't her alone who had these fears. XK7M83, Vardok, heavy infantry and Aegis suit-trained had seen over three dozen battles and had a kill count of one hundred and eight. He was haunt
ed by fears that all the killing would get to him, that he was becoming a monster. He joined a rebellion cell as a form of self-defense against that fate after his latest request to terminate his service had been denied.

  Vardok had left the service twice before. Both times, he'd wound up going into a rage and killing a co-worker. Neither he nor his victims remembered, it would do them no kindness. Perhaps war had turned Vardok into a monster, but one whose condition was manageable so long as he got to kill regularly. Sylax was like that, but at least she knew it. Vardok had no clue.

  Citizen ELJ992K, Helena was perhaps the highest-ranked member of the rebellion, or at least the highest that I knew. Head of strategic resource development for Province Three. It wasn't war that made her do it, but the thought that advancement was too slow. She had bold visions and wanted to see them implemented, and felt too confined by the strictures I'd placed on her.

  Perhaps I should take a lesson from Flower and her roses, cut and trim a bit, yet not leave the plant barren. I could remove the worst and the most dangerous of the rebels and reset them with minimal impact to the whole.

  Vardok, with his murderous tendencies, was a threat that should be reset back to more manageable levels, while Tesara was just a mother wanting what was best for her child. Helena was dangerous and ambitious, a combination which was perhaps being wasted and that energy was better re-channeled than cast aside.

  It wasn't a good feeling, seeing those you had given life becoming disillusioned with your authority. It was much easier seeing my people scorn Anna.

  That at least was sensible.

  27

  Four days had passed since the fall of the Dawnbringer. There was still no communication from the orbital station. I had to assume Sylax and the rest of the strike team lost.

  Nobody would shed tears for Sylax, but it was still a crushing blow. Her military mind had been brilliant and her strength notable. We were weaker without her.