Sword and Sorcery, a Novel

31

A quarter candle-mark at the Bide-a-While Station soon doubled. It was time that V47 Pilot did not regret spending, then or later (after attempting to make his report) for there was much to be glad of.

Gofir-1 and the dwarven freight crew were eager to show him the virtual highlights of Comfort Row. They took him to twelve different bar-sites; purchasing thirty-two rounds of depressant fluid (which he learnt to slam like a dwarf). Better still, his companion was not only safe and well, but skilled at the station’s famously slanted amusements. Foryu won 10,052 credits on virtual poker, crown game and vistok, alone. Better yet, that fatal packet was gone, left behind until he could strategize how to deal with it. Celebration was called for and emotions genuine. All very enjoyable, and the pilot delayed taking his leave of those friendly and clamorous freight-haulers. Not until the .471 candle-mark did he return to his mech.

V47 was less pleased with its stay at the Bide-a-While docking facility. Besides being subjected to cascades of short-vids, site maps and “free offers”, the battle-mech now sported a glowing, swirling electronic tag. Featuring the station’s fluffy lavender mascot, the advert boasted: "I got Behuggled at Bide-a-While Station!" Words that flashed over and over in visual, symbol and numeric code.

Also less pleasing, the mech had destroyed its previous gantry and docking pad as it fought to break free and reach Pilot. With the facility badly damaged, the battle-mech had been forced to berth next to an ancient mineral trawler. Foryu covered her mouth with one hand as they approached V47’s location. Pilot did a much better job of controlling his facial responses, though some emotion may have bled through their link.

‘An indelible advert tag is not a source of amusement, Pilot,’ sent his massive mechanoid friend, very stiffly.

The cyborg inclined his blond head, mostly not smiling at all. In total control of his soft-tissue chemistry. Indicating the battle-mech’s previous, half-melted gantry, he said,

“The damages incurred to our docking pad by sudden, unauthorized launch total forty-three thousand credits, V. According to Local Command, I can put it on Gold Flight’s account, set up payments, or… we can advertise Bide-a-While Station for fifty sidereal years.”

Foryu made a swift down-payment with half of her sudden wealth, bringing their debt down and buying some time to decide. She was still wearing his flight jacket, standing snuggly within his encircling arm. Now, the dark-haired companion said,

“I am able to add further credits, if doing so helps to reduce the duration of sentence, Pilot.”

He ‘kissed’ the top of her head, a thing he had learnt from show-vids and strange, ancient memory files. Looked at her after a micro-tick, saying,

“I conjecture that Flight Command will be able to eliminate that decal, once I have returned to Orbital Station and made my report. Let us not raise firewalls and internal alarms until we are back at the hangar, V. Besides…” (couldn’t help it) “… you look good.”

The fighter-craft’s rebuild had been a success, giving the mech sleek new lines and much enhanced weaponry. But V47 didn’t agree. Its response was uncharitable; deliberately buggy and tangled. No further comment was made about unwanted adverts, though, and the Behuggler went on winking and flashing all around V47.

The mech-pilot pushed off against metal and stone, using a touch of steering-jet to waft himself and Foryu to cockpit level, 35.71 feet in the air. The companion pressed her mouth to the side of his face and whispered/ sent concepts of loyal affection. Then she discorporated, streaming as data into the mark-three memory drive he’d acquired back at that (file inaccessible) shop. Scanned him and V47, too, backing him up as had TTN-iA. A thing that meant ‘love’. That said, ‘I have your data, as you have mine. You will never be lost’.

Afterward, the memory drive was stored away until circumstance granted more leave time. V47 then opened the dura-shield cowling, allowing its pilot entry. In 3.3 ticks, probes and contact-plates slide into place and the cockpit resealed all around him. He was home and fully connected, again; his body and senses now those of a towering mechanoid warrior… with a swirling, skittering “itch”.

“Right,” said the pilot, summoning worthless anti-virals and quantum foam. “I see what you mean, V.”

Doing his best to ignore that annoying electronic tag, he queried Bide-a-While Station’s AI for permission to launch. The Behuggler popped into their view field, waving its single antenna.

‘BAWS to V47 Pilot, permission granted. Thank you for visiting Bide-a-While Station. Please come again. Fair stellar winds and following manna, my friends!’

V47 emitted something close to a snort, venting exhaust and charging its hull till it crackled.

‘Friends do not brand a guest with unwanted code,’ grumbled the battle-mech, as the station’s docking clamps hissed and rattled, falling away. ‘Such action, while a pilot is absent, distracted with mood-altering fluid, displays nefarious intent,’ added V47, burning all of the dwarven ale from the pilot’s system. That was unpleasant... but woke him right up. Being fair to both sides, the pilot remarked,

“Friends don’t damage the local docking facilities, either, V.” Next, he used a touch of impeller to lift them away from the pad before adding, “I thank you for coming to find me, though... And I probably did as much harm to the shop, getting out.”

It was hard to remember. For some reason, his archives between t = 3.200 and t = 3.315 were unclear, inaccessible. On top of that, the shop had vanished from all current holos. Weird.

‘There was a cessation of contact, Pilot. Danger was perceived.’

That, he recalled quite vividly, remembering pain and loss like an amputation. Like a fiery, gut-slicing wound. Foryu was his companion, and he had grown to love her. V47 was part of him. The forced separation had nearly destroyed them both. Well, never again.

