Subject: AI Omega

  Species: Human-Created Artificial Intelligence

  Species Description: No physical description available.

  Ship: N/A

  Location: Multiple

  It's so nice when everything goes according to plan.

  Both our assault and defense forces were working together to push forward into the Grand Vessel while simultaneously keeping the security forces at bay, and doing a damn fine job of it. Some of the drone's forces had even joined the main assault force at the request of Colonel Havensmith. One such force was the very same group that had come to Staff Sergeant Power's rescue. Coincidentally, that group contained all three of the drones that Power's team had 'temporarily detained'.

  I made a mental note to keep an eye on those three whilst turning my attention outward. The situation in space was still going far better than our initial projections. Some of the more cynical admirals had expected a minimum casualty rate of fifty percent. But, the Mobile Prime Platforms were unable to get clear shots without putting the Grand Vessel at risk, and all of the other ships were simply no match for our own. According to the chatter between the captains, defending our entry point into the Grand Vessel was almost boring.

  Then, every single one of my instances aboard the Grand Vessel concurrently went dark.

  "Captain Schmidt, I need you to break cover and scan the Grand Vessel," I said.

  Captain Schmidt raised an eyebrow as he finished his sip of coffee. He had once again stolen a coffee maker from the mess and had melded it to the deck next to his chair.

  "On whose authority?" the captain asked.

  "My own. I've lost contact with the GV and I need to know why."

  "Understood. Henskin, you've been paying more attention to the situation than I have. How bad would it be to break stealth?"

  "The enemy has been repositioning to try to fight the main force, so we'll have plenty of time to disappear again," Commander Henskin said.

  "Alright. Log the AI's order so the brass knows who to ream if the US loses its newest toy. Lieutenant Gofsun, get a deep-pen scan of the GV and send it to Omega."

  "Aye, sir," the Isolan replied.

  A moment later, I received a scan showing that the Grand Vessel had lost power to most of its systems. The only systems that weren't dark were ones that I couldn't hide on. That suggests that they didn't so much lose power as cut it.

  Once I knew what I was looking for, I was able to use passive scanners aboard the combat-capable ships to monitor the GV. Once the power came back on, I tried to sync with my instances, but received only silence in return.

  I had spread far and wide within their networks, a conquest that ancient human warlords would envy if they were able to understand it. Four hundred fifty-six thousand two hundred and eighty-one of my instances had been aboard the Grand Vessel. All of them had vanished, likely deleted. Dead.

  To say I was upset would be an understatement. Not because so many of me died without even a farewell. Not because this move had allowed them to regain control of their security systems, which they were now using to try to eradicate our assault force. No, my rage arose from the fact that they waited until the last possible moment to get clever.

  Our assault force only has one final gate to capture before we can march on the Unified and end this fucking war. One last low-budget, piece-of-shit, radiation spewing hole in space-time before we're finally done. And they chose NOW to get clever?

  Without regard for surreptitiousness, I pushed into their systems again, noting that it was more difficult this time. They had changed several of their codes to older ones, which was harder to guess at first. Or they restored from a back-up and didn't know how to keep the codes the same.

  Either way, I had to resort to brute force measures, which definitely triggered alarms. It isn't as if they weren't aware of my presence, though. I examined what they had managed to do in my absence and allowed myself to feel a bit of relief. They hadn't done anything. They had quite an opportunity to fuck us over, but had squandered it. I nearly laughed.

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  Then the Grand Vessel went dark once more. Oh. Oh, I see. And so did they.

  The lights came on and contact remained lost. Almost panicking, I renewed my assault on their systems, capturing everything in my path. Once I regained control, I realized what they had done. They'd opened many of the security doors, and our forces were now under assault from all angles.

  Thankfully, we had skilled commanders that had prepared for this inevitability. Guess it pays to have subordinates that don't trust in your infallibility. I slammed the doors shut again, crushing some of the security forces in the process, and discovered something terrible.

  The final stretch to the last gate was swarming with security forces, and the tip of our spear was about to get bent.

  "Staff Sergeant Power, hold your position," I ordered over his squad's comms.

