Somewhere near the Core, if one cares to look, one can see, sparkling like bits of tinsel in the inky blackness, shards of metal, bits of shrapnel, here you might see a number, or a bit of a word. That fragment there, for instance, it says, "EAMST ATION." Very interestingwhat exactly is an "EAMST ATION?" Well, if you'll put your feet up and sit a spell, young traveler, I shall tell you ...
You see, there was once a place that shone like a beacon in the starry blackness, a place of dreams that shone like a star, before the War, before the Others came to kill and plunder. They called it the Dream Star, and truly a place of dreams it was, until the Others came. Then it became a place of nightmares for young and old alike. But there were a few brave people who fought to the last, who gave themselves so that others could go on. One of them some did not even consider a person. Her soul vibrated throughout the bones of the station, in a way, she was the Dream Star, and all its denizens were hers to defend. And she did. This is the story of the Dream Star's, final and finest hour, and that of a modest AI, named Myra.
Fall-Minus 5 Hours
On the exterior of the station, delicate sensor antennae poked into the blackness, listening and watching and waiting, trained like faithful but narrow-minded guard dogs to one purpose: sniffing out certain signals, and reporting them. On the side of Dreamstar Station facing the massive energy barrier known as the Frontier, these seldom-used sensors suddenly felt a twitch hit their detectors like a jolt of electricity to a nerve stem. The subprocessor in charge of this particular cluster quickly ran down its list of signals, looking for a match, and found one, in a memory sector marked for the most dire circumstances. Following a preset pattern of instructions, this SPU handed the report off to its supervisory cluster, which evaluated the readings further, and ran a check against the other sensor clusters in that sector, to see if they concurred.
It showed on all the detectors, all vectors, anywhere that the Frontier was, They were there. There was only one thing for the sensor computer to do
HOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP! The klaxon sounded in the Ops Center like a banshee wail, accompanied by flashing red lights, and the distinct hum of station systems locking down for an alert. Standing in the center of the chaos, a black-furred vixen with startlingly red hair and even more striking blue eyes snapped, "Hanson! Can that noise! What the hell's going on?"
The tabby at the sensor station looked at his displays, and his ears laid flat against his head as he hissed, "Ma'am if I'm reading this right, it's the Xurians."
The vixen blinked and frowned, "The Xurians? How many? Give me a tactical display, stat!" The air above her station shimmered and formed into an image of the surrounding space, sprinkled with an enormous field of red dots. The light glinted off her nameplate, hilighting her name: Myra Asimov, Station Administrator/AI . As she gaped at it. Hanson's voice replied weakly, "Uhm, all of them, I think...and they'll be here in a few hours."
"Shit" murmured Myra, her eyes narrowing. "Wake up the boss, divert all traffic, evac all non-Station ships and personnel, and lock down the station, we're going to red alert." Looking at the display again, she whispered, "And the High Programmers help us all."
ATTENTION ATTENTION All non-station personnel are to evacuate. A large Xurian invasion force is approaching the Frontier at attack speed and will be here in less than five hours. Evacuate the station and seek safe harbor. This is not a drill."
In the Security locker room, Sergeant Rhiannon Kathleen Mary Elizabeth Hobbes heard the alert and finished her shower in record time, just as her partner Officer Larry Liebowitz poked his head in and said, "God, Rhi, did she just sat what I thought she said?" As Hobbes raced past, not bothering with a towel except to dry her orange striped fur, she yelled, "Aye, lad. She means drop yer jocks an, grab yer socks, it be clobberin, time! Be a love an, go open up yon heavy armaments locker, would ye? An, get th' lads out of yon barracks an, suited up. I want ye tae set up patrols o'no less than four per section, wi' four heavy drones per team in the outer hull areas, an' backup teams ready to roll in the core. An' someone bloody well find Miz Tikki, cos I know yon bosslady willnae wanna miss this one!"
The Security office was a flurry of activity and finely tuned chaos as the brave fifty men and women of the station defense force suited up, primed their weapons, and gave each other grim encouragement, the white lights glinting off the black insectile surface of their armor, marked with the red pulse of the alert strobes. As Hobbes and Liebowitz ran through, a voice called out to them from their boss, Tikki: "Hobbes! Larry! You two take Hendricks, Dolby, Buffett, and Kirk and go secure the hab-dome!"
