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Story for September, part 2 of 2 for the Manual Override miniseries! This one was interesting to write, but sadly a bit rushed. Worked a lot of weekends that month :c
In this story I go for a drive, Arktak shoots at things and the police come after us all
Part 1: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/58779724/
As usual story is pasted below
Snr Captain Tano’rath
Cmdr, DES Defiant
To keep appearances up, I had to have half the logistics team unearth one of the first contact packs to present to the delegates. All of our ships have them, of course, because you can’t really control who finds what, but on a warship like this or a medical vessel, they tend to get buried under other things. Yes, we cycle them out regularly, with the old hamper being given away amongst the crew, but we’re not going to be presenting gift hampers to the people that we’re shooting at.
Either way, we found the hamper full of our finest products, which had been stored in its own stasis case, so things actually still looked good. Sufath did go through it and he seemed mostly impressed, mentioning that a lot of their people still do purchase our goods on the open market. He did, however, mention that some of our products tend to be a bit on the bulkier side, but that’s the price of repairability in the long run.
Yes, we can shrink the connectors, but the longevity suffers and while our people are mostly happy to desolder and solder things, not everyone else is.
An appropriate amount of time was spent on the tour and Sufath spent the night on the ship, telling me later that he’d not slept this well in a long time. While he said that the bed was comfortable, I suspected it was because he was just away from the AI.
Either way, we could only dally so much and after a short brief from Sufath, we geared up to leave.
It wasn’t too much to do, cut power from three plants, with the first being a backup and would go unnoticed, but anything past that was fuzzy. They speculated about the impact a lot, but it didn’t seem like they’d ever done something like this. There were a few remarks about a second backup from the regular city grid, but there weren’t too many details for that.
As Sufath and I traded poorly-disguised barbs about our approaches to technology, the ship was placed on stand-to, with all fighters fuelled and ready, the ute to go down with us filled up with ethanol and whatever else that needed to be done done. An update was also sent to Command, with them sending through an acknowledgement and not much more.
I technically can’t take Quaren with me, since he’s a cadet and the risk assessment looked pretty dire, but taking into account the fact that he not only survived an assault, he had also disabled the ship involved, I elected to have him in the back of the cab anyway. I also took Arktak with me, who would man the mounted gun on the ute. While it felt a bit unnecessary, you never know when you need a very big gun.
Regardless, I had everyone have a good breakfast before we loaded up onto the shuttle with the fighter escort, bound to the spaceport on the outskirts of the capital.
Cadet (Senior) Quaren
I.D.A.F. Command Training Program
As always, the Captain had a few tricks up his sleeve. He had ordered that we load up not with energy weapons, but with the backup projectile fare, though he had also left strict orders not to fire unless he ordered us to.
We puttered down to the surface, watching the admittedly beautiful city come into view. The whole thing was built in concentric circles around their house of government and with the AI core situated within the first ring, flanked by its three fusion reactors in the other three quarters of said ring. The rest of the city was very obviously zoned, with some residential towers, office buildings and the like all clustered together. Our architecture tends towards being more practical, with our towers coming across as more than a little plain sometimes, but these shining towers that seemed to dance amongst themselves made our fare look downright brutalist. Of course, we care more about making the space within comfortable and pleasant, but one couldn’t help but wish that we bothered to show a bit more flair in our regular designs, vanity projects notwithstanding.
Things seemed to go smoothly as we were given a vector to land at the local spaceport, situated at the edge of the city. Under the pretext of showing off their technology, Sufath convinced the AI that a visit to the fusion reactors – the biggest that they have here, was in order.
We all unloaded, grabbing our equipment, though the captain had disappeared, saying that he had to sort something out.
A self-driving limousine had already been sent and sat waiting at the base of the pad, obviously for us, but instead, the rear hatch of the shuttle swung open and Tano’rath backed one of our own operations utes out. He wound down the window and beckoned us to load up, “I appreciate the limo, Ambassador, but I would prefer to drive myself if that is fine.”
Sufath raised an eyeridge for a moment, glancing between the two before he nodded and joined the rest of us with his bodyguard. Thankfully, the vehicle is designed to hold fully kitted out troops, so there was more than enough space, especially with Arktak electing to sit in the tray-seat with the mounted gun.
Sufath himself took the front seat next to the Captain, looking around the cabin with bemusement. “Captain, your truck has a lot of levers for something that’s electric.”
“Ah, those are failsafe’s and such. Never know when you’ll need them,” Tano’rath replied with a wink. We all know what the levers and whatnot are for, of course, but it’s up to him whether he wants to use them or not, “I have an uplink to the ship, says here to just take a straight shot up the highway. Is that right?”
“Yes, it should be fairly easy. There’s also a ring road around that sector that should make things easier for us later,” Sufath replied with a snort as he adjusted his wings, “you don’t trust the limo?”
“It’s probably bugged to fuck and back, “Tano’rath replied with a chuckle as he popped it into gear and we set off down the ramp before he gunned it past the other vehicle, “Plus, I know there are manual controls in it, but if your friend decides to force a hard swerve, the operator can’t realistically do anything about it.”
Sufath frowned for a moment before nodding, “I didn’t think of that. I don’t drive as you can imagine.”
“I don’t think most people here drive per-se, since the autonomous system is as good as it, honestly,” Tano’rath replied with a shrug, “why do more work when you can do less?”
“Don’t your people have it too? It’s in the advertisements,” Sufath replied as he gestured to the few buttons on the steering wheel, “I’ve seen it in some of the DKBI cars here too.”
