Read Daily Updated Light Novel, Web Novel, Chinese Novel, Japanese And Korean Novel Online.
Necroepilogos: The Gospel of the Dead (Web Novel) - Chapter impietas 9.10
Chapter impietas 9.10
This chapter is updated by JustRead.pl
///Pilot Neural Interlock requested: accept handshake yes/no?
>y
///running neural interlock verification.signal origin internal component check PASSED
.signal bio-sign integrity check PASSED
.signal firewall compatibility check PASSED
.signal military authorisation check FAILED
///neural interlock verification interrupt
///elevate permission control
///input standard Afon Ddu MIL-1 ident code
///permission control overridden 99999999 ERROR hours previous: authorization Chief Engineering Officer Rhian Uren
///MIL-1 ident code: 109877-E-RU
///ident accepted
///neural interlock verification resume
.signal neuro-electric check PASSED
.signal mutual handshake check PASSED
.signal non-indig nanomachine contamination check FAILED
///SUSPECTED NANOMACHINE CONGLOMERATION ACCESS ATTEMPT DETECTED
///PRIORITY ONE STANDING ORDERS PREVENT SYSTEMS CAPTURE
///EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN AND SYSTEMS PURGE ADVISED
>n
///PRIORITY ONE STANDING ORDERS OVERRIDE
///EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN INITIATED
///systems purge in 3
>abort shutdown
///systems purge in 2
>abort shutdown combat situation priority avert destruction of unit
///elevate permission control
///input Human-Human mastergene code access
///permission control overridden 99999999 ERROR hours previous: authorization Chief Engineering Officer Rhian Uren
///systems purge in 1
...
///shutdown purge aborted
///neural interlock verification resume
.signal designate check PASSED
.signal designate: Elpida
///neural interlock verification complete
///Pilot Neural Interlock engaged
///internal audio
///Elpida:.Nnuurgh! Ow! Ahhh uh, Pheiri, if you heard that, ignore me. Im fine, keep going, I can take the data stream. Give me the turret controls, Im ready.
///turret traverse systems handover SUCCESS
///turret elevation systems handover SUCCESS
///turret auxiliary reactor junction handover SUCCESS
///turret shielding tunnel handover SUCCESS
///PBE targeting handover SUCCESS
///PBE fire control handover DENIED
///internal audio
///Elpida:.Got it! This is a a particle beam emitter? Alright. Pheiri, Im sorry, but I dont even know what that is! All I can do is point and shoot. Ive got traverse, elevation, power controls, and
>PBE fire control handover retry
///PBE fire control handover DENIED
>handover denial query
///ERROR undefined parameters
///internal audio
///Elpida:.Good, good. Great! Ive got a targeting overlay, sensor access, this is good, this is good! Im gonna keep talking out loud, okay? This isnt a true spinal socket so I dont even know if we have subvocalisation crossover. Ill keep talking, you keep driving. You got that?
///subvocalisation pilot neural loop return value
>y
///internal audio
///Elpida:.Haha! Yeah, I hear you! Well, I see you, but that may as well be the same thing, plugged in like this. Im with you, little brother. Ive got your back. Go as fast as you need. I cant keep up with the peripheral visuals but I dont need to. All I need is a target lock on the diamond airship. Just give me an angle and give me fire control.
>handover denial query PBE fire control
///ERROR access denied
>query access denial authorization
///access denial authorization Chief Engineering Officer Rhian Uren
>
>
>
>why
///access denied authorization Chief Engineering Officer Rhian Uren
***
Elpida was not alone; a ghost lurked in the wet-meat weave of Pheiris brain.
She had not noticed the additional presence at first. The ghost was quiet and subtle and stayed out of sight. Elpida had many other things on which to concentrate, most of which were loud, fast, and dangerous.
Elpidas mind was flooded with input from Pheiris body. Her vision was overlaid with the data from his external sensors; she had a three-hundred-and-sixty degree view around his outer hull, racing through the rotting streets of the corpse city, a composite picture in visible light, infra-red, heat-signature, echolocation, gravitic disturbance readout, nanomachine density estimate, radiological hazard level, bio-chemical readings, and a dozen more she could not name with words, only feel with sense and instinct. Speed, acceleration, and momentum all registered like wind upon her skin. The back of her head churned with munition statistics, armour integrity charts, and a hundred overlapping spheres of weapon range markers, each one flashing and blinking with new firing solutions and confirmed hits.
