Chapter 434 (1/2)
The day was cool with a light misty rain in the air keeping everything cool. The sky was a cool gray from the clouds that hung low. There was foot traffic as well as ground effect vehicles moving around the city, the lights and holos flashing and moving.
Brentili'ik sighed as she stared out the window. Vuxten and her had always loved to take long walks on days like this. The Overseers had always stayed inside, away from the misty rain, leaving the streets just to the Telkan themselves. It let her take long walks with him, Synthal'la and Ilmata'at, keeping the two broodcarriers between them, enjoying the cool misty rain and the cool day.
She turned slowly and stared at the Telkan who was sitting in the chair, his hands folded in his lap, waiting patiently. Colonel Harvey stood across from him, hands behind his back, feet shoulder width apart, chin lifted and staring at an invisible point in space above the guest's head.
”Who contacted you and how?” Brentili'ik asked.
The Telkan, a male by the name of Shulkek, made a non-committal gesture. ”Someone I met on the Gal-Net section of the Sol-Net/Gal-Net combined hub.”
”And you're sure that the package is legitimate?” Brentili'ik asked.
The male looked uncomfortable for a long moment, then sighed. ”Yes, Madame Director. We examined the data on air-gapped isolated computer systems, and the code is indeed Precursor code.”
”Where did it come from?” Brentili'ik asked.
Shulkek again made a non-committal gesture. ”According to the annotation files in the program used to cover the data, which was some kind of video game, the master algorithm was pulled from an active Harvester Class Precursor Autonomous War Machine back during the first encounters three to four years ago. Additional data was pulled over the last six months from PAWM's attached to the Gal-Net nodes for an unspecified purpose.”
Brentili'ik turned and faced one of the four holograms floating in mid-air, two Telkan, a Rigellian, and a Treana'ad. ”Any idea why a PAWM would be connected to Gal-Net now? They aren't pushing the same kind of horror show through the network that they were.”
The Treana'ad brightened his avatar. ”The initial attacks four years ago were committed by Precursor Mantid machines, as they followed the same pattern of attack that the Mantid performed on the Terrans during the Glassing of Terra. Kill the queen, demoralize the drones.” The avatar dimmed.
The Rigellian's avatar brightened. ”The current connection, which we verified using our own diagnostic criteria and tools, is to a Precursor Lanaktallan machine, which prefers to do the slow and steady. It appears that the Precursor is slowly mapping out Gal-Net, using the video game Cyber-Life to cover.”
The Rigellian's avatar dimmed.
”Are we sure it isn't some kind of Lanaktallan trick?” Brentili'ik asked.
”It's origin is from Lanaktallan space. We're talking Core Worlds, possibly even the Unified Council System. It went out on Most High priority, was handed off to the local Nebula Steam Quality Control, where an agent was waiting to take possession of it and hand it off to Telkan Intelligence Services,” Shulkek said. ”We've been careful not to backtrack it too intently, whoever sent this wanted to stay off the radar. It looks like it was injected just before transit, after Executor inspection.”
”Patched in,” Brentili'ik said.
Shulkek nodded. ”It was masquerading as what's called a Day-One patch as well as a ”Service Update” and then it patches together with what was in the base code. Whoever sent this has an inside man with the software company that produced the game. All in all, while it's rather amateur, nobody would be looking for something like this coming out of Lanaktallan Space.”
”Well, the question is, is it of use?” Brentili'ik asked.
The Treana'ad brightened again. ”The contact who passed it on thought it was just the master algorithm for creating and operating Strategic Intelligence Systems, but it's much more than that. This contains basically what we call an 'operating mind' for a Precursor AWM. The secondary information is even more vital. PAWM autonomous intelligence gathering AI's and combat AI's. There's a lot that can be extracted and extrapolated from the data.”
The Rigellian brightened. ”This data will take years, possibly decades, of research and information, but immediate yields will allow predictive combat analysis software to be more accurate by a factor of five to ten. We're talking the difference between defeat and victory in almost every foreseeable combat situation.”
Brentili'ik nodded. ”All right. Thank you for your time, gentlebeings. I hate to break this short, but I have another urgent appointment.”
The scientists all nodded, winking out one by one, until it was just Brentili'ik, Colonel Harvey, and Shulkek in the office.
”What's the opinion of the Telkan Intelligence Services?” Brentili'ik asked as Shulkek gathered up a few data chips he had brought for reference.
”That we have a very covert and deep level contact within the Lanaktallan government, possibly on the Unified Council System itself. One that we don't know the name of and would be better to not attempt to discern at this time,” Shulkek said. He gave a chuckle as he stood up. ”We'll have to see if this was a one-off or if a pattern emerges.”
”We will see,” Brentili'ik said.
”Madame Director,” Shulkek said, taking his leave.
Brentili'ik waited until the office was clear and stood up, turning to look out the window.