They lifted away from Bide-a-While Station on quarter impeller. Watched as the asteroid and its flickering transport gate dropped downward like spiraling fragments of paper. The station looked like a neon island in space; warmed by Oberyn’s glow, nuzzled by incoming freighters and tug-drones.

As the asteroid receded, its fluffy mascot popped onto their viewscreen again, single eye winking and wispy antenna broadcasting farewell.

‘Come back soon, friends!’ it chirped. ‘Bide-a-While Station always has something you want!’

A locked file… The Shop of True Need… opened up in his processor, momentarily, along with the message: Pilot, you must return. And then, in less than a nano-tick, the information was lost again. Hidden, and needing to stay that way.

The voyage to Orbital Station would take 2.7 sidereal days, but the pilot did not enter stasis. He arranged his data and prepared his report, instead, letting V47 shift to star-fighter mode and manage departure. Once far enough from Oberyn’s intense gravity well, manna came flooding back, letting them switch to full burn. The stars went from pinpoint to blur after that, and their trip concluded just 4.3 candle-marks later.

OS 1210 and Cerulean Dream were still in repair when V47 arrived. Rotating slowly in Glimmr’s soft light, the orbital station and ship swarmed with drones and self-assembling maintenance bots. They appeared hazy and indistinct as a consequence, which the pilot scanned and archived, adding the view to his battle report.

He queried Flight Command at the 1000-mile nav buoy. Requested and received permission to land. At that point, irrelevantly, the thought occurred that he’d been awake and out of stasis for nearly five days.

The pilot felt all at once very young (and a spark apprehensive) as he took back control. He shifted back to warrior-mode with a great flare of manna, the clatter and hum of electronic parts. Next soared past a double row of flashing buoys and through a set of inertia dampening fields, heading for the station’s vast hangar. Was again struck by how empty and quiet the facility was. Even Bide-a-While Station was busier. Even the damaged mining complex, below. Why? Where had everyone gone, and why were so few being decanted? It was a ghost town, compared to what he had seen in the show-vids. Something to do with the missing data, perhaps… but that was a dangerous line of conjecture, and he cancelled the notion almost before it could form.

V47 touched down on a flashing, circular landing pad with a resounding KER-CHUNK and a thunderous, echoing BOOM. Was very soon swarmed with maintenance bots of its own, most of them focused on Bide-a-While Station’s offensive electronic tag.

The pilot did not technically have to get out of his battle-mech to upload the report, but he wanted to stand up and walk again. Maybe, time permitting, to summon Foryu once more. So, off came the contact plates and out slid those nerve-probes. V47 opened its cockpit, reminding the pilot about that annoying itch of an advert. Away from the mech, he no longer felt the thing, which the maintenance crew were having no luck removing.

“Flight Command will dispel it,” Pilot assured V47, giving his friend the electronic equivalent of a bracing shoulder-clasp. Then, he used boot-jets and anti-gravity to lower himself to the metal deck.

The battle-mech loomed high above him from this vantage; gleaming red-and-gold in the hangar floodlights. He placed a hand on V47’s left foot, drawing attention from seven humming drones (and getting a quick polish in the process). Next focused his mind and contacted Flight Command, thus:

“V47 Pilot queries Orbital Station 1210 Flight Command. Situation and Incident Report ready. Upload report y/ n?”

The response was short and immediate.

‘No. Upload rejected. V47 Pilot will report directly to OVR-Lord.’

Which… was unexpected. Alarming. In all of his 2,756.03 galactic years… his 47.9 conscious days… V47 Pilot had never reported to OVR-Lord. No pilot had, ever. His pulse and respiration sped suddenly, causing V47 to trigger release of calming drugs and soothing music. Didn’t help much.

“V47 Pilot responding to Orbital Station Flight Command: Understood.”

The cyborg pilot scanned his battle and absence report once again, touching up sixty-three lines of code and twenty-one videos. Was about to query OVR-Lord, when his surroundings altered to glowing symbols and wireframe images. The hangar disappeared from his senses, along with V47 and the cavernous launch bay. His link to the mech was still there, but faint; a sleepy and tingling phantom limb.

Then something formed out of qubits and fast-shifting symbols. The pilot found himself standing before a structure of bluish memory crystal. 10.773 feet in height and broad in proportion, the crystal thrummed with processing power and extra-dimensional storage capacity. OVR-Lord.

Brilliant light flashed before the pilot could offer to make his report. He was scanned to the micro-cellular level; physical systems, archived data, vid-files and decision-trees. It felt very strange and invasive. Even the battle-mech was combed through, from onboard systems to rivets

These scans took less that .0004th of a tick. OVR-Lord acknowledged and read the pilot’s report, then discarded it, sending,

‘This asset exhibits erratic, emergent behavior which threatens to spread, as is seen from the corrupted code of the subroutines with which it has come into contact. Note is made of its successful strategies in drawing off and destroying 81.7555…% of the Draugr attack force. Additional note is taken of its encounter with the magnetar shell construction site and with Bide-a-While Station, both of which have been altered by contact. This asset’s aberrant behavior threatens the order and stability of Glimmr, OS 1210, Cerulean Dream and the inner worlds.’

Weirdly, OVR-Lord did not seem to be addressing V47 Pilot, who was unable to generate a free impulse or thought, much less explain. The AI was making its statements for the attention of some distant, invisible judge. .0007th of a tick passed in icy cold, stock-still waiting. Then, having received a command, the AI continued:

‘This asset will now be destroyed and recycled, together with the infected battle-mech. Decision to be carried out immediately.’

Then there was heat and light, followed by nothing at all.

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End of part five