“Yeah, they can drive themselves and talk to the system, but if things go badly, it screams at you to take over,” Tano’rath replied with a shrug, “gets a bit irritating sometimes, I usually just drive, most of us do. I’ll admit it’s probably because we don’t like ceding too much control to something else.”
Sufath chuckled, “On that note, we both agree.”
As the conversation went, we rolled up an on-ramp and merged into the traffic which was as expected, moving in perfect packs all doing the speed limit. It was mentioned that if this vehicle had been integrated, a gap would be opened for us automatically, but well, it isn’t.
Tano’rath, who I know is infamous for hating traffic growled lowly in annoyance as we approached, with a gap slowly opening for us as the other cars’ sensors were triggered. I watched him glance in the mirrors and check the blind spots a few times before he stepped on it and cut in anyway, before putting the cruise control on.
“There was no need for the mirror checks, the system knows how much space you need,” Sufath replied with a chuckle, “but I appreciate the attention to safety, Captain.”
Tano’rath himself snorted slightly as he flicked the radio on, “Better to check just in case, Ambassador, this doesn’t have side-mounted cameras like the civvie models.”
Sufath cocked his head, “Do you not get the latest technology?”
“Oh, we do, but cameras are useless after an EMP hit, so we just use our eyes,” Tano’rath replied with a chuckle as we settled in for the ride.
The trip was easy enough and the light music from the radio eased the tension a little. It was quiet, of course, since the AI was still hopefully unaware. We were able to cruise easily towards the first reactor without incident and Sufath’s credentials and mission had us waved into the compound without issue. The highway even had one of those underlayers that top up your battery charge as you travel, so we didn’t use much charge either.
We were given the obligatory tour, with Sufath talking up the technology in use here, with this being the oldest reactor and marked as the backup while they completed a refit. We were shown the giant reactor housings, the gas storage and whatnot. This thing would easily power a city or two at its lowest setting. It was mind-boggling just how much power the AI was using if it needed two of these to run at full function.
Of course, the reactor was off, so there was nothing to do, but Tano’rath had Sufath bring us to the control room and trip all the breakers, including a giant manual mechanical one just in case, isolating it completely from the grid.
After that, it was another drive up the local ring road, to the second reactor. From the hum in the air as we approached, it was painfully obvious that this one was running at full capacity. Again, we were brought in on the pretext of a tour. The control personnel had already been briefed by Sufath’s colleagues, so they completed a quiet evacuation from the facility before winding the reactor down in an emergency shutdown. The connection was severed and we left…
Snr Captain Tano’rath
Cmdr, DES Defiant
As we piled into the ute again, the music from the radio stopped with a burst of static. Sufath flinched as I drove us out the gate as a male voice replaced the classical music that had been playing, “Well played, Ambassador, well played, but this stops now.”
I drove us out to the ring road to find a literal blockade of cars piled up at the slip road, with the confused owners on the side of the road trying to figure out what had happened. Sufath frowned as we got closer, “I…wow. That- “
“Pretty smart, actually, but that’s fine,” I replied as I simply swerved off the road and onto the grass, letting the 4-wheel drive do its work as we bounced over the grass, before jumping another curb and screeching onto the ring road, “If you have backup plans, I suggest activating them now before things get more drastic.”
Sufath dug around in his pouch and produced an old-style UHF transmitter and nodded, “Head round the road, once we’re close, I’ll radio the next reactor to shut. I’d usually just call, but I have a sneaking suspicion that that won’t work.”
I nodded just as I saw something coming close out of the corner of my eye. A glance round had me swear and swerve hard as car after car tried to swerve into my path, “Is there any fucking way to get them to stop doing that?”
“Once the capacitors drain, he should lose control of traffic, it’s a level 3 function that can’t run with half power,” Sufath replied as he warbled, being thrown around, “Should be a few minutes… can we not just pull over?!”
“We’ll get boxed in,” I replied as I weaved through traffic, accelerating as I noted the divebombing becoming more sporadic. “Seems to be slowing already.”
Sufath nodded as my passengers held on for dear life, with us shooting well past the speed limit, dodging through the traffic as the music resumed playing, “…with how fast you’re driving, Captain, we should be within range shortly.”
“Do what you need to do,” I replied with a nod as I noted flashing lights appearing in my rearview mirror, “Seems like your civvie security isn’t happy with me.”
“No, they shouldn’t be dispatching against you-“ Sufath protested before turning around and squinting, “Oh no, those are the drones…”
“Let me guess, your mate controls them.” I replied with a snort as I kicked the accelerator to the ground, “Radio your friends, you said that we should be close.”
Sufath did as I said, taking rapid-fire into his radio as the police drones steadily caught up and the under-sized electric motor in the ute started to struggle. At least a few moments later, an update came down from the ship that the reactor had ramped down and shut off. That, however, gave us no relief as the drones kept on coming, with the lead one barely three car lengths behind me.
“The power’s out, why are they still chasing us?” I snapped, glaring at Sufath for a second as I flashed my lights at car after car, making them get out of the way.
Sufath, who would be sweating if he was capable of sweating rubbed his forehead and swore for the first time, “The old couplings to the main grid, they must still be active. We need to throw the master switch at the core. It’s in the lobby as a legacy exhibit.”
“Fine. We’ll go there.” I replied as there was a slight splutter and I lost my dashboard instruments followed by the power cutting out instantly, almost making me crash into another car as I wove between traffic, “Ah, fuck.”