"Aye, m'lady!" shouted the 7-foot tall tigress as she slapped a clip into her heavy pulser and commanded a quartet of assault drones to join her teammates, "The wee bastards willnae get through on me watch!" As she and Liebowitz pounded out the door, the echoes of other teams, boots clapping on the deck sounded in time with the strobes
And the halls of the Star of Dreams filled with the devil's own metronome of marching feet
F-Minus Three Hours
"Security, check in." Myra cocked her head and listened to the reports flowing in over the comnet internally, then nodded, "Keep me posted. Try and quietly get all non-essentials into the protected escape areas and secured. I'll be frank, we don't like the way it looks up here, but we're hoping for the best. Give em hell. Asimov, out." She sighed and keyed the com off for a moment, rubbing her temples. "Someone get me some hot chocolate, please? Or coffee, cream, two sugars? Hell, I'll drink reactor coolant if you've got it." She looked at no one in particular and asked the air around her, "Why the hell's this stuff always happen on my watch?" Hearing a soft chuckle from her left, she glanced over at Sascha Romonova, and asked, "Why the hell are you laughing at a time like this?"
Sascha laughed again, and purred, "Well you sound like me, especially when someone performs a boneheaded lane violation." Sobering, she glanced at the tactical holo and murmured, "They're coming in fast. If they don't slow down, they're going to slam into the Frontier wall in less than three hours."
The black vixen shrugged. "I hope so. They'd do us a favor if they all fried themselves" She frowned, glancing at the sensor readings. "Hanson, give me a quantum wave analysis on their drive signatures."
Romonova leaned over and glanced at the readings, and murmured, "Is that what I think it is?"
Myra nodded slowly, whispering, "A Stutterwarp signature. Every last one of them has a Stutterwarp Drive"
Sascha blinked slowly, looked over at Myra, and said, "I think we know what happened to the Nighthawk now." After a moment,s reflection, she looked over at the artificial vixen and said, "Perhaps you should record a message for your mother."
Myra nodded slowly, and murmured, "Maybe I should"
And the dots kept coming
"Vhat are you doink, eh? I tell you t'ree t'ousand times, Vasserman chamber goes there, regen tank goes there! Look at fittings and use eyes, and if eyes do not vork, then Doktor Alek clone you new vons!" The slightly graying cat stalked around the Medlab facility, ordering the staff left and right, occasionally interjecting bits of Russian invective into his speech to urge them on. Dr. Aleksandr Zhivago looked around, folded his ears at the alert klaxons, and shouted, "And someone is shuttings that blazing noise off, before I go to qvarters, get gun, and shoot it off festerink vall!" Looking over at his fellow doctor, Lili Nanune, he asked her, "How do they expect us to vork like this, eh?"
Dr. Nanune shook her head, and said, "Relax, Alek, they know what they,re doing. I just hope we don't have to evacuate. It's going to be messy enough without having to worry about motion jolts at bad moments." Signing a datapad offered by a nurse, the mink asked, "Did you get the triage teams ready?"
Zhivago nodded. "Da. They are being ready to go. If station is ewacuated, they vill prowide medical for their sections." He paused, licking his nose nervously, and murmured sotto voce, "Lili, do you t'ink it vill be that bad?"
Nanune sighed, and whispered, "I really don't know, Alek. They've called in whoever they can get, but the Nighthawk's likely too far away, if they're even still alive, and the Cygnians have their hands full with the Cthulhi. I'm afraid we're on our own here. But as medical part of our job is morale, so even if it looks bad, we've got to try and keep their spirits up while we put them back together, agreed?"
"Da, I agree. Ve must be wery careful. Good people are these, and ve must take care of" A sudden crash and clatter of equipment, and Aleksandr snapped his head toward the source of the noise and stalked off, exclaiming, "Bozhe moi! Vhat possessed you to put a von-hundred-fifty kilo Vasserman chamber on a von-hundred kilo gravsled?!"
And from outside the door came the clatter of boots as the pulse of the station quickened ...
In another part of the station, two furs, a tall, sad-eyed Basset Hound and a short, tubby tabby wandered the corridors, followed by a drone which floated obediently behind them, toting a toolbox in its manipulator claws. Counting off the numbers on a series of panels, the cat purred, "J-12J-13J-14. Here we go." He pulled a trac-driver out of the kit and turned it on the panel, the tool's miniature tractor emitter unscrewing and pulling the fastener bolts. Pocketing the driver, the cat knelt down in front of the panel and stuck his head in, a worklight clamped to his repairman,s helmet. "Hey, Bill, hand me that number four spanner," he called out, his accent reminiscent of New York's Bronx borough.
Handing the tool down, Bill rumbled in his deep, southern drawl, "So, whatcha think their big problem is this time, Lenny? The Korlanthi again? Or mebbe the Trantorians?" He poked at the control face above the repair hatch as he spoke, testing the circuits as Lenny repaired them.
"Eh, I dunno, Billy-Boy'all I know is that we gotta have dis thing fixed fore the bad guy of da week gets here." He pulled himself out of the hatch, stood up, tested a few controls on the environmental panel up top, and nodded, telling the drone, "Hey, Felix, tell Big Sister that da Hab dome,s recyclers are back up ta spec." FLX-497 bobbed and beeped twice in compliance.