She felt the throb of Pheiris nuclear reactor as if it was her own heartbeat; the pulse and flow of his coolant and lubricants was the rush of blood in her own arteries; the churning of his tracks mapped to the pumping of her own leg muscles. The roar of his engines was the flutter of her lungs. The thump and crack of his guns was the swinging of her fists. The crackle of his active shielding was the tiny hairs on her arms, standing on end.
Elpidas skin prickled and tingled with the backwash of a million overdue maintenance requests and internal safety warnings and minor error messages.
Piloting Pheiri was not like piloting a combat frame certainly not one in good condition, well-cared for by an engineering team, regularly linked back to Telokopolis itself, fed and watered with protein-slurry and synthetic hydrocarbons.
Pheiri was a mess.
Elpida spoke out loud: We gotta get down inside you with a spanner and some grease. Maybe once were clear. Once weve saved Thirteen. Promise you, alright? I promise. When were not fighting for each others lives, well see to some proper repairs for you. I promise.
Pheiris reply scrolled across her sight in glowing green.
>y
Pheiris sensors picked up voices down below Elpidas comrades.
we just fucking turn around?! That was Kagami, raging inside the infirmary. We turned around! Were going back! What the fuck
Atyle interrupted; Kagamis voice must have carried. The warrior plunges into hell for the love of her ghost, poor scribe! Still your fearful bleating! Sing now, sing with me! Or have you no romance in your dead and blackened heart?
Vicky spluttered, interrupted as Pheiri skidded to one side. Elpis doing this?! What, wait, how
Ilyusha broke in at the top of her lungs. Wooooooo! Wooooo! Whooo!
Illy! Amina squeaked. Illy, please, hold hold on, hold me, hold
Awooooo-aroooo!
Kagami snapped: Im not going to sing, you mad bitch! Shut up! Stop! Somebody turn this tank around! Fuck! And stop the borged up barbarian from howling like that!
Elpida shut them out. They were safe for now, cradled within her flesh and Pheiris steel. She needed to concentrate.
Elpida was not joined to Pheiri via a true MMI-uplink, plugged into the base of her brain and wired to her neural lace; she could not reach out with a thought and move his tracks, nor take charge of his many hull-mounted weapons, nor interfere with his more delicate internal systems. Piloting a combat frame had always felt like being magnified; ones sense of self expanded to fill the machine-meat of the frame, while the frames animalistic consciousness nestled safe and secure in the whorls of ones own brain.
Without the willing sensory deprivation of a pilot capsule, Elpida struggled to ignore her own physical body. She was lying down in the bare metal groove inside Pheiris turret all that was left of a pilot seat. She was shivering despite the fact she couldnt feel the cold. Her hair was wet and filthy with grey mud, her naked legs were sore rom the journey across the crater, and her hand was bleeding freely from where shed cut it on the edge of the bare metal seat
She shut her eyes; there was nothing to see except the shadows and gloom of the turret. She needed to concentrate on Pheiris sensors.
She could still hear the roar of Pheiris engine, the rumble of his tracks crashing through brick and concrete, and the thump-thwack of his guns pounding at the pursuing aircraft. Every turn and swerve threw her against the rough metal sides of the pilot seat.
Through Pheiris sensors she spotted three of the ball-shaped rotor-craft bobbing through the air in pursuit, trying to hunt Pheiri from the rear; she internalised the composition of the air even Pheiris sensors were overwhelmed by the radiological, chemical, and biological hazard flowing outward in waves of golden toxin from the wounded diamond. The atmosphere was thick with nanomachines, soupy enough to drink but laced with dangers that would melt unprotected lungs and burn straight through an unarmoured stomach.
Howl, Howl, please be alright, please be safe out there in all that.
She spread Pheiris communications pickup net as wide as she could, listening for Howls voice on the wind.
Nothing but screaming static and the backwash of radiation interference. The storm was too strong.
Come on, Howl. Come on! Im right here! Come on! Shout louder. You were always loud!
