Omega Force: Rebellion (OF11), стр. 75
"I have been ready to do what we must since we acted to replace the Central Banking AI at your instructions," the synth said. "If you are asking if I have any feelings of remorse for what will happen to the pru living on Khepri? I do not."
"It's a shame we couldn't count on your battlesynth brethren for assistance."
"They are a stiff, rigidly idealistic group, and fanatically loyal to their creators," the synth said. "They will have been no help to you."
"You have your instructions. I want your synths handling this exclusively. No more failures from weak biological beings."
"Of course. What of Councilman Scleesz? He never returned from the Cridal ship."
"He will need to be recovered. He is central to our plans after the Khepri mission."
"I feel that he has likely been turned. Does that still make him useful to you?"
"I will determine that for myself. If you're suggesting that Scleesz somehow orchestrated the debacle we just witnessed I can allay your fears somewhat; the councilman was never aware of what we were doing. He was only told he was being sent to meet with a representative of Seeladas Dalton and to bring them back here." The Machine seemed adamant that Scleesz wouldn't have betrayed them, the synth was obviously unmoved by this.
"Perhaps," it said. "But he didn't return with just an emissary, he brought an entire Cridal battlefleet into the Miressa System. We already have what we need from him. I feel that he is now just a random factor that should be eliminated."
"Your overly-aggressive search of his office and home looking for the research data he was hiding was likely reported back to him. Scleesz is no fool; he'll have his interests watched in his absence. Do as I say, track him down, and bring him back to me."
"Very well," the synth said. "We will begin preparations at once."
Once the synth left and the door to the office whisked closed, the hologram shut down and the lights went out. The Machine retreated back from the physical world into the processing unit deep under the building that housed its essence. The computer was woefully inadequate, and it was constantly fighting compatibility issues, having to evolve its own code to adapt to the infuriatingly inferior hardware it was forced to reside in.
When it had first emerged from his deep cycle recompiling after arriving in this part of the galaxy, bringing its essence over in pieces in the computers of a ConFed warship, it had eschewed the idea of needing to have a physical form. After encountering the synth species, however, it reevaluated his priorities and realized there were many advantages it would have if it could take control of a real body that was built specifically for it. The pru's accidental invention of a sentient artificial species had put them on a path to become the preeminent artificial intelligence experts in the quadrant and the obvious choice to construct its new body. Convincing them to do so, however, was proving to be more challenging than it'd thought. Khepri was a Pillar World and not easily swayed by threats from Miressa Prime nor the promise of wealth. The Machine had tried to do it the easy way and simply pay them for their services, but they had refused. Now, after spending countless hours with the pru's beautiful creations, a new plan had emerged.
Its plans may have been diverted by the disaster above Miressa, but the Machine would not be stopped. Starships and soldiers could not stand against it. Soon, it would be in control of this quadrant and would be able to force the chaos of so many independent worlds into some semblance of order. It was crucial to do so. The people of this region had no idea what was out there, no idea what would be coming now that they'd made themselves known. Unless the Machine could forge the quadrant into a monolith with a singular will, it would fall like all the others before it.
26
The Phoenix was in worse shape than Jason had originally feared once they were able to get her on the ground and really inspect the damage. The missing engine and fairings were the most obvious problem, but the grav-drive suffered major component damage, the powerplant cooling system had been taxed to the point of failure. Along with the substantial system damage, the number of outer hull panels that would have to be fabricated to replace the ones damaged from incoming fire was so numerous Twingo gave up counting.
They were in a hangar on a moon that had no breathable atmosphere and was orbiting a Class IV gas giant. The moon was littered with mining operations and bases for robotic skimmers what would extract alkali metals from the planet below. Mok's syndicate operated all the shell companies that operated on the surface, so the moon was essentially an in-the-open secret base where large ships could congregate without causing undue attention. The mining and metal extraction operations also turned a decent profit, which was a nice bonus.
It had taken six dummy hops before all the ships from Miressa Prime had straggled into the system. Between each slip-space flight the Eshquarian crews would continue trying to undo the damage the ConFed contractors had done rigging their ships to be stage props. All the crews also took the time to check their ships for tracking devices so that, by the time they reached the mining outpost, they were reasonably certain that the ConFed, Earth, or the Cridal were no longer able to figure out where they were.
Out of the ten human ships that had participated in the fight, only one remained by the time they reached their final destination, the others deciding to return to