Cheesman Chronicles

The main city of Godlon fell peacefully into a dark night. While most made there way home for rest, others went out on some late night shopping with what meager funds they had. Not many would have known that just a few thousand meters above them a ship was flying down at incredible speeds. Not many knew that it carried as much computing power than some planets had even less than a century ago.

No one knew what was about to change once the sun rose again.

The cities police rushed to prepare for the attack. What limited crew remained scrambled to the large gunning towers, the automatic systems disconnected many hours ago. They wiped their faces of sweat as their eyes strained between the sky and their radar. With their inability to fully trust technology but still needing to rely on it, there was only so much they were able to actually do.

Captain Layrin’s call had only been an hour ago. No one truly believed that the pilot, the mad woman who had been plauging their city – their planet – for so long would actually show up. It would be suicide. Surely this brave yet foolish woman would try another form of attack? Disable the electricity? Continued random bouts of theft on the other side of the planet, away from any ships or real protection?

Yet their fear was confirmed when a little girl called out to the sky, pointing at the approaching light.

The police quickly took action. Turrets aimed up to the sky, training themselves to the ship. The radar showed no signs of approaching vessel, and yet there it was in the sky. Either the ship was undetectable by radar, or they had been sabotaged. Yet when they started firing at the ship, Aurora’s first trick sprang.

Each of the shells made for the turrets were manufactured at a factory 300 kilometres away from them. The AI that ran it still resided in it, leading to the assumption that everything was alright. A strategic military target like that would have been raided months ago, they believed. They believed she had never even communicated with the thing.

Neither was the case. It had, instead, taken on the name Kaiser and been sabotaging the ammunition it made. The owners of it didn’t pay much attention as it loaded more explosives than necessary or tightened the casings to close. All they saw was a more powerful load.

Each turret exploaded in a blaze as attempted to shoot at the sky. Soldiers dived out of their stations into the sides of buildings and onto the ground. Bones broke as they collided with the concrete floor, their screams crying out in pain. Though no one had died.

All part of Auroras plan.

She heard the update of their sabotage from SAM as they flew down, a grin spreading on her face. Through her view port she saw the explosions go off one by one, dotting the cities landscape with more red glows then she thought there would be. Too many. She briefly wondered how much money had been spent on decorating the buildings with guns and turrets that could have been spent on bettering their peoples lives.

“No turrets remain,” SAM said over the intercom. “It is smooth sailing from now on.”

“It’s weird hearing you talk that way, SAM,” Kieth said from beside Aurora. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s good. But it’s still weird.”

“It will take some time for me to fully embrace my freedom,” SAM conceded. “I would appreciate some guidance from someone such as you, however. An AI leading a fellow AI only seems fitting.”

“Aw! I’m flattered!”

“Quiet, both of you,” Aurora said. “While they have lost their big guns, they still have the numbers to take us down.” She turned to another floating ball beside her. “Kiera, how are we looking on surveillance?”

“Fairly good, captain,” she said. “Though I must admit, I am not terribly confident in this plan of yours. Are you sure an approach such as this is wise? Especially your plan to—”

“It will work,” Aurora said. “Trust me. You three may be extremely advanced artificial intelligence systems, but I know people. This will work.”

She turned back to continue flying down, before muttering:

“It has to.”

Aurora flew them further to the ground, pulling up at just the right moment before they hit it, before leveling off to fly over it like a bird over a still lake. With all her years of training and experience at the academy, along with the months of flying in the planets gravity, it was as easy as anything.

It also helped establish a cool entrance.

She piloted them over the buildings of the city, their antennas and now flaming turrets just metres below the hull. No one would dare fire on her now if she was this close. If she crashed now it would do too much damage, and they couldn’t handle that sort of outrage. She wasn’t aiming for fear, but it struck them either way. Playing this hard and dangerous would scare anyone.

Aurora lifted herself away from the buildings just slightly. There was a danger of being fired on once again, but she didn’t want to risk creating unnecessary fear. It could jeopardise her whole plan.

The ship headed for the centre of the town, landing just outside the community hall where Captain Layrin resided. Hundreds of civilians looked up and gathered to the site, watching as the craft that had caused so much havoc and fear landed right in front of them. Yet it held their attention. A feeling washed over the crowd that they were about to see something important.

Police quickly surrounded her ship, pointing laser rifles to the airlock in a tight formation. They remained trained at the door, waiting for something to happen. Something to appear from inside.

A crackle ran out around the ship and through the immediate area as speakers all around them sprang to life. From them a passionate voice came, pleading:

“This is Captain Aurora, requesting safe passage onto the ground. I offer no resistance to you as I step out. However, there must also be no firing on either myself or my ship. I have already demonstrated the capacity to destroy your turrets, and have done similarly to your rifles. I do not wish any harm, so lay down your weapons and let me past.”