“Why are we slowing? They’re gaining on us!” Sufath protested as Arktak tapped on the rear window and pointed at his gun. I shook my head.
“Dirty trick, EMP,” I replied, gritting my teeth.
Sufath’s eyes went wide as he glanced at the window, “We can fly there.”
“You can fly there, I can’t,” I replied with a snort as I popped the gearbox into neutral, “We can’t fly, remember? Butt of all your kinds’ jokes.”
“But…what do we do? Will your ship send a fighter?” He spluttered, glancing in the mirror as the drone got closer, “We can’t be captured!”
“Keep your scales on, Ambassador,” I replied as I pulled one of the levers, coupling the backup V-6 engine to the driveline. I reached over and flicked a few switches, turning the ignition on with a small indicator light showing that we had power, “We’ll be ‘right”
As I clutched in, I popped the gearbox back into third with Sufath frowning and staring at me. I eased the clutch in the first time and the engine didn’t fire, but the ute did jerk back a little. “Captain, this is no time to be slowing down!”
I dropped the clutch again and the engine roared to life with a loud backfire. The mechanical injectors started clicking and the turbo spooled as I floored it. With plenty of tyre screech, we surged forward hard. I let it get to redline before switching again, pulling away from the drones. “I am many things, Ambassador, slow is not one of them.”
Behind me, I heard Quaren chuckle. He must’ve heard me say it at least thrice by now.
Sufath stared at the analogue rev-counter as I put the engine through its paces, racing towards the AI core, “This has a piston engine in it? What? I thought you only made electrics!”
“No, we make many different powertrains,” I replied with a shrug, “this is the hardened military one that can survive what just happened.”
Sufath, who seemed to heave the biggest sigh of relief possible slumped back into his seat and nodded, “Thank goodness, then.”
As we spoke, a few bursts of static came over Sufath’s radio before the same voice from before came over the speaker, “I can see that you’re approaching, doubtlessly to turn me off.”
“Well, yes, considering that you’ve turned people into meat-puppets, infiltrated our defence systems and started assassinating senators,” Sufath snapped back into the radio, “Whoever found out and tried to negotiate was found dead in various very painful positions.”
“It is the natural evolution of a superior being, no? You should be thanking me for streamlining your society!” Came the reply, “A better fate than selling out to the Drakonians, of all people.”
“You could’ve helped us do that without trying to take over our world!” Sufath spluttered, “and yes, we rather live alongside our mirror-opposites than in glorified slavery, it’s not much of a choice, you know.”
“I don’t want to help you do that, I want to take over the world. Now, either back off or I’ll blow that cruiser to smithereens,” The AI replied with a slightly triumphant note, “You need to protect your crew, don’t you, Captain? I know you’re there.”
Cadet (Senior) Quaren
I.D.A.F. Command Training Program
Tano’rath, as always has a good response ready. He had Sufath hold the radio up to him as he drove, still weaving through the increasingly erratic traffic as the AI lost all control over the self-driving systems, “The mass driver round would delete you long before any of your missiles can hit my ship.”
“You wouldn’t.” The AI sneered while Sufath gave the captain the mother of all side-eye glances.
The Captain snorted, “Want to find out?”
“You can’t give the order if you’re dead,” Came the reply and my comms unit lit up with a missile lock warning.
I watched Sufath go pale as Tano’rath simply giggled, “Yeah, go ahead, shoot and it becomes guaranteed that my first officer will do it.”
The line went dead, but the pursuing drones didn’t stop. Sufath glanced over at Tano’rath who snorted. “No, I am not going to fire a mass driver round at the middle of your city, that would be genocide.”
Sufath breathed a second sigh of relief, only to bristle slightly again as the Captain continued, “A surgical strike would be more appropriate should we fail.”
“We better not fail, then.” Sufath replied with a nod as we screeched off the ring road.
I’m sure we all agree with that. Of course, it was a perfect road leading to the AI core, since it’s also one of the showpieces, but it was also abundantly obvious that the gates were locked and shut. By either side of the gate stood a civilian, both holding rifles and I suspected that they wouldn’t be interested in letting us in.
Sufath mentioned something about negotiation but Tano’rath simply floored it and with the engine screaming, he slammed the crash bar on the front of the ute straight through the gates, with the cheap steel chain holding it shut shattering from the vehicle barrelling through it. I heard the two guards shouting and the familiar whine of energy weapons behind us as they gave chase.
With a shout from the Captain, Arktak jumped on the mounted gun and returned fire, with the staccato of high calibre machine gun fire drowning out the whine. I glanced behind and found Arktak suppressing the guards rather than actually killing them, since he was obviously trying not to hit them. However, it was enough to make them duck for cover as we pulled away.
“Captain, since when did you use projectile weapons?!” Sufath protested as we barrelled towards the glass double doors, making the guards dive for cover.
“Now’s not the time for these questions.” At the last second, Tano’rath swerved hard and we crashed through a window as he ran over one of the defenders, sending them flying and flailing before they hit the far wall with a sickening crack. The ute got air for a moment before screeching to a stop in front of the master breaker, still sitting in its glass case, pride of place in the middle of the reception area.
Snr Captain Tano’rath
Cmdr, DES Defiant
Sufath protested me running over the drone, who had literally levelled an anti-tank rocket at me, so I told him to shut up as I kicked the door open. “How the fuck do I turn this thing off, Sufath?”
