Shadow of the Blue Ring (30 page)

“There is one way we could end this,” said Kalmar, “we could recover all the pieces of the Shadow Bringer and then use the weapon to destroy the Al’cari base. It’s not going to be easy and it wouldn’t be pretty but it would end this once and for all.”

“That’s genocide!” Isha exclaimed, “you would wipe out and entire race?”

“Not the people, only their base,” said Kalmar, “we destroy their centre of operations and the thing they are so desperately searching for, we cripple them and they will have no reason to continue their campaign against us.”

“The Al’cari have already come back from being presumed extinct once,” said Iyacs, “there is nothing to say that they will not do it again.”

“We don’t need to decide anything yet,” said James, cooling the situation, “lets just get all the pieces together before deciding what to do with them. I can’t condone using it against and entire race though, Kalmar, there is a reason that Artennes outlawed the creation of any weapons of mass destruction within the alliance. As much as I don’t always agree with him, he has the right idea on this. Iyacs, show is the way to the vaults.”

“Very well, I will allow you access to the lower vaults,” said Iyacs, “the consequences of the recovering of this weapon are yours alone.”

Just as on Sharstrom, the main console from which James was speaking to Iyacs moved to one side to reveal the hidden pathway. James indicated for his crew to follow behind him as he made his way inside. It was not a stairway built into the ground like last time, the steps lead down to a light silver, metallic hallway with rows of sealed doors on each side. All except one which had been left slightly open.

“Iyacs, what’s going on, has someone else been here recently?”

“No, not since you and your crew discovered this hangar six years ago,” said Iyacs, “my instruments down there indicate that one of your crew entered this part of the facility two days after you made first contact.”

“Who?”

“It was the one you called Darien. He accessed this vault and retrieved the item stored inside however the nature of the contents of this vault are not known to me. It was a package delivered here by a Jaiytid captain just a matter of days before the Xerion fleet arrived to destroy the buildings on the surface of this world. Do not worry, this was not the vault containing the Shadow Bringer.”

“I still don’t like the sound of this,” said Isha, “Darien’s intentions may not be like those of his predecessor but the thought of him possessing a Jaiytid artefact is a little unsettling. Do you know exactly what it was that he stole?”

“I am not permitted to reveal information of items stored within the vaults to anyone who does not already know of their nature or existence,” Iyacs repeated, “perhaps you should question him in person next time you see him.”

“I doubt he’ll just be willing to come over for a chat,” said Ansare, “if it was something bad, we would have known about it though, I don’t think we need to concern ourselves too much.”

“Yeah, Ok, we’ll worry about this another time,” said James, “Iyacs, can you open the vault with the Shadow Bringer inside?”

“I will do so now.”

Another of the large metallic doors unlocked and slowly, it opened, allowing the crew to enter. Just as before, at the end of a long rectangular room, there was the second piece of the Shadow Bringer. This too was attached to a lift mechanism that would take it to a chamber above the vaults. If they were lucky, they wouldn’t have to carry this one so far.

“To think it was here under our noses this whole time,” said Kosare, “if only we had known about it back then, we could have been ready for all of this.”

“I’m just glad the Vulians never learned of it,” said James, “imagine if one of their executors had got his hands on this thing. Its safe with us for now though, we just need to get it back to the ship. Iyacs, can you get this thing moving.”

“I will bring it to the surface for you now,” said Iyacs, “there is not room for all of you on the lift though, I can only take four of you.”

James elected to remain in the facility for now, he still had more questions for Iyacs. Julio, Ansare, Kalmar and Kosare all took the lift with the Shadow Bringer while the rest of the group exited the vault and returned to the main hangar. He couldn’t help but be curious as to what else might be lying around in the vaults that they did not know about, there must have been some important artefacts stored within them.

“The knowledge and the history that must be stored in this place… it’s almost like some kind of museum,” James said as they returned to the main hangar bay, “I only wish we had more time to look through all of it. There’s so much I wanted to learn last time I was here but I just never seem to have the time.”