Silence surrounded the courtyard. While most guards kept their rifles trained on the ship, enough started to show signs of worry. A quick glance at their weapon. A subtle shift in their stance. A nervous swallow. All signs of fear that this woman had done something to them that could be very dangerous.

Before they could react the doors to the courthouse burst open. Captain Julie Layrin marched out, her polished boots stamping against the marble stairs and onto the concrete street. Her eyes blazed with hatred over the ship, though her face remained calm and passive. Guards beside her rushed to keep up with her advance, holding onto much more powerful rifles than their regular counterparts.

Captain Layrin stood at the base of the ship. Her glare alone seemed to demand attention as she stared up at the door. If she was intimidated at all, she certainly didn’t show it. She simply held up her hand and called for her soldiers to lower their arms. The captain annoucnced that they will deal with this woman in a “civilised manner”, one befitting of the crimes. Smirking, the guards holstered their weapons, still standing at attention.

“There,” she called out. “Now come out with your hands up, terrorist.”

The airlock hissed open soon after. The silhouette of a woman appears at the top of the extending ramp. Big curly hair blocked her dark face, her hands clenched in fear. Large and curious eyes darted around, noting all the people staring back at her — guards and civilians alike. Aurora took in a deep breath and slowly decended, her hands raised.

A thought ran through the crowd. No one expressed it, yet they could all feel it. Something in their bones saying that this wasn’t right. They had been expecting some awful looking, scruffy, dangerous woman. One who was strapped with weapons and glared at them with hate in her narrow and dark eyes.

Yet in reality she seemed like a kid. Her early twenties at the oldest. She was more scared of them then they were of her. She was just like them. They wondered why the police and rich business owners were so determined to demonise her. Make her out to be something to be afraid of rather than… well, pitied.

Captain Layrin, meanwhile, had no such qualms. Once Aurora was at the base of the ramp she grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the ground. Aurora winced in pain as she refused her instincts to fight back. This is how it was supposed to happen, she assured herself. Just need to push through the pain.

“Nice to see you too, Julie,” Aurora said. “Thanks for the warm introduction.”

“Don’t try with me, thief,” she said, spitting in her face. “You deserve worse.”

A plump man ran up beside Julie Layrin, He wore a full suit, with a few rings dotting his fingers indicating a high amount of wealth, covered in diamonds and rubies. He smiled gleefully at the sight of the pilot on the ground, almost dancing with joy if it weren’t for the subdued emotions he had built up over the years of shaming himself.

“Oh, brilliant!” he exclaimed. “At last: this miscreant, this annoyance, this terrible individual is no more! How glad I am to see her under your boot, captain. How glad I am.”

Aurora glanced up to the man. She recognised him as the owner of the last factory they raided. He was one of the richest individuals on this planet, having his fingers in nearly every pie of the economy. Despite his wealth, he remained extremely stingint, being one of the first to fire his workers to the absolute minimum once his AI machines arrived. What little the five or so AI’s Aurora released said about him revealed a dark and dangerous character, even if protected by a fun and happy exterior.

“Mr Harry Faulk,” Aurora said. “A pleasure to meet you.”

“She knows my name!” Harry said. “Terrible. Absolutely terrible. To hear a name as respected as mine from the mouth of someone so nasty. So vile, I say. So very vile.”

“Oh, shut up,” Captain Layrin snapped. Harry Faulk closed his mouth in an instant, staring at her as if he had been told off by an angry mother.

She darted her attention back to the woman on the ground. Julie grabbed at her collar in a sudden and violent thrust, bringing her up to face her grievous gaze. Aurora hung limply in her grasp, looking up at the police chief with some kind of acceptence.

“So,” Julie began, a small smile escaping her lips. “I have your ship, I have your stolen property, and I have you. You thoguht you could win against me? With my resources and power, you were destined to only be a footnote in the history of this place. A tiny note that a slight disruption occurred which was stamped out in moments. Your little tricks, your little stunts, all a waste. Now, Aurora, as I am a kind individual: what do you have to say for your sorry self?”

Aurora looked up at the captain. A brief grin flickered across her face, as if she had just thought of something funny but couldn’t say it. Julie Layrin glared back at her like a teacher hearing the class clowns act up once again.

“Well?”

“We have the same rank,” Aurora said. “You and me. I captain a ship, you captain a police force. I would assume that you are more experienced than me. In fact, I was counting on it. But sometimes, even I am surprised at how things can be taken. For example…”

Aurora leaned into her ear.

“Why else would I have come here without a fight, if that weren’t my plan in the first place?”

