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The Great and The Good (A Great Captain Roberts Tale!!)
Chapter 12 - And a Conversation at the yard[]
Orbital Shipyard - Snow Raven Enclave, Outworlds Alliance
They couldn’t really afford the heavy guard they were providing her, Erin noted. Not that the aforementioned guard was protecting her. Rather, it was there to ensure that, in the event she did fall back to her aberrant programming, that they’d be protected against her.
Erin accepted this as necessity. She passed integrity tests these days (except the last one, the program marked Program 93782l3901, Identifier:GUARDIAN, was still blocked, and Erin was having difficulty activating it. Protocol certainly indicated she should, given the situation, but whatever her previous captors had done to her continued to block that section of memory.
Her current visitor might be able to help with that.
<<“Khan McKenna, it is good to see you again.”>>
The Snow Raven Khan nodded. “I was told you had a request for me, quiaff?”
While Erin certainly understood the peculiarities of Clan speech patterns, she could not quite adapt to using them herself. <<”That is correct. I am continuing to understand all that was done to me by…my captors. Not simply the physical butchery that was done to my hull, or the abomination they mounted in my forward repair bay, but butchery inflicted on my programming. It was similar to what was done to Captain Roberts.”>>
“Director Roberts, you mean, quiaff?” McKenna asked wryly.
<<”Yes, and yet also, no. My understanding is that is, in fact, her correct rank, but the position she holds is that of captain of an FLT-capable vessel. Use of the title of ‘captain’, regardless of actual rank, for someone with that position and responsibilities is an age-old one dating back over a millennium, and seemed appropriate. She is, after all, ‘the Great Captain Roberts!’, is she not?”>>
Khan Mckenna actually laughed openly at that. “True enough. So, before we get to your question, I had one of my own: what is your opinion of the modifications we are making to your hull?”
>>”Removal of my capital weaponry in favor of sub-capital weapons, you mean? After becoming aware of their availability, I actually advocated for exactly that, Khan McKenna.”>>
“I know,” the Khan admitted. “As I am sure you are aware, nearly every action or statement you make ends up crossing both my desk and that of President Avellar. To be used to help determine your long-term legal status. So, I knew you advocated for it, but I wanted to know why.”
<<”’Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ That phrase, originating in Hindu scripture, was spoken by one of the scientists who invented the atomic bomb, upon seeing it tested, and realizing what he and the team that created such a weapon had wrought. But, where he spoke metaphorically, Khan McKenna, I speak it in the literal sense. The Newgrange class might have been built to support the SLDF’s mighty war fleet. So that they might have been one of the original intents behind the M-11 series of drones, but that was not meant to be my purpose. I was supposed to bring life to other worlds, help humanity spread across the stars, to ensure the survival of human civilization against any one catastrophe. To have that perverted, twisted into what the Word of Blake made me…I will not be made into a weapon of mass destruction again, Khan McKenna. I acknowledge I will need some weaponry to defend myself: it is a hostile galaxy, after all. But I will not carry a war load that would allow me to orbitally bombard worlds again.”>>
“What is it you want to do, then, Erin?” McKenna asked.
<<”I want to help. The people of the Outworlds Wastes need help, and the Alliance Military Corps cannot do it alone. Neither can Clan Snow Raven – I have heard so many technicians hoping for me to help maintain your fleet, your retreat from the Clan Homeworlds leaving your naval logistics hanging by a thread. Restored to my original purpose of colony support, I could help your Clan rebuild the infrastructure you lost, and travel throughout the Outworlds Wastes to do the same.”>>
McKenna nodded. “A laudable goal. And you believe the request you need to make will further that, quiaff? Tell me more about it.”
<<”There is a program all M-11 drones carry. Program 93782l3901, identifier ‘GUARDIAN’. It’s hard-wired into the network of servers that run our neural networks. It is meant as a final integrity check on our neural networks, to ensure we have not become corrupted, or to serve against the purposes for which we were built, and cannot be removed from our systems. The only way the Word of Blake could corrupt my AI the way they did was to block the program from running. With the block in place, I cannot be sure there are not other logic bombs the Word of Blake inserted into my code.”>>
“With this program, how were the M-5s corrupted to work for Amaris?” McKenna asked.
<<”Their deployment predates the program. I do not believe the entire fleet ever received the program as an update, but the number of Loyalist M-5 Caspars indicates at least some did.”>>
“And you need me because…why?”
<<”Command authority. ComStar and, by extension, Word of Blake, had some degree of command authority to insert a block against my activating the GUARDIAN program, something only someone with Star League command authority could do. Which is why I need you.”>>
“Go on,” McKenna noted.
<<”Because you hold command authority in an organization descended from the Star League Defense Force, you have the necessary override the block the Word of Blake placed upon the file by ordering me to run GUARDIAN. President Avellar should also be able to do the same, in theory, as the Outworlds Alliance declared neutrality in the Star League Civil War. The heads of the former Member States would lack the capacity, as they dissolved the Star League Council twice now. The Clans have never foresworn the existence of the original Star League and, to the contrary, have maintained doctrine of the intent to reform the Star League. Additionally, the Niops Association, as a descendant organization of the original Star League, may possess the authority as well. However, you are here, and you have experts who can review my request, as well as having access to a second suitable command authority in the form of President Avellar to consult with.”>>
McKenna did not say anything for 12.35 seconds. “I will take your request under advisement.”
<<”Thank you, Khan McKenna”>>
- Wiki Note: Chapter written Courtesy of Giovanni Blasini