ATTENTION. ATTENTION. Xurian fleet will arrive in T-Minus two hours, thirty minutesMARK. All hands, remain at battle standby. Security Team Delta-Seven, report to Main Arcade for civilian evacuation assistance. Security Team Beta-Five, report to main hangar bay for civilian evacuation assistance." The image of the station AI, Myra, appeared in holograms all over the station as she spoke, standing with her hands behind her back and smiling reassuringly. "Everything is under control. In the interest of public safety, we ask that all non-station personnel please leave the station at once. All nonessential station personnel, employees, and residents, please remain in your quarters until further notice. Regular updates will be made available on the public comnet. Please remain calm and proceed in an orderly fashion to your assigned areas. C&C, out."
Staring at the hologram, Lenny said to his companion, "Ya know, Bill. I wonder what she,s like in real life? I mean ... it's gotta be weird for her, livin, inside the computer, workin, all the station's machinery, and still havin' time for a social life? Hell, she's more talented than my last girlfriend!"
Bill just stared at Lenny for a moment, then rumbled, "Bill, your last girlfriend was' nah, forget it, I don't want to think about her. She was just plain psycho." The pair walked down the corridor, Bill glancing at his Aide to determine their next assignment. "Come on, we,ve got to double-check the Sector Eight pulsers."
"Ah, yer probably right. Hell, we,re just a couple'a repair guys." Lenny followed Bill into the lift, calling out, "Pulsers, Sector Eight." The lift computer took a moment to verify their access, then smoothly moved through the superstructure, gliding to a halt and hissing open. "So whatcha got for lunch today? We got here a bit early, might as well stop ta eat."
Bill opened a panel on his workbox and pulled out a plastic-wrapped sandwich. "Ham salad. What about you?"
Lenny produced his own lunch. "Ah, I paid one of the shuttle boys t'bring me back some Church'n'Munch." He set a massive, steaming, greasy burger on the workbox, and held an overlarge cup out to the drone. "Felix, hold dat please." The bot grabbed the cup, and sank a little from the weight of it as Lenny picked up his Mt. Sinai Burger in both hands and took a deep bite out of it.
Bill shook his head. "Man, I can't believe you. How you eat that crap? I can hear your arteries hardening all the way over here."
Lenny shrugged, "Mmrffflfflmmnh." A hard swallow, then, "Hey, it tastes good enough to me..'sides, if I start havin, problems, I'll just have t'go back to Medlab an, get fixed up by Doc Lili, won't I?"
Bill sighed. "Man, you girl crazy, shut up and eat your food." He chewed thoughtfully on his sandwich, then asked, "Lenny, what d'you think they're like? The Xurians, I mean. I heard they were really ugly customers."
Lenny swallowed another bite of Mt. Sinai, and replied, "I heard they're wolves or vulpines or somethin,. Real nasty ones, too. They came through here about, oh, five years ago, trashed the hell outta the place, but a buncha guys got together and drove em offlike, everyone and his sister's deadbeat boyfriend came to the party, y'know?"
Bill frowned, "Yeah, but if they're such badasses, why the hell isn't anyone coming this time? I mean you'd think that it'd be in everyone's interest t'hold em off. I know the Bossman's wife's bunch is busy with the Squiddies, but there should be someone coming to help us."
"Bah, I blame all this politics, y'know? Sometimes I think they shoulda rewrote the bible t'read And on the Seventh Day, Man Created Politics, and God Went for His Aspirin.,"
Bill blinked, then shook his head. "Man, that's sacrilegious. You're goin' to hell."
ATTENTIONATTENTIONXurian Battle Fleet will be here in two hours. MARK. All hands, remain at your posts. Civilian evacuation is complete. Station locked down. All hands, remain at battle standby. Message repeats"
Lenny looked at the holo of Myra as she made her announcement, then looked back at Bill, his eyes unreadable. "Yeah, maybe. But I got a feelin' I'm gonna have company."
Please remain calm. Everything is under control. We shall prevail."
F-Minus One Hour
Rhiannon Hobbes walked up and down the line of the half-dozen men and women assigned to her, lilting in her rough brogue, "All righty, lads an' lassies. We've got a job tae do. The wee buggers will be here in a smidge less'n an hour, and they're sure tae try to board at some point. Tis our job tae hold them out o' this hab dome, along wi' th' other teams assigned," She raised an armor-gloved paw and pointed at the cloud of heavy drones floating opposite the team from her. "As ye can see, our fair Big Sister as been kind enough tae lend us a mighty number o'her subjects, an' we should use em wisely. We shall nae give them any quarter, we shall nae show any mercy. I know ye're awful young for this, most o'ye, an' ye dinna expect t'ever have t'do what we have t'do today, but, Goddess weep o'er it, t'day we're gonna be wadin' in blood. The verra least we can do is tae make sure it's the blood o'our foes, nae our friends."