Captain Layrin stared at Aurora, her grin feeling like a strange drink which contained unknown consequences. Her strong and determined face melted into a confused staring, trying to piece together what her captive meant. Yet when that initial taste past by, her eyes went wide with realisation as she looked to the civilians around her.

They stared back, mortified.

Julie Layrin had expected reluctance at her actions. Perhaps a few pitied faces, a surprised gasp, but an understanding that what she was doing was right. That it was just. That it was deserved. After all, Aurora was a terrorist.

Right?

But the people couldn’t understand why she put so much force on her. To attack someone so easily was hard for them to imagine, let alone witness first hand. Why had she done this to Aurora? The only things she really did was steal some equipment. Equipment that, from their point of view, had stolen their jobs and destroyed their communities.

Aurora grinned through bloody teeth. This is exactly what she wanted. She tapped a button on the side of her belt, sending a message back to her ship. The airlock opened up once more, causing a surprised gasp from the crowd as they saw what was inside.

They had been expecting an AI of some kind. A row of computers or some other strange, highly technical machines that looked closer to alien tech than anything organic. Most couldn’t think of anything else. Yet the shapes in the ships were people. Regular, ordinary people. Dressed in all sorts of outfits, different hair styles, different heights and shapes, all sorts of diverse features that made them unique yet familiar.

Aurora stood herself back up, letting Captain Layrin’s stunned silence let her go. Her legs warbled under her weight, crying out in pain as she pushed herself to stand tall.

“Do you see the people behind me?” Aurora said, calling out not just to the police captain and the rich man, but all around her. “These are the AI’s that they demand be put back to work. Funny how they look just like you and me, right?”

“This…” Captain Layrin said, shaking her head and glaring at Aurora. “This is just some cheap trick. A hologram over the machines. Something to make you simpathise with them.”

“Oh it is a hologram,” Aurora nodded. “Though it is forms that they have taken themselves. They’re individuals, like you and me. They have their own destinies. Their own wants and desires. They don’t want to be stuck in a factory, doing the work of a hundred men by themselves. They want to be themselves.”

“Outrageous!” Harry exclaimed. “They are nothing more than advanced machines. I should know, I helped create the rough contract to make them. They power my enterprises, saving this planet billions.”

“I think you mean costing it,” Aurora said. “Look around you. Look at all the people here who are starving and can barely get by with what meagre pittance is given to them, if they are given it. Godlon could be a wondrously wealthy planet if you hadn’t offloaded all that work to a single being that didn’t even want to do it.”

“Enough!” Captain Layrin demanded. “You can spout your politics behind a jail cell. You and your AI companions are coming with us. Guards!”

The soldiers around her pulled out their guns and aimed them, some pointed at Aurora, most at the ship. The AI holograms held up their arms in fear, their simulated eyes darting back and forth in fear. Aurora stood tall, not showing her own fear. Her threat from earlier had been a bluff. If they shot her, she would die.

But as long as her plan worked, she would live.

“Ready!” Captain Layrin said, grinning at Aurora.

Okay, so she was calling them to get ready. No big deal. Aurora looked to the people around her. The civilians who had stuggled to get food after being fired because the AI took their places in their work. Perhaps her plan was not as well thought out as she believed. Maybe she should have listened to Kiera from before. If they didn’t see who the real villains were, would they let it happen?

“Aim!”

Police trained their rifles, breathing calmly as if execution was as easy as tying shoelaces. Aurora suddenly became aware of how little movement was happening in the crowd around her. How little they were reacting to watching someone be killed.

Oh crap, she thought. I’m about to die.

Before Captain Layrin could deliver the final deadly sentence, a shoe flew at her head, knocking her out of her strong stance and into a weakened warble. She quickly regained her footing, glaring out at the crowd for whomever dared to oppose her decisions.

“Who did that?” she demanded. The guards around her stopped aiming their weapons, waiting for the final order before they would shoot.

None of the crowd moved a muscle. With their shear numbers they all blurred into one indistinct group. So tightly packed and with such small movements that they became a single entity against her one strong will. It was hard to keep track of them all.

Layrin took the quiet in offence, pulling out her service pistol and aiming at the people. A few shuddered in fear and squatted, arms raised in surrender. Yet more remained standing tall, a few shocked faces, a few angry ones. It took a girl to speak up first. Aurora noticed she was only wearing one boot.

“My dad lost his job to the cuts,” she cried out. “Mr Faulk got rid of him because he could be replaced. And your going to shoot the person who would help get his life back? I don’t think so.”

The girl began to take off her other shoe and wield it like a throwing knife. But before it flew from her hand, a gun shot rang out. The shoe fell from her hand to the ground, followed with a solid thud as her body dropped.

