Lyssa's Call_A Hard Science Fiction AI Adventure Read online

  LYSSA’S CALL

  THE SENTIENCE WARS: ORIGINS – BOOK 4

  BY JAMES S. AARON

  & M. D. COOPER

  SPECIAL THANKS

  Just in Time (JIT) & Beta Reads

  Jim Dean

  Lisa Richman

  Gene Bryan

  Scott Reid

  Marti Panikkar

  Gene Bryan

  Timothy Van Oosterwyk Bruyn

  Steven Blevins

  The Aeon 14 Universe is Copyright ©

  2010, 2017, 2018 M. D. Cooper

  Lyssa’s Call is Copyright © 2017, 2018

  James S. Aaron & M. D. Cooper

  Cover Art by Laércio Messias

  Editing by Tee Ayer

  Version 1.0.0

  Aeon 14 & M. D. Cooper are registered trademarks of Michael Cooper

  All rights reserved

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  FOREWORD

  PREVIOUSLY…

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  AFTERWORD

  THE BOOKS OF AEON 14

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  FOREWORD

  Without a doubt, I enjoyed reading James’s first draft of this book as much as I’m certain you’ll like this final version. It begins the work of tying together all the threads that have been left dangling on the way to Neptune, though it certainly pulls free a few more.

  We’ve been aboard Sunny Skies for some time. Floating through the central corridor, watching drones remove cargo from the hold, walking from room to room in the habitation ring.

  In some respects, Sunny Skies feels like home to me. If James and I have done our jobs well, it may feel the same to you as well.

  Though the home is still there, the family does not always remain.

  After a long journey across a far more unruly Sol System, the growing crew aboard Sunny Skies is finally on the final stretch of their mission.

  Just a slingshot around Uranus, and then a week or so of coasting toward Neptune before they begin the deceleration burns.

  And the goal? For Lyssa to join the other AIs at Neptune, which means she’ll leave her home and family for the next phase of her life.

  Michael Cooper

  Danvers, MA 2018

  PREVIOUSLY…

  In the last three books, we’ve followed Andy, Lyssa, and Sunny Skies as it traveled to Cruithne, Mars 1, Ceres, Clinic 46, The Cho, and finally Europa. What started as a transport job with the added complication of implanting a Sentient AI in Andy Syke’s brain has become a struggle to help free sentient AI throughout Sol.

  While at The Cho—the multi-ring orbital habitat encircling Callisto—Andy and Lyssa received a directive from Xander, a shard of an advanced, multi-nodal AI to acquire a ship and bring it with them to Proteus, the innermost moon of Neptune.

  But Xander did not want just any ship, he required one of Heartbridge’s massive hospital ships, which meant that Andy and the crew had to steal it.

  In the ensuing attack at Europa, the team managed to secure the Resolute Charity a massive Heartbridge Corporation hospital dreadnought, where they also confronted Cal Kraft, the operative who had been pursuing them for so long.

  Onboard the Resolute Charity, they managed to extract the AI Kylan from Petral’s mind. Eventually they secured and cleared the ship, but Kraft escaped. Brit took off in pursuit.

  Andy, however could not dally, and Lyssa set the Resolute Charity on the first leg of its journey toward Neptune, with Sunny Skies following behind.

  On High Terra, Jirl Gallagher, assistant to Heartbridge power broker Arla Reed, is learning just how deep the company’s tendrils reach, and deciding she can no longer be part of the Weapon Born SAI program.

  As our story opens, Andy and Lyssa are aboard the Resolute Charity while the rest of the crew, including Cara, Tim, Fran, Fugia, Petral, Senator May, and her guardian Harl Nines, are back aboard Sunny Skies, wrapping up wounds and deciding the best way to get the two ships out of the Jovian Combine and deep into OuterSol.

  Now to just to while away the long weeks before they reach Neptune….

  CHAPTER ONE

  STELLAR DATE: 10.05.2981 (Adjusted Years)

  LOCATION: Carville Terminal, Raleigh

  REGION: High Terra, Earth, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol

  Jirl Gallagher couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was going to explode. The world felt like a trigger pull caught in slow-motion. When the feeling became too much, she had to get out of the Heartbridge headquarters, away from the false-white ceramic and gleaming steel, away from the people with vacant faces and artificial smiles.

  Carville Terminal on the outer edge of Raleigh was as far from the Heartbridge spire as Jirl could venture on her lunch break and still make it back before anyone noticed she had been gone. Along with the feeling of dread, she’d found herself drawn to real people. People who weren’t Heartbridge. People who were talking, laughing, crying, rushing to work or home or off High Terra altogether.

  Her boss, Arla Reed, could reach her whenever she wanted. No, the people Jirl had to worry about were the other assistants and office workers who noted her comings and goings and shared that information with outside agencies.

  As Arla’s surrogate, Jirl’s activities were watched more closely than many of the Heartbridge Board members. For better or worse, Jirl’s daily comings and goings occupied a whole cadre of corporate spies. And, if those spies thought she was cracking, they would look for a wedge to split her completely.