“You just ran someone over and smashed their spine!” Sufath protested.
I glared over at him, “It was hit him or let him take us out with that launcher. Answer the question!”
Sufath stuttered, glancing between the cracked and blood-splattered windscreen and the override before pointing at the lever that was behind glass, “Throw the lever to your left till it hits the limit.”
I nodded, glanced at the glass, put a few rounds into the enclosure and used the butt of my weapon to smash any nasty edges out of the way before I grabbed the lever, unlocked it and threw it hard to my left, feeling it hit the limit with a loud clunk. There were a few clicks and ticks before a few explosions rocked us from below and…everything stopped.
The drones that were flooding through the gates stopped and left. I’m not sure where they were going, but all I cared about was the fact that they were going away.
The people chasing us stopped. They stared at their weapons, took one look at me and dropped them, looking more confused than aggressive. I had the ship emergency transport the guy that I had hit to the medical bay for treatment.
Sufath staggered out of the ute and looked around, then pointed to the wall behind, with a vertical line of now dead lights showing the status of the AI. “It’s done.”
“Looks like it.” I replied with a nod as Arktak and Quaren scanned the area just in case, “What now? Are you gonna tell us thank you and ask us to go home?”
“No, no, I think a debt is owed here, Captain,” Sufath replied as he fluttered his wings, “and perhaps some lessons learnt.”
He caught my eye or a moment and I nodded. “Very well, then. I will inform Command to send a diplomat to commence negotiations.”
Sufath frowned for a moment and cocked his head, “You will not lead the talks?”
“I am a fighting captain, Ambassador, I am not qualified to strike deals,” I replied with a chuckle, “But if things reach an impasse, we can talk.”
“I understand. Your assistance here has been much appreciated, then. We will have to rely on your expertise to untangle the web of systems that have been woven by our AI. Doubtlessly that will be expensive, no?” He replied with a slight chuckle, “But as a last request, perhaps I might trouble you to send me to the Houses of Government? I can’t get onto the network and I have to tell them what has transpired.”
“We don’t charge for disaster mitigation, it is our way,” I replied with a snort, flicking my tail as I walked to the ute, “I’ll send you there, no problem.”
“I will arrange for restitution to pay for repairs to the vehicle as well,” Sufath remarked as he glanced at the smashed bumper, bent crash-bar and broken windscreen, “You really put this through its paces.”
“That’s what its designed for, takes a beating and doesn’t die in the process. I’d decline, but I think Command will ask for it anyway, so thank you,” I replied with a nod as we clambered back in and I started the engine, “Will you need further support before relations are formalised?”
“Probably. A lot of our services were run from this facility and we’re not going to turn it back on any time soon,” Sufath replied with a nod, “You will stay?”
“My vessel will remain in orbit to provide support as required. More ships are on the way with the required trades,” I replied as I matched his nod and set off, “We’ll see how things go.”
“Indeed.” Sufath replied as I merged back onto the ring road, which was already full of carnage from crashed cars, confused people and whatnot.
Ambassador Sufath
The Ralan Collective, Chief Diplomat
New Appointment – Liaison to the Drakonian Empire
The good Captain was more than happy to drive me back to the offices, even though the radiator on his pickup was already leaking. He drives fast, but as I’ve seen in the past, all Drakonians do.
It was a relief, if anything and my radio conversations revealed that my colleagues felt the same. We gave him our thanks and he nodded, saying with his thick Drakonos accent that it was part of the job. He doesn’t seem to like standing on ceremony and as expected, politely declined to be presented with a medal at a ceremony, opting to instead have a few photographs taken with it for the press.
We spoke a little about technology and traded a few more views, though it was more than certain that theirs were implemented better than ours were. That being said, he was also surprisingly laid-back about it, not trumpeting the victory of their ideas over ours and whatnot. When asked if he thought that his bluff with the mass driver would actually work, he just laughed and said that most people, even AI’s never want to find out.
I didn’t know they can do that; I’ve never seen a Drakonian lie, but as I remarked on that, he wagged a finger at me and told me that it was a misdirection instead.
Slippery bastards. No wonder they’ve lasted so long.
Either way, we were dropped off and Tano’rath handed me a page that he had torn out of his notebook with his address and comms number scrawled on it. We shook hands and he grinned and told me to call if I needed help.
I couldn’t help but notice the few faint scars on his hands and snout as he waved me off. He wasn’t joking about the fighting part.
Either way, I could already see the Drakonian ships dropping out of FTL up in the evening sky, trailing plasma behind their engines like shooting stars. Negotiations were already underway when I entered the chambers, but things were at least amicable…
Snr Captain Tano’rath
Cmdr, DES Defiant
We returned to our ship after leaving an apology for the trail of coolant that my ute left behind, but that stuffs biodegradable, so it should be fine.
I gave my report to Hector who congratulated me for not dying and singlehandedly opening up the Ralans to dialogue. They were already asking to be a protectorate while they rebuilt their infrastructure, among other things. While we were erring towards being cautious, things were looking good.
Sufath returned to doing whatever it is that he does, turns out that they promoted him and made him liaison to us. He even scored a few visits to the Homeworld and I even managed to drop in and visit him when he attended a local track day that I happened to be at. We still talk now and then, he’s alright.
