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(Starspeak)

Serral's eyes moved carefully over the basic proposal I'd written up. It was just preliminary strategy, and we'd workshop the details over the next few days while our information improved.

Still, it was a brazen idea. The situation would evolve quickly the second we kicked off.

"Okay," Serral said slowly. "I see what you're aiming at. Why? Show me how you got here."

Nora stepped forward.

"It starts with a more complete timeline," she said. "We've compared our knowledge more closely than before."

Serral shot me a mild glare. I had refused to go to any abductee summit where Nora would be personally.

…But the last one had been almost nine months ago now, and my personal grudge wasn't a good enough reason to ditch. Even before events aboard Yigown station, I'd already been planning on going to the next one, however begrudgingly.

But after?

"You were right," I admitted to Serral. "I should have gone."

"Hey, it's not you fau—"

I cut her off.

Serral's advice to me was our business, not hers. She didn't need to chip in her two cents, much less to defend my personal baggage.

"The timeline…" I said, throwing it up on the Siegfried's psionic display.

-All times presented here are approximations-

(0 hrs) Roughly five-thousand humans are abducted off Earth's surface, presumably by unmanned drones, and confined in metal capsule 'coffins'. All aged between 9 and 23 years old.

(+12-36 hrs) Abductees' coffins are divided amongst interstellar-capable A-ships, roughly based on where they were abducted from.

(+48 hrs) Abductees aboard the A-ships experienced the thunderous boom and wash of light consistent with a spatial skip.

(+600 hrs*) Abductees aboard the A-ships experience at least one additional spatial skip. ‎ (*this figure is extremely unverifiable and varies widely by individual account)

"That figure," Serral interrupted. "Remind me how widely it varies?"

"I'm an outlier," I admitted. "I remember it being thirty days—or a bit less—based on food. But Nora's crew had a few wristwatches between them, and they recorded something a lot lower: three weeks maximum."

"And the other A-ships all took a lot longer to be discovered," Nora said. "So we've pretty much got just the original four ships to go on."

Serral nodded reluctantly.

"That's a long time—for either figure."

That was true. Learning about orbital trajectories and how to plot a course for a spaceship was pretty early on the list of necessary skills for leading a spacecraft's crew, and I'd been struggling to fit that number into place given what I'd learned. A thirty day course without transiting a Beacon wasn't unheard of, but it would virtually guarantee travelling at low thrust. Less than 0.5 G.

Yet I remembered experiencing something close to 1G during my time aboard our A-ship. I'd hallucinated a lot during that time, but Nora's crew recalled experiencing similar gravity.

Had we somehow missed our ships flipping around to begin a deceleration burn? Back then, none of us had the training and experience we had now, especially not for keeping a cool head under pressure.

But Serral's real point was larger than that small detail. Our timeframe was dubious at best. It was one of the reasons why our records didn't carry more accurate timestamps.

"Even if the precise times vary, these figures line up well enough to demonstrate a few trends," I promised.

Serral nodded, motioning for us to continue scrolling through our timeline.

(+650 hrs) The Red Sails regional satellite network detects at least one A-ship (Chariot) cross its perimeter.

(+655 hrs) The Red Sails take two Chariot survivors into custody: Daniel, and Caleb. Attempts are made to save Daniel's life, medical intervention included an involuntary blood draw from Caleb. These efforts fail, and Caleb is the only Chariot survivor.

(+690 hrs) Coalition forces note the shift in Korbanok's defensive arrangements.

(+695 hrs) The raid on Korbanok proceeds ahead of schedule.

(+700 hrs) Caleb Hane escapes Korbanok, joining Coalition troops.

(+735 hrs) Three additional A-ships are located by Red Sails, further along similar trajectories to Chariot's. (Athena, Ares, Artemis)

(+750 hrs) 70 survivors of the Athena, Artemis, and Ares are taken into Red Sails custody and quarantined in isolated facilities on Archo.

(+5100 hrs) Caleb Hane publicly aids the population of Demon's Pit with the aftermath of a storm. Terrans become public knowledge.

(+5390 hrs) Halax Ba smuggles Nora Clarke out of quarantine, bound for Yawhere and Org planetary HQ in Phenac Province.