“You would make a great scholar, James,” Kosare chuckled, “you sound just like all the guys at the archives, they would give so much just to come and spend a few weeks here. It would be great if we could take everything that is stored here and download it to the archives though, we could keep the staff busy for decades.”

“If only…” said James, “. . . we’d probably have to take Iyacs with us and I’m pretty sure we can’t fit everything in this facility onto our ship.”

“Actually…” said Morelli, “. . . I think we could.”

“Seriously?” Said Kosare, “and how exactly would we do that?”

“I could remove Iyacs’s central databanks, memory core and central processor and link it to the ship,” said Morelli, “the Evening Star is made up of Jaiytid technology, the two would be compatible… I think. I could definitely do it though.”

“This is a pretty ambitious idea Loca,” James had to admit it was one that appealed to him but he had his share of concerns about it, “how exactly would we link it with our systems? Wouldn’t we have to rebuild part of the ship to accommodate it?”

“The ship’s VI system!” Morelli said eagerly, “I could remove the current VI processor and link Iyacs to it’s workings within the ship. It would then become the new ship’s intelligence. I can guarantee it would be easier to use too, the current VI system is useless.”

“Iyacs, are you listening to this?”

“I am most curious,” said Iyacs, “you wish to remove me from this facility and transplant me into your ship?”

“If thats Ok with you,” said Morelli, “I know it’s ambitious but if you would rather come with us than stay down here, James would love to have you on board.”

“Well I can’t deny that it would be an interesting change of scenery,” said Iyacs, “many of your people seem to forget that even though I am a machine, I have sentient intelligence and I have feelings to some extent. I will admit, I am curious to see outside of this facility and experience being part of something new. Five hundred years underground does make for a tedious use of my time.”

“Then I guess its settled,” said James, “Loca, are you absolutely sure you can do this?”

“Oh please, this is routine for someone like me,” Morelli said confidently, “I’ll need a few hours to remove the Iyacs core from the facility and I’ll need to extract all the databanks and the memory processors too. I should have it done by the end of the day. I might need you to spare Connolly and some of the other engineers though, I could use someone to help me with the heavy lifting while I’m still healing.”

“I’ll get him down here right away,” said James, “Iyacs, are you ready to join the crew.”

“I am looking forward to going with you,” said Iyacs, “I will shut down all my systems and disconnect from the facility so that you may safely remove me. I only ask that you take exceptional care when transplanting me into your ship. A single mistake and I could be corrupted or irreversibly damaged and that would not suit any of our needs.”

“Don’t worry, I’m a professional,” chuckled Morelli, “I’ll have you on the ship good as new.”

The voice of Iyacs went silent, the intelligence powering down to allow Morelli to begin work and she was more than happy to get straight to it. With her injury putting her out of the fight for at least a few more days, getting her hands dirty with some advanced Jaiytid technology was the best thing she could do right now.

“Are you sure about this, James?” Lucy asked, “I’ve watched a fair few sci-fi films in my life. Don’t machines always rise up and rebel against their creators and then try to take over? How do we know this wont happen If Iyacs is linked to our ship?”

“You’ve watched too many films Lucy, it’ll be fine,” said James, “and we aren’t even Iyacs’s creator so it has no reason to rebel, think of it as a new part of the crew, a new member of the team.”

“I guess so but don’t say I didn’t warn you,” said Lucy, “if it takes control of the ship and goes berserk…”

“Then I’ll admit I was wrong,” said James, “I think it will be just fine though. Besides, we will have a fail-safe in place just incase anything goes wrong. I trust Loca to get it done though.”

With Morelli getting to work on Iyacs and the engineering team on it’s way down to the surface, James returned to the rest of his crew on the flyer where the second piece of the Shadow Bringer was loaded and ready to go. It was just a matter of waiting to see how his decision to combine his ship with a Jaiytid intelligence would work out. It was risky but it could have enormous benefits for them if it was all a success.

