SG: Aurora #45 - Above and Beyond (Part Two of Nine)

Frobozz frobozz at eyrie.org
Sat May 27 17:30:55 PDT 2006


CONTINUED FROM PART ONE

    Level 440
    An little bit before the battle began...

    It hadn't been easy to wait for Peterson, Clark and DeVrai to lead
their troops out of the prison level. Part of him had wanted to rush out
and embrace old friends to reassure and to be reassured; to be part of
their plans and let them know that he was a part of the last, great push
to strike back at the enemy. No, he wanted them to know that he would be
a part rather than apart. A tiny, vain little corner of his soul wanted
nothign more than to be sure that posterity was sitting up and taking
notice of him.
    But fortunately the other part of his soul won out. It was the part
that knew the wounds he'd so recently taken were too fresh not to reopen
if jarred, and dealing with all the questions that would arise from his
emergence would certainly help unseal them.
    So he'd remained crouched in the jail cell into which an errant,
innocent wish had brought him; and he listened to the confused babble
outside as friends -- long separated -- reunited laid plans. That had
been a good chance to rest and recuperate from what he'd just been
through, though the lack of food in the cell had made the waiting much
harder than it would have otherwise been. Fortunately there had been a
sink from which to procure water, or else waiting simply wouldn't have
been an option.
    Then they were gone, spilling out and organizing themselves into the
groups that they loved so well. He didn't blame them for that... after
all, forming into packs was one of the best survival mechanisms any
lifeform on Earth had discovered. Only these packs could each cooperate
with the other as well as working on their own, taking them a step
beyond. He was proud of them. They'd do well in whatever they tried,
though he wasn't entirely clear what was going to happen. There'd been
too much noise for him to hear properly, and jail cells weren't exactly
known for their accoustic properties.
    He had waited a few moments after they'd gone off before opening the
cell -- what an embarassment it would have been had it been locked --
and stepped out while trying to remember his balance. Walking wasn't a
skill one forgot for too long, fortunately, and he picked up speed after
the initial wobble.
    As he'd hoped, Doctor Honeybear had his back to the cell as the man
treated his patients. Even better, both patients were out cold and any
attendants were out of the room. Perfect. That just left him and the
good doctor to... settle things.
    "Doctor," he said, trying for a confident tone of voice, but only
managing a croak for all his efforts. The sound was still enough to get
the doctor's attention and Honeybear turned, his eyes widening at what
he saw.
    "Well..." said the doctor, after a moment's stunned silence. "I can
honestly say I didn't expect to see you here."
    "I didn't really expect to be here either," replied the newcomer,
clearing a nest of frogs from his throat. "I don't think I have a lot of
time for chit-chat, though. I need privacy and a computer terminal, and
I need your silence."
    "O...kay. But why the silence thing? I can't think of anyone who'd be
unhappy to see you back."
    "I have my reasons," replied the newcomer, glancing around to assure
himself that She wasn't here. "Let's just say that I'm not up to seeing
people right now and there's one in particular I don't trust."
    "Right," replied Honeybear, with one fast check to make sure that
Treis and Wishstar would both remain stable for the time he'd be away.
"There's a corner office over that way. It had a terminal in it and just
special for you, venitian blinds. So you'll have all the peace and quiet
you can stand." The two walked over to the office, where the doctor
turned and offered his hand. "May I say sir, no matter how unexpected
this is... it -is- good to see you again."
    Doyle considered the doctor's hand uncertainly before clasping it,
nodding. "Thanks. Now if you'd excuse me, I have a friend to check up
on. He may be trying to do something stupid."
    "Got it," replied Honeybear, holding back a torrent of questions that
wanted out. How had Doyle come to be here, whom did he not trust, why
was he looking as if he'd just had a late night coffee and conversation
with a ghost; and so many other questions, but the time just wasn't
right to ask them. Doyle had made that abundantly clear. "Good luck,
sir."
    Doyle nodded and stepped inside the office. It was everything he'd
hoped for: small, neat, private and computer-accessable. Just what he
needed right now to do his business and to ward off questions. And there
was much business to be done.
    First, contact Xenophon. The other Computer Intelligence had never
really recovered from losing Aleph Behn and ever since, he had been
looking for something else that would give him a purpose in life. That
impulse was both good and bad: good in that it might eventually lead to
a full reform of the entity; and bad in that it could lead him to do
some terribly destructive things in the name of finding his purpose.
Doyle hoped that Xenophon had followed the instinct of the angels and
had been helping the Aurorans since the two of them had broken contact;
and he hoped that that help wasn't going to prove a double-edged sword.
    Second, Doyle knew that he needed to find Her. Find the bitch who had
broken his heart and betrayed his trust and make sure that she didn't
have her hooks into anyone -else-. He needed to stop Colleen, no two
ways about it. Doyle tried to tell himself that it wasn't personal; and
he almost managed to believe it.
    Third, he needed to find out what Peterson's plan was and help any
way he could.
    And last... well. Last was getting on with his life. That was the one
that seemed the most daunting, but fortunately he didn't have to focus
on it right now. Thank Elvis for crises.
     Reaching out, Doyle rested his hand against the computer. There was
another reason why he'd wanted privacy right now: too many questions
about what he was doing could get annoying. And could break his
concentration. And could make him snap at people who didn't deserve it.
    Doyle focused, breathed in... and as he'd know he would, he found
himself drifting back into the computer network which, until very
recently, had been his only home.