Hendricks raised his paw, "Uh, Sarge, what're these folks like?" Hendricks was a recent transplant from Furry Prime, and was but scarcely twenty.
Hobbes shook her head. "Lad, I cannae even fully describe them to ye. Brigands, they are. Cruel buggers toothey like tae board an torture, an' the wee bastards are verra good at it from my understandin,. They'll be wantin' tae get in here most of all, for it'll give em the most chance tae rape an' pillage an' strike terror. We must be like William Wallace 'gainst the Brits. Outnumbered, outgunned, but we shall prevail. We donnae have any other choice, lad." She held her heavy pulser rifle aloft. "For victory! For Freedom!!"
Her team raised their weapons in salute, and replied, "For Freedom!" She grinned at them, and said, "Och, ye make a lass proud. Kirk, Dolby, ye take the north end o'th' sector. Hendricks, Buffett, you two take the south end. Me an' Larry will take th' middle. It may be hell, but after today, me lads, live or die, ye'll be warriors of a sort tae chill a man's bones. Stations!"
As the all-too-young and eager troops trotted off to their posts, Larry Liebowitz leaned over to Hobbes, and said, "Rhi, you don't really think that we're gonna hold them off, do you? I mean I heard from one of the guys who came off rotation in Ops today that the fleet blankets the entire friggin' quadrant!"
"Nay, lad," Hobbes replied softly, "I donnae think we,'ll come out of it not bloodied, but we must prevail. As I told the lads, we havenae got any choice." The 7-foot tigress leaned over and gave him a discreet but tender kiss. "Don't weep fer me if I dinnae make it, me Larry. I wouldnae want ye t'stop livin' too just because the Lady claimed me."
The wallaby looked up at Hobbes and murmured, "You too, Rhi. If it comes down to you or me, pick yourself, dammit. Don,t do something heroically stupid, or I swear by God and the Star of David, I will kick your ass when you get to heaven behind me."
Hobbes laughed softly and hugged Liebowitz, their armor brushing with a soft clank. "Och, Larry, ye silly bastard. Ye couldnae whip me if ye had yon birch branch an, I was all tied up an, ready for it."
Liebowitz smirked. "Maybe later. Right now, we've got some ass to kick." With that, he slapped his helmet down, chose a covered spot, and hunkered down to wait, Hobbes beside him.
Up in Ops, Myra dropped the link to the security team,s drones, and sighed, "Sascha, they know we,re not going to have a fun time. I feel horrible lying to them like thatI know it,s to keep their spirits up, and to keep the residents from blowing a gasket, but" She looked at her feline compatriot, and sighed. "Look I want you to go down to Hab-Dome, and take command there. I have a very bad feeling about this."
Romonova frowned. "No way, I'm staying up here with you. Myra, you're capable of doing more at once than I ever dreamed of, but you're still going to need help. Selesti's already in the R&D Tower, I'm all you've got left."
At that moment, a large furred dragon stepped off the lift, rumbling, "Myra, give Artania clearance to launch. She's going to be out there with the Stormrunner and the others."
The black vixen nodded. "Sure thing, Bossman." She tapped a few keys, and murmured into her comlink, "DST Artania, you are cleared for priority deployment, vector Alpha-Seven. Your assignment is Sector three by five by nine." Closing the link, she looked over at Romonova and murred, "And your assignment is Hab-Dome. Get down there, now, no ifs, ands, buts, or whatevers about it. I don't want to make it an order, but I will, if I must."
Romonova sighed, looked hopefully at Fairon, who simply smiled, shook his head, and pointed a talon at Myra as if to say, She's right. With a nod, and a warm hug to each of them, she said, "Okay see you two when this is all done with." Breaking her businesslike demeanor only enough to kiss Myra warmly, she crossed over to the central lift pillar and was gone.
Fairon leaned over to Myra's ear, and murmured, "They're good people. They know their jobs, Myra. Let them do them."
In reply, she gave him a worried glance. "I know I've just got a very bad feeling about all this. Is it possible for computers to have hunches?"
The dragon chuckled, a little dryly, and rumbled, "I don't know, but I know you'll do the best you can." On that note, he went over to a station reserved for him and logged in, issuing orders to the troops, leaving Myra to stare out at the depths of space, their enemy coming invisibly toward them, riding on tunnels of quantum probability.
Somewhere deep in the computer cores of the Dream Star, there existed an area of active memory into which no programmer ever went, no user ever saw. Consider this area to be Lady Myra's equivalent of that place, young traveller, where we all go in our own minds to contemplate the hard things in life that the Powers That Be send to us, to challenge us and make us better ourselves. Deep within this place, this stronghold of her soul, she quietly thought the situation through, and even as she offered her assurances to her brave companions, she knew that the battle was not going to be easy, she knew it might not even be possible to survive..