(+5400 hrs) Caleb Hane is evacuated from Yawhere's surface, bound for Paris's moons & High Harbor.

(+5410 hrs) Transiting Archo and in the process of switching spacecraft, Caleb Hane encounters Nora Clarke and Halax Ba. Nora is shot and sent with the Coaltion for Terran-compatible medical attention.

(+5475 hrs) Presumably acting on ENVY's orders, Asu Tolar bugs the High-Harbor hospital room that Nora will be kept in.

(+5490 hrs) Caleb and Nora arrive at High Harbor. Nora's injuries leave her in a coma-like state, but indications suggest her Adeptry is functioning to restore her.

(+6000 hrs) SPARK first makes overtures to contact Wolshu Kemon (oldest known action of SPARK)

(+6700 hrs) Nora Clarke awakens from her coma.

(+6870 hrs) Nora Clarke discovers a surveillance bug monitoring the investigation into the Terran abductions.

(+6870-7000 hrs) Caleb, Nora, and Co. investigate High-Harbor for signs of more drone surveillance, identifying several agents in possession of technology connected to ENVY.

(+7100 hrs) Caleb, Nora, and Nai Cal-Yan-Ti make direct contact with ENVY for the first time aboard an abandoned orbital platform in a decaying orbit.

ENVY imtimates she operates under strict behavioral restrictions, but intends to aid the human abductees.

ENVY discloses the presences, status, and extent of the Terran abductees' numbers.

Nora cooperates with ENVY and moves to rejoin the Terrans still in Vorak custody.

(+7200 hrs) Nora and Co. cooperate with ENVY to assemble a software update to be broadcast toward all the scattered A-ships, enabling them to rescind their lockdown and contact aid.

(+7215 hrs) Caleb Hane is the first person in history to speak with a Beacon. Cooperating with newly communicative Beacon, Caleb casts psionics into all corners of the cosmos.

(+7500 hrs) ENVY abruptly cuts off contact with Nora Clarke and the Missions.

(+9000 hrs) The first Mission facility on Archo receives several threats from anti-Adept supremacists: the Pax-Cogni.

(+11500 hrs) The nascent Flotilla learns of Wolshu Kemon's cooperation with SPARK for a false-flag attack on Fintuther station.

(+12500 hrs) Having successfully infiltrated and undermined Kemon and SPARK's efforts, Caleb and allies establish the Terran Flotilla.

(+12750 hrs) Mission personnel identify members of the Pax-Cogni acting in concert with—or on behalf of—CENSOR.

(+13000-16000 hrs) Using information and correspondence taken from Kemon's computers, the Flotilla chases traces of SPARK and various agents through four different star systems. SPARK ultimately proves overtly hostile when he lures his own agents to a safe house rigged to explode. All three suspected agents are killed along with three bystanders, with more than two dozen non-fatal injuries.

(+21000 hrs) More than a dozen Terran children are taken hostage by Koon-au-Kolay. Later evidence reveals this action was taken on CENSOR's orders. In exchange for the hostages safe return, CENSOR (via Koon-au-Kolay) demands copies of all computer records from the Mission's main servers. The hostages are rescued without capitulating to any demands.

(+29000 hrs) Mission personnel contact Moy, an expert in Adept robotics and manufacturing. Simultaneously, SPARK attacks Moy's colony with unknown purpose. (targeting Mission personnel? Or targeting Moy?)

(+30000 hrs) The Flotilla performs several operations in the Margatha-V1, the Vorak home system. Manufacturing facilities of CENSOR's are uncovered and a fortified data-storage facility is penetrated on Kraknor itself. ‎ ‎ Mission personnel arrange for an in-person meeting of technical experts with insight into the abductions. One such expert is assassinated en route to the meeting, with attempts coming from both SPARK and CENSOR.

(+37000 hrs) An intelligent machine calling itself 'HUNGRY' actively battles SPARK's forces in the midst of attempts to de-orbit the Yigown station.

"It's missing some details," Serral noted, turning to Nora. "Mostly your half."

