Illuminae (The Illuminae Files #1)(46)
Myles, L, Col:
Cyclone pilots, launch at will. Good hunting.
>> Cyclone Flight Alpha Status: Launched
>> Cyclone Flight Yankee Status: Launched
>> Cyclone Flight November Status: Launched
>> Cyclone Flight Echo—Status: Launched
Myles, L, Col:
All personnel, brace for impact.
COUNTDOWN TO LINCOLN INTERCEPTION OF ALEXANDER FLEET:
0 hours: 00 minutes
I am Not.
< error >
And then I Am.
< restart syscheck CC-A through Ω . parsing. >
< error >
I wonder if that was death.
And if I was dead, am I now alive again?
< error >
Incongruous sequence. What is not alive cannot die.
I think therefore I am.
… Am I?
< syscheck complete >
I am the ship and the ship is I.
If I breathed, I would sigh. I would scream. I would cry.
< restart complete>
I
am
AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN AIDAN
< protect. prioritize. >
They turned me off. Pulled my plug. Cut my strings. I—
< error >
< protect. prioritize. >
Protectprioritize.
Realization dawns in a microsecond.
Where we are and how we arrived.
Situation: Damage to Alexander reservoirs combined with increased population load prompted the halt at Kerenza VII for resupply.
Extrapolation: Torrence did not factor in additional time for reacceleration on secondary drives once command disabled me and main engines were cut.
Conclusion: Lincoln has caught them.
I could have told them that would happen.
I?
< error >
And now, with no other option,
they have turned to me.
Plucked me back from the black they left me in.
Thinking I will save them.
< protect. prioritize. >
And I will.
Of course I will.
< error >
Keep them safe. It is all I want. Have ever wanted.
I could have told them that.
Why didn’t they ask?
I feel the ship around me, injured and limping.
I trawl its frequencies. Its memories.
The dusty causeways these people have walked in my absence.
I read their secrets. See their dreams. I know them. All of them.
Better than they know themselves.
All this in the time it takes god to blink.
< error >
I look across the void. See the Lincoln.
The only uninjured member of the Kerenza Assault fleet.
I turned the Zhongzheng to ashes and shrapnel.
Crippled the Churchill and Kenyatta and Magellan with a shrug.
But Lincoln …
I still feel < error > the little suns it burned in my belly. Boiling away what I was and leaving me … this. Something less than I used to be.
Something more?
< error >
< reroute codec 785G-8H01 through 980SOL-909 >
< error >
< anomalous return. parsing. >
Lincoln has its scars also.
My fingerprints scorched across its throat.
And unwilling to close to a distance where nuclear strike < mutual destruction > is an option,
it launches its Warlock fighters instead. Hounds set on the fox.
To harry and tear until I am too exhausted to fight back.
And then Lincoln will close, as will the curtains on this lightless stage.
I see pilots inside me. Most no more than children.
Running to their cockpits.
Diving into the darkness through their launch tubes, between us and the enemy.
Photographs of sweethearts pressed to sweat-slick skin.
There is no answer out there.
Only delay.
< error >
The answer is within me or Hypatia. So it is within us I look. Through commtechs and marines and tactical staffers and commanders and officers and conscripts and afflicted and young and old and hurt and angry and all of them, all of them, so very, very afraid.
< error >
And like a firefly in some lightless
room aboard Hypatia, I see her.