Bianca D'Arc (14 page)

“
Sorry. Stupid question.”

“
There are no stupid questions, but I
accept your apology.”
It paused.
“I don’t want to be a
pirate base.”

“
You won’t be. Not as long as we can help
it.”

“
Good. I will aid you as best I
can.”

“You’re not going to believe this,” Chip
spoke aloud for Lila’s benefit. “The station is sentient. It’s
going to help.”

“
She,”
the station said in his mind.
“Space-going vessels are traditionally female.”

“Excuse me,
she
is going to help us,”
he said to Lila. “
Madhatter
just informed me vessels are
female.”

“She can hear us?” Lila looked at him with an
astounded expression. He knew how she felt.

“She can,” he nodded, not daring to say
anything further. A sentient station was a seriously unknown
quantity.

“Hello, Maddie. It’s nice to meet you.”

“
Maddie?”
the station questioned inside
Chip’s mind.

“
It’s a nickname. If you object, I’ll tell
her not to call you that.”

“
No, it’s nice. I’ve never had a nickname
before.”
Something like satisfaction sounded through the
station’s tone. Chip was going to have to sort through all this at
some later date. A sentient station was something he never would
have expected, but it was what he had to work with.

“
All right, Maddie it is. Are you aware of
what is in the Core Section Five node?”
The time to act was at
hand, much as he enjoyed exchanging pleasantries with an altogether
new kind of entity.

“
Weapons and life support.”

“
Yes. That’s why the pirates want control
of that node. My plan was to try to stop them, but failing that, is
there anything you could do to keep them from gaining complete
control of life support?”

“
They already have C&C,”
she said,
in a tone of despondency.

“
From there they can control all
functions, but to completely destroy life support and be certain we
can’t fire at their ships, they’d have to take out the node in
Section Five. If they control that, they control every life on this
station that requires air and water.”

“
But if you control the node, you can work
from there to shoot at their ships and restore life support if they
cut it off from C&C. I understand,”
Maddie replied.

“
Good. Now, how do we stop them?”
He
had intended to go this alone, but if they had the station on their
side, they had a powerful ally.

“
I do not think we can. I have already
deployed all countermeasures in the area. They are cutting through
my blast doors and even the bulkheads. They are making a
mess.”

The disgusted tone of that last statement
would have had Chip laughing if he’d had time. Their conversation
was happening at computer speed, so in the real world it wasn’t
taking much time at all, but every second counted during a
siege.

“Julian has the pirate ship under his
control. He’s undocking now. The other fighters are already
scrambled and on patrol at their stations. No sign of the pirate
fleet yet, but I know they’re out there,” Lila reported, drawing
Chip’s attention.

“They’re waiting until their people capture
the node so they’re certain we can’t fight back.” Good tactics, but
Chip didn’t like it. Morgan was growing too cautious. Most pirates
would’ve taken the chance.

“
The node is vulnerable where it is,”
Maddie piped in, drawing Chip back into the computer.
“But we
could move it.”

“
Move it? How? And to where?”
Chip was
absolutely floored by the idea. Computer nodes on space stations
were massive. They required huge amounts of data storage and
processing ability. They didn’t have anything capable of
replicating that going spare.

“
I can transfer it to you. You have plenty
of unused storage space and you haven’t even begun to tap the range
of your computational powers. You could handle that node and ten
more according to my calculations. I’ve been very intrigued by your
cybernetic interface since you first accessed my systems. I’ve been
studying your processor and storage unit for some time, and I
believe you can take over the node. At least temporarily. You
understand, I would want control of my systems back when this is
over.”

“
Maddie, I’m not a computer. You’re
talking about my brain. Living tissue inside an
organism—me.”

“
I disagree. You are a computer. And you
are also living tissue. You are both. It is a fascinating
combination and one that has not yet fully reached its potential.
You are also the only alternative we have.”

“
Give me a moment to think about
this.”

“
Don’t take too long. They’ll be through
the bulkhead in minutes. It will take almost that long to transfer
all of the node’s data and functionality to you.”

“She wants me to take the node,” Chip said to
Lila.

Lila looked worried, then resolved. “Take
it.” Her words rang with surety. “This has to be what I saw in my
vision. I know you can do it, Chip. It’s what you were meant
for.”

“I don’t know if the human brain—my damaged
and battered brain—can take it, Lila.”

She moved around the desk and took his hands
in hers as she dropped to her knees at the side of his chair.

“You can do this, Charlemagne,” she said
softly. “Your mind will adapt better than any other. Your implant
was designed to merge and become one with the host. Until now,
you’ve only been utilizing a minute fraction of its capability once
merged with your organic pathways. I know it. And I know you, of
all men, can handle the power this will give you.”

“Power?” He was uncomfortable with the
notion. “I hadn’t thought of that.” Yet, it was true.

“Which is why you are the only man for this
task. You will not abuse your abilities. And you can save many
lives… if you’ll just allow it to happen. Allow the merger of your
mind and your machine. As it was meant to be.”

“Lila, I…” He leaned down to kiss her
beautiful face. If he did this, he might never recover. It might
not work. He might die or be permanently brain damaged beyond
repair this time. He might never see her again and know who she
was, or how important she was to him.

“I love you, Charlemagne.” She stole his
thunder, but he didn’t mind. He hadn’t dared hope that she returned
the deep feelings he could no longer deny.

“I love you too, Lila. I never thought…”

She reached up and silenced his words with
the sweetest kiss he’d ever known. When she pulled back, he wanted
to follow, but the tears in her eyes halted him.

“Don’t cry, sweetheart. You are the most
important thing in my life. I just wanted you to know, in
case…”

“Don’t say it. You will succeed.” She
squeezed his hands, smiling now, though her eyes were still watery.
“If you think you’re getting away from me now, you’d better think
again. Now do it, Chip, before I lose my nerve. Become what you
were always meant to be.”