>y
Thank you, Pheiri.
>y
Well find her.
>y
Piloting Pheiri felt more like Elpida was being carried on a pair of shoulders. Pheiri was a strong presence, a hard pulse in the back of her head; there was no mixing of intention between her and Pheiri, no potential for their distinctive minds to become confused, as was the way with any combat frame. Pheiri was comforting, distinct, and solid.
She liked that very much. She held on tight to her little brothers support, and accepted the gun he passed up into her hands.
Particle beam emitter, she whispered out loud. Right.
Pheiris main gun system self-identified to her as PBE model 6.1, flash-charge atmos borer positive, 3.8 ex-watt output.
Elpida had no idea what those specifications meant. A targeting matrix leapt into her mind when she linked herself with the weapon controls. Red and purple and white filled her external view of the world. The golden diamond was picked out in positive-fire red. Arcadias Rampart was null-engage white, a ghost shimmering through the clouds of debris and toxic golden fallout.
The PBE itself was a gigantic barrel, longer than twice Elpidas height, projecting from Pheiris turret in a jutting spear of purple and red. The weapon looked like a prolapsed organ, a swollen wound ejected from the white nano-composite bone of Pheiris hull. Elpida did not have time to pause and read the various retrofit records and systems upgrade documents, but she could tell the weapon was a late-life addition to Pheiris armament.
Her access gave Pheiri access too. She felt him re-assume reams of locked-out memories as the gun passed through his hands.
She felt him glow with pride. He had used this weapon for something mighty, once upon a time, long ago.
Elpida laughed out loud inside the turret. Her whole body was shaking. She was panting with the effort of the neural load and the nervous tension of the coming fight. They were racing back toward a battle that even Pheiri would not survive intact, if he took but a single blow.
You deserve the pride, little brother! she called out. Lets hunt some giant!
Up ahead, through the gaps in the buildings, the golden diamond airship was still flailing and lashing out in all directions. Pheiris sensors picked out the gigantic snakes of gravitic power in grey-scale highlights. Great billows of masonry dust and pulverised earth filled the air, churned into storm clouds of crackling electricity and glittering radioactive hazard. An unprotected human or even a nanomachine zombie would have been shredded to bone and melted to ash within seconds.
Arcadias Rampart weathered that storm like a wilting flower. It had two arms raised high to form a shield of regrowing bone and crawling flesh, blackening and buckling and burning away under the onslaught of gravity and fire and radiation. The combat frame was invisible to the naked eye, barely visible with sensors, sunk deep in debris and interference, half-swallowed by the boiling mud sucking at its feet.
Elpidas initial assessment was correct: Arcadias Rampart was unable to withdraw.
Elpida estimated she had perhaps sixty seconds left before Pheiri reached the edge of the crater and would no longer be sheltered by the cover of the buildings; Pheiri could not plunge into that boiling mud he would sink. Their only option was to weave in and out of the buildings as they fired upon centrals physical asset. Elpida did not expect a kill. She just wanted to give Thirteen and Arcadias Rampart an opening to withdraw.
And she had to catch Howl. She had to get closer, plunge into the storm, and grasp her sisters hand.
Okay, Pheiri. Here we go. Im gonna start.
She traversed the turret thirty seven degrees to the right, corrected for Pheiris current angle, and raised the barrel of the PBE by four degrees. She locked the targeting matrix to the nearest cross-beam of the golden diamond. Then she accessed Pheiris internal speakers.
This is Elpida, she said loud and clear. Down in Pheiris innards, she heard her own voice squeak to life from a dozen speaker systems. Brace for shock wave. Repeat, brace for shock wave. Heads down, hold on tight. Brace, brace, brace.
She reached out with her mind to grasp the fire control mechanism, and
Ah!
Elpida yelped in pain. She shook her right hand her physical hand as if shed planted her palm on a hot stove top. The pain was feedback from an automated access rejection.
Pheiri? she hissed. Pheiri, I need fire control! What was oh. Okay. Right. That wasnt you.
Elpida accepted that she was not alone.