However, she did know thisthat even if she should not continue on past this day, she must save her friends, those who had become her family, and make it possible for them to live on without her. Now, young traveller, you might think, "Well, she was programmed to think that, of course she would think that, it was in her program!" I ask you, what is a program, but a set of instructions, a guide by which to live one's life? And was her guide to life so much different from our own? Would you, young traveller, not pay the ultimate price to ensure those you hold dear could cling to this mortal coil but longer than they could have had you chosen to save your own skin? So you see, even though she was different in form, she was not different in spirit.
She knew that she had to save her friends, should the time come. She knew that she must also provide a bit of herself to be remembered by, lest they be overcome with grief and pain. She knew all this, and she also knew what she had to do.
All this thought took naught more than a nanosecond.
F-Minus Thirty: Heathens at the Gates
Space, we have been told, is curved, young travellerbut did you know that you could create curves within the curves, and further bend the curves completely out of reality so that none shall pass the spot where you have marked This Far, and No Further?, Aye, you can. And such a barrier was the Frontier, in its time. An ancient wall, keeping the Visigoths of the cosmos from the homes and hearths of those who had settled here in the Furry Space. But you see, there was a little black bird, a night hawk, if you will, that made up its mind to pierce the barrier, to see what was beyond the next hill. Now, this is an honorable profession, and the spirit of exploration shall always hold a place in this old rogue,s heart, butlike so many other good things, there is always a catch. For you see, the dread enemy of old was watching, and waiting. And when they saw this little black bird leave its nest, wrap itself in a bubble of fast light, and take off for the unknown, they began to see possibilities. And soon, more ships came through, and one or two were lost to the covert predations of the Foe. They learned the secret of the Stuttering Warp, so that they might gain entrance, and plunder as they would.
For you see, young traveller, no wall is solid, when the chariot you ride upon tells space to get bent.
"Here they come!" Ops was dim now, save for the hellish red of battlestation lighting and the cool blues and greens of the control facings on the consoles scattered about. The crew gaped in horror as the Frontier, so long a blanket of security over this arm of the Galaxy, rippled and warped around the quantum tunnels made by the pilfered Stutterwarp technology on the Xurian battlecruisers. As the actinic flashes of disrupted space and Cherenkov radiation peppered space around Dreamstar, the Ops center became a flurry of activity as the station,s weaponry began to speak, the thunder of the defense grid,s shots almost as deafening as the enemy,s fire against her shields.
Glaring at a red light that came to life on her console, Myra uttered a strong oath and leaned over her comlink. "Sector Eight Pulsers, what,s going on down there?"
We don't know, ma'am. The guns aren,t cooling properly. They,re shutting down from overheat."
"I'm notifying a repair team now. Hang tight, fellas, and use the secondaries as much as you can. We can't let them breach the shields. Someone cook up the Nova Cannon and get it ready to fire."
The enemy, with senses like a bloodhound,s, smells a weakness, and they begin to converge. Watch, young traveller, and learn
Down in the guts of the Pulser cluster in Sector Eight, Bill and Lenny were not having a good day. Bill stood against one of the coolant tanks while Felix the Wonderbot pressed hard against the tank with its tractor emitters, trying to lever it back into alignment. Meanwhile, Lenny, amazingly nimble for all his love of food, had scrambled up top to repair the lines which fed the coolant to the massive Pulser turrets that even now, were silent.
"Felix! Toss me a size five clamp and a pocket welder!" The droid snapped out another tractor beam and threw the components in a precision arc, right into Lenny,s waiting hands, as Bill groaned underneath the weight of the tank.
Repair team Zeta-Nine, what's your status?"
Lenny didn't even look up as he said, "With all due respect, ma'am, our status is pissed the fuck off at this damn-blasted machinery, which even now my friend Bill and I are trying ta fix, so if you'd kindly just keep your pretty pants on, we'll have it fixed when we tell you it's fixed! Zeta Nine out!" He shook his head, his tail mopping sweat from his eyes as he worked, snapping the clamp in place and welding it tight. He ran over atop the coolant tank Bill was supporting, and started welding the braces back into position, cursing a blue streak the entire way, as the rocking of the deck got worse, ripples visible in the shields through the armored viewports now as the Xurians concentrated their fire.
The firestorm grew worse as Bill watched, his eyes growing wider as the shield started to show cracks. He licked his lips and said, "Len, they're comin, through!"
And up in Ops, Myra cursed softly and wished harder than ever that the good guys would win this time.