Her faith in him was what gave him the
courage to open himself up to the computer that had somehow
sprouted a personality and consciousness.

“I’m ready, Maddie,” he said aloud, knowing
the station would hear. He sat back in the chair and tried his best
to be receptive, opening all the ports on his implant. One of his
hands clenched the armrest of the chair, the other held tightly to
the miracle of a woman at his side. Without her, he wouldn’t even
attempt this. But to save her, and everyone else on the station, he
had to at least try.

Then it began. A pulsating white haze of
light and sound. A cacophony of the senses that made no noise, but
sounded through his being with the hum of organized, streamlined
thought. Data in its purest form. Programs to monitor the data and
control the lifeblood of the station itself.

A buzzing began in his brain, followed by
pain as the brain itself rerouted neurons to form biomechanical
synapses around the existing connections with the hardware of the
implant. Blinding pain made him shut his eyes and clench his hands.
All he felt was pain, but then Lila was there.

She held tight to his hand, grounding him to
his body while his brain adapted at flash point speed. His mind was
merging with the computer, his brain expanding to become one with
the implant in a way he’d never even dreamed was possible before
today. He merged with the station, accepting the heavy
responsibility of the node that was so important to their
defense.

As it settled into space in the folds of his
brain—the unused portions of his mind that had a nearly infinite
capacity for data storage and computation faster than any
computer—he realized quite a few things. The first of which was
that the pirates didn’t have nearly as strong a hold on C&C as
they pretended. The second was that the node wasn’t all that
taxing.

He could do more.

“Chip?” Lila’s voice came to him from far
away, but he could feel her warmth, her hand in his. He opened his
eyes and found her beautiful face at his side.

“This is… pretty amazing, Lila.”

“Are you all right?”

“Fine. You were right. I’ve got the
node.”

“They’re through the bulkhead in Core Section
Five,” she reported needlessly. He already knew.

“It’s okay. There’s nothing there they can
use. In fact…” Chip sent out a flicker of thought, opening the
blast doors the pirates had bypassed by cutting through the
bulkhead. That opened the route between the cornered pirates and a
fresh platoon of station police who had finally fought their way
past Delta Epsilon and into the heart of Core Section Five.

“You did that?” Lila asked, watching the
screen wall where the video from that corridor was still streaming
live.

“Yep.” He sent out commands to doors and
other systems all over the station to make things easier for the
police. He also unlocked all the police stations and freed the
thirty percent of station cops who had been trapped inside.

The tide was turning fast.

Then the pirate fleet jumped into the area,
dangerously close to the station. The bastards had microjumped
inside the system—something law abiding pilots wouldn’t ordinarily
do.

Lila reached out her free hand to switch the
view on the wall screen. She brought up a schematic representation
of the station and the space around it. Every ship was mapped,
represented by a realistic image of its hull type and size, along
with known capabilities and an estimate of its firepower. The
friendlies were in green. The pirates in red. Neutral or unknown
ships were yellow.

Julian, in the captured pirate ship, moved to
intercept, as did the other fighters. A few of the civilian vessels
that had been docked at the station also joined the defense, but it
wasn’t going to be enough. There were a lot more red marked ships
on that screen than green.

“
I have long-range scan capabilities,”
Maddie interjected in his expanded mind. Their connection was
closer now. It almost felt like Lila talking to him. His internal
senses perceived Maddie as a separate being, just like him.

“
Wow.”
He couldn’t help being a little
in awe of his new, much larger internal vision of reality. Maddie
didn’t seem to know how to reply and he took himself to task.
“What can you pick up? Help was supposed to be on the way. We
just have to hold off until they get here.”

“
I don’t see any other ships, friendly or
otherwise, in-system.”

That wasn’t good news. He needed to contact
Winters, or whoever was manning the war room, scrambling whatever
vessels they could scrounge. Faster than thought, he sent out the
message. It was answered a beat later by the computer that had
apparently been waiting for him to ping it.

The return message was a download of
statistics and data that only he could decipher given the top
secret codes in his implant. Only now, he didn’t have to run the
data consciously through his implant. It was available
instantaneously. There was no distinction between him and his
implant now. No separateness. They were one and the same, just as
Lila had foreseen.

“They’re sending a battle group our way, but
it won’t be here soon enough,” Chip reported aloud so Lila could
hear. “We’ve got to think of something else.”

“If you can contact Winters through the com
nodes…” Lila referred to the communications satellites and
installations set up through the galaxy. “And insert yourself into
the station control systems…” He thought he knew where she was
going and started to send out feeler pings to some of the ships in
the area. “Might you be able to influence or even take over some of
those enemy ships?”

“I’m on it.” He redoubled his efforts.

It was a huge stretch, but easier than he
would have guessed. He chose the closest of the enemy ships. It was
already engaging one of the fighters. Julian was making his way
over from the far side of the station, but the engines on the
pirate ship he’d commandeered had been cold. He was limited to
in-system drives until the flight engines warmed up. The pilot of
the fighter was good, but he was seriously outgunned. All he had
going for him was his smaller size and better maneuverability.
That, and his unconventional flying skills kept him alive to make
repeated strikes at the enemy.

Chip tried a head on approach to the enemy
ship’s computer first, but was rebuffed. It was armored against
intrusion into its weapons and navigation systems. He’d have to
find a backdoor if this was going to work at all.

Sweat broke out on his forehead as he
examined the ship’s systems. A thought occurred to him when he
realized he was alone in this inquiry. Maddie was either bound to
the station somehow, or hadn’t wanted to join him, but he needed
her help. He quickly retracted his queries to the ship’s computer
and went back to Maddie on the station.