***

    Sometimes things just don't end the way that they began. Some days
you can have the perfect plan of ambush, execute it flawlessly and
despite their initial setback your adversary somehow manages to execute
a tactical judo throw and turn the battle back on you until you're
clinging to survival by your fingernails.
    Some days that happens. But today was not that day. Though Clark's
forces were slow in leapfrogging towards the Borealleans, DeVrai's units
managed to pick up the slack and advance more quickly upon the enemy,
harrying the troops to keep them from getting comfortable in their
rabbit warrens. In fact, Clark's lateness turned into a blessing in
disguise as DeVrai's forces managed to push the Borealleans back,
straight into Clark's troops. Close quarters indicated sidearms should
be used rather than missiles, and the pincer turned the battle into a
slow grindery of attrition. The only thing working against Aurora were
their ammunition stores, which had already been woefully depleated by
their scramble up the Beanstalk and which were now being worn down to a
nub by this battle. But Aurora troops had been well-trained to make each
and every shot count, and they were executing that fire doctrine with as
much precision as the shifting tides of battle would allow.
    Something caught the attention of an Aurorean trooper and he paused,
hunkering down behind cover to catch a glimpse of it without being shot
to pieces for his inattention. What he saw made him catch his breath,
but he was disciplined enough to immediately punch his commo live.
    "Sir!" he yelled, continuing to keep his head low to keep it safely
on its neck where he liked it best. "Looks like we didn't lure everyone
into the party! We have units circling in from entry-point three!"
    "Smart," murmured DeVrai as he glanced that way. Though they were
mostly hull-down and sneaking, his suit's sensors -- active now, rather
than on the crippling passives that had kept him safe from detection but
blind -- were able to pick out a unit of Borealleans moving towards a
decent tail-nailing position. "Clark, I'll hold our engagement here.
You're closer to the newcomers."
    "Roger," replied Clark, signalling his units to begin an orderly
withdrawl in the direction of the new enemies. With luck, they wouldn't
have had time to figure out what frequency Aurora was using this hour
and wouldn't know that they'd been spotted until they had been engaged.
Clark hated having to trust to Dame Luck again but sometimes that was
the only valid strategy. "You keep our dance-partners entertained, you
hear? We don't want our dates going home saying that they didn't have a
good time at the cotillion."
    DeVrai chuckled over the net. "Roger that. Give 'em Hell(tm)."
    Clark nodded even though DeVrai couldn't see the gesture, and led his
units towards the new contact. He took a quick inventory as he crept
along... three of his units were out of the fight, and four more were
badly enough off that they'd be out of things soon enough. He signaled
the latter to take the rear and thus the least risk. He hated losing
anyone, but his losses thus far had been blessedly light. Clark
suspected that DeVrai had taken more casualties than he had, which would
have triggered his guilt glands if not for the fact that here he was,
about to throw himself and his into full-on combat with an unknown
enemy. There was time enough to bathe everyone with blood. There always
was.
    Luck gave out before Clark's troops reached their positions, but Lady
Murphy was kind enough not to yank the rug out from under them until the
very last minute. The new Borealleans tumbled to the Aurorean approach
before they could get into a comfortable engagement position and
immediately turned a blistering hailstorm of fire on their approaching
enemies. Clark ordered his men to drop behind cover and start to pick
targets. Fortunately the range was sufficient that Clark could risk
launching part of his squad's missile payload at the enemies, which
helped keep the Borealleans hurting. Sadly, he had to spend more
missiles than he liked on Fraternizing and Fratriciding duty as the
opposing forces proved that they had packed their missile loads that
morning too.
    Clark smiled without humour as one of his scout units managed to take
out an enemy salvo of micro-missiles that had been arcing their way. He
took the opportunity to fire at an enemy he managed to sight through the
explosion. Yes, he thought as he ducked down to just barely miss being
struck by a return salvo, there would be more than enough blood to cover
everyone, soon...

