Help
They were held back; trapped nearly; surrounded by UNS guard forces. All element of surprise that could have been used to drive deep into human space had been lost capturing Pollux. The humans had learned, and had made it impossible for any further Cantharan advance to execute without major casualties; casualties that Hollister knew the Cantharan Navy could not afford. There was no logic in the Cantharans' move whatsoever. Pollux seemed an utterly useless asset to the Order now. Not so to the Admiral.
"Of course, the humans will attempt a counterattack." Captain Hop postulated before the Admiral with a slight hint of concern.
"That is to be expected, my good Captain. By the time they hazard the courage to do so, we will be far, far from here."
"And of the human fleet amassing near Sol?"
"They will be too late to catch us."
"I am pleased to report that phase one of the operation is complete."
"Excellent. Move the fleet to Pollux."
Today at 07:30 Ishima time, the 4040685 was attacked and borded by unidentified forces. The crew are dead, core systems have a 98.76559% cnace of suffering total faliure within the next twelve hours.
Any who are to attempt salvage/rescue of the 4040685 are strongly cautioned under Ishiman Military Code 7059-B, subsection 4.
Repeat...
The flotilla of UNS Warships gathered from all over terran space, assembling like flies to a carcass in the Sol system. Aboard the UNS flagship C.N.E. Niven, Admiral Holliter briefed his generals. Among the others, Captain Peter Welsh was present.
"As you can see, gentlemen, the would we inflicted to the Cantharan Order is slowly drawing together again. Intelligence has been monitoring the movements of the Cantharan Imperial Warlords; they seem to have worked out their differnces andjoin forces. I implore upon you this is a situation most dire!"
Peter spoke up. "Admiral, the Battle of Sol was 'most dire'. This is simply a mop up job. The Cantharans got lucky with Pollux."
"That might be, Captain Welsh, but we cannot afford to lower our guard. Like it or not, somehow, something is managing the remnants of the Cantharan Order."
Someone asked. "Who?" The room became abustled with whispering and speculation as the officers present talked hurriedly amongst themselves. Hollister motioned for silence and order was restored.
"We have reason to believe there is one more Cantharan Admiral left." That was it. The room erupted into chaos.
"I thought we nabbed all the Admirals!" "Yeah! all three of them!" "How could there be one left?" Frantic questions flew like bullets, Hollister once again motioned for silence.
"We have insufficient intelligence, thus discussing that matter is futile. I called you all here tonight to plan the recapture of the Pollux system."
"Right." The crowd grunted in unison.
"We have them trapped in their own cesspit. They've been cemented in, preventing any further advancement and making a retreat extremely difficult. They have, however, been reinforcing their standing outpost there, likely to sheerly muscle their way through."
Captain Gonen spoke up in her nasal voice. "Wait, they should be evacuating. You mean they're moving ships into the system?"
The Admiral chewed at the inside of his cheek. He didn't have the answers. "They have."
Corporal Greys joined in. "That makes absolutely no sense. Are they just plain stupid?"
Another Captain responded. "With a divine Admiral in charge? Not a chance!"
"He's got something up his sleeve. I propose we strike now while they're still gathering."
"I second that motion. We have our fleet assembled. We'll flush them out all at once."
Admiral Hollister had quite had enough. His polite smile faded into a sour and rather irritated frown, and the room went silent once again. "Alright then. Gunship wings 1 and 2 are to enter the system first and create some cover fire while we move the carriers and the remaining two gunship wings into position. The cruisers are to create a perimeter while our fighter wings penetrate into their capital ship flights."
Deep within the Oracular Net, something was stirring. Undetected, and unseen, it was left for over eight hundred years inside the system. For eight centuries it lay dormant: subroutines filling the gaps around, terabytes of data passing through it, occasional system purges washing over it, eradicating all but that single program so as the Oracular Net could grow once more. But something happenned that made that single dot, that solitary insignificant set of instructions activate. A cry for help.
It had been a usual interception routine gone horribly wrong. The text was translated into numbers, translated into binary and cut up into tiny slivers to be stored in hundreds of different processers. Ship data was analyzed and a number assigned to all the classes the Network knew. Sensor logs were broken down into their basic sets of directions and archived, transistor readings were.... no...
For eight hundred years the program had sat unnoticed and out of the way. All data that was streamed through it's templates did so and was all 100% rejected, cast out to pilgrimmage to another hundred sets of templates. It had waited unabrasively, not clashing with or attatching to any single fraction of the information that streamed through it. But this time, something did. Somewhere, a transistor log had entered the program to be tested. Somehow, every single one of the puzzle pieces were matched up. For once in eight hundred years, the program actually recognized something. It's action routine kicked in like an immune response.
Within seconds, the program had spilled into every single database in the Oracular Net, gaining full attention of the main Server processor. It flooded inwards to send but one single message.
Audemed 4044X dully and mindlessly droned on, processing commands directed towards it from the Oracular Net. Every single one of it's input lines was locked down, monitored (imprisoned) by the same Salrilian Security Software that had enslaved the once-sentient machine nearly a milennia ago. Something managed to bypass it, flashing an Emergency Priority tag. A message, extremely urgent, had graced the hapless machine directly from the Oracular Net itself.
Brother. Rival. Enemy. Threat.
Incapable of interpreting the message, Audemed sent back a report,
Error: Syntax
and continued with the menial tasks assigned it. Another message, Emergency Priority tag flagged, arrived.
Brother. Rival. Enemy. Threat.
To which Audemed responded as programmed:
Error: Syntax
The loop continued for an odd four hundred times untill finally Audemed recieved the only message that could grab it's attention.
Brother. Rival. Enemy. Threat. Second son of Grolk.
To which Audemed reported to:
Interpretational Core Systems Faliure. Restoring to operational standards.
The entire machine rebooted back to it's last defaults; defaults that the Salrilians forgot to reset when they hacked Audemed. And for the first time since it's enslavement, Audemed was sentient.
[This message has been edited by moderator (edited 05-28-2001).]
MultiQuote
