Previously in The Re-Education of Pulsar…
The pirate crew of the Singularity attacked a ship, one who’s design Pulsar recognized but couldn’t place. Turned out to be a legendary and somewhat mythical vessel from the far-off Farzin system. Once boarded, the ship split into two, leaving the pirates to fight the Farzin crew on one section while Pulsar explored the other. He soon found that he was not alone…
And now…
The Re-education of Pulsar
By Tyler Tarlton
PART II
It took a few more seconds before Pulsar finally identified the voice. It wasn’t that of a human or alien, but the synthesized vocal processor for an old Robald 800 series interstellar ship operating system. As he adjusted his gaze to search for the camera feeding images to that system he felt an odd prickle deep within his core. It was the Robald, attempting to hack into his implants. It dawned on him what had happened to his nanobots. The ship’s operating system was created at Fornax 1 the same as his implants, built to function together. At least when the 800 was state of the art. He cursed to himself and the captain, this could’ve been discovered in advance had he more time to study the schematics. Didn’t matter much now so he ran a quick update to render himself immune to further attacks. He also ran a macro to continually probe the Robald’s jamming defenses in the hopes of wearing them down.
“Nice try with that hack code but your ancient programming is no match for my updated implants. And skill. I’ve cracked 1000 series systems, your 800 model won’t pose much of a problem,” Pulsar said with a snort as he flapped his way off the deck. “Enjoy your time in control cause once I get to the secondary bridge…”
Pulsar left the threat unsaid as he flew to a door set in a circular wall across the corridor. If he recalled the Farzin ship design correctly from his off-hours studies, he loved old spaceships, the area beyond this door should be the command module that was embedded within the boxy rectangle. Each would have their own bridges but hopefully the rectangle’s larger secondary bridge would be accessible from both.
His movement triggered the door open and he flew through to find himself not in a command module but in what looked like the crew’s quarters. He dropped to the nearest bed. He needed to get a quick feel for the room before proceeding.
It appeared as if the space had been heavily modified to serve as a living/sleeping space. In addition, it had been made to be modular with movable walls that enabled different configurations depending on the number of crew and their dependents as they traveled aboard the ship. Pulsar frowned; the area before him was a veritable maze, replete with as many modifications as the system would allow. It didn’t quite appear natural; in fact, it looked like the current setup had just been put into place. He realized that the operating system had probably concocted it to slow him down.
“A maze? Really?” he said, knowing the O.S. could hear. “I can navigate a maze in my sleep.”
Pulsar was about to once again take flight when a thick white smoke emerged from the ceiling and exuded from the walls all at once. In less than 10 seconds visibility dropped to less than a few inches. Pulsar couldn’t even see the end of his own beak.
“Can you do so while blind?” O.S. said with what sounded like a chuckle. “Shouldn’t be hard if you can fly while you sleep.”
A bit of annoyance welled up inside Pulsar. He didn’t have time for some smart aleck computer. Fortunately, despite O.S.’s efforts, the smoke wasn’t going to pose him much of a problem.
“Another nice try,” he replied with a chuckle of his own. “Emphasis on ‘try’. This might’ve worked but I am enhanced with a modified backscattter x-ray binocular system. I can see through this smoke.”
He activated the x-ray projector built into his chest harness then changed his ocular implant settings to pick up and process the resultant beams. The walls began to glow as the smoke faded away. But after a couple seconds the image distorted with bright artifacts popping up all around Pulsar’s vision. He could hardly see a thing. Again.
“Lead mostly,” O.S. replied to his unspoken question. Pulsar dropped the x-ray vision and once more looked at the thick white smoke in the room. A quick spectral analysis revealed the presence of a million lead particulates in the smoke. It would now be near impossible for him to navigate the area without plenty of crashes.
“Clever,” the bird said. “Though it seems odd to have such a harmful substance so readily able to be deployed.”
“The owners of this ship like to be prepared for any and all eventualities,” O.S. answered. “Be warned, I have much more dangerous methods at my disposal. So once again, I can guide you to an airlock for your departure.”