***

    Clarisse loved her leader with all her heart. All of the leader's
Downlines felt the same and appreciated the world that she made
possible. The leader took care of them, ensured that they were never
hungry, spelled them when they were tired and never pushed them past
their limits. The leader never took out her anger on underlings and
rewarded competence more than she punished failure. Clarisse would
follow her leader anywhere; but she had a guilty secret. Clarisse hated
being -around- her leader, and wished that she'd never been Uplined high
enough to work almost directly under her.
    It had only been a week before the invasion was to proceed that
Clarisse had been rewarded for her work in counter-security by being
Uplined to Pearl. Her value to the operation had been noted and their
glorious leader had hand-picked Clarisse to come along to do her part
for the cause, a chance that Clarisse had seized at with both hands. It
had been frightening at first, especially being surrounded by so many
armed Boreallean guards, but once she'd been put to work at breaking
into the Aurorean computers Clarisse had been able to relax and even
enjoy herself. There was nothing that put her at ease more than a good
challenge and she had had more than her share on -this- mission.
    But the times that she had felt... uneasy... had been those times
when her leader -- their leader -- had been looking over her shoulder,
chatting her up, or just generally being -around-. Clarisse had had to
resist the urge to wince every time a hand fell on her shoulder so that
she could be paid a kind word or a compliment for good work.
    Clarisse knew that this was ungrateful behaviour in a Downline and
she had tried, really tried, to get over her problems in the best way
she knew how: by analyzing them. She had finally figured out that what
made her most uncomfortable was just how young her leader was, which
didn't jibe well at all with the maturity with which each and every
order she gave was punctuated. Well, there was nothing that either she
or her leader could do about the age issue, so Clarisse had done her
best to ignore it and pretend that the problem simply didn't exist.
    That pretense was made all the easier by the interesting challenge
with which she'd been presented. The Beanstalk's computer system was
almost completely compromised except for a very few holdout systems
which she suspected were being held by two belligerant AIs doing their
best to slow her progress. It sickened Clarisse to see just how much
this world -trusted- AIs with sensitive data and didn't even try to keep
them in check. Once her people had established their beach-head on this
world, she hoped that she would be allowed to work on a Final Solution
to the AI Problem that this planet faced. It would be hard work, but
Clarisse had already made signifigant inroads into the matter. With the
help of several of her Downlines and their tamed Expert Intelligences,
Clarisse had managed to retailor the AI Dreadnaught virus that had been
used against those damned alien AIs several years back to work on Terran
systems. Fortunately she had had access to an Apple Powerbook and, for
some reason that could not be fathomed, those computers somehow made the
translation from human to alien or back again an almost trivial
operation.
    Clarisse smiled to herself as she checked the figures she was getting
back from her killer viruses: shield control was still locked up, but
the dimensional interface which represented the only passage from
001SUPERGUY to 000SUPERGUY and vice versa had just come back under her
control. The one chokepoint that had prevented the full force of 001's
occupation force from flowing through had finally been opened wide and
was ready to allow through this world's liberators. They would bring to
this world order, peace and most important of all (to Clarisse at
least!), a freedom from the electronic demons who haunted its
informational systems. She was sad that their original, stealthy plan
had been scutted as a result of underestimating Aurora's preparedness;
but they still had enough cards in their hands to make occupation of
this world possible. Sleeper agents who had been sneaked through in the
first, heady days of trans-universal fellowship had managed to send back
valuable data about the protectors of this world (and their adversaries,
who would become protectors the moment an outside threat was discovered)
and their disposition. Weaknesses, needs, alliances and hatreds; all of
these could be subverted and used against a known foe. What few sleeper
agents 001 had active on this world would be able to strategically
neutralize some of the more powerful or active superguys by dint of
assassinations, blackmail and promises while Aurora's informational
assets were used to scramble communications across the world and prevent
coordination between already fractuous heroes. Old rivalries would be
reignited and old slights would be used to break down bonds wherever
they could be severed.
    And then there were the supers. Oh yes, 001 had its share to bring
into play. The superbeings had not come through in the first wave
because it had been a time meant for stealth; those who had altiversal
counterparts on this world who could be easily supplanted would have
been inserted into position as fifth columnists and the rest would
simply wait until their power was needed. And those powers would be
needed, too, as this world boasted some truly powerful heroes and
villains, some empowered almost beyond belief.
    Of course, so did 001. Clarisse's finger hovered over her screen,
tapping it idly with a fingernail. She had broken an enemy computer
system, modified a virus that could wipe out even the most pernicious of
AI, and brought the Beanstalk under her heel. Now came the -hard- part.
Now she had to get her leader's attention and give her report.
