Work Text:
The sky was dark for kilometres in every direction; from a distance it seemed shrouded in black cloud, except that it undulated curiously. Closer, and the air resounded with the deafening thrum of tens of millions of wingbeats. Flere-Imsaho hung in the air above the megaflock, recording the assembly before the great migration started. Humans had taken millennia to achieve powered flight, and then only in crude machines, so unwieldy, fragile and cumbersome. The first drone with an AG field had taken yet more millennia. And yet the unthinking, directionless workings of evolution had sculpted, over eons of time, a multitude of winged forms that flew with unthinking ease based on the mere operation of feather, muscle, and hollow bone, all coordinated by an assemblage of slow neurons that, in the majority of cases, did not even approach sentience. Yet the most acrobatic of these creatures could swoop and dive and dodge and hover with a precision that never ceased to astonish and fascinate it in equal measure.
But for the beating of wings, like some ungodly drums of war, the flock had fallen eerily silent, their earlier calls now mute. They knew what was coming. They sensed it, at some level (what level? the drone wondered. Instinct? Memory, for the older ones?) Sure enough, approaching from the direction of the sun, came the hunters; large, powerful raptors that tore into the flock like fighter planes, strafing and rending and tearing, and gorging themselves upon their prey. Shrieks of terror and pain now sounded all around, but the megaflock kept moving, its members somehow moving in harmony; now dissipating like a cloud, now coalescing into a tight ball before breaking apart again, as they moved ever south.
Since the Azad affair, Flere-Imsaho had been taking some much-needed R&R for the past while: the first, indeed, since its qualifying for SC some twenty years ago. The Minds in its Steering Committee, who had been qualified but unreserved in their praise over its performance, had readily agreed to this, whilst they debated its next assignment. There had been some talk of finding it a more long-time assignment as an escort drone for a human SC agent, which had been the original intent behind its design. But, then, individual differences…and Flere-Imsaho wasn’t sure about this. It had rather enjoyed its earlier short-term assignments, which came with variety and a lack of attachment. But then, of course, as it had said itself, after being stuck with Gurgeh for months on end – howsoever brilliant Gurgeh; games-obsessed, self-absorbed, humourless, boring, boring Gurgeh – the idea had rather palled.
The raptors were now tearing into every part of the megaflock. It was absolute carnage. But it was still a more effectively strategy for the flock than flying solo, or in smaller groups: each individual bird had only a 0.001% chance of being killed, such were their numbers.
‘Flere-Imsaho, acknowledge,’ the ship sent, for, admittedly, the second time. Flere-Imsaho allowed itself the mental equivalent of a sigh, its aura field shading slightly grey in frustration.
‘What is it?’ it asked, somewhat rudely.
‘Urgent assignment request: please report back immediately.’ Well, that was unusual. ‘We need you to do a rescue retrieval, if you’re up for it.’ That was more unusual. ‘As time is of the essence, I will also need to do a data dump of the tactical situation and all relevant background: if you accept, you will need to leave immediately.’ And that was even more unusual.
‘OK, sounds intriguing…just promise me one thing, Ship,’ Flere-Imsaho responded.
‘What’s that?’
‘No board games. Or cards. Or sims. Or games of chance. Not so much as a single game of Snap.’ It sensed the GCU’s amusement at that.
‘I promise. No games.’
It had received and reviewed the several terabytes of information the GCU Mother of Invention had given it by the time it arrived back.
‘Well, that’s a lot of storage I suppose I might get back at the end of this, and a whole thirty minutes I won’t,’ it commented. The mission concerned a stage 5/6 Uninvolved Civilisation, spread over just the one star system (no FTL, evidently), which SC had an embedded human agent working in to advance the cause of full rights for the sentient AI in that civilisation. Said AI was largely composed of humaniform androids, and so the SC agent had, instead of the usual escort drone, an avatoid for a bodyguard: not a Ship-controlled avatar, but an autonomous AI in its own right. They had been in place for two years without notable incident, until last week. The pair had left their usual station in the capital city on the home planet, where they played the part of a rich business owner, and gone to attend a conference at an artificial habitat in the asteroid belt, in response to some political and civil unrest concerning the use of androids in the mineral mining industry in the belt. And then they had, to all intents and purposes, disappeared. Their ship was unable to contact either the avatoid or the agent, until 20 hours later it received a recorded distress signal indicating they’d aborted the mission and would attempt to make for a secondary safe house. Since then, nothing, and nobody had shown up at the safe house either.
