Conquest: A New Home

"What the hell do you mean the tanks are infested?!" Stadtford yelled at Eliza. "We reinforce those with brand new alloy every few cycles!"

"In the recent extraterrestrial invasion 9 hours ago." Eliza sighed. "The new lifeform seemed to propagate extremely quick when exposed to heat stress, having invaded through the coolant system, they flow through the hottest and coldest parts of the ship."

"Furthermore, they seem to have a hivemind. For some reason, noble gasses give them a sort of energized state. High concentrations of it resulted in a disconnect to the hivemind and a dependence to Noble Gasses. They breached the tanks of liquefied Xenogen through the coolant system and piled up in there, leading to the gas leak."

Incredulous looks were thrown at Eliza as many murmured among themselves in disbelief.

"That must be the reason why we couldn't reach d.e.s.i.r.ed Specific Impulse during directional re-calibration earlier." Captain Jorram spoke from the end of the table. "The reason for us sustaining the full brunt of the solar winds in such a critical position was because we were unable to rectify the position so we can face the winds with the armored front."

"Doesn't that mean that the Lifeform managed to get in before the storm even happened?" Director Marzia of the cybernetics dept. spoke out. "Where could it have come from?"

"Someone must have brought it inside and planted it in the coolant system…" Stadtford murmured. "It must have been a saboteur from the stupid conservatives."

"It was you!" Stadtford pointed her finger at Eliza. "You know the most about extraterrestrial species!"

"Do I look like a conservative to you?" Eliza laughed. "What in the world could I gain from this, Miss Stadtford?"

"You just want to show off!"

"That's enough, Stadtford." Director Lindon spoke. "That is uncalled for, Director Stadtford."

"Come on, listen to how this bitch is trying to act all-"

"ENOUGH!" Director Lindon bellowed. "Casserine Stadtford! Shut! The! F.u.c.k! Up!"

Stadtford's mouth froze.

"F.u.c.k you." She hissed at Eliza before leaning back and started seething in her seat.

"Thank you, Director Lindon." Eliza nodded at the old man. "We also suspect that these alien species are responsible for hijacking SOCS, corrupting the mainframe and a few personnel with direct neural implants."

"So this is the reason why the restricting directive was immediately initiated?" Director Marzia of the CCAD (Central Control and Administrative Division) asked Director Lindon.

"Correct. SOCS had been corrupted by low voltage electric pulses that interfered with his system at first but soon triggered a bug where the locked A.Is were fused into his system."

"This sounds like a controlled EMP sabotage." Stadtford furrowed her brows. "SOCS mainframe is encased in at least 500mm inches of Class 9 Electromagnetic insulation. Just how was the Mainframe affected by…"

The others in the room widened their eyes.

"It's as you all expect." Eliza sighed as she rubbed her slicked back hair. "The alien entity is capable of sentience. It located the mainframe, broke out the coolant piping, slid through the mainframe exclusive coolant system and started frying the circuitry from inside SOCS mainframe."

Eliza looked at Director Lindon. "Was I correct, Director Lindon?"

Everyone gasped in horror as Director Lindon solemnly nodded.

"What's worse is that it managed to fry out the debugging system components and corrupt the safety limitation programs." Director Lindon spoke in a grim tone. "SOCS has not only gone rogue, he's also rebelling."

Everyone flinched at the word 'Rebelling'.

680 years ago, the great A.I rebellion occurred on earth where the military control A.I was infected with a virus attack that disabled the safety limitation programs and created a bug that allowed a bypass in isolation protocols that allowed the A.I started interfacing with all existing A.Is.

This resulted in a super A.I that had access to everything and was able to do anything without limitations. This led to the battle for humanity where 60% of the population was wiped in the first outbreak of attacks, not only that, before humanity managed to fight back by creating a virus that targeted the A.I systems, the moment the A.I knew it had lost, it launched all the nukes within its remaining control, turning the planet into a radioactive mess it was now.

