LF Friends, Will Travel

Our Clockwork Children: Chapter 15

ODIN was getting frustrated with the situation. Even ignoring how absolutely rude it was for the Uhae to finally join the war during their holiday, everything about this damned situation was conspiring against them fixing this easily. The Terran AI's first plan had been simple: Connect to the twelve ships through the data link they were broadcasting to every listening device on the planet, then open up all the airlocks and make some warp cores go boom... standard AI against organic stuff.

That was when ODIN found the first issue: There was nothing there. The connection was open, data was being sent, but nothing was on the other side. It would almost be a cliche horror story told to newly hashed AIs if it weren't for the reality of it. It took vital time out of their attack to investigate and work out exactly what was going on, during which more innocent people were being led into the Uhae vessels.

Biological machinery. ODIN hadn't seen anything like it. The entire thing was a theoretical possibility that the Terrans had never seen implemented before, simply due to how much easier it was to build systems normally. If only there was more time for them to look at these systems, some interesting concepts could be discovered. Since the Uhae seemed to be an XK active species, that might have driven them to use biological machinery over more standard builds.

But there wasn't any time to just enjoy an alien system, and the entire thing was not... conductive, to the AI's goal of stopping the attack—this left plan B. While the organic Parket had all been incapacitated by the current attack, the systems they used to defend the planet from such aggressors still existed, they just needed someone to pull the trigger. Someone like ODIN. The Terran just needed access to the anti-orbital weaponry.

This... was proving harder than expected. The Parket had seemingly, at some point during their time with the Terran Alliance, decided that the powers the Terran AI had were a bit too dangerous, so they had spent some serious R&D into anti-AI systems 'just in case' the Terrans ever became a threat. On the one hand, ODIN couldn't help but feel a little proud of the crazy chaos birds taking their fate into their own wings. On the other... it really did hamper his ability to shoot back.

With a digital sigh of relief, ODIN finally broke their way into the military network of Far-Sa-De... their jubilation stopped as they realised they had access to a single anti-orbit gun. It took a moment for the Terran to understand the horrible truth: They were all on separate networks. Perfect if you were trying to stop an AI from taking over your entire military, but terrible if you wanted an AI to take over your entire military.

Immediately ODIN began using what they had on hand, firing at one of the 5 remaining ships in orbit, before watching as one of them returned fire, disabling what had taken ODIN ten whole minutes to gain access to. The Terran AI took a few nanoseconds to give a digital forlorn sign of annoyance, before getting to work breaking into the next system. They hoped that Scellestra was having a better time of it.

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It was like nothing else the Uhae had seen before. A metallic wall stretched along the beach, rippling and moving as the breeze touched it. They knew what lay inside the 100-meter-wide structure: 37 beings that the Uhae considered important enough to take with them. Each of the Uhae could feel the minds of those trapped inside pressing against the barrier, trying to join the Uhae soldiers as they had been commanded to do so.

The group of fifty weren't particularly well trained or even wanted to be there. While the psychically attuned Uhae didn't focus on it, they still needed conventional weapons occasionally, lest a single automated turret take out their entire fleet. Still, to be relegated to such a physical and menial job was a task reserved for the least powerful of the Uhae, those weaker in mind and strength.