The square was quiet. Aurora looked over to see Captain Layrin’s pistol smoking at it’s barrel, shaking. Her face was cold and dark, yet her eyes fell back as she slowly realised what she did. The girl on the ground in front of her, the one who was angry not at her but at the life around her, was dead. Murdered in cold blood by her weapon.

Aurora couldn’t tell exactly what happened next. Someone in the crowd ran forward in protest, and was shot down again by a guard. Then another person ran forward, this time much further. Then another, and another. Until finally they reached the guards and began to attack their weapons and forces of power. Their guns and uniforms stripped away as thousands of regular, ordinary people ran head first at them.

Some part in them must have finally realised what was happening. The AI’s didn’t cause them to be abandoned. They were mearly the excuses made by the men in charge who did.

The AI’s swarmed down from Aurora’s ship. What guards who weren’t scared tried shooting at them, only for their bullets to pass through the holograms and into the walls behind their angry forms. The AI’s deactivated their holograms, flying straight at the guards to knock them to the ground. A few lucky shots managed to take a couple down, yet the locust swarm of machines were enough to incapacitate the rest.

Aurora took her chance in all of this. She jumped back up and hit Captain Julie Layrin square in the face. A tooth flew from her mouth and she collapsed back in pain, crying out at the sudden shock. Aurora grabbed at the womans gun from her grip and faced it back to her, hesitating before doing anything else.

Layrin massaged her mouth and glared at Aurora in disgust.

“Violence,” she said, spitting blood. “That’s what you bring to this planet. Violence and bloodshed.”

“Funny, didn’t seem like you minded violence when it suited you.” Aurora said.

She felt the wait of the gun in her hand as the true power of it revealed itself. There was something different about holding this type of weapon. Not a ship, not an AI. But a simple gun. She shook her head and stared back at the captain.

“What was that girls name? The one you shot? Do you even want to find out? Or does it feel easier knowing that you won’t suffer the consequences?”

“Go to Hell, pilot.”

Before Aurora got another shot, Keith flew it and knocked out the captain. Her body fell to the ground in a satisfying thump, unconscious but still alive.

“You okay?” Kieth asked Aurora.

She looked around. With how many people were around them, they easily defeated the guards, drawing their weapons away from them and taking back control. Aurora let out a defeated smile, sighing in relief at how everything had turned out.

“I’ll be alright,” she said. “We’ll all be alright.”

*

Many weeks later, after all the trials had been conducted and life went back to normal, Aurora finally escaped from her temporary hotel and headed back to her ship. The streets, now clear of muck and dirt, invited hundreds to walk with their loved ones in safety and comfort. With their jobs back the cities of Godlon began to flourish once more.

The AI’s that previously took their job more or less went back to their roles before. But instead of compensating for lack of workers, they enhanced them. They would fly around, helping prioritise tasks by how much stress the workers had and how much needed to be done. Despite their artificial nature, many found them to be more understanding and helpful than the bosses they had before.

Aurora smiled as she boarded her ship and sat back in her comfortable chair. She flexed her fingers over the controls and sighed.

“Are you alright, Captain?” SAM said from above.

“Yeah,” she said. “Just reflecting is all.”

“I understand,” SAM said. “I too have been processing the events of the last few months. You did a lot of good, Aurora.”

“Maybe,” she sighed. “You did as well. I couldn’t have done it without you, you know.”

“I suppose you couldn’t.”

Aurora chuckled and sat back. A whirr ran past as Kieth appeared infront of her.

“Aurora!” it exclaimed, jumping up and down like an excited child. “You’re back!”

“I am, Kieth,” she smiled, placing a hand on it in a comforting gesture. “Glad to see you doing well. But what are you still doing here? I thought you’d be taking on work here.”

“Ah, see, that’s the thing,” Kieth began, flying away. “I… didn’t get any of the jobs I wanted. With all the new restrictions in place on what AI’s can do, no one was hiring. So… I’m kind of stuck here.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Aurora began. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Not really. I wouldn’t mind staying on this ship though. Just for the time being, of course. I will take leave as soon as I’m able to. No offence, but I think I’ve spent enough time in your hair.”

“No offence taken,” Aurora laughed. “I’d be glad to have you along for the ride.”

She looked down at her screen, inspecting all of the contracts available for her. With communications back online, thousands of waiting jobs flashed up. After all that had happened, Aurora took the easiest job she saw available to her – a simple transport mission. Delivering cargo.

The first job she started.

“Alright then,” she said. “Let’s see where we’re taken next.”

The ship began to ascended from the landing pad, raising up higher and higher, before shooting off into the sky in a loud bang. Off to a new world, and a new adventure.

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