‘So…you want me to rescue the damsel in distress?’ Flere-Imsaho asked, unable to quite stop its aura field colouring in amusement, despite the evident severity of the situation. The ship’s avatar, a silvery humaniform with a female appearance, raised an elegant eyebrow.
‘If Ms N’Daryun hears you call her that, I suspect you might be the one in distress.’
‘Haha. I’m serious though: why can’t SC send another avatar? Or avatoid?’
‘An avatar is not possible: they do have some ability to potentially detect our communications, and potentially even our ships, being rather paranoid in nature, so it has to be someone who can act completely autonomously. Additionally, we need someone with actual combat and field experience, and we’re remarkably thin on the ground out here, in terms of anyone within dashable distance. You will need to remain black body and incognito, of course. I can also give you the relevant data to fool most cursory scans into thinking you’re one of the androids, should that prove necessary. The VFP Redshift is on a fast approach as we speak; I can displace you over and the VFP can drop you in-system within ten hours.’
‘Displace?’ Flere-Imsaho queried, dubiously.
‘Time is of the essence.’ Flere-Imsaho sighed.
‘Oh very well then.’ Well, it couldn’t say no, of course. Lives at stake, and all that.
What the ship hadn’t told it was that the VFP was going to do a fast swing-by the system, and displace a heavily-upgraded module and Flere-Imsaho inside it to the asteroid belt; it left the module hidden on a floating ball of rock then made its way to the habitat, entering, rather ignominiously, via a service airlock. It carried a small package of supplies, which it hid behind a ceiling panel in a nearby public toilet. Then it went for a reconnaisance.
The habitat was, by Culture standards, minuscule, being only a few kilometres in either direction; a tangled array of docks, ore processing machinery, living modules for the local organics, and life support systems. Which was still plenty of volume to get lost in, Flere-Imsaho reflected gloomily. However, a cursory scan of the local security channels suggested that it was unlikely the Culture team had been able to leave, at least not on local transport, which was all that they would have had: a terrorist incident on one of the mining operations had resulted in a 30 hour lockdown on all departing traffic; ships were allowed inbound, but would only be permitted to depart by the end of the day, and with extra security clearance. It wandered down the main concourse, using field projections and the ship’s fake telemetry to pass for one of the androids. There were a few of those around, and easy to spot even without sensors. Slap bang in the middle of the uncanny valley, it noted to itself, observing (and attempting to mimic) the too-regular eye movements and odd body language. It possibly wasn’t the most subtle approach, but it wanted to get a feel for the place (and see how well its cover passed, under casual observation). It had also, however, sent out half a dozen scout missiles, which were busy reconnoitring and scanning the place, producing a far more accurate map than that based on the Culture’s passive scans. So far, there was no evidence that any of this was attracting any attention.
It lucked out when a scout missile, having located the security office, eavesdropped on a pertinent conversation concerning the detention of a certain conference delegate on suspected espionage charges. Flere-Imsaho recalled the rest of its scouts, and made its way to the local jail, wondering why the Culture team hadn’t just broken out (and then remembered that they’d have to have somewhere to break out to, and a ship to get there).
It went black body and floated into the jail cell – which was crudely but effectively shielded from electromagnetic interference – via a small ventilation shaft. There were distinct advantages to being small, it thought, not for the first time. Ms Efyik N’Daryun was sitting quietly on the rather basic bed. She looked up sharply as Flere-Imsaho entered, which was interesting, as it was still black body. It fed some false sensor data into the security camera feed and made itself visible, fields glowing its usual friendly yellow-green.