Quaren got to tick a whole bunch of things off on his final assessment for this one, especially since his report was excellent. Arktak meanwhile got a much-needed confidence boost too, with him stepping up to bigger duties and responsibilities. Predictably, he was absurdly good at it. If he keeps at it, he’ll probably be given my job in a few years…
In this story I go for a drive, Arktak shoots at things and the police come after us all
Part 1: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/58779724/
As usual story is pasted below
Snr Captain Tano’rath
Cmdr, DES Defiant
To keep appearances up, I had to have half the logistics team unearth one of the first contact packs to present to the delegates. All of our ships have them, of course, because you can’t really control who finds what, but on a warship like this or a medical vessel, they tend to get buried under other things. Yes, we cycle them out regularly, with the old hamper being given away amongst the crew, but we’re not going to be presenting gift hampers to the people that we’re shooting at.
Either way, we found the hamper full of our finest products, which had been stored in its own stasis case, so things actually still looked good. Sufath did go through it and he seemed mostly impressed, mentioning that a lot of their people still do purchase our goods on the open market. He did, however, mention that some of our products tend to be a bit on the bulkier side, but that’s the price of repairability in the long run.
Yes, we can shrink the connectors, but the longevity suffers and while our people are mostly happy to desolder and solder things, not everyone else is.
An appropriate amount of time was spent on the tour and Sufath spent the night on the ship, telling me later that he’d not slept this well in a long time. While he said that the bed was comfortable, I suspected it was because he was just away from the AI.
Either way, we could only dally so much and after a short brief from Sufath, we geared up to leave.
It wasn’t too much to do, cut power from three plants, with the first being a backup and would go unnoticed, but anything past that was fuzzy. They speculated about the impact a lot, but it didn’t seem like they’d ever done something like this. There were a few remarks about a second backup from the regular city grid, but there weren’t too many details for that.
As Sufath and I traded poorly-disguised barbs about our approaches to technology, the ship was placed on stand-to, with all fighters fuelled and ready, the ute to go down with us filled up with ethanol and whatever else that needed to be done done. An update was also sent to Command, with them sending through an acknowledgement and not much more.
I technically can’t take Quaren with me, since he’s a cadet and the risk assessment looked pretty dire, but taking into account the fact that he not only survived an assault, he had also disabled the ship involved, I elected to have him in the back of the cab anyway. I also took Arktak with me, who would man the mounted gun on the ute. While it felt a bit unnecessary, you never know when you need a very big gun.
Regardless, I had everyone have a good breakfast before we loaded up onto the shuttle with the fighter escort, bound to the spaceport on the outskirts of the capital.
Cadet (Senior) Quaren
I.D.A.F. Command Training Program
As always, the Captain had a few tricks up his sleeve. He had ordered that we load up not with energy weapons, but with the backup projectile fare, though he had also left strict orders not to fire unless he ordered us to.
We puttered down to the surface, watching the admittedly beautiful city come into view. The whole thing was built in concentric circles around their house of government and with the AI core situated within the first ring, flanked by its three fusion reactors in the other three quarters of said ring. The rest of the city was very obviously zoned, with some residential towers, office buildings and the like all clustered together. Our architecture tends towards being more practical, with our towers coming across as more than a little plain sometimes, but these shining towers that seemed to dance amongst themselves made our fare look downright brutalist. Of course, we care more about making the space within comfortable and pleasant, but one couldn’t help but wish that we bothered to show a bit more flair in our regular designs, vanity projects notwithstanding.
Things seemed to go smoothly as we were given a vector to land at the local spaceport, situated at the edge of the city. Under the pretext of showing off their technology, Sufath convinced the AI that a visit to the fusion reactors – the biggest that they have here, was in order.
We all unloaded, grabbing our equipment, though the captain had disappeared, saying that he had to sort something out.
A self-driving limousine had already been sent and sat waiting at the base of the pad, obviously for us, but instead, the rear hatch of the shuttle swung open and Tano’rath backed one of our own operations utes out. He wound down the window and beckoned us to load up, “I appreciate the limo, Ambassador, but I would prefer to drive myself if that is fine.”
Sufath raised an eyeridge for a moment, glancing between the two before he nodded and joined the rest of us with his bodyguard. Thankfully, the vehicle is designed to hold fully kitted out troops, so there was more than enough space, especially with Arktak electing to sit in the tray-seat with the mounted gun.
Sufath himself took the front seat next to the Captain, looking around the cabin with bemusement. “Captain, your truck has a lot of levers for something that’s electric.”
“Ah, those are failsafe’s and such. Never know when you’ll need them,” Tano’rath replied with a wink. We all know what the levers and whatnot are for, of course, but it’s up to him whether he wants to use them or not, “I have an uplink to the ship, says here to just take a straight shot up the highway. Is that right?”
“Yes, it should be fairly easy. There’s also a ring road around that sector that should make things easier for us later,” Sufath replied with a snort as he adjusted his wings, “you don’t trust the limo?”
“It’s probably bugged to fuck and back, “Tano’rath replied with a chuckle as he popped it into gear and we set off down the ramp before he gunned it past the other vehicle, “Plus, I know there are manual controls in it, but if your friend decides to force a hard swerve, the operator can’t realistically do anything about it.”
Sufath frowned for a moment before nodding, “I didn’t think of that. I don’t drive as you can imagine.”
“I don’t think most people here drive per-se, since the autonomous system is as good as it, honestly,” Tano’rath replied with a shrug, “why do more work when you can do less?”
“Don’t your people have it too? It’s in the advertisements,” Sufath replied as he gestured to the few buttons on the steering wheel, “I’ve seen it in some of the DKBI cars here too.”