    "Sir, I--" she began, turning to catch her glorious leader's eye. As
she did, Clarisse was interrupted by another voice, one belonging to
someone who didn't feel nearly as reluctant to speak to his uplink as
Clarisse. She fell silent and hated herself for her problem expressing
herself, biding her time until she could make herself heard.
    "Sir!" cried out the other voice. "We're getting reports from
four-four-four. That transmission we intercepted was a trap! They're
been ambushed and..." The speaker trailed off as he listened to a report
from the battle that was going on below, then continued. "They're facing
signifigant opposition, sir. At least two-thirds of what we thought
Aurora -began- with. If they split in half, they've come back together
again."
    "Yes," replied their leader, compressing her lips together as she
stared at nothing for a moment. "Are our people holding their own?"
    "Yes sir, but barely. They anticipate an eventual overrun, but not
without making the Auroreans feel like they've been in a battle."
    "Two-thirds," murmured the leader, frowning as she considered her
next course of action. "I'm not certain how they managed to reunite, if
the numbers are correct and not a panicked fabrication, they've managed
to pull off quite a trick right under our noses. Which might suggest
that they stopped to offload some of their wounded and moved on for a
last, desperate attack. Or it's possible that..." She frowned, then
nodded. "Yes. Peterson's a fairly cunning fellow and quite capable of
ruthlessness when the needs be. I'm guessing that the remaining one
third, however battered and bruised they are, are waiting in the wings
to move in and wipe out our troops down there."
    "Double-ambush?"
    "It's what makes sense, given what we know about these individuals."
replied the leader, a trace of a sigh in her voice. "We should have
realised that their breaking radio silence was a trick. I just wanted so
much to put an -end- to this madness and bloodshed that I let myself
slip into wishful thinking."
    "It's not your fault, sir," replied the technician who had made the
report. "After all, none of us said anything either."
    I did, thought Clarisse, wincing inwardly. Or at least I'd thought it
pretty hard. Why couldn't you have been a telepath instead of a
speedstress, the mousey tech groused before blanching. Oh that would be
so much worse, since then her traitorous thoughts would have been out in
the open for her leader to read. Not that this would have led to
censure; in fact, that would have been the worst part of it. Her leader
would likely have forgiven her, moved on, but Clarisse.. no. Clarisse
would never have forgiven -herself- and knowing that her leader knew
would just make it -worse-.
    "Be that was it may," continued the leader, completely unphased by
Clarisse's silent protests. "Send half our forces down. Let's see if we
can't turn this disaster into a counter-punch."
    "Yes sir. Though I must warn, that's going to leave us with a lighter
security detail than I'm comfortable with..."
    "We'll all just have to hold our security blankets that much
tighter," replied the uplink and Upline of them all. "Don't leave
command completely uncovered, but send down what we can. This is our
chance to break Aurora's back... and possibly prevent future bloodshed
at the cost of a few drops spilled now."
    Now, thought Clarisse. Now was her chance. As the technician leaned
over to turn their leader's wish into command, Clarisse cleared her
throat.
    "Sir..."
    "Yes, Clarisse?" asked the leader, turning her painfully intense gaze
upon she who hated it most. "Do you have something for me? Good news,
maybe?"
    "Yes sir... we've uncovered the interface."
    Their leader's face could have glowed, it was that radiant. To her
horror, Clarisse realised that she was about to become the victim of a
shoulder-clasp. She did her best to avoid stiffening as she was proved
right.
    "Clarisse, you've made me very happy. How long will it take to
establish a connection?"
    "Not long... not long, sir," she stammered, focusing hard on her
answer. "No more than half an hour, and most of that's just... making
sure we understand how it works from this side."
    "Yes, it's a shame that our precious little Colleens couldn't have
built things in exactly the same way. Will having our gracious engineer
up there help at all?"
    "Yes," replied Clarisse, nodding just a little bit too much. She
forced herself to stop before she could resemble a dookie bird. "She
should at least be familiar with the design philosophy..."
    "Then get her up there. I think she's mooned over her poor Mr Doyle
for long enough. A little hard work might take her mind off of things. I
want that gateway open as soon as possible. I want enough forces brought
through that we can take care of anyone outside the Beanstalk
post-haste."
    "Yes sir," replied Clarisse, as she bent over her console to comply,
then paused. "Oh, and enough people to... to mop up in here too?"
    "No," replied their leader with a shrug. "No, we have someone else
who will see to that. He may be overkill at the moment, but really,
that's the best sort of weapon to have."
    "Yes sir," she replied, grateful to be getting back to work again. It
elated Clarisse to realise that she could trace their victory over 000
directly back to her performance here... oh yes, it was a cooperative
effort, but it would be something she could brag about to her
grandchildren one day.
    She just wondered who was going to take care of mop-up. As far as
Clarisse knew, aside from Aurora, Boreallas and her people, there was no
one else in the Beanstalk...

***

CONTINUED IN PART THREE

---
-Chris
frobozz at eyrie.org
http://www.eyrie.org/~frobozz

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