Shed ignored the other presence at first. She had chalked up the sensation to the differences between Pheiris body and a combat frame from her own era. Perhaps the presence was one of his sub-systems, or the echo of Melyn and Hafina down below, or something else she didnt understand about her little brother. The presence did not feel like another thinking being plugged into Pheiris mind, nothing like another pilot at the far end of an MMI-uplink chain, like one of her sisters ready to acknowledge and embrace her.
The presence was like the lingering warmth of a hand on controls she had just grasped, or the groove of unfamiliar buttocks in a seat beneath her own backside, or the feeling of eyes watching over her shoulder as she worked.
The presence made itself felt in additional layers of access and identity confirmation, in screens and skins of control web around Pheiris subsystems, in esoteric interlock denials that faded before Elpida could investigate.
The ghost had melted away before every one of Elpidas access requests until fire control.
Forty seconds to the craters edge.
Elpida opened her mouth to ask the obvious question: was this the doing of a Necromancer? Were Pheiris systems being corrupted by the golden diamond in the sky? Were they both compromised, before they had even joined the battle?
She killed the question. It was pointless. If they were compromised, then their actions didnt matter.
Thirty five seconds.
Elpida went digging. She followed the trail of access-denial system-wrappers, pushing through firewalls that turned to shredded gossamer as she touched them; she pulled the loose threads of stray processes, hunting as they led deeper into the knot of Pheiris mind; she yanked up the flooring and knocked on the walls, searching for hollow spaces.
And she realised that Pheii had no idea what she was doing. He couldnt feel any of it. He didnt know this stuff was here.
Twenty five seconds.
Panting, covered in cold sweat, bumped and bruised against the sides of the pilot seat, cut in three places where shed tried to anchor herself with one hand, Elpida worked as fast as she could.
There!
Elpida jerked bolt upright.
She found what she was looking for a fully hidden process, invisible to even Pheiri himself.
Twenty seconds.
She tried to interface with the process, but it protected itself with layers of shell and spike and spear and shield. It flashed warnings and threats and instructions to stay away. But it also held out a peace offering a multi-format message file, in text, audio, octademcial, binary, and direct MMI-input.
Fifteen seconds.
Elpida did not have time to listen or read, but direct MMI-input carried a serious risk. The file could be a mimetic virus, a trap for anybody who tried to pilot Pheiri. Somebody had planted this program here on purpose, and it was stopping her from firing Pheiris main gun. Was it intended to protect centrals physical assert? That seemed unlikely. To protect Pheiri? Probably. But from what?
Anybody who wanted to protect Pheiri was on Elpidas side, by definition. If she wanted to find Howl and rescue Thirteen, she had no other choice. Elpida decided to trust the file.
She loaded it directly into her brain.
***
///message recorded 99999999 ERROR hours previous
///message author: Chief Engineering Officer Rhian Uren
///message topic: Fuck you, or thank you, I dont know yet. Lets find out.
*Hello, whoever or whatever you are. My name is Rhian. If it matters to you, then Im the Chief Engineering Officer in whatever is left of the Afon Ddu cradle-plant fortress. If youre reading or hearing this message, that means you were smart enough to follow the breadcrumb trail inside my boys mind. Yeah, thats right. My boy. I sure hope you have the semantic range and knowledge of familial relations to understand the meaning of those words. Youre inside my boys head, hopefully via that stupid helmet up in his turret. And if youre reading or hearing this message fuck, I already said that part. Fuck. Fuck me. No, you know what? Fuck you! I dont have time to waste on this shit. Bottom line, the program youre staring at is an Adaptive-Recursive Firewall. Compared to Pheiri himself its barely smarter than a snail, but its a venomous snail, you understand? If youre if you if youve hurt
If youre a blob, or some kind of nanomachine monster, or something I cant even imagine, and youre listening to this after murdering my boy, then I hope the AR firewall has gutted you and fried your brains inside your skull. If you even have a skull. I hope this message is the last thing you ever hear. I would shit on your corpse if I could.