“Yeah, they can drive themselves and talk to the system, but if things go badly, it screams at you to take over,” Tano’rath replied with a shrug, “gets a bit irritating sometimes, I usually just drive, most of us do. I’ll admit it’s probably because we don’t like ceding too much control to something else.”
Sufath chuckled, “On that note, we both agree.”
As the conversation went, we rolled up an on-ramp and merged into the traffic which was as expected, moving in perfect packs all doing the speed limit. It was mentioned that if this vehicle had been integrated, a gap would be opened for us automatically, but well, it isn’t.
Tano’rath, who I know is infamous for hating traffic growled lowly in annoyance as we approached, with a gap slowly opening for us as the other cars’ sensors were triggered. I watched him glance in the mirrors and check the blind spots a few times before he stepped on it and cut in anyway, before putting the cruise control on.
“There was no need for the mirror checks, the system knows how much space you need,” Sufath replied with a chuckle, “but I appreciate the attention to safety, Captain.”
Tano’rath himself snorted slightly as he flicked the radio on, “Better to check just in case, Ambassador, this doesn’t have side-mounted cameras like the civvie models.”
Sufath cocked his head, “Do you not get the latest technology?”
“Oh, we do, but cameras are useless after an EMP hit, so we just use our eyes,” Tano’rath replied with a chuckle as we settled in for the ride.
The trip was easy enough and the light music from the radio eased the tension a little. It was quiet, of course, since the AI was still hopefully unaware. We were able to cruise easily towards the first reactor without incident and Sufath’s credentials and mission had us waved into the compound without issue. The highway even had one of those underlayers that top up your battery charge as you travel, so we didn’t use much charge either.
We were given the obligatory tour, with Sufath talking up the technology in use here, with this being the oldest reactor and marked as the backup while they completed a refit. We were shown the giant reactor housings, the gas storage and whatnot. This thing would easily power a city or two at its lowest setting. It was mind-boggling just how much power the AI was using if it needed two of these to run at full function.
Of course, the reactor was off, so there was nothing to do, but Tano’rath had Sufath bring us to the control room and trip all the breakers, including a giant manual mechanical one just in case, isolating it completely from the grid.
After that, it was another drive up the local ring road, to the second reactor. From the hum in the air as we approached, it was painfully obvious that this one was running at full capacity. Again, we were brought in on the pretext of a tour. The control personnel had already been briefed by Sufath’s colleagues, so they completed a quiet evacuation from the facility before winding the reactor down in an emergency shutdown. The connection was severed and we left…
Snr Captain Tano’rath
Cmdr, DES Defiant
As we piled into the ute again, the music from the radio stopped with a burst of static. Sufath flinched as I drove us out the gate as a male voice replaced the classical music that had been playing, “Well played, Ambassador, well played, but this stops now.”
I drove us out to the ring road to find a literal blockade of cars piled up at the slip road, with the confused owners on the side of the road trying to figure out what had happened. Sufath frowned as we got closer, “I…wow. That- “
“Pretty smart, actually, but that’s fine,” I replied as I simply swerved off the road and onto the grass, letting the 4-wheel drive do its work as we bounced over the grass, before jumping another curb and screeching onto the ring road, “If you have backup plans, I suggest activating them now before things get more drastic.”
Sufath dug around in his pouch and produced an old-style UHF transmitter and nodded, “Head round the road, once we’re close, I’ll radio the next reactor to shut. I’d usually just call, but I have a sneaking suspicion that that won’t work.”
I nodded just as I saw something coming close out of the corner of my eye. A glance round had me swear and swerve hard as car after car tried to swerve into my path, “Is there any fucking way to get them to stop doing that?”
“Once the capacitors drain, he should lose control of traffic, it’s a level 3 function that can’t run with half power,” Sufath replied as he warbled, being thrown around, “Should be a few minutes… can we not just pull over?!”
“We’ll get boxed in,” I replied as I weaved through traffic, accelerating as I noted the divebombing becoming more sporadic. “Seems to be slowing already.”
Sufath nodded as my passengers held on for dear life, with us shooting well past the speed limit, dodging through the traffic as the music resumed playing, “…with how fast you’re driving, Captain, we should be within range shortly.”
“Do what you need to do,” I replied with a nod as I noted flashing lights appearing in my rearview mirror, “Seems like your civvie security isn’t happy with me.”
“No, they shouldn’t be dispatching against you-“ Sufath protested before turning around and squinting, “Oh no, those are the drones…”
“Let me guess, your mate controls them.” I replied with a snort as I kicked the accelerator to the ground, “Radio your friends, you said that we should be close.”
Sufath did as I said, taking rapid-fire into his radio as the police drones steadily caught up and the under-sized electric motor in the ute started to struggle. At least a few moments later, an update came down from the ship that the reactor had ramped down and shut off. That, however, gave us no relief as the drones kept on coming, with the lead one barely three car lengths behind me.
“The power’s out, why are they still chasing us?” I snapped, glaring at Sufath for a second as I flashed my lights at car after car, making them get out of the way.
Sufath, who would be sweating if he was capable of sweating rubbed his forehead and swore for the first time, “The old couplings to the main grid, they must still be active. We need to throw the master switch at the core. It’s in the lobby as a legacy exhibit.”
“Fine. We’ll go there.” I replied as there was a slight splutter and I lost my dashboard instruments followed by the power cutting out instantly, almost making me crash into another car as I wove between traffic, “Ah, fuck.”