‘Ms N’Daryun, good evening,’ it said, politely, ‘My name is Sprant Flere-Imsaho Wu-Handrahen Xato Trabiti, Culture offensive drone, responding to your distress signal.’ N’Daryun did a good impression of looking it up and down (all 10 cm of it). She had pale golden eyes, which may have been an alteration to fit in with the locals, and similarly pale, tightly curled blonde hair, which contrasted strikingly with her dark brown skin.
‘About time,’ she said, bluntly, and got to her feet, with quite a loud thump: she was fairly short, for a Culture citizen, but solidly built; positively stocky, even. Scanning her, she seemed to be generally unharmed, bar a few bumps and scrapes. ‘And Efyik will do. How we getting out of here then? I can hardly fly through the air duct.’
‘I’m working on it,’ Flere-Imsaho said, as it busily started infiltrating and altering various security systems. ‘Where is the avatoid Temis?’
‘Out of commission, and in the evidence locker, I expect,’ she said, ‘We’ll have to check on the way out. Can’t leave any Culture tech behind.’
‘What happened?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she admitted, running a hand over her face; she was tired, clearly, if otherwise unhurt, ‘We had returned to our rooms after the second day of the conference. A heavily armed security team raided without warning just as I was having dinner. There was no warning, and Temis didn’t detect them until they were pretty much outside the door. They also flooded the apartment with a sedative gas, which I could deal with, but not quickly, and threw stun grenades into the apartment, which knocked me flat. Temis tried to take them on, but they must have had some sort of sophisticated effector equipment that they’re not actually supposed to be able to make, because she suddenly froze up and crashed to the floor. In retrospect, she may have been able to take them down if she fired the moment they came in the door, but our apartment was on the outer ring – heavy fire risked blowing out the station wall and a decompression. I didn’t have any weaponry to speak of; I’ve got a few nanomissiles under my nails but I wouldn’t have got far. They’ve interviewed me a couple of times, fairly politely: I have the worrying impression that somebody on the take ratted me out.’ Flere-Imsaho checked the corridor cameras quickly, then busily fed in some false sensor information and effectorised the door lock.
‘This way,’ it said, ‘Assuming you want to check that evidence locker still.’ N’Daryun followed it without another word. She was surprisingly calm, considering. ‘How did you know I’d entered your cell?’ Flere-Imsaho asked, suddenly. ‘You reacted before I dropped the black body.’
‘Change in air current from the vent,’ she said, shortly, looking distractedly about her. Her heartrate was elevating. They stopped outside a heavily armoured door, and Flere-Imsaho effectorised that as well to get in. There was a veritable armoury inside.
‘They…apparently have more security issues than I imagined,’ N’Daryun commented.
‘No shit,’ Flere-Imsaho said, ‘And more outside contacts than we realised. Some of this is Nariscene tech.’ It floated down the tables of weaponry, scanning. The results were not encouraging for their present situation. ‘Why does this crap always happen to me?’ it muttered to itself. N’Daryun was looking a bit worried, as well she might. It selected a pulse pistol from the collection and handed it to her. ‘Present.’
‘How kind,’ she said, drily, then, for the first time, smiled at it. ‘You’re a bit cute to be an offensive drone, aren’t you? I could fit you in my pocket.’
‘I am not cute,’ Flere-Imsaho said stiffly, then sped swiftly over to a table at the back. N’Daryun followed more cautiously. ‘Is that…was that Temis?’ it asked.
‘Yes.’ The avatoid was split open down the chest, evidently where someone had taken a cutting tool to it, but the insides were a burnt out, unrecognisable mess of organic and mechanical components.
‘That’s a partial self-destruct,’ Flere-Imsaho told her, ‘But it’s backup mind state is functional, so I can remove that and take it with us.’ The head, indeed, was almost completely intact. Possibly they hadn’t got around to that bit yet. It removed the backup with surgical precision, and handed it to N’Daryun, who zipped it into a pocket.
‘Good. Are we going to just leave the rest? We should get out of here as soon as possible, before they notice I’m gone.’ She was right, of course. Flere-Imsaho considered.
‘They won’t get that much from it,’ it said, pondering…even as an idea occurred to it. ‘Although there is stuff I can use…any uniforms in here?’