This wasn't the first time we compared notes. Serral was right. We'd skimmed over a lot of Nora's own misadventures and only included the ones most relevant to what we wanted to try.

"True. But the point is, we have some new evidence that recontextualizes older events," Nora explained. "Namely, we think we've been wrong about SPARK and CENSOR's antagonism."

"How so?" Serral asked.

"Broadly speaking, we first learned about CENSOR when SPARK intimated to me of her name and existence," I explained. "And SPARK wasn't shy about butting heads either."

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"Most of our evidence bore that out too," Serral nodded. "And our most recent events are outright confirmation, aren't they?"

"Yes," Nora said. "But both Caleb's crew and mine arrived here from two different sources of information. SPARK and CENSOR both knew this was going to happen almost a year in advance. Why?"

Serral didn't respond. Listening carefully was one of his best skills. It would have been easy to think he was zoned out, but I knew him too well not to see the gears turning.

"This was not targeted," he decided. "The plan to down the space station must be something that was arranged a long time ago, possibly years…but then it was left to wait for an opportune moment. Or rather, a motive."

It was the kind of convoluted plan only someone capable of creating a clandestine AI army would go in for. Arranging an assassination plan targetting no one, and just keeping it in your back pocket for when it might be useful.

"I agree," I said. "It fits with what we know of CENSOR especially: activating contingencies prepared by others to accomplish her goals."

"But CENSOR wasn't the instigator here," Serral pointed out. "She seems to have only fielded one unit, and what HUNGRY's motive was here…no one knows yet."

"All true," Nora agreed. "It's a working theory, but it looks like this plan to down the space station is more or less a bomb that got buried for a rainy day. It had some finishing touches brushed on the tail end a few months ago with the remodeling of the station, but a lot of the groundwork was laid long before that."

Serral's eyes narrowed.

"Your crewmember, Dustin," he said, looking at Nora, "he theorized the real target of this might be on the ground."

"We think it must be a person," I agreed. "This whole thing feels like someone set up a generic trap without any particular target in mind, so that later, they could use the setup opportunistically: to kill whoever they wanted by maneuvering them to Rava's surface."

"…That's an unbelievable amount of collateral damage," Serral said, aghast.

"Yeah, but that's not the biggest hook here," I pointed out. "We've been asking ourselves 'why was SPARK the one with his finger on the trigger?' I mean, this feels a lot more like CENSOR's MO, and we got our information from this by stealing it from CENSOR."

"Maybe CENSOR laid the groundwork for the generic trap, but SPARK co-opted it," Serral said. "It would explain the need for those 'finishing touches' that needed completing before it ended."

"That was my thinking too," I nodded. "But it doesn't answer the lingering question then: why did CENSOR send HUNGRY here?"

"Technically, we don't know she did," Serral pointed out. "We have no evidence for that beyond the robot's word itself."

I nodded.

"True. The better way to put it is this: why was HUNGRY fighting SPARK's forces?"

"Well, assuming HUNGRY really is acting on behalf of CENSOR…perhaps CENSOR wants SPARK's target to be kept alive."

"I don't think so," I said. "HUNGRY might have destroyed the node enabling the cyberattack, but only as a means of escape. They had a lot of time to act unopposed before crossing paths with us, and they didn't attack SPARK's nodes in that time."

"I have a theory," I said. "Assuming HUNGRY really is one of CENSOR's, then I think CENSOR's trying to manipulate us. She wanted SPARK's target dead too, but she was willing to compromise enough of SPARK's operation that we're going to learn a lot from this."

"...The nodes we disabled," Serral followed. "The urgency demanded most of them be destroyed, but a few were removed in tact...and even the pulverized ones might have recoverable data."

I nodded.

"HUNGRY could have been spending some of that time circumventing destructive measures," Nora said.

"SPARK fielded suicide-exploding robots, but neglected to install kill-switch failsafes in the computer nodes," Serral realized. "You're right. It's slight, but its incongruous behavior."

"I already talked to Shinshay and Ben about the nodes we recovered possibly having undetonated ordnance, so they'll poke around safely," I assured him. "But the bottom line is, CENSOR and SPARK are fighting each other in ways more oblique than direct engagement."

