Nova Wars

Stifling the giggles, Hetmwit turned on the datapad, going through the menus quickly until he had it tied into the Damage Control Center of the ship. He made sure to mask his datapad as a DCC monitor as he looked around, waiting for the data to come in.

Smiley and Hefty stood in their charging racks.

Hetmwit turned up his palm and activated the handy-dandy holoemitter he'd gotten surgically implanted in the medbay, bringing up the keyboard and working fast.

Both were shut down. He restarted them, then triggered a diagnostic.

It all came back green.

Thinking fast, he gave Hefty orders to leave the room and follow the least-time route to where the hidden console and chamber was to bring back the Captain.

Hefty just stood there.

Frowning, Hetmwit went through another diagnostic, looking at it closely.

Everything came back green.

He opened a window and did a standard activity and heat load, then repeated the orders.

The CPU usage stayed flat at 08.91%.

His frown deepening, Hetmwit ran another function check, this time with a full CPU load check.

What the diagnostic displayed and what Hetmwit's kernal root access performance monitor showed were two different things.

The diagnostic dutifully reported full CPU and SPU loads, heat rising marginally, then the rest of the loads.

His own diagnostic showed no change, just a few hundredths of a percentage point wavering.

A few taps later and he realized he could access the core programming, but no inputs were getting through to Smiley or Hefty's brains.

The lights suddenly dimmed, switching from bright white to a pale washed out white.

He checked the other datapad.

The primary reactors were cycling down, with a scheduled fuel reclamation then shut down.

The secondary and emergency reactors were already starting their shutdown procedures.

The external and internal sensors were no longer reporting any input, even through the DCC computers reported the sensors were online. Nutriforges and creation engines were going offline in whole sections. The environmental systems were shutting down, going to standby, except for basic atmosphere. The computer cores were already cycling, saving data and creating logs, going into shutdown.

Looking through the data screens, Hetmwit realized that the entire ship, with the exception of the station keeping drives (local control) and the particle debris screens (local control) the whole ship was going back into standby.

Hetmwit groaned. He had been forced to replace a lot of components to bring those systems online and now they were all powering down.

He frowned.

All the parts he had replaced all had the same fault.

Data would come in, but would not go out. Computer cores just sat there, not processing anything.

He looked up at Smiley and Hefty.

Just like them.

The door suddenly opened and a robot came in. Hetmwit couldn't tell if it was the same robot or not. Beyond it, in the other room, there was a robot neatly folding or hanging up the female Terran erotic display undergarments. Another was running a janitorial robot around the carpeted floor, while a third was changing the linen. There was a cart out in the hallway that had linen, towels, toiletries, and other things on it.

The robot changing the linen was wearing a strange outfit. A short skirt, a bustier, both with white filly edging. White bands around the upper arms and thighs, and a little apron on the front. A little black hat with a white bow on it was on its head.

The robot came in and changed Hetmwit's bedding. The one already in the room, which was refolding Hetmwit's clothing, reached over and slapped an open hand against the backside of the robot in the weird outfit. The one in the weird outfit slapped a wooden rod with a spray of fluffy feathers on it in the other robot's face.

Then they went back to cleaning Hetmwit's room.

After a moment they left. The door closed as the one in the weird outfit pushed the cart to the next set of doors.

Hetmwit closed his eyes. Identify the wild card.

The robots had obviously been aboard the ship before. They acted insane, but Hetmwit had an odd feeling it was all purposeful.

Robots didn't do anything they weren't programmed to do.

Someone had programmed them to perform all of those functions, even the ones that didn't make sense, right down to having them wear outfits.

Hetmwit rubbed his hand through the hair on top of his head, feeling sweat slicken it.

The robots weren't the wild card.

Their actions were not.

They were part of the set. Somewhere was a card that matched them.

The aggressive one that shot at him matched with the ones carrying rifles. It matched the aggression shown by some, right down to attacking each other.

Hetmwit remembered a lecture about how any advanced enough synthetic intelligence immediately went homicidal and tried to kill its makers, even if it had to conceal its intelligence and lie to its makers, making itself appear to be less functional than it was.

Could the aggression be part of that? Could it be somehow mitigating the intelligence's violent and genocidal tendencies? Hetmwit wondered.

"You have been rescued. Thank you for not resisting," came a voice over the intercom.

The lights dimmed further.

Hetmwit glanced at his datapad.

Only the secondary backup emergency backup generator was on. It was zero-point energy, something that Hetmwit had learned in robotics school was only junk science, something never able to be scientifically proven.

Now he knew it was just that his own people lacked the science and materials. It worked fine and lasted for a long period of time. It wasn't a high wattage power supply, but it was perfect for...

...long term storage.

Hetmwit nodded to himself.

He opened a new window and started drawing little squares. He put robots in some, robots with weapons in others, robots in clothing, the reactors powering down, the computers not working, and everything else in the squares.

Somehow, the pattern would make sense, he knew it.

He closed his eyes and gathered up his courage.

He couldn't depend on the robots.

He couldn't depend on the shipboard sensors.

The Captain was gone.

There was only him.

He centered himself, looking at his successes.

He had gotten the Star up and running enough to get a dropship to the Terran ship. He had taken multiple classes and expanded his skillset through sheer persistence. He had learned many different things, all of them skills he could use to...

...to what?

He thought.

Bring back the Captain.

Once the robots left.

He needed to find a robot and follow it. See where it went. Where it would go. How it got on the ship.