Fuck. Alright. Okay. Look, if youre not any of those things and you have actually initiated neural handshake with Pheiri, then Im sorry for the temper, okay? Im about to die. Everyone is about to die. Cut me some fucking slack from a billion years in the future, or whenever you are. I dunno, maybe youre a great big six foot cockroach and youre Pheiris best friend now. If youre on his side, then thank you. But this means the AD firewall is stopping you from doing something you shouldnt namely, something that puts Pheiri at risk. It cant stop Pheiri, mostly because I didnt want it to. It cant interact with him at all. If he thinks a risk is the right thing, then Im not gonna hold him back. But it can stop you. And listen, Im not in there. The firewall isnt me. I programmed it, but you cant argue with me. Im dead.
Whatever youre trying to do, either stop it, or hand the process back to Pheiri, or or if you really want to unravel the firewall, I I cant I
Hand whatever youre doing back to him. Understand?
And if you are his friend, human or otherwise, I dont care. Just dont let him down. Dont die. Not like Im about to. I could have gone with him, with him and the girls, but that would be a slow death. A nasty death. A real bad death. Starvation, nano-rot, worse. All three of them would have to watch me drown in my own rotting blood, or claw my skin off, or go mad. I dont want Pheiri to see that.
Im taking the cowards way out, see? Got a full mag, seventeen rounds, in case I lose my nerve. Just gotta finish this and send him off. Then Im gonna walk up to whatevers left of the top atrium and blow my brains out before the blobs get to me. Why not? Siana died two days ago. Theres nothing left for me to do. This is the end. This is the end for everything, all of us. Theres no human beings left after this. This is it. Extinction. Just just a tank, with two artificial humans in it fuck me
Why the fuck am I telling you this? Youre not even anybody. Youre a hypothetical future that will never come to pass. Everything Telokopolis made is dead, were all dead, we
Just dont get him killed, alright?*
///end message
///ALERT
///electromagnetic network signal return
///nanomachine control locus detection POSITIVE
///advise immediate priority one procedure
///seal electromagnetic ingress
///raise external firewall
///retract communications pickup net
***
Elpida was still reeling from the message when a familiar voice came screaming through the storm.
lps! Ca
Howl! Elpida shouted. Her voice rang inside the metal box of the turret.
Pheiris internal systems were throwing up a cloud of warnings, urging a full shutdown of his comms pickup net, but Elpida threw them wide. She stretched out her and Pheiris combined awareness as wide as it would go.
Howl! Im here! Howl!
Howl slammed into the comms net and passed through Pheiris buffers like a weasel down a greased pipe. For a moment she was nothing more than an ultra-dense block of encrypted data, wriggling out of the atmospheric nanomachines and into Pheiri. Then she crashed back into Elpidas mind and unfolded like a barbed steel blossom.
Elpida screamed. She bucked against the metal seat, opening a huge gash in her arm. The sensation of Howl crawling back into her skull was like being shot in the head. Her vision went grey, then black, then throbbed back in waves of blood-red visual interference. Her skin flushed with cold sweat. She dribbled saliva from the corners of her mouth and spat a glob of bloody mucus into her own lap. She wheezed and shook and wanted to vomit.
But the relief was worth the pain.
Howl?! Elpida shouted into her own head.
Elps! Hahahahaaaaaaa! You caught me! Howl laughed like shed just pulled off an almighty jape. She was panting and heaving as if from great effort though she had no lungs with which to draw breath. Woo! Fuck! Like being a leaf in a storm! Hahaaaaa never doing that again. Fuck me backwards. She hiccuped and sobbed, almost afraid.
Howl! Elpida snapped, suddenly fierce with fury Sister. You never leave again without telling me. You
Howl laughed in her face. Never again! Yeah, sure! But I had to rustle up some fire support!
Elpida sat upright in the bare metal pilot seat. Fire support? From who? Or what? Howl, be specific.
Howl made a sheepish, playful growl. Guess Im rumbled now, huh? But I dont give a shit. Were not leaving that dumb bitch out there behind, right? Anything for a sister! Anything for one of us! Are you even seeing this shit shes doing?! Thirteen is a fucking ace! Better than you, Elps! Ha!
Yes, thats what Im trying to do here. Were not leaving Thirteen to face this fight alone. Pheiri has a main gun, a
Particle beam emitter, right! Cool! I see it. Nice set-up youve got here. Hey there, little bro. Huh? Eh? Whats this?