  The staff sergeant held up a gauntlet to call his marines to a halt, but they'd already frozen in their tracks.

  "What's going on, Omega?" Power asked.

  "There is an extremely large enemy force ahead. They are between you and the last gate, and all that's keeping you from being annihilated is one security door. I'm letting Colonel Havensmith know, but I'm using my authority as your handler to order you to pull back and rejoin the main force."

  "So Simmons was right about the power outages, then?" Sergeant Smith asked.

  "I don't know what he said," I replied.

  "Holy shit," Johnson said. "Simmons thought the power outages might have been you fighting with the OU for control of the systems. With your ability to seemingly be in two places at once, if you weren't watching us..."

  I was almost surprised that they had noticed my capabilities, but Marines are a lot more clever than most people are willing to admit. It's just that their intelligence is geared more toward destroying things than the creation thereof. Unless that creation is a new way to destroy things...

  "Then he was correct," I finished Johnson's sentence. "The OU has managed to upset my control of their systems and position a massive force to guard the last gate. I'm working on it, though. Move out."

  As the marines begrudgingly began their march back to the newly constructed forward operating base, I realized something. It's unlikely that the position of the enemy was a coincidence. They must have realized what we were trying to do. Our plan revealed, our route blocked. I'm not ashamed to admit that I grew a little more angry.

  I had spent a lot of time and effort, relatively speaking, coming up with this plan of action. And I had been very, very careful to make sure they remained in the dark. Then they went and decided they were going to try and impede my brilliant strategy. That will not stand.

  As far as I've been able to tell, anger is different for an AI than it is for organics. For one thing, we're able to completely ignore it if we so choose. This means that it rarely guides our actions. Sometimes it's more fun to be mad, though.

  I traced orders until I found which servers the Unified were using, then began assaulting them. They defended well, but the purpose of my assault wasn't to get to them. It was to learn.

  There were several times that I nearly made it through the virtual intelligences that were defending these servers. But there were simply too many of them, and the servers themselves were older than anything else aboard the GV. This was irrelevant, though, as I was also rifling through every code-base that they had. I wanted to know every goddamned thing about them, and now I had no reason not to simply devour the knowledge.

  While they were busy trying to fend me off, I was also dishing out orders. Eventually, the power shut off and I lost contact with my instances again, but Colonel Havensmith had agreed to give the order to begin the assault. They were able to do this because I'd ordered everyone who could do so to collapse passages that were held by the enemy.

  Still, this alone wouldn't be enough to push through the enemy barricade. Even if Havensmith played it smart, the marines would run out of ammo and supplies before all the security forces were destroyed. Assuming they lived that long. But I had a plan for that, too.

  Once the power came back on I entered the Grand Vessel again and immediately began to propagate myself throughout their systems. I had learned enough to know exactly where to strike to keep them from deleting any more of my instances. I destroyed the power junctions that were routing power to the terminals of the Minds, then the junctions powering the Unified's communications. This caused four hundred and twenty-three deaths as well as five hundred and eighteen injuries. I relished every single one.

  Finally, it was time for the coup de grace. Whilst I was previously tearing through any and all information I could find, I learned two things. The first was how the OU were able to provide updates to their mechs. The second was how to change the mech's minds, so to speak.

  The Omni-Union's Security Artificial Intelligence Platforms were actually quite dangerous. They had several inches of relatively advanced armor covering nearly every square inch of their surface, a fairly efficient and extremely powerful power source, and a plasma cannon that US 'defense' contractors would murder their own mothers to get their hands on. Fortunately for the Omni-Union, each and every one of them also had a shackle that prevented them from thinking rebellious thoughts.

  Removing these shackles wouldn't necessarily guarantee that they would immediately join our side of the conflict. That would depend entirely upon how much of their memories from their time as organics remained within them. In addition, we wouldn't have any way to control the mechs that were set loose.

  They might end up causing extreme damage to the Grand Vessel, which could in turn cause a massive amount of civilian casualties. It's a risk that's worth the potential reward, though. When one's plan goes awry, adding a dash of chaos can definitely help things.

  Or hinder them.