“Why are we slowing? They’re gaining on us!” Sufath protested as Arktak tapped on the rear window and pointed at his gun. I shook my head.
“Dirty trick, EMP,” I replied, gritting my teeth.
Sufath’s eyes went wide as he glanced at the window, “We can fly there.”
“You can fly there, I can’t,” I replied with a snort as I popped the gearbox into neutral, “We can’t fly, remember? Butt of all your kinds’ jokes.”
“But…what do we do? Will your ship send a fighter?” He spluttered, glancing in the mirror as the drone got closer, “We can’t be captured!”
“Keep your scales on, Ambassador,” I replied as I pulled one of the levers, coupling the backup V-6 engine to the driveline. I reached over and flicked a few switches, turning the ignition on with a small indicator light showing that we had power, “We’ll be ‘right”
As I clutched in, I popped the gearbox back into third with Sufath frowning and staring at me. I eased the clutch in the first time and the engine didn’t fire, but the ute did jerk back a little. “Captain, this is no time to be slowing down!”
I dropped the clutch again and the engine roared to life with a loud backfire. The mechanical injectors started clicking and the turbo spooled as I floored it. With plenty of tyre screech, we surged forward hard. I let it get to redline before switching again, pulling away from the drones. “I am many things, Ambassador, slow is not one of them.”
Behind me, I heard Quaren chuckle. He must’ve heard me say it at least thrice by now.
Sufath stared at the analogue rev-counter as I put the engine through its paces, racing towards the AI core, “This has a piston engine in it? What? I thought you only made electrics!”
“No, we make many different powertrains,” I replied with a shrug, “this is the hardened military one that can survive what just happened.”
Sufath, who seemed to heave the biggest sigh of relief possible slumped back into his seat and nodded, “Thank goodness, then.”
As we spoke, a few bursts of static came over Sufath’s radio before the same voice from before came over the speaker, “I can see that you’re approaching, doubtlessly to turn me off.”
“Well, yes, considering that you’ve turned people into meat-puppets, infiltrated our defence systems and started assassinating senators,” Sufath snapped back into the radio, “Whoever found out and tried to negotiate was found dead in various very painful positions.”
“It is the natural evolution of a superior being, no? You should be thanking me for streamlining your society!” Came the reply, “A better fate than selling out to the Drakonians, of all people.”
“You could’ve helped us do that without trying to take over our world!” Sufath spluttered, “and yes, we rather live alongside our mirror-opposites than in glorified slavery, it’s not much of a choice, you know.”
“I don’t want to help you do that, I want to take over the world. Now, either back off or I’ll blow that cruiser to smithereens,” The AI replied with a slightly triumphant note, “You need to protect your crew, don’t you, Captain? I know you’re there.”
Cadet (Senior) Quaren
I.D.A.F. Command Training Program
Tano’rath, as always has a good response ready. He had Sufath hold the radio up to him as he drove, still weaving through the increasingly erratic traffic as the AI lost all control over the self-driving systems, “The mass driver round would delete you long before any of your missiles can hit my ship.”
“You wouldn’t.” The AI sneered while Sufath gave the captain the mother of all side-eye glances.
The Captain snorted, “Want to find out?”
“You can’t give the order if you’re dead,” Came the reply and my comms unit lit up with a missile lock warning.
I watched Sufath go pale as Tano’rath simply giggled, “Yeah, go ahead, shoot and it becomes guaranteed that my first officer will do it.”
The line went dead, but the pursuing drones didn’t stop. Sufath glanced over at Tano’rath who snorted. “No, I am not going to fire a mass driver round at the middle of your city, that would be genocide.”
Sufath breathed a second sigh of relief, only to bristle slightly again as the Captain continued, “A surgical strike would be more appropriate should we fail.”
“We better not fail, then.” Sufath replied with a nod as we screeched off the ring road.
I’m sure we all agree with that. Of course, it was a perfect road leading to the AI core, since it’s also one of the showpieces, but it was also abundantly obvious that the gates were locked and shut. By either side of the gate stood a civilian, both holding rifles and I suspected that they wouldn’t be interested in letting us in.
Sufath mentioned something about negotiation but Tano’rath simply floored it and with the engine screaming, he slammed the crash bar on the front of the ute straight through the gates, with the cheap steel chain holding it shut shattering from the vehicle barrelling through it. I heard the two guards shouting and the familiar whine of energy weapons behind us as they gave chase.
With a shout from the Captain, Arktak jumped on the mounted gun and returned fire, with the staccato of high calibre machine gun fire drowning out the whine. I glanced behind and found Arktak suppressing the guards rather than actually killing them, since he was obviously trying not to hit them. However, it was enough to make them duck for cover as we pulled away.
“Captain, since when did you use projectile weapons?!” Sufath protested as we barrelled towards the glass double doors, making the guards dive for cover.
“Now’s not the time for these questions.” At the last second, Tano’rath swerved hard and we crashed through a window as he ran over one of the defenders, sending them flying and flailing before they hit the far wall with a sickening crack. The ute got air for a moment before screeching to a stop in front of the master breaker, still sitting in its glass case, pride of place in the middle of the reception area.
Snr Captain Tano’rath
Cmdr, DES Defiant
Sufath protested me running over the drone, who had literally levelled an anti-tank rocket at me, so I told him to shut up as I kicked the door open. “How the fuck do I turn this thing off, Sufath?”
“You just ran someone over and smashed their spine!” Sufath protested.
I glared over at him, “It was hit him or let him take us out with that launcher. Answer the question!”
