Your weapon slammed through the back of the figure, the light in it exploding forward into the body of your enemy. It jerked up, part of it trying to sound alarms and bring up defences, but it was an automatic response, the reaction of a body that was already dying. You could tell before the figure started to fall that it was done, the access code embedded within your weapon having given you full access to its degrading systems. You realised with some regret that this was as close as you'd ever get to full control, now that the more advanced safeguards were dying.
That wasn't stopping the remains from trying to deny you everything, however. The figure fell, the wound you'd inflicted spreading and breaking it apart, but it chose the direction. So it fell towards what you now knew were failsafes. Purges and firebreaks for the data archives, activation circuits for the autonomous tactical programs. A spiteful command switch that would purge all data on the courier station, perhaps a desperate attempt to win even in defeat. And the blue button, which it reached for above all and you had to hold away; the self-destruct for the station.
You had options, however.
Your knife arm lifted slightly then locked, pulling the breaking presence in the net off its feet. You had to fight its momentum, in this place an extension of its purpose, but your leverage was superior. You stepped in closer in the same instant, another blade flashing into existence in your other hand and brought it down hard. Something in the place screamed as the weapon bit through the connections to the self-destruct, and the entire section of the panel holding the button fell away.
Unfortunately, it was at the far end, and the effort put into the blow gave the VI time. You redoubled your efforts to hold it back, but it was too close now. Fingers of dying light flicked switches, and you winced as fire blossomed within the Shiplord data archive. All that knowledge…
"Marcus!" Kirstin's yell was unneeded, but you would thank her for it nonetheless. The VI's presence continued down the panel, burning out the remote interface circuits for its combat platforms and trying to kindle fire in the other archives. It was fast, faster than you believed possible, but your free hand was moving just as quickly.
The blade came up, light sprayed out around it, and the hand went flying clear. It dissipated in flight, and you took the instant to slam locks down over two of the switches. You tried for the courier circuit, but just keeping the VI from frying was keeping you at your limit.
Hub Defensive Node: 96 + 32 + 10 + 4 vs 55 + 20 + 10 = 142 vs 85. Solid Success
Tribute Fleet: 71+ 32 + 10 + 4 vs 74 + 20 + 10 = 117 vs 104. Success
Those locks would hold, you could tell, but there was no time to breathe a sigh of relief that no more sacrifices would be needed from the men and women of TG1. The information was secondary right now, although you knew that would change once you were all out of this. For you, at least. There were auto-destruct protocols built into every major system in the node, and your lock would stop them triggering.
A tortured howl split your ears as the VI saw what you'd done, and you jerked back as it tore itself free of your grip, taking the knife with it. It turned, the light of its presence flickering wildly, and you could feel the infospace fraying at its edges. Without the VI, the hub was falling back onto its basic architecture. That would be…bad to get stuck in. But again, there wasn't the time to worry, as the VI hurled itself at your presence, trying to break through to the final circuits. You'd taken away its ability to deny you entirely, but it could still exact a bitter price. And if it kept you here, you would die just as surely as it was going to.
You braced yourself for the attack, pushing forward a little as your tried to keep grasping hands away from the remaining circuits. But dying or not, the VI
was powerful. It lost another hand, and took a deep cut to the leg, but it made it past your defence. Tendrils of its presence burned away the control circuits for the other platforms, and you swore as a spark flew free towards the archive with the information you needed to find them.
You couldn't let it reach it, but it was reaching for the Courier circuit and you could not let it reach that one. Your blade was already moving to cut off that grasping hand, your other hand holding the fraying presence back by the throat. No ti-
Subnet Assets: 89 + 32 + 10 + 4 vs 29 + 20 + 10 = 135 vs 59. Solid Success
"Got it!" Kirstin's voice burst through your shared presence, and a tiny fragment of the cloak you'd used to reach this place caught the spark. How had she done that? No, you didn't care. She'd done it, that was all that mattered.
The VI's final hand burst into shards of falling light as your blade slashed through it, and it snapped at you. The hole at the centre of its being had spread almost entirely, leaving it incapable of reforming. The entire infospace was shaking, and you still hadn't isolated the final circuit.
