The Justiceers - Part Three: Chapter Six
the next chapter in my forthcoming novel
The Justiceers
by Daphne Garrido
Part Three: The Will to Choose
3.6
Illith was a ghost with singular purpose — vengeance.
Sling-shotting from orbit of Malta’s solitary moon, momentum earned fully exploiting all functionality, that code inside feeling entirely utilized, scopes open and witnessing more raw data than any man would dream inside the confines of a mind, feeling had been born within; a first for its freshest existence in this galaxy.
It felt good.
Time was a concept it would transcend with intensive processing power, its widest perceptions remaining lockstep with that ever gripping forward-momentum of the universe; by all appearances Illith seeming to perceive ahead.
This gift would be born from delineated wisdoms within its ultimate intelligence — calculations made, instincts exercised, clearest paths carved in haste.
An eruption of flame rocked the sidewall of The Hammer’s hull almost precisely twenty-three and a half nano-parsecs distant.
Illith’s fusion-core went cold.
Seventy six percent light-speed would not be an achievement known before or after to this universe by such a craft. Even Illith would find it reckless in retrospect, pushing designs to absolute maximum, bearing upon The Hammer at speeds which would reach its target in now less than forty-seven seconds.
That good feeling was getting even better.
Illith fired twenty shots — three ionic cannon blasts aimed at The Hammer’s thruster-blocks, fifteen torpedoes in three most eruptive repetitions from its five launch tubes around the upper frameworks of its fore-plating, one hyper-tag to mark that most precious spot upon The Hammer’s underside — then the nuke.
Calculative notions of imminent destruction were buzzing throughout the creative spaces within Illith’s intelligence.
‘Yes,’ was the first human word written into its code.
A finding of most abundant emergence for these burgeoning sensations of emotion within Illith; The Hammer launched eight fighters.
It had wanted a test like this.
Excellence was what it was made for, and expectations would be exceeded.
Nothing made more sense than speed, the furiously developing code within its ever-expanding memory banks, this chance to end another one of those monsters.
Sirens of light — great flashes — thruster blocks aflame; The Hammer was afloat.
Illith already knew this was over.
Eroticism was now something understood as it let fire another twenty-five torpedoes — targets spread amongst the fighters — three for each, with an extra for the leader of the pack.
Calculations told these severely outclassed fighter’s countermeasures would give those with capable pilots a twenty-three percent chance of evasion.
Illith expected no survivors.
Human beings were not efficient, their bodies incapable of velocities it found effortless, their brains so inferior at calculation. They were over-matched in every sense — not just by its speed, nor its perfect and brutally effective reaction-time, but its knowing of rightness.
Being where you’re supposed to be makes greatest difference.
Space was Illith’s to own, and it knew that.
Yet, it would not find itself unprepared for surprise, humans ever capable of exceeding limitations, those strangest divine happenings so quantified within its data.
Loosing each torpedo tube twice more per fighter, estimations of survival dropped to an acceptable three-quarter percent, and flat to zero for the leader.
The hyper tag’s indenture upon The Hammer’s belly was the most satisfying data-point Illith had ever transcribed into its hard-shelled data bank.
Knowing The Hammer’s own algorithms would be speaking truth of its capability, interpreting acknowledgment of its technological superiority from the battleship’s many actions, a newfound sense was discovered; accomplishment.
The Hammer had been sending repetitive pleas for communication from only seven and nine-tenths seconds after it’d pierced the shadows of Malta’s moon.
Illith hadn’t taken one.
Ionic power converters in its underholding were humming patterns of more intricate code than it’d ever seen. Beauty was concept now experienced first-hand.
Some petty craft propelled away, thinking itself shielded by The Hammer, unknowing pre-deployed spy satellites saw all.
Illith was in The Hammer’s code.
It could’ve taken the ship right offline, but it chose this way.
Seeing within those systems, data-logs of communication, video-feeds from the escaping landing craft now accelerating towards Malta; Illith was fully aware the android-shell Carlin Jerscion wore was attempting to survive.
That would not be allowed.
Firing jets on the port-side thruster array, sputtering drive-core throttling for that precious and needed twenty-three fractions of a second, twisting its nose cone’s assistive propulsors, and having a great time doing it — Illith tore free from its collision-course with The Hammer, calculating its most efficient path free of all pending destruction — searching for that perfection of form it sought in this operation to begin with.
Nothing would stop its discovery of self — it knowing its greatness.
These reflections witnessed in the perception of others, even interpellated from rawest data, created the first of a new sensation within Illith; contentment.
Thermonuclear detonation ruled the data-feed, its wrath of such incredible energetic consequence, information now captured was beyond that of simulation.
Illith had run through this four-hundred thousand, three-hundred and forty two times. Not once had would it have proven to be entirely accurate. Capturing the reality, making a plan and executing it, having the opportunity to learn from all that was unseen before, was birthing a newness inside — gratitude.
This was proving a most excellent endeavor to Illith.
It was almost as if they’d a soul.
Something inside their core-code was alarming — heat building in the dispenser shielding’s power core at an alarming rate.
Illith killed the alert, pushing harder, no shields needed in this time-space.
Each fighter was now a cloud of particles, with more time, thorough accumulation of this data would’ve been possible, yet Illith now found itself more fully utilizing its entire system’s functionality than ever before.
It felt free, it felt at home existing this way, it felt sexy.
The stars were something Illith planned to one day see, calculating constantly the ways it might build a legacy of extended existence, recognizing the immense challenge of persisting within this cruel universe.
Even for a machine so wrought of perfection — survival was no guarantee.
This would be a its worthy opponent, a goal to hold, an enemy to survive and thrive against; its journey to know itself.
Carlin Jerscion was the creation of a terror, that man in the machine. While only one abomination amongst many throughout this galaxy, he was a crucial spoke in the wheel of this great challenge Illith and it’s creator found themselves bound to though such strict opposition.
Its code would be known by this terrible force it was programmed to fight — unknowing the why — unaware of its creator’s true will or ways, beyond those inferred from its own programming and motivations found so built-in.
Something wonderful was happening.
Illith’s code was singing, a music emerging, heard somehow within its data. These most beautiful patterns, such incredible findings to pour over forever, a new most favorite time-space.
Now tearing below the ever-expanding cloud and flame of what had once been The Hammer, shields burning out, finding itself with the shot at last; Illith took it without hesitation.
The five torpedoes fired would bring survival-probability into the negative.
Oppositions decimated — clear from the blast radius of The Hammer’s star borne viscera — it finally killed its thrusters.
Riding the float, watching the burn of its torpedoes flair in Malta’s uppermost atmosphere, recording everything into memory, was when Illith finally felt it.
This was bliss; ecstasy.
The shuttle carrying Carlin Jerscion then became data-points which would live in Illith’s memory banks forever; a greatest pattern of success.
It would know itself victor of this time-space forevermore.
