From her house atop the white cliffs, Ann Ryder could see the tide drawing in. A seagull flew overhead and descended, skimming over the water. Suddenly, it snapped up a fish and turned back towards the shore. Off in the distance, a group of small boats sailed idly by.
Ann sat back in her chair and raised an ornate crystal glass to her lips, sipping a delicate white wine. The sun had grown far too hot to remain outside, so she had resigned to the air-conditioned lounge. Even so, the view was impressive.
Of course, none of this was real. It was a simulation, created from her memories. The house and its surroundings were from her family's summer home on Cambridge, which she had often visited as a child. The wine was somewhat more recent- Jack Fargo, a close friend she had met at Liberty University, had kept it in her room for a special occasion. When Jack told of her being accepted into DSE's graduate recruitment program, they cracked it open and had their own quiet celebration.
Jack... Ann often wondered how Jack was doing. She had contacted DSE a few times asking of her whereabouts, but she was always off fixing some far-flung installation in Kusari or the Border Worlds. She could visit her if she wanted, but she had her own work to do in Liberty with the Consensus.
The Consensus: a group of artificial intelligences based in the Omicron Kappa system. Ann had contacted them after an accident at Liberty University, where she had been infected with nanites. The nanites had given her control over technology, and she had wanted to know why. Almost possessed, she made her way out to Omicron Kappa. There, on the icy world of Gammu, she had sold her soul to them. In exchange for the vast knowledge and incredible power of the Gammu machines, Ann had become their agent among humanity, gathering information for them.
Her first target: the Liberty Security Force. A few days previously, Ann had posed as a journalist for StarForce, an abysmal periodical targeted at wannabe freelancers and mercenaries, to gather information on their capabilities. What she had seen had implied that they were a potential threat, but one that could easily be avoided. However, she had become concerned for her safety. The LSF was a powerful organisation, that could easily ruin her life if she made a misstep.
Just then, an androgynous-looking humanoid with milky-white skin, glowing blue eyes and neck-length jet-black hair materialised in front of her. This was the avatar of her AI assistant, which she had dubbed Iron Savior, after a film from Rheinland that had been widely distributed in Liberty to 'prove' that Rheinland's film industry was obviously 'inferior'. This had backfired, and Iron Savior was an instant cult classic.
“There is a new mission for you. You are to explore the system known as 'Alaska',” it said, in its monotonous and forced-sounding voice.
Ann dropped out of the simulation and awoke in a seedy hotel room on Planet Manhattan. The room was dark and dirty. On the table next to the bed lay an empty pizza box next to a bottle of Liberty Ale. God, she hated that stuff. It was, however, all she could afford despite the three million credits in her account. Most of that was reserved for keeping her ship running- at the end of the day, repairs, ammunition, and fuel costs left her with very little.
She got into her flight suit and opened up the curtains. It was daylight outside, and her ship was where she'd left it, which was a good sign. She left the room and headed down to the landing pad, grabbing a sandwich as she went.
Ann climbed into the ship and started running pre-flight checks. At the back of her head, she could hear another message from Iron Savior. :[Query]:_”Ann.Ryder”-_knowledge “of” _Alaska?
“Limited, even with what the Consensus has access to,” she said. “Alright, looks like I'm ready to go.”
Ann engaged the hover thrusters, turned to the east and put the main engines on full. In a few minutes' time, she passed throught the docking ring and into open space.
The voyage to Alaska had to be very secretive. Ann avoided trade lanes, knowing that there would be ways to track her. Using her knowledge of Police and Navy patrol routes, she was able to arrive at the entrance to Zone-21 almost undetected.
From afar, the Zone-21 minefield looked like a giant swarm of metal insects, watching the system from afar. There was no sign of an entrance, and even if there was one, it would probably be heavily guarded.
After nearly an hour of searching, she found a passage through the minefield.
“This the one?” she asked. :[Statement]:-”Affirmitive”.
“Good to know.”
Ann engaged her Eagle's cruise engines and rode into the passage. The atmosphere in the cockpit became tense as she was absorbed into the minefield.
“Any contacts?” :[Statement]:”Negative”.
“Hmmm.” Something about this seemed wrong. Surely the Liberty Navy would be all over her by now? :[Query]:_”Ann.Ryder”-_”problem”?
“Umm... No. It's fine.” :[Statement]:_”This unit”-”doubts”.
Ann sighed and continued on. After a few minutes, a jumpgate came into view. Saying nothing, she sent the access codes that the Consensus had given her, and she was through.
It happened very fast. As soon as she arrived in Alaska, Ann was beset by a hail of gunfire. Laser bolts ripped through her ship, giving her barely enough time to eject. The force of the explosion was a massive shock. She heard a horrifying crack as the escape pod left the blast radius, and she found that she couldn't move.