Several hours had passed since they had arrived at Raylia. James wondered just how long it would take for Artennes and the Tolian engineers to figure out that they had only succeeded in obtaining a fake piece of the Shadow Bringer. Artennes would not likely be too pleased at James’s deception and it would likely have some strong repercussions, likely another reprimand, but he would not do anything differently if given the choice a second time. Only he and his crew knew the true extend of the power of the Al’cari, after all they were the only ones in the alliance to engage them successfully and survive the encounter. If Artennes really thought that a direct military operation against them was a sensible idea then he was gravely mistaken.

“James, I’m ready to bring Iyacs on board,” Morelli’s voice came over the comm in James’s quarters. He had spent the last few hours at his desk, going over the readouts on the Al’cari ships and reading through some old papers on tactics and space combat from back from when he had been at Greenwich academy. Isha was also with him in their quarters but she had chosen to get some sleep, the morning sickness was just starting to show up again despite the medication and she was in need of some rest.

“Good work, Loca,” said James, “how soon can you have it installed in the ship’s computer core?”

“We reckon five, maybe six hours,” said Morelli, “the technology is a little more complex that I had anticipated but I’m confident I can get it done in good time. Iyacs will be part of the ship very soon, don’t you worry.”

“Very well, keep me updated,” said James. He was looking forward to seeing how it integrated with the ship, this was an experiment the likes of which had never been done in the alliance before. Just having a VI system on board was an unknown step, having a fully sentient machine intelligence integrating with the ship was another leap forward entirely.

Before he had a chance to relax and enjoy the peace and quiet once more, his console was beeping again, only this time it was not any of his crew, nor any of his teams on the surface of Raylia, this one was coming from Tolis. James quickly activated his private view-screen at his desk and accepted the message. He had partly expecting it to be from Jovan Artennes but instead, it was his son Tasos who was on the other end, and he was not alone…

“Captain Kristea?” James was slightly surprised to see the face of another one of his old crew from back in the revolution. He had not heard anything from her since the group had broken up after the memorial service on Naisus. Her whereabouts these past years had been unknown to all but a few within the alliance.

“It’s good to see you again captain Tavarez,” Kristea smiled, “how are things?”

“I’m coping,” he replied, “although I’m sure you’ve probably heard about everything thats going on from Tasos. What about you? I’ve not heard anything from you in six years.”

“It’s not much of a story really,” said Kristea, “myself and the last of us on Akris who remained loyal to the alliance were exiled. We came here to Tolis to work with the Tolian military as a kind of private security army. I suppose you could call us mercenaries now.”

“Nemika here is leading a team dedicated to mine and my father’s safety,” Tasos explained, “I’d love to take some time to explain but I’m afraid we’ve got bigger problems. My father knows that the piece of this weapon that you gave him is a fake. He has called for you to return to Tolis with the real weapon as soon as possible or he will send ships to apprehend you and bring you in.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that, Tasos,” said James, “we’ve got the second piece of the Shadow Bringer now. We just need a little more time to locate the third and then we can finally see about doing something about these Al’cari. Can you stall your father?”

“No, he doesn’t listen to me,” said Tasos, “but that isn’t the worst of it. My father has decided to take swift military action against these Hunters and he is assembling the fleet as we speak. Each of the alliance races has committed one quarter of their fleets into a combined force and they are to head out into the Blue Ring and engage the Hunter forces. He has even enlisted Darien and the Vulian fleet to assist us.”

“Is he insane!?” James exclaimed, “he knows the Hunters are too powerful, our fleets will get decimated if they go in there. Tasos, Nemika, you need to stop him.”

“None of us have the power to change his mind James,” said Kristea, “Artennes thinks he is doing what is best for the alliance but he doesn’t understand the threat the same way that you do. He has ordered the fleet to assemble at Tolis and in a few hours, he will give the order to move out. He has assigned a four man panel to oversee the mission.”

“Who’s leading the attack?”

“Admiral Raviano of Voronia is leading,” said Kristea, “then there is admiral Valentina of Churo, executor Kyrakian is in there for the Vulians but they’ve also got general Juarez in there too.”