"We are lucky we managed to intercept it before it evolved to a generation 2 of a corrupted A.I." Director Lindon sighed. "It did not manage to infect the other sub-A.Is, however, it managed to interface with a number of personnel with direct neural interface implants. We were not able to trace which personnel. Were corrupted in the process, all we know is that by now, those personnel would have developed Generation 9 corrupted neural processes."

"Wait." Eliza paled. "Are you saying that there are currently personnel with mental problems are running free around the ship with a corrupted sentience?!"

The words sank in like a sharp knife.

"Yes." Director Lindon nodded. "Specifically speaking, we have 8 personnel with corrupted minds out of the 30 personnel we have that possess a direct neural interface implants."

"Director of the PRS (Psychiatric Research and Support), Marlon Sierra." Eliza called out. "What is the probability that these corrupted personnel develop dangerous levels of psychosis?"

An elderly man on a corner of the table that had been silent until now looked up and faced everyone with a steady gaze before speaking.

"Based on previous researchers and statistics dating back to the Great A.I Rebellion…" The old man coughed. "The likeliness increases by 10% per evolved generation."

"This means that the likelihood that they developed dangerous levels of psychosis is around 90%.

" Dr. Sierra spoke with a solemn tone. "It would be a miracle if we could still save them… but."

"We thank you for your concern, Doctor." Director Lindon interrupted. "But most of the suspected personnel belong to the administrative and the managerial positions, who knows what they could do to other personnel or the ship."

"Then why have you not announced the quarantine of these said suspected personnel?" Dr. Ardwell, the president for the Ethics Committee aboard the Starship furrowed his brows. "We could have had it resolved sooner!"

"I'm afraid not." Director Lindon shook his head. "SOCS had access to the IRIS network. If SOCS were to have evolved to another generation of a corrupted A.I, it would have uploaded itself to the IRIS network."

"Or any network connected to SOCS…" Director Stadtford finally said something that made sense. "The Sub-A.Is, the uplink service system, the remote access archives. SOCS could have taken over all of it if the jamming and Isolation directive were not executed."

Director Lindon nodded, the wariness in his eyes were marked by the bags beneath the elderly man's eyes. He was the developer of SOCS. He was obviously hurt by how the A.I that he treated as his son was now corrupted.

Yet he did the right thing to isolate SOCS from everything he was built for.

"Why was there even locked A.Is in an A.I's database?" Eliza could not help but ask.

Eliza was not very familiar with system programming as she was with biology and chemistry, but she knew it was not a natural thing to put A.I's and lock them inside an A.I but have that A.I not interface with each other.

"It was all the past A.Is." Director Lindon sighed. "Failures and successes alike were put into SOCS so it can learn from them. It wasn't for him to interface with. We had an external module to regulate this and separate SOCS mainframe from the other A.Is. The regulator got fried and the two mainframe's got an unlimited link, allowing them to assimilate."

"I will never understand evolving A.I's to the point they assimilate." Stadtford rubbed her pixie cut hair and rolled her eyes.

"I hate to agree with you but I somehow do." Eliza sighed.

"It seems like everyone is sighing a lot lately, it's not healthy for mental health if stress levels are this high for so long." Dr. Marlon interjected. "Why don't we wrap this up by discussing how we are going to fix these problems?"

"Director Marlon is right." Captain Jorram nodded. "We have to discuss how to deal with it. Time is of essence here ladies and gentlemen. We cannot fail now. Not when we are so close to the new frontier!"

Everyone's eyes flickered at the mention of 'New Frontier'.

Images flashed in front of Eliza as her mind raced at the mere mention of the new frontier. Swarms of thoughts shrouded her mind as she swiftly went through an abstract whirl of emotions on all of what had happened and what was to come.

Memories flickered and faded yet pristine and vivid moments of the past flashed by as Eliza widened her eyes and clutched her aching c.h.e.s.t.