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CHAPTER ONE
Treason
Death.
She crawled through a dusty air duct to escape it. They'd killed her parents and now were gunning for her.
Princess Lassandra, came the thought in her head from her royal Artificial Intelligence. I can't keep them off your trail forever. The rogue military AI named Virus is coordinating the other AIs to track you down.
Roby, you're a royal AI, the very highest and best of Aristan technology. Surely Virus and the others are no match for you, she thought back at him, his neural sensor field overlaid on her brain to allow direct, voiceless communication. She scrubbed at her eyes and tried to wipe off the tear trails on her wet and dusty cheeks. The dust and dirt mussed her blonde hair. Between her crying and all the dust, she wanted so badly to blow her nose, but feared they'd hear it.
Virus is surprisingly powerful, only slightly less powerful than me, though the others are thankfully not even remotely in my class. Yet, I am all alone, the only remaining royal AI, and I have too many sensor sweeps from lesser AIs trying to find you. What they don't have in quality, they have in quantity. With Virus guiding them, it's only a matter of time before they coordinate sufficiently get past my false trails and sensor ghosts. I wish I understood emotions, and because of those emotions, humans anthropomorphize logic-based entities like myself. While I do not understand why you humans do that, I just accept it as surely as I accept as my absolute highest priority that I must protect you at all costs, even to the last quarteron in my matrix. Unfortunately, while I can create a protective quarteron force shield to stop any harmful local effect, even I cannot stop a Nullilizer
So, is that it? And then I die? she quailed inwardly, tears glistening. She never dreamed she'd be facing death by assassination when she just turned sixteen years old. She should be attending grand galas as noblemen in the kingdom courted for her hand, not fleeing for her life! It just didn't seem real. It wasn't fair. The enemies had assassinated her parents, the King and Queen of the Star Empire of Arista, and as the sole heir to the throne, Lassandra remained the last obstacle to their seizing power. You saw it! They used a Nullilizer, which just cut through father and mother's royal AI shields, and they died anyway along with their royal AIs! What chance do I have? She steeled herself not to cry, as that sound could give her away, but despair ate at her soul relentlessly. She didn't want to die.
The AI had no immediate answer.
Roby knew all too well his force shield, while very strong, was no match for the disintegration field of a Nullilizer, the empire's capital punishment weapon. Then, as he searched for hope through his vast data files, he found something. He reviewed it quickly. Yes, there was a theoretical possibility!
Slight in the extreme, but there might be a way to escape, Roby sub-vocalled to her.
Please! Anything!
Because of your own avid fascination with science, the Science Council has been forwarding to me copies of their reports. They figured that with you being the sole heir to the throne, they would keep you informed to garner your favor when you took the reins of power.
So, what is this slight chance?
We already know that a Nullilizer disintegrates its target into hyperspace, never to return. In this latest report, well, I won't bore you with all the techno-terms and math, but in simplest terms, they theorized that as a Nullilizer disintegrates an object, a ready-and-waiting science AI could seize the released particles and store them in a properly calculated matrix of streaming quarterons in hyperspace, not unlike my matrix. Then the AI and matrix can "ride" the currents of hyperspace to a distant location, whereupon the AI reassembles the object upon arrival…
Teleportation? She finished for him, her heart suddenly awake with hope.
Yes, and quite fast, too. To use the analogy of a ship upon the ocean, a sailing ship never travels as fast as the winds blowing it. Our starships wrap themselves in a quarteron shield bubble and enter hyperspace, but only at lower frequency speeds. At higher frequencies, the shock-waves of hyperspace would rip apart the strongest shields we can make, destroying the ship. But, in this teleport theory, they could carry us along like a straw in a hurricane and travel at the speeds of perhaps even the most extreme hyperspace "winds." There is no theoretical limit to how fast and how far a teleport could take you. That supposes you survived the conversion. Our best minds still have not solved the age-old philosophical question of whether life is merely the result of physical chemistry, or whether life is a non-physical, or spiritual, reality.
So, a person might reassemble correctly, but be dead? The parts all there, but no life force?
Correct. Alternatively, the person might reassemble alive, but be a mindless vegetable. It is only a theory at this point.
So, you think that when they use a Nullilizer on me like they did on mother and father, we could teleport instead of dying?
Yes, however remote, it is still a chance.
She nodded. Risky, true, but at this point we have nothing to lose. Can you create the matrix required?
The Science Council report gave all the equations. Yes, I can. I am a royal AI, more powerful than even the best science AI
Do it.
Logic dictated that you would request it, so I have already started. However, its complicated nature will take a considerable amount of time to assemble. Nothing I have ever computed comes even remotely close.
Let's just pray we have enough time.
* * *
General Gorgun stood still, thick hands clasped behind his broad back as he stared out the window. The devilishly efficient military AI his people had created and code-named Virus had done the job very nicely. The Nullilizer disintegrated the royal parents, their dead molecules scattered into hyperspace. The goal of taking the throne for himself would be complete when they finally found the princess. He thought back to before the assassinations, back before she had come of age, when contrary to custom and law he had sought her royal hand in marriage. She is a bit young for my taste, but she is a stunning beauty, even more so than her mother. Some of my men think she has perfect DNA, that she's the most beautiful girl in the entire empire. A pity about her refusal to wed me to transfer the throne and kingdom to me. Why can't she see the pragmatic side of it all? The empire needs my hands at the reins. We have suspicious reports from the empire's far galactic borders that forces belonging to the Faction Wars from centuries ago may be lurking around anew, probing our defenses. The royals were fools, refusing to consider or prepare for war, and someone has to save the Empire. Pah! Their daughter is a fool, too. Can't she see all this about wanting to marry for love is all sentimental trash? If she had agreed to marry me, then her parents would not have needed to die. And even now, she need not die. He gave a cold smile at the thought. At least, not yet, not until we have produced some offspring to put on the throne after me. After that, I am sure we can arrange, shall we say, an accident? But who knows? Maybe I will keep her around for longer if she pleases me well enough.
A sub-vocal artificial voice interrupted