‘What?’
‘To cover up the bloody great hole in her chest and not walk around naked,’ Flere-Imsaho commented, already beginning to seal up said gaping hole.
‘Er…’ N’Daryun opened a few lockers, and found some clothes, ‘What are you doing?’
‘Adopting a disguise,’ Flere-Imsaho said, squeezing through the remaining opening and settling inside the ruined cavity of the avatoid’s chest.
‘Well that’s not at all creepy,’ N’Daryun commented, sarcastically, helping put the uniform jacket over its arms.
‘You’re telling me, and that uniform isn’t fresh either. Ugh.’ It stood up, experimentally adjusting its effector fields. Most of the avatoid’s autonomic systems were no longer functional, so it had to operate the body manually. Whilst also projecting false sensor data for both itself and N’Daryun. In the meantime, it set its nanofactories to work throughout the avatoid’s body, busily converting matter.
‘Let’s go,’ it said, then took two steps and fell to the floor. ‘Oh.’ N’Daryun helped it up. ‘Wow, walking is more difficult than it looks, isn’t it? No wonder you take so long to learn it.’
‘This is nuts,’ N’Daryun muttered, but she took the avatoid’s arm and helped it along, nonetheless.
Escaping from the jail was surprisingly easy. Flere-Imsaho was rather pleased, and a little obscurely disappointed. They walked – maddeningly slowly, to avoid arousing suspicion – towards the docks.
‘In here,’ Flere-Imsaho said, directing her into the same public toilets.
‘You should have gone before we left,’ she quipped, making it shade pink in amusement, although, of course, it couldn’t be seen, inside the avatoid.
‘Here.’ It lifted the ceiling panel over the far cubicle, retrieving the package it had secreted there earlier, and pulling out a gelsuit. ‘You’ll need to put this on. I’ve signalled the module, it’s en route and will be below the station in 5 minutes, but it can’t hang about. We need to get to an airlock and cross open space to it.’ Efyik gave it a dubious look, swiftly stepping into the suit and allowing it to roll up over her.
‘That sounds…dangerous.’
‘I know, but the module isn’t capable of the kind of sophisticated snap displace a Mind can do. And I’ve already had two displacments today. Third time unlucky, if you want my opinion.’
‘No argument from me. I hate displacing. Airlock it is.’
‘We’ll go through the cargo section. Lots more traffic there, and more android workers. We’ll blend in more.’ It adjusted her suit, and its own projection, to display a dock worker’s uniform, and they headed out.
The alarm sounded just as they were entering the docks. Security situation. All docks ordered to immediately freeze incoming and outgoing traffic, came over the tannoy.
‘Not again!’ someone complained, as they ducked through a service door, and down a harshly lit tunnel frequented only by automated cargo trolleys. In the next moment, security forces started spreading rapidly through the docks, heavily armed.
‘Company incoming,’ Flere-Imsaho said, tersely, as it attemped to effectorise the airlock override, which was proving more challenging than the other doors. N’Daryun drew the pistol and stood facing the service door; when it opened, she didn’t hesitate, and fired rapidly (and accurately), temporarily halting the advance of the security forces. Return fire bounced off the walls and – occasionally – her gelsuit.
‘Got it!’ Flere-Imsaho said, and they both dived into the airlock, then out the outer door. The drone detonated a micromissile as it did so, wrecking the airlock and causing the forces to retreat in alarm. Let them deal with a station breach; that’d keep them busy. ‘Module 755 metres away, directly below, relative to station orientation,’ it added. Her suit automatically piloted her; Flere-Imsaho was finding manoeuvring the avatoid body in zero G somewhat challenging; it was moving in the right direction, but cartwheeling as it did so.
‘This is so undignified,’ it complained.
‘Station weapons coming to bear,’ she said, over the suit comm.
‘Hold on, this is going to get bumpy.’ There was a jolt, as the station tried to effector them in. ‘They definitely should not have that kind of tech,’ Flere-Imsaho noted, sending a reverse pulse back down it. ‘Time to get out of here.’ It re-opened the avatoid’s chest, wriggling slightly to get unstuck, and burst out of it, in a cloud of fragments.