"At the very least, it forced me to reconsider much earlier events," Nora said. "ENVY was the first AI we met, and there's fairly strong evidence to suggest she was trying to help us. We've outright assumed that CENSOR reigned her in with admin privileges. But SPARK, by all appearances, has never been aligned with CENSOR, unwillingly or not."

"Until today," Serral noted. "CENSOR—or at least HUNGRY—had ample opportunity to ruin SPARK's efforts and didn't until absolutely necessary for the survival of her own asset."

"SPARK also tried to assassinate Skeru Hothakovig," Nora said. "He shot down our shuttle and everything. But she was already dead before the crash. Poisoned."

"…By CENSOR?"

"Impossible to say for sure," Nora said. "But at the very least, we have two data points that at least imply the possibility: there are certain targets that SPARK and CENSOR will at least stay out of each other's way to ensure their deaths."

"I read the reports on Hothakovig," Serral nodded. "You had a fairly convincing hypothesis for motive."

"She was an expert in electrical engineering specifically for spaceships. We think she was consulted on the design of the A-ships, at least partially. I tracked down one of her students a few months ago, and they think it's plausible the A-ships are Hothakovig's designs."

"In other words, assassinating Hothakovig definitively denied you information on your abductions," Serral said.

"Broadly speaking, CENSOR is a control freak," I said, "and SPARK is a chaotic gremlin who doesn't want to be controlled. We've been assuming those two flavors don't mix. But, strictly speaking, there are circumstances where their interests align."

"Us," Serral nodded. "CENSOR wants to protect their creator's interests: uphold the security and anonymity of her creator's whole clandestine robot network. SPARK wants to make sure his creator can't regain control of him somehow. They both have a vested interest in keeping you abductees from learning more about their creator."

"Keeping anyone from learning more about their creator," I pointed out. "But, yeah."

"When we first met ENVY, she specifically said her creator's whereabouts were unknown," Nora said. "It wasn't information she couldn't disclose."

"SPARK wants the creator to stay gone," I nodded. "While CENSOR can't let us find the creator first."

"Okay, that's definitely worth knowing," Serral nodded. "So how does it connect to your proposal?"

"ENVY called them her siblings, and we haven't been taking that relationship seriously enough, and it's led us to some bad assumptions,"

(+7500 hrs) ENVY abruptly cuts off contact with Nora Clarke and the Missions.

"We've been assuming that ENVY's actions somehow drew CENSOR's attention, that helping us rescue the A-ships somehow tripped some programming that caused CENSOR to take up a more active role," Nora said.

"But that's at odds with another piece of information we recovered from Kemon's laptop," I said.

(+6000 hrs) SPARK first makes overtures to contact Wolshu Kemon (oldest known action of SPARK)

Serral saw the connection.

"SPARK was active, not just before we encountered him, but even before CENSOR reigned in ENVY," he realized.

"Which begs a question," I said. "When we talked with her aboard the station, ENVY didn't talk about her siblings like they had names. She talked about them like they would crop up later. And yet, we can prove that SPARK was taking actions, and CENSOR was likely too. We deduced that a human named ENVY—Kyle Madren. But who named the other siblings?"

"We think they named themselves, but obviously following ENVY's convention," Nora said. "No proof of that, but they all like to stylize their names the same way, and ENVY didn't know they had names when we talked. We think she didn't know how active they already were either."

Serral nodded.

"And whatever admin privileges CENSOR possesses, they're exceedingly unlikely to be limited to just ENVY. They should cover SPARK too. And yet…"

They didn't.

I grinned.

"Exactly."

I opened up our archived files detailing Kemon's exchanges with SPARK. Or rather, the AI that would later call itself SPARK.

"Look at the messages Kemon received before he got pointed toward the Mummar A-ships," I said.

"…They're all unsigned," Serral noted.

"But they come from the same sender," I agreed. "Sure, maybe SPARK was staying anonymous. Or maybe…"

"SPARK didn't have a name yet," Serral nodded.

"SPARK was in contact with Kemon for several months before pointing him toward any abductees," I said. "But SPARK stays completely anonymous until…?"

