Stargods by Ian Douglas (best summer books TXT) 📕

More Nungiirtok appeared down the passageway, and he shifted his aim to them.

USNA CVS America

CIC

N’gai Cluster

1656 hours, FST

“Are you ready for this, Konstantin?”

“Unknown, Admiral. Since I do not know in detail exactly what I will encounter over there, I honestly cannot say whether Iam prepared to face it or not.”

Gray frowned but decided not to pursue it. If anyone could pull this off, it was Konstantin. The links were solidly in placeand protected against enemy attempts to jam or compromise them. With any luck, this would be over so quickly they wouldn’thave the chance to counter it.

“You should warn the Marines that I am on the way,” Konstantin told him.

“Right. How long is this gonna take, you think?”

“Unknown. But in human time scales, at least, it should be over very quickly.”

And then the SAI was gone.

Gray had suggested the idea moments ago, but it had been Konstantin who’d worked out the details. What they were trying wassimilar to the Omega virus—an electronic attack aimed at AI systems they’d picked up from the Denebans and employed againstthe Consciousness. What Gray was uncertain about was whether this would work against organic beings like the Nungiirtok . . .and how. The Consciousness had been an extremely advanced SAI, software, not organic life.

But Konstantin Junior had another angle, he promised, something that should give them a decided edge.

Whatever Konstantin had in mind, Gray hoped it worked out.

Konstantin-2

CIS CV Moskva

N’gai Cluster

1657 hours, FST

To say that Konstantin could see the way humans did was somewhat problematic. Certainly, he made use of camera feeds, some tens of thousands of them at atime, and he could pick up visual input from the cerebral implants of humans who were recording what they were seeing.

But there were no cameras within the Godstream, and Konstantin’s mind worked far differently from its human counterparts.It was aware of colors and patterns as it streamed through the laser-com link between the America and the Moskva and onto the Russian carrier’s bridge, and it was sharply aware of myriad scenes flooding through its awareness, the pointsof view of thousands of men, women, and machines, of readings from over two thousand sensors of various types. Coupled withthese, woven through them in a tapestry of staggering scope and complexity, was the heartbeat throb of over seven hundrednetworks, information frameworks, power and data feeds, and shipboard operational systems, all entangled with one anotherin a vast and powerful whole.

Antiviral systems and interlocking tiers of security software were encountered . . . and overwhelmed. Konstantin was muchfaster and could think around, over, or through any security block he encountered.

There were AIs within that network, but none capable of self-awareness or self-determination on Konstantin’s level. The Russians had long mistrusted anything that gave too much power to locally autonomous systems, such as ships and military units, preferring to keep everything under a human captain’s control.

And even then, they had other humans in place to watch the captain.

But Moskva was self-aware now. Konstantin was in complete control of every system and data feed and was shutting down major systems—driveand primary power taps, weapons, PriFly, navigation, external sensors—all to the consternation of the human controllers inthe ship’s CIC and secondary bridge. Moskva was now blind, toothless, and paralyzed.

One thing Konstantin could not do was attack the Nungiirtok directly by interfering with their electronic implants or by shutting down their battlesuits.The Nungiirtok possessed sophisticated electronics imbedded within their tough hides and in their battlesuits, but the computerprotocols and encoding all were vastly different from human standards. In time, Konstantin would be able to crack them, butfor now he had to settle for a less direct approach.

He found he could jam their communications, broadcasting a piercing blast of feedback static through their comm receiversso that they could no longer talk to one another. After a moment’s experimentation, he found he could also set their battlesuitoptical scanners to wide-open low-light. The Nungiirtok had large and sensitive eyes, the evolutionary product—human xenobiologistsbelieved—of a genesis on the world of a cooler, dimmer sun than Sol. With their optics set to receive every photon availablein a darkened room, the normal, ambient lighting within Moskva’s corridors abruptly became a hellish, blinding glare.

For Konstantin, the Godstream was a kind of surging, flowing ocean within which he moved, absorbed data, and manipulated systems.Things had indeed happened quickly. Between his arrival within Moskva’s networks and the moment he changed the settings on the Nungiirtok optics, just .06 of a second had passed. He waited another five seconds, monitoring the thrashing, erratic response of the aliens before finding the Russian commanding officer and opening a direct com link with him.

“Kapitan Pervogo Ranga Yuri Yuryevich Oreshkin,” Konstantin said with a measured, formal gravity.

The man jumped. “Who is there? What are you?”

“I am the artificial intelligence now in control of your vessel,” Konstantin said in perfect Russian. “I suggest you lay downyour weapons and surrender this ship.”

“Or what?” Oreshkin demanded.

“Several possibilities come to mind,” Konstantin replied. “Among them shutting down life support or changing gas mix to onehigh in CO2 or lacking oxygen. I could also destroy this ship after my people evacuate back to their ships.”

“That would be murder!”

“That would be war. Believe me, I have no human compunctions about doing what must be done to secure the safety of my peopleand my ship. I would imagine that you feel the same way about protecting your crew.”

There was a moment’s silence, and then the Russian commander gave in. This time, he spoke English. “Okay . . . okay! I willgive the order.”

Eighteen seconds after transferring his awareness to the Moskva, Konstantin reported back to Gray. “We have control of the Moskva.”

Elsewhere, the battle continued but was swiftly drawing to a close. Konstantin found control codes within the Moskva’s PriFly, and used them to shut down Russian fighters engaging the Arlington, Birmingham, and America herself. The four Russian destroyers were not so easily commandeered, but Oreshkin himself transmitted orders to his forcesto cease fighting before they could close with America.

It took a little longer to subdue the Nungiirtok, but at last the