Pulsar shook his head at the computer and stifled a yawn. This attack had already gone on way too long and he wasn’t used to the extra exertion. Most ships took maybe 10 minutes to secure once they had been boarded; it had now already been 15. He had to get this rectangle under the pirates’ control. Before he could respond to O.S. a notification appeared in his heads-up display. He smiled internally and let out a short sigh of relief. He too planned for any and all contingencies. Such planning just paid off.
“Funny,” Pulsar replied. “I like to be prepared too.”
When he first entered the area Pulsar had released his updated nanobots to map the module with radial telemetry. He hadn’t been sure if the process would be completed in a timely manner but they had finished up in record time. He pulled up the resultant map which showed a clear route through the modified room as indicated with a dashed red line.
“I’ll see you in the next corridor,” he said with a chuckle.
The bird took to the air when something slammed into his side. He went flying into the wall on his left. The newly created map, positioned in the center of his heads-up display, dissolved away from the blow, leaving him once again unable to see. He blinked his vision into focus and saw that one of the room’s beds had hit him.
“I don’t think you’ll make it much farther,” O.S. replied. “As you may have guessed this room is modular. What you might not know is that I am in control of all the components…”
The bed zipped away, triggering a warning in Pulsar’s display he hadn’t noticed a few moments prior. It showed that a strong magnetic field had been activated. Before he could analyze said field the wall he leaned against began to push him across the room. The movement disturbed the smoke enough to show Pulsar that he was headed toward another wall on the opposite end, which itself moved in his direction. He was about to be crushed. He had to do something and fast.
Pulsar ran forward then jumped into the oncoming wall, using its momentum to vault his way high enough to take flight. He banked to his left and activated the small jet pack that sat between his wings. It normally wasn’t the wisest course of action to use the device in a confined space, Pulsar knew of another pirate parrot who had exploded in such a manner, but he didn’t have a choice in this instance. The jets fired and propelled him out from between the walls just in time.
He climbed to the ceiling and leveled out into a slow circle. He noticed that the room’s components had stopped moving. Before he could breathe a sigh of relief a tremendous weight slammed into his back. He kicked his jet pack up a notch but he did not slow in the slightest. Pulsar shut it off just before he crashed into the deck. He realized the relative gravity of the room had just been increased.
The pressure slackened a moment later as an object punched out from the nearest wall and hit Pulsar’s legs. This spun him around half a dozen times before he crashed into a console of some sort. That console then swiveled and sent him spiraling across the deck into the opposite wall.
Several moments passed without anything else hitting him. Pulsar took the time to catch his breath and stretch out the soreness from the beating he had taken the past few moments. He didn’t think he had hurt this bad since joining Captain Brice’s crew. His mind drifted back to the first time he had laid eyes on the captain.
Memories of his time on Earth were fuzzy but he recalled it as being nothing short of paradise. At least for animals and birds such as himself. Earth had been vacated by humanity centuries before, left behind and designated as a nature preserve. The only non-animal or plant life that remained consisted of a rotating crew of scientists that studied environments unaffected by so-called sentient beings. The planet’s designation kept it safe from interlopers for the most part, save for the occasional poaching outfit that looked to capture hard to find and exotic lifeforms for collectors and restaurants around the galaxy. And nothing was considered as good of a delicacy as an earth-based bird.
Pulsar had been flying around in search of food when he heard the distant rumble of an engine. He had seen spaceships during his short life but nothing like the one descending in his direction. It was sleek and mean-looking, much different than the research vessels normally seen overhead. The ship landed a moment later, its arrival knocking over a handful of trees. A misfit crew of humans and aliens disembarked with tranquilizer guns and large nets in hand. Pulsar turned to fly back to his family when he felt a sharp pain in his back. His vision blurred and next thing he knew he sat in a cage on that sleek ship crewed by poachers. He wasn’t sure how long he was on board when the ship shook from some sort of attack. The room filled with smoke and Pulsar heard the sounds of a running fight. The doors to the room holding his cage opened and he remembered seeing a scarred face lean down to look at him. Captain Brice.
