Kaspar's Box

The mind, in a sense, wasn't even there.

Many who had never experienced at least this level of bonding, mind and machine, could not imagine why so many in the past had elected to simply discard their human bodies and mate brain and ship into one permanent organism. In the Meld, as it was generally referred to by those who did it often, it was easy to think how wonderful it would be to be like this permanently, to become one with the machine and live with this enhanced power, trading a fragile human body for one that could withstand the cold vacuum of space and the heat of a reentry, who could see and control all parts of themselves at once, with senses enhanced beyond any ordinary human's imagination.

The navy, however, reserved that entirely for the Admiralty, insisting that you remain with your body and exist when not on station or on a mission in that body and not in the permanency of the Meld. It limited you in ways that you could never explain to others, and it meant that you would have to constantly readjust to the situation, but the navy wanted no Meld that it could not control, no cybernetic bond that it could not break. Humans had almost been wiped out when they'd allowed their self-aware machines free reign and will, and they were not about to trust even partly human cybernauts with it, either.

Lieutenant Chung preferred the Meld with a fast, sleek fighter, leading a limitless team with maximum power and abilities at their command, but this was fine compared to the alternative. Even if they somehow entered lifeboat mode, she could exist like this while having only the most tenuous connection to a cryogenically frozen body. But she still needed that connection, that body; it was part of the ship, and the ship was a part of her, but if it died, her thoughts, her personality also died. She was well aware of that.

For three days now she'd flown the ship and experienced the joys of the Meld, but that was about to come to an end, at least temporarily. This was a mission, and she, not just her flying, was a vital part of its completion.

She had watched the three young witches with her enhanced powers, and sensed the enormous energy within those jewels they wore and just how they cloaked their wearers, much as the force field protecting the outer skin of the shuttle protected her. The field would strengthen sometimes, and then weaken, but it was always there, always in at least a minimal way both protecting and controlling the wearer.

Chung did not get close enough to pull that energy towards her own sensors. She was well aware that the mysterious energy was not limited to the wearer but could extend itself, perhaps sufficiently to have taken control of a great star frigate. This shuttle and her own single Meld consciousness and databanks would be child's play for the energy, and she'd have no defense. So she studied it, and watched it, but from a distance.

The energy wasn't a visible thing; it was something tangible and living but beyond the abilities of a mortal human to see and feel. Only in the Meld was it clear, a writhing mass of almost protoplasmic pulsing and oozing, pure energy that acted like organic matter. She had never seen or encountered anything quite like it before, but it was clearly real and it was clearly not emanating from the three girls nor their developing fetuses nor from some sort of parasite or some other sort of life that might live cooperatively inside the girls. The source was external, from their gemstones or, more likely, through the stones. There was no evidence of a Meld of any sort with or within the stones; whatever was guiding it was using some sort of remote control. From where, and how, was by no means obvious.

It was clear that it could not stray too far from the stones on its own. It needed the girls to wear the gems around their necks to extend its own limited reach, but if they were in contact with something then it was in contact as well.

Still, mere contact with electronic channels aboard the Thermopylae had been sufficient for it to have penetrated the ship's primary computer core, at least enough to give it a program to erase the witches from the sensors. And while all three combined didn't seem to be powerful enough to have actually taken control of the huge ship, they had been able to sustain their modifications, undetectably access the database whenever required, and also essentially operate the three girls' bodies as remote extensions. That was impressive, and meant that, if those entities wanted to, they could certainly do what they willed with Chung's own Meld.