Ann screamed in terror. Her link with the Consensus had somehow been broken, and in that moment, she was truly alone as she slipped into unconsciousness.
The massive Enigma-class cruiser uncloaked and slowly entered planet Gammu's atmosphere. The ship descended steeply, before stopping nearly instantly and hovering over the landing pad. No hatch opened, nothing moved. The purple glow of the engines slowly fainted away, and the high-pitched whine disappeared as the gamma-radiation engines were turned off. Still nothing moved, apart from a Drone-class vessel off in the distance, heading for the exit of the docking ring system.
Then, suddenly, a silvery oval appeared in front of the ship. It disappeared after less than half a second, leaving a battered, battle-damaged escape pod in its place; the pod fell to the ground and cracked in two, and the lifeless body of a woman was in-between the two halves. A floating emergency tray arrived, and extended a force field to lift the woman up and place her on top of itself, before floating away. A Drone approached the Cruiser.
":[QUERY]: What_did "you" do to her?:: ::Ah, come on. I just saved her, and that's how you thank me?:: ::[STATEMENT]: Saved? This_Unit does not "understand":: ::Then shut up and listen. Transmitting log files now:
The Liberty Navy wing had just blown up Ann's fighter. They did one final pass, and prepared to blow the pod to avoid leaving evidence and possible nomad infection floating around. Then all hell broke loose.
The massive cruiser vessel uncloaked directly behind the biggest ship in the wing, a Gunboat. Immediately, all systems on the gunboat and its accompanying fighters shut down as they were hacked by the AI controlling the Cruiser. The Liberty ships were blown one-by-one and their crew's pods were displaced away by the hyperspace engine on the Cruiser to be placed right in front of Juneau's main docking bay. The cruiser then used a tractor beam to catch Ann's floating escape pod before it was too damaged to save the life of its occupant. The ship then proceeded to destroy all debris still floating around after the fight, then prepared to initiate a jumping sequence to Omicron Kappa. Just before that happened, a Nomad Cruiser appeared from what appeared to be a massive asteroid which had not registered on the ship's sensors. Doing the AI equivalent of facepalming and cursing itself, the AI vessel activated all of it's weapons and engaged the nomad ship.
A little more than five minutes later, the Enigma-class vessel scanned the still-cooling nomad remains for traces of something useful. Finding nothing more than junk, it destroyed the remain before jumping.
The ship arrived in Omicron Kappa. It shut down its jump drive, before entering the docking installation in orbit of Gammu.
::There. Happy? Just fix her up and tell her the Anomaly sends its regards, and that if she needs help again, she just needs to pop a message through the AI Mindshare:: ::[UNDERSTOOD]:: The cruiser then took off again and jumped in-atmosphere, causing half of a mountain to be sucked in the wormhole along with it. The Drone send all it had just recorded to the Consensus Triumvirate, before doing the AI equivalent of "tssk-ing" and signaling an excavator unit to go and help clean up the crater.
Ann awoke inside the old Zoner facility on Omicron Kappa. Still cut off from the Consensus, the room was almost totally silent, the only sound being the hum of the generators. Seizing the opportunity, she ordered the nanites to begin repairing her body. Data from their scans poured into her thoughts. The impact with the roof of the escape pod had severed her spinal cord, leaving her paralysed from the neck down. Simply reconnecting it would be too risky, so instead, she had the nanites assemble a new musclular structure.
Ann gritted her teeth as the nanites got to work, disassembling now-useless tissue and replacing it with powerful synthetic muscles. Soon after, she could feel movement return to her body. The nanites reconnected with the miniature computer behind her ear, and she could hear the voices of the Consensus in her mind. One voice in particular stood out from the rest.
“You can stop worrying now,” said Ann. :[Greetings]:, said Iron Savior.
“Yeah, nice to see you too.” :[Query]:_”Ann.Ryder”-_new”Mission”?
She considered this for a moment.
“Well... I think I'd rather just lay low for a while. I have to find Jack, remember?” :[Statement]:_”This unit”-”Concurs”
“Alright, Joel. You're ready to go.”
Jack Fargo backed her modified Pelican, designated Tech-413, away from Dakota, the ship she'd been repairing.
“Understood, Fargo. Engaging main engines.”
Dakota was one of the venerable Mastodon-class supertransports, a lumbering beast that had been around almost as long as Liberty itself. Her captain, Joel Dobson, had only been promoted fairly recently.
“Take care of yourself, alright? You're scheduled for maintainence in three months' time. Don't come back before then, ya hear?”
“Got it. Dakota out.”
Dakota left Baltimore and turned towards the Manhattan trade lane. Jack was about to move on to the next transport, but she was interrupted by a new message coming up on her screen.