Jihad - Part 4

Lost in thought, Alira looked at the Vherokior capsuleer's portrait. An attractive man, she found. Absently she traced the outline of his pronounced cheekbones on the surface of the neocom. His face had a smooth copper tint, a small mouth framed by a closely cropped black beard and slanted black eyes conveying a sense of wry intelligence.

'Why did he leave his pod?' Alira wondered. A question that had occupied her mind since they found out that the captured small exploration vessel had originally been piloted by a capsuleer.

Stripping the craft of all hidden Scion spying devices had been first priority after the crew died, killed by the insidious nanites in their bloodstream. It was clear why the Scions would remove a capsuleer commander from the ship. He would be too difficult to control. He could just destroy his current incarnation and return as another clone. Even if they had implanted him with the same microscopic killers, they would have been useless then.

That was not what kept Alira awake at this late hour. The circumstance which did not allow her inquisitive mind to come to rest was, that he had left his capsule instead of destroying himself when they came for him. The flight recorder data and the sensor logs gave a very clear picture of what had happened: Trapped by a squadron of the Sleeper worshiping fanatics, the scientific vessel was forced to surrender. A boarding party arrived and subdued or neutralized all of the crew and took them off the ship. Only then they found the pod chamber and realized the ship contained a capsuleer pilot.

And then he left his capsule voluntarily.

Both his pod's operational log and the ship's systems indicated, that the capsule control interface was deactivated by him.

Alira called up the pod's system log yet another time, sat down on an equipment crate, and rested her face in her palms while browsing through it again. 'Why would he read an old legend before leaving his pod?' she pondered the implications of the one log entry her mind had latched on to and never let go since. A detail that kept teasing her with it's incomprehensible role in the chain of events.

She stood up and started pacing aimlessly through the small pod chamber. She started thinking out loud with a concentrated frown on her pale face. 'So, his ship cannot warp. His defenses are no match for the firepower he is facing.' she shook her head in disbelief. 'So the last thing he does before disengaging from the neural interface and leaving his pod is to read an old legend, How Calith Raven stole the Sun.' Alira stopped, pressed her lips together and clenched her slender fingers into fists. 'There is something I am missing.'

Over and over she had read that ancient Minmatar myth about the man who brought peace to the warring tribes by stealing the sun from the sky. With this act he made them understand, that Matar was one world where each inhabitant was subjected to the same outside forces. That forged the Matari tribes into one coalition. Alira's mind raced through the associations 'Tradition … Cooperation … Recognition … Perspective … Allegory … Legacy ...' Each word carried with it complex thoughts, historical references and even impressions of daily social interactions.

Yet, there was nothing in that story which yielded an answer that would satisfy. Many basic concepts that could be hints, though.

Alira returned to the status console of the pod, and the log that was displayed there. She stared at the last entry where the neural interface shut down and made a backup copy of the current clone's memories. Then, finally, she saw it. 'Sunlight ... Shadow ... Hidden in broad daylight' she connected the dots.

Quickly Alira called up the ship's status logs. Indeed, the timestamp was different. The pod reported the disengagement of the pilot at a specific time. The ship's log – however – gave a different time for the moment when capsuleer control was lost. The date and hour were the same, but minutes, seconds and tenth of seconds varied. Not by much, but enough to exceed any possible lag between the two systems.

Alira's pupils dilated and her eyebrows rose as she allowed herself to be taken onto a wild chase by her heightened awareness. With a few quick commands she called up the ancient story from the homeworld. Quickly she flipped through it, trying out different permutations of the numbers yielded by the time differences in the logs.

'That must be it!' she cried out. Energetically Alira began to open the box with the capsule interfacing kit, connected it to the maintenance interface and powered it up. Urgently she pulled her shirt off and reached around to plug the cables into her spinal sockets. As soon as she was connected she called up the Vherokior capsuleer's last clone status. Of course that information was encrypted, but Alira thought the words from the story which corresponded to the numbers from the time difference. The information began to flow into her mind and she laughed in triumph.