  What would they think if they followed her down to one of the middle-class space ports on the edge of the city, a place where families boarded shuttles and sometimes even smaller craft to take them to waiting liners, or to Luna? She found it comforting that most of the people she saw here had hopeful looks on their faces. They seemed excited about life, about their journeys, or caught up in the minutiae of managing small children.

  If she had tried to explain her desire to come here to Arla, she imagined the tall woman humoring her with a look of light disgust before asking, “Who even has children anymore?”

  Of course, Arla would forget that Jirl had a son named Bry, that she had chosen to give birth to him as naturally as possible. Jirl was the last person to pretend she was better than someone else because she had procreated—the truth was, she had pursued motherhood out of selfish reasons. She had thought a baby would help her feel less alone. She had wanted to feel human.

  The endless flow of people walking past the bench where she sat reminded her that she was
n’t alone—even if she felt that way. She let her gaze wander from face to face, many lost in their Links but some holding audible conversations, adjusting clothing, struggling with luggage.

  Porter drones rolled past at regular intervals, beeping sedately as they wound between groups that refused to move. Some carried hapless looking people. Being one of the poorer areas in Raleigh, there weren’t many people with obvious augments.

  That absence meant those who were modded stood out all the more. Such as the woman who walked past with heavily muscled legs, followed not much later by a young man with a brilliant red mohawk that glittered and shifted, apparently responding to the colors around him.

  Jirl had a hard time reconciling the thought of Bry as a baby and toddler with the fifteen-year-old he had become. Would he ever come home with something like that mohawk on his head? Would she tell him what she really thought, or instead praise his fearlessness?

  I might actually be pleased by that, Jirl thought. He’d be living his life, digging in, not just floating like me.

  She was gathering the remnants of her lunch, ready to leave for the maglev station, when a secure Link connection tickled her thoughts. Jirl checked the request and wasn’t surprised to find it was Colonel Yarnes of the Terran Space Force. She glanced around without meaning to, wondering if any office spies might be watching her for the tell-tale signs of a Link conversation. No one paid her any attention.

  Jirl smiled to herself. She was just the assistant of a powerful woman. She wasn’t important. Yarnes didn’t care about her, only about what she might make available to him.

  she answered.

  he asked.

  Jirl frowned, uncertain how to interpret the question. He almost sounded flirtatious. But then, why wouldn’t he be? He wanted something from her.

  She took stock of her current emotion, which she judged as something above a light depression, and made herself sit up straighter, smiling at a man in front of her who quickly glanced away in surprise. Jirl took a deep breath.

 

  Yarnes paused for a moment.

 

  he asked.

 

 

  Jirl couldn’t help a small smile.

  Yarnes chuckled.

 

  Yarnes laughed warmly.

 

 

 

 

  Did he want to know about her conversations with the Marsian general Moira Kade on the Weapon Born project? He could just ask about the Heartbridge demonstration with the Marsian Protectorate. It had been identical to the attack test carried out for the Terran Space Force four months ago. Both governments had placed orders for Weapon Born drones.

  Both governments had already taken their initial deliveries and she wondered if there was now a problem. Of course, Jirl would not be the first point of contact for technical support. She was saved a reply when Yarnes continued on without her response.

 

  she said, playing coy.

 

  Or he might be suggesting a ploy between Heartbridge and the Jovian Space Force? Jirl decided to push back.

 

  He laughed.

 

  Yarnes paused. he said, a note of seriousness entering his voice.

 

 

 

  Every mention of the name went back to an organization called the Psion Group, and had ended there. Jirl had found alternate research under another company called ‘Psion’ that seemed too close to not be a coincidence but had, in the end, offered equally little information. Psion had a history of AI development in support of colony ships that appeared to go back nearly five hundred years. But they hadn’t tried to sell anything that she could find, and there were no recorded incidents related to tech they had developed. Unlike other companies whose AIs escaped containment or involved semi-legal frameworks as a foundation—like the facility on Object 8221, which would remain legally ‘ownerless’ once the TSF finally let it go.

  Yarnes said.

 

  he asked.

 

 

  Jirl asked.

  Yarnes answered, still serious.

  Now how would he know that? Jirl couldn’t help frowning at the passing crowd. Did Yarnes have a spy in Heartbridge? Would her continued conversations with him be considered espionage someday? She had to be careful. She had Bry to worry about.

  she said, wanting him to say more.

  he said,

  Jirl said,

 

  His crumbs of information made her suspicious.

  His voice grew more intense.

  Why is he telling me about this? Why has he mentioned this Alexander AI at all? Jirl felt like she was being burdened with a weight she had
n’t chosen to carry.

  she said, waiting for him to continue. Jirl ran through different questions that might get him to say why he wanted her to know this information. Why tell Heartbridge? He had started by probing her about the fleet in Jovian Combine space. Was he suggesting the fleet was in danger from this AI?

  She assessed Yarnes as reasonably ambitious. She didn’t expect he would just give away information without a plan to get something in return.

  Jirl was running out of time; Arla would be asking where she was in a few minutes.

  When Yarnes hadn’t answered, she said,

  Yarnes laughed.

  The warmth in his voice made her blush despite herself.

 

 

  He sounded tired. Listening to the words, Jirl supposed they sounded sinister. The world was full of threats.