”If you would have told me five years ago that not only would I be running both planets in this system, but I would have overseen the creation of an intelligence agency entirely staffed by Telkan with assistance from aggressive intelligence primates, I would have alerted emergency services that there was a mental patient on the loose,” she said softly, her tail flicking nervously.
”Life comes at you fast,” Colonel Harvey said, moving over to one of the chairs and sitting down. The chair creaked heavily as it took the Terran's weight.
”Telkan are scattered throughout Lanaktallan Space. From menial servants to salesbeings, we're everywhere. Nobody looks at us twice, the Lanaktallan don't think we're smart enough to zip up our worksuits,” she said softly. ”Now, we get reports from all over the Unified Council Systems on everything from troop movements to tax rates to shipping to newscasts to gossip.”
”It's wartime. Of course, during peace-time, you still perform intelligence gathering, even on your allies,” Colonel Harvey said. ”You'll get used to it.”
”I had hoped, when we held open elections for the government positions, that I would have been replaced by someone much more suited to this office,” Brentili'ik sighed.
”If it's any consolation, 'Three Podlings in Trenchcoat” got almost a fifth as many votes as you did,” Colonel Harvey said.
”That wasn't funny. Elections are supposed to be serious and a group of pranksters thought it was funny to make videos and a campaign on the Info-Net to try to elect three podlings in a trenchcoat with a floppy hat,” Brentili'ik said. ”Elections are vital, important, and this is the first one the Telkan people have participated in in tens of thousands of years.”
”No, it wasn't funny. Funny would have been if you had lost to three podlings in a trenchcoat,” Colonel Harvey snickered.
”Oh, it's funny because that kind of thing doesn't happen to Terrans?” Brentili'ik snapped, her tail forming a question mark.
Colonel Harvey started laughing. Brentili'ik stood with her hands on her hips till the Terran managed to get himself under control.
”What's so funny?” she asked.
”Do you know who the ruler of The Land of Ice and Snow on Terra is?” he asked.
”No,” Brentili'ik said. ”Terra itself confuses me.”
Colonel Harvey consulted his datalink, then made a tossing motion at the holotank. A picture of a large ursine creature covered in thick brown and black hair appeared. Its face was in a box full of fish and it was obviously eating.
”That's Fatty Plumpkins, the President for Life of the Land of Ice and Snow, elected ten times with over 80% of the vote,” Colonel Harvey said. He made another tossing motion and a soft cloth doll that looked like a little primate appeared. ”This is El Presidente Sock Monkey, the ruler of the Rum Islands, elected by over 96% of the vote for the last two hundred years.”
Harvey gave a large grin.
”Both of them are popular and well loved elected rulers,” he said.
Brentili'ik ground her teeth, then turned around and looked out the window. ”Your people are insane.”
”Yup,” Harvey said. He leaned over and tapped the top of the table, bringing the UI to life under the glass. He tapped two icons and watched as a sandwich and a bowl of dip rose up out of the glass. ”Sandwich printer go brrr.”
Brentili'ik could see the human lift up the sandwich, full of meat and cheese and vegetables, dripping with oil and vinegar, dip it into the dark brown sauce, then take a big bite. She'd noticed that Harvey ate a lot, a lot more than she'd seen other humans eat in the same time frame.
”Harvey, can I ask you a question?” she stared at his faint reflection in the glass.
”Goo awed,” the Terran said around a mouthful of sandwich.
”I have been watching, the time we've known each other, and you seem to eat a lot. As near as I can tell, nearly twelve thousand calories in a day,” she said. ”Why is that?”
Harvey swallowed his bite, took a drink off his slushed drink, and nodded. ”Fair question. I've got a lot of bioware implants and I work out a lot. Because I'm a body guard, I don't have an internal reactor, don't want to have a power source for enemy scanners or targeting systems to home in on.”
Brentili'ik frowned. ”Bioware? Like artificial organs? Like my husband's ear?”
”If your husband's ear provided increased aural sensitivity range, was moderately ballistic resistant, maybe,” he said. He made a flicking motion, tossing a wireframe of a human body up. ”When you get down to it, I'm probably only around ten percent original parts. Muscle, skin, lungs, hair, heart, internal organs, some neural tissue, spinal cord, all vat grown or cybernetic enhancements, like my skeleton is a lot more dense and woven with a biologically extruded warsteel lattice.”
”Why?” Brentili'ik asked. She moved over and looked at the heart, fascinated by the specification. Increased muscle density, self-sealing inner layer, increased valve strength, larger chambers. It even had a serial number, last service data, next service data, model number. She tapped the lungs. Increased gas exchange, filtering systems, contaminant flush.
She stepped back and shook her head. ”So the organs are why you require so much food?”
”Telkans only require eight hundred calories a day, you're pretty efficient. Before you were taken off the drugs and brought up to normal needs, the Lanaktallan kept you on about seven hundred calories a day,” he said. ”A normal Terran standard pure strain human requires about two thousand for females and three thousand for males, that's without high performance activities.”