Howl reached out from within Elpidas mind, grasped Rhians AD fiewall, and smoothed away every venomous spine and poisonous fang and toxin-tipped spear. She soothed it in an instant, turning the program tame and safe.
The particle beam emitter fire control permissions jumped into Elpidas hands. Ready to fire.
Howl?! Elpida spluttered out loud. How did you
Later, Elps! You can spank me later! As much as you fucking like! Ill stick my ass in the air and wiggle it for you! But right now weve got fire to lay down, yeah?!
Elpida was crying. She felt the tears on her face relief, confusion, horror. But she had no time to dwell on Howls return, or what this meant, or what she had seen inside Pheiris mind in the moment before her sister had come rushing back. Howl whatever she was was on her side. Pheiris side. The side of Telokopolis and her comrades and Thirteen, out there in the crater, fighting alone. That was all which mattered. Questions were for later.
Elpida re-locked the targeting matrix onto the golden diamond and grasped the fire control systems. Pheiri was less than five seconds from the edge of the crater. Arcadias Rampart was buckling under the gravitic stress. They had to get the diamonds attention off the combat frame, even if they couldnt wound it.
Howls hand slipped over Elpidas, a strange sensation inside the space of Pheiris mind. Howl yapped: Hold fire a sec!
What?! Why? We
Howl spoke to Pheiri. Hey little brother, you ready to rock and roll? This things gonna knock your control systems out, right?
>y
What!? Elpida said out loud.
Howl cackled. Thats why the little bug wouldnt let you fire! This bitch-ass fuck-cannon draws too much power. Pheiris gonna be driving blind for a few seconds after we shoot. We gotta take control! You ready, Pheiri? Ready for some fun? Ready to let your big sisters take the wheel? Promise we wont drive you into a ditch!
>y
Okay! Love you too! Count us down!
>three
Pheiri burst from between the buildings.
The leading edges of his tracks bit into the grey mud and then skidded sideways, skirting the edge of the crater and the storm and the lake of boiling golden mud and the fight within. Centrals physical asset pounded upon Arcadias Rampart as if trying to squash a bug. Thirteen fired back with salvoes of missile and bullet and flesh. The diamond bled from the massive shattered crossbeam, flooding the air with golden toxin.
>two
Three signals suddenly leapt into view on the far side of the crater sensor-mangled smears of dark scribble, stabbing into Elpidas head like spears of living migraine.
Pheiris sensors labelled the trio as Bad Customer, Big Face, and Brown Pants.
Worm guard. The three worm guard who had stood watch atop Arcadias Rampart and welcomed the Necromancer inside. The trio who had exchanged fire with Pheiri, until his superior firepower and shielding had driven them off.
Pheiri re-targeted his auxiliary weapon systems, rerouted more power to his active shielding, and painted the worm guard as bright red threats.
But Howl whooped and cheered. Thats our fire support! Let em work! Ive got em leashed, for now!
Elpida had too many questions. But this was not the time to ask.
>one
She sighted down the particle beam emitter, felt Howls hands on her own, and engaged the fire control systems.
The PBE discharged in two waves the first beam flash-bored a tunnel through the atmosphere, through dust and debris and radiation and a storm of wind, to kiss the crossbeam of the golden diamond with a flutter no greater than a butterflys wings.
The second beam punched down that tunnel with a lance of charged particles brighter than the sun.
External sensors whited out. A roar of static filled Elpidas head. Pheiris nuclear heart stuttered and lurched. His engines coughed and fluttered. His nervous system and neural network blinked out, scrambling for self recovery.
Come on, bitch tits! Howl roared into Elpidas mind. Hands grabbed her own and forced them onto unfamiliar controls. You do the tracks and the engines, Ill do the guns! Pheiri needs a piggyback!
Elpida grasped Pheiris insides. Howl did the same. Together they pulled him sideways, smashing through buildings and walls, tucking him back into the relative safety of the corpse-citys guts. Behind them Elpida picked up the deafening retort of the worm guard opening fire on the diamond, splitting the machines attention, giving Pheiri another opening.
Pheiris nervous system rebooted. Elpida felt his awareness flood back into her mind.
He was glowing with pride.
Howl whooped and laughed. Ready for another shot, little brother?!
>y