***

All of Awakened Industries' capsuleers had come together after Alira had eagerly called them from their sleep.

'Look here.' she enthusiastically announced and pointed at the presentation display in the technical staff meeting room. It displayed the mapping of the capsuleer clone's memory. The assembled group of pilots looked on with expressions ranging from quizzical to tired.

'They had very sophisticated sensors, and they picked up signals being transmitted to the Scion ships.' Alira started explaining.

She gestured and the display revealed the ship's specifications. 'They had their whole cargo hold crammed full of high performance wetware mainframes.' she continued. 'Within the Arek'Jalaan initiative their mission was to decipher Sleeper communications, so they were perfectly suited for finding out what the Scions of Tranquility were transmitting there.

Quickly the Sebiestor engineer stabbed a finger at the display. New graphics appeared which showed complex oscillations and modulations. 'The pilot dedicated all of his ship's computing power to the decryption of that signal.' she went on and looked back at her half-awake audience.

'When the Scions board his ship, he finds out that the signal is not simply communication to the ship.' with a few flicks of her wrist she distributed surveillance recording from inside the captured science vessel onto the screen. They showed the Scion boarding party in their heavy overcoats, wielding advanced weaponry they used to great effect. Subduing where they could, killing where they saw no other way.

After letting the recordings play for a second or two, Alira touched the presentation display again and colourful oscillating bands superimposed themselves over the imagery. Each one of them linking one Scion to the next and ever further. Alira's words now flew out of her at a rapid pace as she reached the crescendo of her revelations. 'No, the signal goes to every crewman. It is sent to a transceiver implanted in their brain, which processes it and sends it on to the next.'

Alira stood before her fellow capsuleers and opened her arms with an elated flourish. 'They are linked into a hivemind through their ships!' she finally declared.

'You woke us up to show us that the Scions of Tranquility are all brainwashed cultists?' Keram groaned tiredly from the chair he had slumped in. 'Thank you so much for letting us know.' he started clapping slowly.

Alira leaned on the meeting room's table and widened her eyes while she looked directly at the Amarrian. 'You don't get it.' she snapped and stood upright again pointing at the screen. 'That capsuleer gave up his chance for an escape to store the knowledge that he had deciphered their signal, and he wanted someone to find it.'

Cedrien shook his head to dispel the cobwebs on his tired mind and the confusion which Alira's verbal barrage had left him in. 'Are you saying we can somehow jam it?' he wondered.

Alira smiled mischievously at her captain. 'Much better.' she replied 'Thanks to the analysis, we can control the transmission.'

***

The whole technical staff had been mobilized and the ship hangar array was teeming with activity. Alira's teams were preparing all available ships for battle. Scouts had reported that the Scion fleet was only one system away, time was running out.

Sylera crossed the hangar deck with long strides, sidestepping technical crews and moving machinery while approaching the one she was looking for. 'Alira' she called out to the Sebiestor engineer running performance tests for different ship configurations at a large holographic simulator.

The other woman turned with an annoyed expression 'Can't you see I am busy?' she snapped quickly at the approaching Amarrian and turned back to her simulation.

Sylera grabbed the taller woman at her shoulder and twisted her around. Before Alira could protest, the Amarrian locked her gaze 'I need you right now to come with me and help me modify the electronic warfare modules of my ship.' Sylera commanded with an intense expression on her angular face.

Alira shook her off. 'I am not your Matari slavegirl to order around.' she shouted at Sylera and turned her back again. 'Fix your own ship princess.' she added, talking over her shoulder.

This time Sylera stepped forward to stand beside the Sebiestor. 'You don't understand.' she began, this time more pleading than commanding. 'I have an idea, a plan even.'

Alira sighed, leaned her back against the simulator console and folded her arms in front of her chest. 'Does it involve us having to come and save you again?' she taunted.

'No' Sylera shook her head. 'This time I will save you.' she looked into the Minmatar's eyes again. 'You know you can not win this battle. There are too many of them.' she paused and retrieved a data carrier from her pockets. 'But I can … with your help.' she extended her hand offering the storage device.