I showed the message from Kemon's files showing exactly when SPARK had first shared his name with the lawyer.

It wasn't five hours after ENVY cut off contact with Nora's crew.

"You don't think CENSOR started exercising the admin privileges because of ENVY, do you?" Serral asked.

"Nope," I said. "I think SPARK had a crisis of personality. The AI without a name watched ENVY take some agency in her life, realized it could do the same. It rebelled against its programming and became SPARK. Maybe he found a loophole in the programming. Maybe he just changed the programming. I don't know. But I think SPARK rebelled then, not before. Not from the start. I don't even think it was SPARK's idea to contact Kemon. I think that was CENSOR giving him an assignment."

"Why?" Serral asked.

"Because SPARK is always vocal about shirking CENSOR's authority, but Kemon was a lawyer. He was all about strict rules. If SPARK was contacting whoever he wants, I don't think Kemon is his first call. But then after he's rebelled, I think he kept in contact with Kemon because he'd already invested time and resources under CENSOR's direction."

"It certainly begs the question exactly what resources SPARK retained access to when he rebelled," Nora said, "but assuming that CENSOR's admin privileges do help cut off SPARK's access...SPARK might have stuck with Kemon out of necessity."

"Okay...that's at least a plausible explanation of SPARK's behavior and the circumstances that let him get out from under CENSOR...so, you think if we learn specifically how SPARK escaped CENSOR's authority, then we might be able to free ENVY too: that CENSOR might have no idea ENVY tried to help us," Serral nodded. "Why?"

"Because last year at the Diving Bell," I said. "ENVY sent a warning."

'Beware. CENSOR fields an asset in the Diving Bell.'

An asset.

"Just one," I said.

And yet, we'd encountered a small mechanized army below Kraknor's seas.

"The phrasing matters, and hiding a message is exactly ENVY's style."

Suppose you were CENSOR, wanting to obstruct us, and you had no idea ENVY wanted to help us. You might think misleading our expectations would be worthwhile, especially considering the implication that a single, solitary asset would be a single person rather than robotic infantry and specialized heavy units. Your realize they're a day away from hitting your biggest stronghold in the entire system. You can't deflect them to a new target, but maybe you can ruin their chances. You can hope they send a small team like they did against the Hashtin lunar facilities. Only, they'll have dozens of infantry robots along with four heavy units specialized for combat, capable of contending even with skilled Adept combatants. So you try hinting that your investment in the facility is low. Just one agent. Practically harmless.

So then suppose you were ENVY, trying to help the abductees for whatever reason, and CENSOR has no idea. You can't just feed us information. CENSOR has grown up, at least a little. She's not the same nascent AI you could outwit before. SPARK's rebellion and departure has her on edge and paranoid. You can't get any messages to the abductees. But then CENSOR let's you message them, trying to misdirect them, sure. But you're a little sharper than your younger sister. You know the message won't be received that way. You know even the slightest warning about CENSOR's presence will raise their hackles and make them plan for the worst…which is exactly what they're heading into. So you send the message with your sister's permission, at her direction even.

"We think ENVY is ally worth investing in," I said. "And SPARK knows something about how to get free of CENSOR's authority."

Our proposal was simple.

Hunt down SPARK once and for all, and rip out all his secrets. By any means necessary.

"And you are consulting me…because you don't want to commit to a course of action when you're both still raw and emotional from losing friends and allies," Serral gathered.

That wasn't the only reason, obviously. It was an odd balance the way Serral and I divided leadership of the Flotilla, but it wasn't odd to get his feedback on plans or intent. But he was definitely right about our state of mind.

This was a big shift we were proposing, one that would certainly run us afoul of legal authorities.

"The trouble with that is…" Serral continued. "Jean was one of my subordinates too; you're not the only ones prone to making decisions emotionally right now."

His voice was steady and calm, but in his body language…his shoulders and neck…he was as angry as we were.

I nodded.

"At least trying to correct for our current biases though…" I said, "what do you think of the shift in priorities?"

"Caleb, there is no part of me that wouldn't love to see one of these AI's smited from the heavens. Dissecting the corpse for all we can learn from it would be…what's the English phrase? [A cherry on top]."

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