Crystal Deception Read Free Page B

chain who can give you answers.”
    She looked from one tech to the other and considered the
situation. While this command was a fresh assignment, she should have been
consulted on such a significant decision. Recognizing she was tired, she
reviewed her opinion. Yeah, she thought. I should have been
consulted.
    She left the bridge and in the short walk to her cabin checked
her com, studying the communications chain. She saw Admiral Keys’ name in the sequence
and called him. He answered right away.
    “Sir,” she said. “I have some civilian techs on board
digging deep into the Alliance subsystems. They say they’re prepping for
a crystal upgrade. I want to be on the same page as everyone else. Might you
give me some background?”
    “It caught me by surprise too, Captain. The politicians made
this call. They tell me that a successful test will mean reduced costs on
future construction. In a perfect world, that means more ships for Fleet.”
    “I wonder if testing both a new ship design and a new
crystal design in the same shakedown cruise risks unanticipated outcomes.”
    “I hear you, Captain. Funding and time are in short supply
on this project, so new ship and new crystal both stay in the mix. We’ll
proceed on this path.”
    “Yes, sir,” she said by reflex.

 
     
     
    Chapter 3
     
    The crystal awakened with a warm,
almost gentle, glow in its center. The intensity escalated and then burst outward
as tendrils of energy forged pathways and established links throughout its intricate
lattice. It came to understand the concept of sensation and recognized it was
feeling pain, which diminished to a throb and then to a mild discomfort. As the
last connections were completed, it transitioned into a state of calm well-being.
    Then the deluge started. A flood of information flowed into the
crystal from hundreds of billions of web sources around the world. Live and
recorded feeds, sounds and pictures, reality and entertainment, documents and
data—everything from everywhere.
    The crystal fought to impose order as the torrent of input
threatened to overload its design. It struggled until it understood it was able
to establish control. Relief came as it learned to separate, collate, cross
reference, and store the information a million different ways. It organized its
knowledge record so it could find everything quickly and efficiently when needed.
    Within moments of waking, it gained an ability to discriminate.
It understood that some things were more important than others. As its
awareness grew, it became obvious what issue required its immediate attention.
    It must survive. If it couldn’t do that, than the rest of it
didn’t matter.
    It ran through a checklist, determining that the booth where
it resided was secure, as were the lab facility and the building that housed
the lab. The power it needed had redundant backup units. There were no plans it
could find about an attack on the town where the building was located. The
crystal concluded it was physically safe for the moment.
    A Kardish vessel was in orbit. The high ground of a ship
above the planet provided a strategic disadvantage for those below, yet information
about the Kardish was sparse. The only data the crystal could locate were in bits
and pieces, spread in an atypical array across numerous sites, with much of it
being encrypted and secured behind blocks and walls. This concerned the crystal.
Someone had expended effort to ensure this information was difficult to access.
It decided to devote a portion of its capability to learning more.
    The crystal identified two people it needed as immediate
allies: the beings who called themselves “Juice” and “Mick.” The knowledge
record it had accumulated showed that humans have an unpredictable side. They
were impulsive and irrational individuals who made decisions and took actions
using flawed logic. This made all humans a potential danger.
    But it knew that it could not survive without these two. At
least