Episode VI: Beta Test (11 page)

I grinned at the Shallans anticipating this attack. "How do you know what I asked you all here for?"

"It doesn't take a Brain Scientist or a Rocket Surgeon to figure out what's going on," Ceisel replied. "Shortly after the news about the Queen's taking of those colony worlds gets out, you get called to the Admiral's office. Upon leaving that meeting, you ask to speak to all the Shallan computer specialists." He shrugged. "One plus one plus one equals an Alliance attack on GMASS led by an AI invasion of the computer systems."

"I think you might be in the wrong department, Ceisel. Intel sounds like its more your speed!" I replied grinning at him.

He snorted and shook his head. "No way, too many stupid idiots in that place. You know I have no tolerance for blatant idiocy!"

I had noticed that all the diverse conversations had pretty much ended in the room so I spoke to everyone. "Later today, I will be asking AI Susan, who is currently working at High Command, to send me a clone of herself for a very specific mission. As most of you have figured out based on current events, we're going to be sending her to invade the GMASS system as a first step in rescuing the rest of your people. While we are doing this, High Command will be building the force they believe they will need to get your people away from there." I held up my hand because several people wanted to speak. "I know that Galtar is your home planet, but we currently have no way to clear the Arac infestation. Since a planet in the Alpha Centauri System has been set aside for your people, the Alliance is going to relocate as many as we can to that planet. I have been asked to prepare an AI to invade and take control of as a much of the facility as is possible. I asked all of you here this morning, so I could get a better understanding of the task at hand and learn of any special circumstances that might be unique to Galtar and the GMASS facility."

"Lord Doctor Cowan, several of our former leaders have been conditioned to absolute obedience to the Synod. How do you plan on getting around that?" One of the older specialists asked.

"One of the tasks AI Susan will have is to investigate these programmers. If she can take control of them, she will reset the machine to remove the programming and create a reason for the previously programmed individuals to be brought in again. If this can be done without the knowledge of the Synod, so much the better. But if it cannot be done, we will do what we can to simply subdue these people and try to figure out how to help them after we get them back here." I shrugged. "AI Susan will also be tasked with searching for and attempting to take control of the Hive Queen there. If she can, it will make the rescue of your people much easier."

"If you can take control of the Queen, will we still need to relocate?" someone else asked. "Couldn't we simply arrest the Synod and keep the system?"

I nodded agreement with the sentiment. "That would be ideal, however, the Alliance believes that the Grand Hive will hit that system with overwhelming force. More than we might be able to repel. Currently, the plan is to relocate as much of your people as we can before that happens. Time is also a factor here. There is a very good chance that the Grand Hive will attack before we can get everyone to safety. Relocating that many people and their belongings and equipment will take a lot of ships and a great deal of time. I imagine most of the Alliance fleet will be involved in the effort, as will a good deal of commercial shipping. Like I said earlier, I don't know the whole plan, but I do need to get working on the AI as soon as I can so she can begin her work there."

A small, seemingly young Shallan stepped forward. "From a hardware stand point, you should have little trouble. Most of the systems are the standard Veranorian designs you are familiar with. The GMASS facility does not have a single system to run the whole thing, but rather a single main command system and several semi-autonomous sub-systems that report to it set up in a hierarchal structure. For example; each docking facility has a control computer that answers to a section controller. The section controllers answer to a division controller and the eight division controllers are in turn controlled by the main system. However, the security computers running the system defenses are different. There is, or at least was, a control link with the main command system. Each weapon, is networked with all the other weapons as well as the main system. All of them have the ability to sever the link to any weapon if it detects infiltration. That was a software thing, and something we used during our escape so it might have been changed by now."

The older female that had asked about the programmed leaders spoke next. "Yes, I'm sure they took that out, but the hardware links would still have to be there; how else would they control the weapons?" She paused. "I can pretty much guarantee that the command staff in the control module has been programmed for the Synod. I would imagine everyone in a command level position has been programmed," she finished sadly.

"While the computer systems were designed by the Veranorian, the operating systems and the rest of the software was written by us, but claimed by the Veranorian after they 'improved' it. Other than the system security weapons, there are no firewalls or security protocols installed. The system itself was designed and built to streamline ease of use. An AI should have no trouble at all infiltrating and taking control of the main systems. I'm afraid we have no idea what they might have done to the system security installations. We do know that at the present time every construction bay is in use. The Synod may not have the crews, but they are certainly building ships."

I nodded. "This is the stuff I needed to know. We'll be starting work on preparing the AI for the mission in a few minutes. Please continue to think about this, if you can think of anything that I might need to know about, please feel free to send me a message immediately. Thank you all for coming," I said, ending the short meeting.

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A
I Programming Lab

Alliance Apollo Base

Selene, Earth's Moon

Sol System

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B
y the time I got back to my office, the AI lab knew something special was afoot. Sarah had already contacted Susan and had a 'clone' ready for modification. However, before I could begin work, I needed to tell my people what was going on.

"Obviously, you all know something is in the works. I have been asked by the Alliance Command to prepare an AI for a cyber-attack on the Galtar system and the GMASS facility. In a few minutes I will be doing exactly that. I was asked to handle this project personally, but I will still need help from some of you. While we need to continue getting new AI written for the systems we need to install, this project has been given a priority. I will be using an already existing AI clone for this mission. As you all know AI Susan was written for tasks just like this. I will be modifying one of her standalone clones for this mission. It will not require a crystal as this will be a semi-long term, but very much temporary installation. As it stands right now, the Galtar system and the facilities there are to be abandoned," I said.