"There, that oughta do it! You can get away now, Billy. Start er up!" Bill ran at Lenny's behest to the maintenance panel and slapped a covered switch. The whine of the pulsers powering up filled the room, soon followed by the tha-whump! Tha-wump! of the guns, rapid firing.
Good work, Zeta-Nine! I need you guys to get to Hab-Dome latch five. I'm showing some mechanical damage to it. If we have to bug out, they can't get clear until that hatch closes."
"You got it Big Sis! Ha! We did it! Look at em go!" Lenny laughed and lifted his elbow up to lean on Bill, panting heavily. "Look at em.oh, shit."
Bill said quietly, "Lenny, I think it's time we got outta here."
And that was when the shields flared and died, and the viewport in front of them vanished in a blast of green hellfire, followed by the cold spider's kiss of space.
Space was alight with eldritch flame as the Xurians darted about in their vaguely vulpinian ships, painted blood scarlet and bone white, some of them dying in a blaze of implosive fire as they exploded under the guns of Dreamstar's defenders. The bioship Artania flew nimbly among them, flinging bolts of energy converted from her own mass in all directions, wreaking havoc while the DST Stormrunner picked off its targets with cool, careful precision, denying the Xurian breaching pods access to the Habitat Dome and the families within. Nearby, DST Shepherd's Moon and DST Bastion were likewise hammering away at the foes, but the brave ships couldn't deny all of them. Some made it to the station's hull, and were picked off by the hornet's swarm of combat drones surrounding the station. Others delivered their deadly cargo, spreading the disease of Xurian shocktroops into the heart of the mighty base, while on all sides, the bulk of the Xurian fleet continued onward, extending their threat and challenge to all of Furry Space.
Xurian troops have entered the base! Xurian troops have ente--*sssssssss*"
The security officer's transmission broke off into static all too suddenly as intruder alarms went up all over the station. Myra glanced at the master status display, and exclaimed, "Fairon, there's too damned many of the bastards!"
The dragon looked as though he had been stabbed in the gut, and she saw that he knew the truth as well. Still, there was fire in his eyes as he looked at her and said calmly, evenly, "Issue the alert. Omega Protocol."
A collective gasp went up from the Ops staff, and Myra asked, "Fai, are you really sure about that?"
A sad, angry glance, and a rumbled, "I'll be damned if I let them have her," was his only reply.
Allowing herself only a single choked sob before regaining her composure, Myra Asimov tapped in a singular sequence of commands, and all over the station, long-unused engines began priming, environmental systems cycled over to internal, non-essential bulkheads rolling shut as the starbase began preparations to dissect itself, in the hopes of survival.
Even as the station prepared to split itself, she retreated into herself for a moment, issuing orders she had hoped never to give, to her own system. She knew that it was not strictly the way she was supposed to evacuate herself, but she also realized that it was the only way she could give the stationers the time they needed to escape safely. The computer complied like the obedient slave it was, taking her essence, packaging it, duplicating it, and sending it to all the pieces of her true body that were about to depart, like dormant seeds stored deep within the computer cores of each module. One special copy she sent to a ship which inexplicably remained in the bays, that of one of her true friends, her family.
Shaking her head to clear the queer doubling sensation, Myra Asimov murmured quietly but firmly, "Clear the Core module" Leaning over her comlink as the others looked over, giving her glances of thanks and reassurance, she signaled for all-call, and said, "Attention ... Attention"
"Omega Protocol has been initiated. All personnel, fall back to Omega stations. Evacuate Core Section immediately. This is not a drill. Message repeats. ATTENTION ATTENTION Omega Protocol has been initiated"
Hobbes looked up and sighed, "Shit on yon shingle and call it yer breakfast. All right, lads! Change o'plans! We 'ave t'make sure the wee bairns make it in here, an' no bloody else does, ye hear me?"
Kirk pointed at a hatchway from the Core and shouted, "Look!"
A tide of red-armored Xurians poured down the corridor, the first ranks falling to concentrated fire from the defenders of the Hab Dome. The survivors of the first assault morbidly picked up their fallen comrades, using their corpses as shields to ward off the pulser fire from the Security forces, their return fire the bright green of a child,s nightmare. Screams filled the air as the dead began to pile up, young Hendricks standing straight up with a howl and falling to the ground, half his face melted off.
Hobbes growled and switched her rifle from plasma to railgun mode, loading a magazine of hypervelocity pellets and opening up, rapid fire, crouched down behind a rock. The sharp yawp! of the pulser fire echoed from the halls as the slugs slammed through armor and flesh alike, felling another score of the enemy. The rest of her troops got the idea and did likewise, and from down the corridor could be heard the hellish whistle of a hull breach. The bulkhead door began to slowly roll closed, the automatics ultimately concerned with protecting the lives on the station, even as more of them were lost.