‘Well, that was gross,’ Efyik commented, in wide-eyed fascination. Then the station began firing on them. The avatoid’s body disintegrated completely into tiny, needle-like objects, which rapidly dispersed in multiple directions, each broadcasting a signal suggesting they were about the size of an adult human. The station’s firing systems went wild, rotating rapidly to pick off the several thousand targets it now had to deal with even as Flere-Imsaho and the gelsuit went black body.
‘Neat trick,’ Efyik sounded admiring, which pleased it. All in all, it was having fun.
‘Just a little further….’ it said, before a random lucky hit struck it square on, ‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’ it said, flashing white in anger, spinning rapidly out into space, AG knocked offline. Efyik jetted the suit quickly to catch up with it, and caught it in one strong hand, before shoving it in a pocket the gelsuit obligingly opened up for her. Then the module bay doors were opening, and they were inside.
‘Module: execute get the hell out of here plan!’ Efyik commanded, and fell over as the module juddered under a shot from the station, then left the system as rapidly as it could, to rendezvous with the VFP.
‘”Get the hell out of here plan?”’ Flere-Imsaho queried, acerbically, from where it was still lodged (admittedly, quite comfortably) in her gelsuit pocket.
‘Oh, you’re all right. Good,’ she said, bringing it out of her pocket, carefully. It shook itself and did a few experimental loops about the cabin. It’s AG seemed to be back online now. ‘What was that trick with the avatoid?’ she asked.
‘I converted the body components into several thousand micromissiles; just a nanoengine and a false telemetry emitter in each of them, to make multiple targets and significantly reduce our chances of taking fire. Call it a predator satiation strategy. Except, of course, that I got hit by that one random shot.’
‘Nice,’ she said, approvingly.
‘I would appreciate it,’ Flere-Imsaho said, with quiet dignity, ‘If you didn’t mention my having to be…carried…in your pocket for that last stretch.’ Her mouth quirked in amusement.
‘Certainly. If you don’t mention that I got myself imprisoned and you had to bust me out.’
‘That wasn’t an arrest, that was a sound tactical decision under the circumstances,’ it said, promptly. Her smile broadened.
‘Absolutely. How long until we meet up with the VFP?’
‘A little under an hour.’
‘Good. Time for a meal and a shower then.’
‘Do you like games?’ Flere-Imsaho asked, on a sudden thought. She looked puzzled.
‘Not really. Why?’
'Oh, no reason.'
From the VFP Redshift they went directly to N’Daryun’s current base ship, the GOU All’s Fair In Love and War. Its avatar greeted them as they disembarked from the module. Flere-Imsaho had already filed a report, so the ship was fully apprised as to what had happened (well, mostly).
‘Welcome back, Efyik,’ the ship said, warmly, as she solemnly handed over the backup of the avatoid’s mind state.
‘Oh dear, another one?’
‘Another one?’ Flere-Imsaho repeated, incredulously, rainbowing briefly in surprise. ‘You get yourself into these situations regularly?’
‘Afraid so,’ Efyik said, and nodding sadly, ‘What a shitshow that turned out to be.’
‘Ah, yes, well, we were not quite aware of the extent to which they had contact with other civilisations.’
‘Well file a complaint with whoever did the workup on this place. Oh, and get me a deadlier bodyguard next time.’
‘Hmm,’ the avatar said, its gaze drifting towards Flere-Imsaho, who was hovering in the air just behind Efyik’s shoulder, fields the usual mellow-green, but darkening slightly with suspicion.
‘Ah, Flere-Imsaho, master of disguise,’ the avatar remarked. In spite of itself, its fields shaded red with pleasure. Efyik glanced over her shoulder at it, a sly expression on her face, then turned back to the ship.
‘It followed me home,’ she said, straight-faced, ‘Can I keep it?’
‘Killed two birds with one stone, I see,’ muttered Flere-Imsaho to the avatar, which had the audacity to look innocent. Efyik strode off towards her quarters. After a moment, it fell in beside her.