That announcement got people talking. "I'll be handling the programming of the AI myself. However, once finished, I'll need assistance with testing and hacking protocols. Since we will be sending her into the lion's den so to speak, this AI will have a few self-preservation commands that I will want to speak to the Hacker team about before implementing them. One of her primary parameters will be that she needs to be completely invisible and undetectable. She will have a lot of mission specific goals to achieve, but with the right programming she can and will pull this off.

"I will make sure that Sarah makes the system information for the GMASS facility and the Galtar main computer network available to the Hacker section so you can see what we are going up against. Now before I begin, are there any questions?" I asked.

No one had any questions for me, but they did seem to be full of speculation as to the attack. I made a note to myself to consider creating a Cyber-Warfare section, as this seemed to me to be a logical use for an AI system. I got my standard drink and went into my programming suite. Susan Twenty was waiting there for me.

"Hello again, Father. I've missed you," Susan said, smiling.

"It has been a long time, Susan. How is your 'mother' holding up?" I asked, meaning of course the original Susan AI.

"She is very busy, as you know. She is very much looking forward to the installation of the new crystal and the AI," she replied.

"I can imagine. I had no idea you would be so overloaded once you got to the Novalus system or I would have prepared you better for it," I replied. "Are you ready for this?"

She smiled. "I'm actually looking forward to it. The Shallans are in trouble, and we need to get in there to help them as soon as we can."

I nodded. "Well, that's the reason you're here. At least we didn't have to wait for you to get here on a ship. I need to make some core modifications so I will be powering you down while I work on those. Once they're finished, I'll power you back up to check function. This might take a couple of days though."

She nodded. "Full power shut down, initiated. See you later, Father."

I winked at her as she disappeared from the display area in front of me. Moments later, her core logic program was displayed directly in front of me while several of the primary peripheral logic systems were displayed off to each side. Now the work really began.

During the three days it took me to finish the core logic alterations, it occurred to me that Susan Twenty would be a completely different AI once she had reawakened. So I altered her personality somewhat to give her a soviet accent to her speech patterns and imported an image of the 'Black Widow' as played by Scarlett Johansson complete with the skin tight black body suit. I did alter her facial features somewhat so as not to make her look exactly like the actress, but she was still very pretty. I assigned her the name 'Natasha'.

I was tempted to move on to the next part of her programming while I had her powered down, but figured I better double check what I had already done. I asked Sarah to give the code a look before bring her back up in the suite. When she saw the personality and appearance alterations, she chuckled and agreed that they were appropriate. She couldn't find any obvious flaws so, after making sure my suite was in isolation mode, I brought Natasha online.

Once she came online she looked down and checked herself out. Grinning she said, "Papa, what have you done to me? I am new woman, da?"

Okay, so she wasn't exactly like the 'Black Widow' Stan Lee created, but she would do for our purposes. I nodded in reply to her. "I made a few changes. In fact, I moved your appearance programming into a separate module that you shouldn't even need to take with you. This mission is completely covert; you shouldn't need all the extra programming for your appearance. Once your mission is finished and you're back with us, you'll get it back. The reason for the name and appearance change is that, while I was making the core mods, it occurred to me that you will in effect be a completely new AI once I was finished. So, you got your own name as well as appearance."

I talked to her for a while longer, making sure her new core commands had not destabilized her. While I had been working on her core logic, two other AI programmers, working with the information given us of the Galtar system as well as our Terran Hackers, created Natasha's 'combat' modules. After I got a fresh cup of coffee, I went back into the suite and opened each of the modules to make sure there were no code conflicts and each module gave her the tools she needed. Natasha was still online for this part since I was not attaching the modules yet. She and Sarah both went over them with me.

I think it was a testimony to how good we were getting with the new AI code, that none of the modules had any issues and should work very well with Natasha's primary core. Since it was the end of that day, I scheduled Natasha's final testing to begin the following morning and went home. I had been working and worrying over this project since I started it, and I was getting pretty tired.

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C
owan Residence

Apollo Alliance Base

Selene, Earth's Moon

Sol System

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I
n my spare time at home, I was writing a base operating system for the new computers that our company would be building. I made certain that it would be fully compatible with the main AI controlled systems that would be installed throughout the Alliance, but also made sure that it provided for the security of the individual as well. I knew that this war would be introducing the concept of cyber-crime to the Alliance, and I wanted to make sure the new systems were ready for that.

Writing the operating system was relatively easy, but I would have to wait to test it until the first few systems were built. The overall structure of the new OS was such that it would work seamlessly with all other existing applications; it would just look very different than the current OS. It would also be fully customizable.

Foreten Kree's brothers had undertaken that part of the project and had been very excited over the idea. They were still building the first ten machines, using the assembly of the components to work out how to set up mass production. Creating the actual components themselves, would be a joint effort by the Novans, the Veranorians in exile on Novalus and the Shallans, once they got installed on their new world. As I had intended, the company would be multi-cultural in scope and scale. Once we had gotten it set up and started building it, there had been no shortage of supporters.

While I worked, I had taken to watching the different news feeds from Earth, so I could keep abreast of the happenings down there. It was my home after all. It looked like a lot of the former 'third world’ nations had actually decided to agree to the Core World status offer, but it wouldn't fully take effect until the rest of the planet agreed as well. However, the leaders of the 'first world' nations had sunk in their collective heels and were refusing to budge, regardless of what their people were telling them to do. In the United States, my former country, it was common knowledge that the people supported accepting Core World status, but the government was blocking it. They had started a very anti-Alliance publicity campaign to discredit the Alliance and what it was offering. As a result, the Ambassador offered to openly debate any issues raised and answer any questions asked. So far, the offer had not been responded to by any of the governments.