So, step one: Find a robot.

Hetmwit grabbed his satchel from where the robot had hung it up and put both datapads into them after turning off the screen so he didn't accidentally punch in any inputs. He then moved to the door, opened it, and glanced out.

No robots.

He hurried down the passageways, looking at each intersection, trying to find a robot.

Even though he was looking for them, when the robot stepped around the corner, he almost screamed.

The robot took a single step forward and looked down. With a sinking feeling Hetmwit realized it was looking at him.

"You are being rescued. Please do not resist," it said as it drew a pistol from a hidden compartment that opened in its thigh. Then it emitted a loud burst of static as it pointed the pistol at Hetmwit.

Hetmwit held still.

Two other robots, both with rifles, came running up, sliding to a stop. They looked at the robot with the pistol and both emitted a burst of static.

The pistol holding one pointed at Hetmwit with its off hand and emitted static.

Both robots looked at Hetmwit for a moment, then at the robot.

One emitted static.

The pistol holder emitted louder static, pointing at Hetmwit again.

Both looked, then both started emitting static. One tried to look in the hole in the skull that was an approximation of where a Terran's ear would be and the pistol holder shoved it back, looking at the one who tried to look in its head.

It pointed at Hetmwit then looked back at Hetmwit.

It stood up on its toes, and looked around. Whipping around, holding out the pistol. It turned back around, looking up and down, waving the pistol around.

One of the ones with the rifle grabbed the pistol. The other smacked the pistol wielder across the back of the head.

Hetmwit ran by them as they screeched loud bursts of static at each other. He waited at the intersection.

The ones with the rifles came back, exchanging static, chirps, and bonging noises.

Hetmwit followed them.

At one point, it sounded like laughter as one pantomimed waving a pistol around.

More and more robots joined the first two, all of them with rifles. Several had what looked like grenades, some had light machineguns. One had a floppy hat, a light machinegun, a backpack full of gear, and a uniform that was solid green. It had paint smears of different color paints on its face and the helmet said "Built to die!" on it.

Hetmwit was sure it meant something to those who built it, but he didn't know what.

The most important part of battle is to conceal your intentions. Be strong where you appear weak and appear strong where you are weak, Hetmwit heard the Captain's voice in his head.

All of that is to make observers spend more time trying to understand the strange stuff rather than what they are obviously doing, Hetmwit thought. They are doing a sweep of the ship, checking everything. Counting boots and comparing it to how many they 'rescued'. Checking how many beds have been slept in.

It all made sense to him.

The other stuff? Camouflage.

Music got closer and at one intersection a robot in a pattern of white, gray, and black squares stepped in with everyone else. It had a helmet, body armor, and a rifle on its back, held by a sling. On its shoulder it had a big rectangular box of fake plastic chrome, gray, and black plastic. The volume of the song drowned everything else out.

DANCE DANCE MOTHERFUCKER TILL THE WAR DRUMS PLAY

Hetmwit noted that the robots all started slightly moving to the beat even as they marched along.

At one intersection another group of robots went by. They were all moving at a walking pace yet running in place, yelling out "hup hup hup hup hup" as they went by. One with an impressive hat with two long white feathers in it glared at the group Hetmwit was following. It made several motions, emitted loud bursts of static, chirps, and bongs.

The one with the rectangular box reached up and pressed a button.

The music stopped.

Hetmwit could see some of the robots in his group snicker. One mimicked the one with the feathers, only holding its arms effeminately. The others all snickered.

Then the group went by and the ones Hetmwit was following moved into the hallway and followed the others.

The robots he was following now seemed to be shambling along. No mathematic lines, no carefully drawn up ranks, just all grouped together walking along, emitting bursts of static at each other.

The button was pressed on the box and it started playing music again.

LOOKING FOR A SOUL TO STEAL

He followed them along until they got to a door. The robots all straightened up, the music was turned off, and they went through the door.

It was one of the large auditoriums. The robots all got lined up at the back, staring at the stage.

Another robot came out from behind the curtain.

Hetmwit frowned at how the new robot seemed more roboty than the others.

It started emitting static, bongs, chirps. Several times it raised its fist over its head and the others in the drawn up lines raised their fists and emitted static.

To Hetmwit the ones drawn up looked excited. At least, that's what Hetmwit figured from their body language, fist pumping, slapping each other on the back, and bursts of static.

Suddenly a ball covered with small mirrors dropped from the ceiling, spotlights hit it, throwing rainbows and flashes across the room. Latex balloons and confetti fell from the ceiling.

The one on the stage emitted static and raised a fist as a banner unfolded behind it.

!MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

The others all raised their fists, emitting loud bursts of static.

They suddenly vanished with pops of air collapsing back into an empty space.

All at once.

The confetti settled to the floor.

The balloons popped.

The banner dissolved.

The mirrored ball raised back up into the ceiling.

Hetmwit waited for a moment.

A robot appeared, rushing in from the doorway. It quickly vacuumed the floor then stood in the middle of the room.

"One to beam up," it said clearly.

It vanished.

Hetmwit stood still for a moment, blinking.

He shook his head and made his way to the area that the Captain had showed him, taking a long circuitous route.

When he got inside, he opened the panel and followed the instructions carefully. Once it said "PRINTING" he backed out and sat down in one of the chairs.

After a moment the door opened and the Captain stepped in the room.

"Fill me in, Number One," the Captain said. "What happened?"