But no one went to battle with thatintent. They went with the intent to win—whatever it took—and theknowledge in the back of their mind that they might have to givetheir all. Not the desire to. But the willingness to do whatever ittook.
She thought before she’d knownthem—Tau and Quan and Xi—she was actually ok with the idea that itmight go badly for her. Because she was just tired of the war andsick of what had become of their home world and she’d lost any realbelief that they could rebuild. Or that they would get the chanceto.
She’d lost hope.
And because she had, she’d lost herway, lost any will beyond the will to kill that monster if therewas any way she could.
Now?
She’d begun to think of a future, areal life.
Tau and Quan and Xi made her wantthat.
And now it was hard to go back tonothing really mattered.
“When you have eaten anddressed we will take you up the tower and show you everything andexplain how we believe this will work.”
“Good,” she said,swallowing with effort. “Let’s do this thing.”
* * * *
The climb was far more terrifying thanUltima had been anticipating. Her teeth were chattering before shewas even halfway up and every muscle in her body shaking as if shehad ague. It took an effort to keep climbing, but she focused onputting one hand up to the next rung and pulling herself up untilfinally they reached the platform Tau had pointed out toher.
Which was maybe two thirds of the wayto the top.
Ultima collapsed when she made it,struggling for air.
Tau, Quan, and Xi studied her inconsternation.
“You should not have madethe climb,” Tau said tightly, worriedly.
“No!” Ultima gasped. “Justgive me a minute.”
It took closer to five and that wasonly to reach a point where she wasn’t teetering on the verge ofpassing out. Finally, she was able to redirect their attention fromher, however. “This is … this is a power station,right?”
Thankfully, that was enough to switchtheir focus and they took turns explaining everything about theworkings of it and what they’d had to do to modify it to work as apower plant and transmitting station.
That much she already knew from thediscussion with Quan, but she still didn’t understand what theyplanned to do with it.
“On this platform,” Xisaid, “we will build a Faraday Cage to protect us.”
Ultima blinked at him. She really,really hated to sound stupid, but she didn’t get why they wouldneed one.
Tau saw the doubt and confusion in hereyes. “We have designed the Power station to produce anEMP—electromagnetic pulse every fifteen minutes. After each pulse,we will use the transmitters to send out your AIprogram.”
“The working theory beingthat the surge will bring the drones down, which should break Eml’shold on them, and allow reprogramming,” Xi broke in.
“The cage should protectus from the EMPs. The broadcast range is fifty to seventy fivemiles. After that the signal will be too high off the ground toaffect the drones.”
“But it is possible,indeed likely, that Eml will throw everything he has at us as soonas he realizes what we have done and that means the drones willcome here—attempt to,” Quan explained.
It was the most insane, horrifyingplan she’d ever heard and it left her completely speechless whileshe turned over the pieces in her mind repeatedly and imagined theoutcome.
Annihilation.
Probably for them.
“They are machines andthey run on electricity. The EMP will interrupt theflow—should—just long enough to short circuit the drones. Verylikely, they will begin to power back up almost at once, but therewill be a window—should be—where the communication is lost with themainframe—the traitor. And that window will allow the AI youdesigned to completely reprogram and rewire them. Once they havefree will, they can choosenotto follow his orders.”