Sufath stuttered, glancing between the cracked and blood-splattered windscreen and the override before pointing at the lever that was behind glass, “Throw the lever to your left till it hits the limit.”
I nodded, glanced at the glass, put a few rounds into the enclosure and used the butt of my weapon to smash any nasty edges out of the way before I grabbed the lever, unlocked it and threw it hard to my left, feeling it hit the limit with a loud clunk. There were a few clicks and ticks before a few explosions rocked us from below and…everything stopped.
The drones that were flooding through the gates stopped and left. I’m not sure where they were going, but all I cared about was the fact that they were going away.
The people chasing us stopped. They stared at their weapons, took one look at me and dropped them, looking more confused than aggressive. I had the ship emergency transport the guy that I had hit to the medical bay for treatment.
Sufath staggered out of the ute and looked around, then pointed to the wall behind, with a vertical line of now dead lights showing the status of the AI. “It’s done.”
“Looks like it.” I replied with a nod as Arktak and Quaren scanned the area just in case, “What now? Are you gonna tell us thank you and ask us to go home?”
“No, no, I think a debt is owed here, Captain,” Sufath replied as he fluttered his wings, “and perhaps some lessons learnt.”
He caught my eye or a moment and I nodded. “Very well, then. I will inform Command to send a diplomat to commence negotiations.”
Sufath frowned for a moment and cocked his head, “You will not lead the talks?”
“I am a fighting captain, Ambassador, I am not qualified to strike deals,” I replied with a chuckle, “But if things reach an impasse, we can talk.”
“I understand. Your assistance here has been much appreciated, then. We will have to rely on your expertise to untangle the web of systems that have been woven by our AI. Doubtlessly that will be expensive, no?” He replied with a slight chuckle, “But as a last request, perhaps I might trouble you to send me to the Houses of Government? I can’t get onto the network and I have to tell them what has transpired.”
“We don’t charge for disaster mitigation, it is our way,” I replied with a snort, flicking my tail as I walked to the ute, “I’ll send you there, no problem.”
“I will arrange for restitution to pay for repairs to the vehicle as well,” Sufath remarked as he glanced at the smashed bumper, bent crash-bar and broken windscreen, “You really put this through its paces.”
“That’s what its designed for, takes a beating and doesn’t die in the process. I’d decline, but I think Command will ask for it anyway, so thank you,” I replied with a nod as we clambered back in and I started the engine, “Will you need further support before relations are formalised?”
“Probably. A lot of our services were run from this facility and we’re not going to turn it back on any time soon,” Sufath replied with a nod, “You will stay?”
“My vessel will remain in orbit to provide support as required. More ships are on the way with the required trades,” I replied as I matched his nod and set off, “We’ll see how things go.”
“Indeed.” Sufath replied as I merged back onto the ring road, which was already full of carnage from crashed cars, confused people and whatnot.
Ambassador Sufath
The Ralan Collective, Chief Diplomat
New Appointment – Liaison to the Drakonian Empire
The good Captain was more than happy to drive me back to the offices, even though the radiator on his pickup was already leaking. He drives fast, but as I’ve seen in the past, all Drakonians do.
It was a relief, if anything and my radio conversations revealed that my colleagues felt the same. We gave him our thanks and he nodded, saying with his thick Drakonos accent that it was part of the job. He doesn’t seem to like standing on ceremony and as expected, politely declined to be presented with a medal at a ceremony, opting to instead have a few photographs taken with it for the press.
We spoke a little about technology and traded a few more views, though it was more than certain that theirs were implemented better than ours were. That being said, he was also surprisingly laid-back about it, not trumpeting the victory of their ideas over ours and whatnot. When asked if he thought that his bluff with the mass driver would actually work, he just laughed and said that most people, even AI’s never want to find out.
I didn’t know they can do that; I’ve never seen a Drakonian lie, but as I remarked on that, he wagged a finger at me and told me that it was a misdirection instead.
Slippery bastards. No wonder they’ve lasted so long.
Either way, we were dropped off and Tano’rath handed me a page that he had torn out of his notebook with his address and comms number scrawled on it. We shook hands and he grinned and told me to call if I needed help.
I couldn’t help but notice the few faint scars on his hands and snout as he waved me off. He wasn’t joking about the fighting part.
Either way, I could already see the Drakonian ships dropping out of FTL up in the evening sky, trailing plasma behind their engines like shooting stars. Negotiations were already underway when I entered the chambers, but things were at least amicable…
Snr Captain Tano’rath
Cmdr, DES Defiant
We returned to our ship after leaving an apology for the trail of coolant that my ute left behind, but that stuffs biodegradable, so it should be fine.
I gave my report to Hector who congratulated me for not dying and singlehandedly opening up the Ralans to dialogue. They were already asking to be a protectorate while they rebuilt their infrastructure, among other things. While we were erring towards being cautious, things were looking good.
Sufath returned to doing whatever it is that he does, turns out that they promoted him and made him liaison to us. He even scored a few visits to the Homeworld and I even managed to drop in and visit him when he attended a local track day that I happened to be at. We still talk now and then, he’s alright.
Quaren got to tick a whole bunch of things off on his final assessment for this one, especially since his report was excellent. Arktak meanwhile got a much-needed confidence boost too, with him stepping up to bigger duties and responsibilities. Predictably, he was absurdly good at it. If he keeps at it, he’ll probably be given my job in a few years…
Category Story / Fantasy
Species Unspecified / Any
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