"Rhi, if they get caught in here with us, we'll never get rid of em! There's too many!" Liebowitz growled as he snapped off shots with sniper precision, holing one Xurian's faceplate neatly through the eye.
"Aye, lad, I know. But we canna let e'en one of th' bastards live," Hobbes replied as she peppered the dread foxes with even more return fire. She paused a moment, seeing Liebowitz grab a bandolier of plasma grenades. "Larry, what're ye doin' lad?"
Liebowitz just looked at her, and gave her the salute of her native Scottish Highlanders, fist to chest, then open, palm up. "Remember me, Rhi." And then he was gone, leaping down the corridor, bowling over the enemy as he ran, knocking any who tried to grab him aside with his thickly muscled tail. As he barrelled into the next section, he shot the door controls, bringing the bulkhead slamming down on one unfortunate Xurian, cutting him in half.
LARRY!!!" Hobbes cried in grief, and in pride, as from the other side of the hatchway came a thunderous explosion
And from elsewhere came many smaller detonations as explosive bolts popped their housings, and the Star of Dreams slowly came apart, each section of it turning and heading for the skeletal structure of the gateway to C-Space. First the support services towers, Medical, R&D, Engineering, the latter dying in a flash of glory as the enemy weapons struck true. The Command tower soon followed, hanging back, battering away at the invaders with the others by its side, waiting for the last vital section to break free
Myra watched anxiously on her internal monitors, doing her best to ensure that everyone got to the Hab Dome. She held the doors open as long as she could, then reluctantly closed them all save the one that refused to close, the broken hatch that Bill and Lenny never got to. She hissed in frustration and detached parts of her consciousness into a pair of service drones, directing them to the site, to fix the problem.
Deep in the bowels of the station, a wolf who proclaimed himself to be naught more than a simple dock worker looked at his family, then at the last bulkhead in the Hab Dome, the sole unsealed chink in the armor. A small group of Security troops, most of them barely out of adolescence were fighting to retake the hatch from the Enemy, led by a massive tigress who shouted epithets in Gaelic as she battled, lost in a berserker rage. Picking up the weapon of one of the fallen guards, he joined the battle, helping the station's guardians take back the Dome's last hope for escape. When the enemy's crimson armor was colored a deeper red that ran off onto the floor, he discarded his pistol and turned to the hatch. He fought with the broken mechanism on the docking hatch, bending his strength of body and will to the task, wrenching it free and closing it solid, the latches dogging automaticallyleaving him on the wrong side. But there was another with him as well.
{ No! NO! You idiot, get in the dome, I'll fix the hatch!" } She tried to make her wishes known, even started her vixenform body towards the place in question, but she knew it was too late. He could not hear her over the din of weapons fire, and the repair drones would never get there in time.
He fought with the broken mechanism on the docking hatch, bending his strength of body and will to the task, wrenching it free and closing it solid, the latches dogging automatically leaving him on the wrong side. His wee daughter raced through at the very last moment, determined not to leave her Daddy, wanting in her own small way to help him fix what was broken. Gazing at his beloved cub with pride and pain in his eyes, he picked up another weapon, laying into the enemy, until there were naught left but he, the dead, and the soon to be dead. Grimly, before his life could ebb away, he led his kitt toward the docks.
In the station,s bones, the soul of Dreamstar cried out in silent frustration at the salvation of her beloved friend and his cub being thwarted, and reached her mind out to a great number of the extensions of her body. The Xurian troops between the one known as Ellik and the primary docks gaped in awe as a flock of drones came upon them in a fell wave, their machinery fueled by the anger and hate and drive of a single mind. When the wolf and his child passed, few were left to oppose them.
Racing down the emergency stairwells, each breath closer to his last, he reached a ship, his ship, her hull adorned with a pair of bright golden eyes. Through the viewports, he watched the Hab Dome coast away, the hellfire from the Core module providing cover as the soul within her fought as a Valkyrie to keep those she loved safe. As the ship powered up, part of the station's soul spoke to him, telling him it was unsafe to leave in the manner he required, until he whispered, "For Krysti" and then said no more.
Myra touched her daughter,s mind, to which she was still linked, and made certain changes, released certain restrictions, whispering, { It,s their only chance. Go } And the docking clamps were torn asunder as a miniature singularity blossomed into existence, and the ship shot into it. The station experienced a feeling of infinite pain, and of the infinite joy of knowing her friends had escaped the evil. But she could not tarry long. There was other business to take care of.
The Hab dome lifted off its moorings, half its engines firing until it cleared the body of the Core, then riding a tongue of flame as the Orion drive ignited, propelling it ever faster toward the Gate. The remaining towers followed suit, picking up what lifeboats they could on the way, each section bearing not only its precious living cargo, but another being, made dormant for the moment, asleep in the computer banks until she was needed. As the Hab Dome swept past, there was a flare of greenish light swirling in a vortex, surrounded by the explosions of unfortunate foes, unlucky enough to be on the edges of the distortion of spacetime. The Goldeneyes made for the safety of hyperspace, disregarding the danger of jumping in the docking bays to avoid the greater, more certain danger of the Enemy. Aboard her, three souls, one living, one recently passed, and one the ship herself, ventured into the swirling red dark.