You flung the corpse of the VI away and rushed to the final circuit. The locked switches would hold, but this was the most important one of all. What to do…what could you do? A second passed, the tower lurched, and you smiled. This circuit was locked. You were a key.
Courier: 72 + 32 + 10 + 4 vs 2 + 20 + 10 + 5 = 118 vs 37. Greater Success
The dagger dissolved in your hand, and you reached out. The solid structure in front of you dissolved and you reached deeper. Through the layers of dead or dying security, to the glowing ring at the heart of it all.
"We need to go." You felt Kirstin setting up the final code, the one you'd saved for this very purpose. Your hand caught the ring, and you sent an affirmative. The final access code blazed to life, opening a path from your suits to where you stood now. There were no firewalls to stop them anymore. The light from the code swept in around your presence, and the whole world lurched again, the feeling of a vast step.
You opened your eyes.
***
You were Amanda Hawk, and as you sat at the desk in your study, Mary dozing in the chair beside you you've never felt more useless. You knew that you could call Lina, get a status update, but you'd done that not long ago. Vega had managed a connection, at least for a while, and Marcus had been going in to break the hub of the subnet. Lina had told you she'd contact you when she had anything more.
You didn't like that. Not what was being done, but the fact that people you knew, people you cared for, were putting their lives on the line to secure something. Even if that thing was so much bigger than all of you, you'd been the one who'd given them their orders.
"You're worrying again." Mary, bless her, you'd thought she'd fallen asleep. You looked over, then looked very quickly away, not wanting to meet her eyes. "They'd be doing this even if you weren't President, Mandy. If whoever had been in your place had even found the subnet, at least." You grimaced, and her tone sharpened a little. "That was a good thing, Mandy. Don't you start thinking otherwise."
You sighed, then nodded. "Alright." You pushed yourself up from the chair, and walked over to the long window looking out into the forest. "I just wish that we knew what had happened, that I could just sleep through this all and find out afterwards."
"No you don't." You blew out a breath. Of course she could tell. "You wish you were up there with them, even though you know it's impossible. Not down here worrying about the waiting."
"Are you just being right about everything tonight?" You asked, but there was little exasperation in your voice, and Mary laughed.
"It seems that way, doesn't it." She said, and you couldn't hold back a laugh of your own. You didn't need to see the impish smile on her face to know it was there. A laugh that came to a sudden end as your desk played the tone for an incoming transmission. You tried not to think about what it could mean as you walked quickly back. Even so, your finger shook a little as you opened the call.
"Madam President," Lina said, an undertone of shock beneath her words, "we are in receipt of a mission complete signal from the
Concorde. Marcus and Vega are alive, although the boarding team took heavy losses holding out before the marines from Task Force One could reach them. Mostly wounded, but I'm afraid we lost some of them as well." You kept your expression calm through sheer will, praying this was the bad news. "I have a connection to Marcus now, he would like to report personally."
"I…yes!" You shook your head, trying to control yourself after the outburst. "Yes, please. Patch him in." Lina nodded, and then the screen split, a second transmission revealing the battered but quite functional face of your Security Minister. He gave you a weary smile.
"There are a great many things you will need to know very soon, it'll all be in my report, but the most important one is this." He took a breath, and the smile on his face lost some of its fatigue.
"President Hawk, it is my great privilege to report that Task Force 2 of the Federated Solar Navy is on vector towards the courier launch platform. It has acknowledged our power-down command, and will be taken intact." You stared, almost forgetting to breathe. "We did it, Madam President."
(Shiplord Courier and Launch Platform secured intact, Defensive Node secured intact excepting combat damage, Subnet Asset Data Archive secured intact, Tribute Fleet Data Archive secured mostly intact. Light casualties inflicted on Task Force One. Heavy casualties inflicted on boarding party; Potentials Kirstin Gracia and Tahio Nyx wounded, Captain Stewart KIA. Additional actions unlocked.)
] Write-in (I'll let you know the limits on this) The third and fourth secret
