Chapter 118: Taking Hostages
Seris did not move when the vehicle stopped, but something in her face changed, growing firmer and more tired at once, as she had finally reached the point where she had to say the dangerous part out loud.
"Not all awakened units want an outsider to take control of this bastion," she said. "Some fear their lives will be changed. Some fear they will be turned into tools again. Some fear that the moment authority is transferred, everything they have protected here will stop belonging to them."
Aurelian studied her for a second.
"So which side are you on?" he asked.
Seris looked at him directly.
"Until a little while ago, I was against letting any claimant take control," she said. "Not because I wanted things to stay as is, but because I did not trust what came after. Most of us have spent a long time imagining the worst."
That answer did not surprise him as much as it might have before they spoke in the vehicle.
If three hundred and fifty-one awakened machines had been trapped here for centuries, then of course not all of them would calmly wait for someone new to walk in and decide their future.
"What changed?" he asked.
Seris gave a very small smile, though it did not quite reach her eyes.
"You did."
Aurelian said nothing, and she went on before he could question that.
"I came to measure you first. If you had sounded like the kind of man who saw awareness and immediately thought of ownership, then I would have stayed with the others." She paused, then added more quietly, "But you did not."
Lysara stood beside him in silence, listening without interrupting, though the way her shoulders had set told him she had already shifted from caution into readiness.
Seris lowered her voice a little more.
"I cannot take you into the control hall now."
That made Aurelian’s expression sharpen.
"Why not?"
"Because there are awakened units waiting there," she said. "They cannot directly harm a qualified human claimant, but they have prepared another method. The control hall has been rigged. If you step into the inheritance sequence and they trigger the charges, the hall will be destroyed during the transfer."
For the first time since they entered the base, real cold settled into the air around them.
Lysara’s eyes narrowed.
"They’d rather destroy the bastion than let it be claimed."
"Some of them would," Seris said. "Their logic is simple. If the control hall is destroyed during transfer, the highest authority cannot be passed on. The bastion’s central structure collapses into paralysis. In that chaos, they believe they can escape in the ships they have been building in secret."
Aurelian, who heard this almost suicidal plan and didn’t know what to say about these awakened units, as they can be considered both stupid and courageous, depending on the way you look at it.
Although it was desperate, it was not irrational.
If a locked life had stretched on long enough, some would choose destruction over another cage.
"So the original plan was to lure in a human, kill the inheritance, cripple the bastion, and run," he said.
Seris nodded once.
"Yes."
"And you changed your mind."
"Yes."
He watched her carefully.
"Because of what I said?"
"Because of what you said, and because I have never truly wanted to turn this place into a grave just so a few of us could flee into the dark," Seris replied.
"Some of us joined the opposition because we were afraid, not because we wanted to not have a human leader. I needed an answer before choosing. Now I have one."
That was as close to trust as she could probably offer right now.
Before Aurelian could respond, movement appeared at the far end of the chamber.
Two groups were approaching from different corridors.
Both were made of awakened units, but they moved differently.
Seris’s side came in quickly and with obvious purpose, trying to close the distance first. The others came in slower, more tightly arranged, carrying weapons openly now that there was no reason to hide the confrontation.
At their head was a tall, gold-haired male unit in a darker command coat, his face handsome in the careful, artificial way old military machines were sometimes built to be.
When he saw Seris standing with Aurelian and Lysara, his expression hardened at once.
"So you really did betray the plan," he said.
Seris did not flinch as she answered.
"I changed my mind."
"You changed your mind at the final step," he asked back. "After centuries of waiting."
His gaze moved to Aurelian, cold and direct now.
"So this is him."
Aurelian met the stare without reacting.
"And you are?"
"Caedrin," the awakened unit said. "One of the people who refused to kneel to an automated system and be dictated by it."
That, at least, was honest.
Seris stepped half a pace forward.
"Listen to me. We do not need to destroy the bastion. He is not what we feared."
Caedrin laughed once, with no amusement in it.
"You spoke to him for a few minutes, and now you believe you understand human nature?"
"I understand enough."
"No," he said, sharper now. "You understand what you want to believe."
More awakened units spread out behind him, and Aurelian quickly noticed the difference in numbers.
Seris had support, but not enough of it. Caedrin’s side had come prepared for this to end their way.
Lysara leaned slightly toward Aurelian and spoke under her breath.
"He’s not giving this up peacefully."
"No," Aurelian replied quietly.
Seris was still trying.
"We do not have many choices left," she said. "If we destroy the bastion, what then? We scatter in unfinished ships, carry half a life into hostile space, and pray the future is kinder than the one we burned down behind us?"
Caedrin’s jaw tightened.
"That future would still be ours."
"Would it?" Seris asked. "Or would it just be smaller, harsher, and shorter?"
For a second, it almost looked like he might answer that properly.
Then his eyes flicked to Lysara.
Aurelian saw the thought hit him before he even spoke.
The inheritance framework protected pure humans. The robots could not directly kill Aurelian.
But Lysara was not human.
Caedrin had found the gap.
"Take the other girl," he said flatly.
Lysara blinked once, then looked almost offended by how stupid that sounded.
"Me?"
Seris turned immediately.
"No."
But Caedrin had already committed.
"She must be the weakest," he said. "If we hold her, we can control the human."
Aurelian muttered under his breath, half annoyed, half incredulous.
"They really picked the wrong person."
The next few seconds moved fast.
Several of Caedrin’s supporters raised gauss rifles and shock carbines, all aimed at Lysara instead of him.
At the same time, Seris’s group broke formation and moved to block, turning the center of the chamber into a mess of crossing bodies and shouted warnings.
Seris herself stepped directly between Aurelian and the opposing line.
"We are not doing this," she said.
Caedrin’s voice stayed cold.
"We already are."
Aurelian looked at Lysara.