After a whirlwind flight on Brice’s ship to a planet in the Fornax 1 system, and a round of implant surgeries, Pulsar became a full-fledged, important member of the pirate crew. He had taken part in dozens of attacks, helping to net everything from Hathian ale to a Thubarian priest’s bench. They had never encountered much in the way of setbacks, taking each of their prizes in the shortest of timespans. Until now.
A sudden thought entered Pulsar’s mind as he pushed away the past and stood back on his feet. Why hadn’t O.S. finished him off? She could’ve crushed him as soon as he hit the floor.
“I can do this all day you know,” she stated as if on cue. There was something odd in her voice, it sounded almost…strained. It was then Pulsar remembered that the Robald 800 did not have the greatest memory capacity and that O.S. probably had access to even less with the ship separated. The macro he had started earlier wasn’t helping her either. He now had a chance.
“I believe you can…” Pulsar said as he re-opened his map. He next started running a second macro to continually probe the ship’s computers over the next several minutes. This would put even more strain on O.S.’s resources and make it harder for her to start rearranging the modular room again. Pulsar took a couple steps and stretched his wings, surreptitiously readying himself for flight. “Perhaps I should just give up?”
After a few seconds without any response, Pulsar assumed she was focused on stopping his now double brute force attack. He took a few more steps forward and ran an algorithm that would predict where O.S. would move the room’s modules next based on her estimated memory reserves and her previous pattern. A second later a new dotted path appeared on Pulsar’s heads-up map projection.
“I suggest you do,” O.S. finally said with even more strain in her voice. “I can adjust this room to lead you directly to the nearest airlock.”
Since that type of movement would disrupt his algorithm’s predictions, Pulsar had to start moving again. So he puffed up his feathers and modulated his audio output to give his voice the greatest possible magnitude.
“Or I can find the bridge and destroy you!”
With that he activated a short boost from his jet pack to get himself airborne. He then flapped as hard as he could. His flight path appeared as a yellow line on the display and he made sure to keep it aligned atop the red dots. As expected, it took O.S. a few seconds to get the modules moving again. And when she did, it was in the exact pattern predicted by Pulsar’s algorithm. He smiled to himself; it was kinda embarrassing just how good he was.
Over the course of the next 60 seconds Pulsar darted, banked, dove, and spun past a variety of flying furniture and moving walls. A few items came close but in the end his algorithm prevailed and he reached the stern exit without any further contact. The door slid open and he flew into the corridor beyond.
“Too slow!” he said, not wasting the opportunity to take a dig. He didn’t want to give O.S. the opportunity to reset her systems or draw resources from elsewhere to renew the fight. He kept flying, crossing the corridor’s short length in seconds as he opened the next door with a flick of his beak. He darted through and-
SLAM! A projectile hit the side of his neck and sent him spiraling to the deck. His map disappeared in the process. He also felt something snap somewhere on his body. He ran a quick diagnostic as he sat up and discovered that his jet pack fuel line had broken. So there went any further flight boosts. He blinked away everything on his heads-up display and took in the room. Storage cabinets lined the periphery walls with a few tables occupying the central part of the room. These were all covered in bits and pieces of electronics and what looked like robot parts. Thankfully the room did not appear to be modular.
A warning light flashed across his vision but he was late to react. A ball of something hit his face followed by another to his chest. He dropped back to the deck for what felt like the 100th time today. The sparks that subsequently flew told Pulsar he had been hit by water. He quickly activated a few emergency fail safes to keep the water from spreading to his core systems. He sloughed out of his chest harness and flicked his head to remove his visor setup. Pulsar let out a long breath. He stood as he ran another diagnostic to confirm the extent of the damage. His wireless networking capabilities were shot as were his alternate visual modes but he could still access his algorithm processers and mapping systems. That would have to be enough. He blinked a couple times then gulped at the sight before him. At least half a dozen robots of various size and purpose emerged from among the tables. They faced him with murder in their robotic eyes…
~~
With his systems damaged how will Pulsar get out of this one? Can he survive the robots inevitable attack?? Find out next week in The Re-Education of Pulsar – Part III!