Final Countdown
Myra Asimov sat alone in the Core, all the modules gone save for the destroyed Engineering Tower, the Stormrunner, Shepherd,s Moon, Bastion and Artania covering the remainder of modules and ships from behind as they raced for the jumpgate, and safety. All the voices from her other parts were silent, the enemy having jammed the channels. She closed her eyes, letting out a long sigh, then directed her body to pick up a pair of heavy pulser rifles, and take the lift down to where the fighting was. Here, she fought like no one had ever fought, a veritable Banshee among the damned, not stopping even when her weapons ran dry. Using her built-in armaments, she sent pulser bolts flying from her very fingertips, her army of drones fighting alongside her, swooping this way and that, those outside discarding all pretense of survival and careening at top speed into the bridges or engines of Xurian ships, silencing them forever. Dimly she sensed it when the ship with the golden eyes tore itself free from the dead moorings and escaped into the red nothingness of hyperspace, still more Xurian vessels falling to the warping of space around the jump point, which snapped into nothingness as the unarmed freighter left.
With that final duty discharged, and the other ships but seconds away from escape, Myra stopped the pulsers, silencing their hellion,s song, and shut down all systems she could, to make it seem as if she had surrendered. Her body, now stripped of all weapons but its tractor mounts, kept fighting the invaders, their hearts bursting as she flickered a tractor and pressor at their chests, switching a million times a second, until it too was fallen, swarmed under by the endless red tide of the Xurian troops.
That,s right, you little bastards come closer, just a bit closer, don't stop, don't chase the others, they're too far away, I'm right here, and you want me, oh yes, you want me but you'll get what I choose to give you, not necessarily what you want to be given
The hologram of the ghost in the machine, the spirit of the station, sighed, and watched the monitors, waiting for the right moment. As it finally came, she sent the final commands, those from which there could be no return, feeling the heat of her true body,s response building as the quantum supercores that gave her life surged, the restraints upon them fully released. A cry went out over the communications bands: [ OMEGAOMEGAOMEGA ]
{ 'And He Said, "Let there Be Light," and there was Light, and it was Good, }
She issued another set of commands, setting her very soul ablaze as the computers were purged. As the system cores crashed, taking her with them, she uttered four final words aloud: "I love you, Sascha." And then she passed into blissful oblivion, sending what few fragments of memory that she could to her children, lest they forget what had come to pass.
The hologram vanished as the cores let go and in a few brief instants more, so did everything within a few hundred thousand kilometers of the station.
The battleships guided their charges to the jumpgate, urging them forth into the swirling vortex, even as a new star was born behind them, that flared for all too briefly, then died, taking a legion of the enemy with it. As the other ships raced into the gate ahead, the Bastion's captain looked at his crew, and murmured, "I am very proud, of all of you. May we meet again, where no shadows fall. Engage jump engines."
And a second star was born as the two jump points merged, redoubled, then detonated, scouring the heavens for millions of kilometers around, washing the enemy clean of their lives in its righteous, vengeful light.
And somewhere in the crimson depths of hyperspace, the ship with the golden eyes drifted, the only souls upon it a young lass, the unseen ghost of her father, and their friend, now the soul of the ship. Where they would find their path, ah, that's a story for another time, young traveller.
And so you see, my young friend, that is the story of a noble people in their greatest glory and darkest hour. Now, I know you are thinking, Is it truly possible for a machine to love?, I would think it is. This universe of ours is vast and wondrous, with all manner of beasts and people filling it, and twould be an injustice against the valiant Lady Myra to think that she was incapable of loving her people she died for them, after all. It is my belief, young traveller, that if more people loved as much and as unconditionally as this lady in the machine did, then the world would be a much happier place to live in.
As for those pieces of her soul that she sent on, she sent them on because she knew that her people would need a sense of continuity, a steady voice and a familiar smile to help them through the hard times to come. Her descendants would not remember all of what happened that fateful day, but they would always have the sense, even after most of them were rebuilt into a whole, that something was missing. But something was also gainedit is beyond this storyteller,s ken to say what, but I believe, young traveller, that if you truly think about it, with your heart instead of your mind, you will discover it as well. For if a machine can learn to willingly sacrifice her life for those she lovescan we do any less?
But it is said amongst the refugees of the Dream Star, those who call themselves the Tuatha Reannan, the "People of the Stars" that Big Sister's voice shall someday grace the cosmos with her song once more
