Zombie Galaxy: Outbreak by Reeves Scott

Author:Reeves, Scott [Reeves, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Aether Wind
Published: 2012-04-29T04:30:00+00:00

Lola

Galactic Year 912, Month 4, Day 12

2700 Galactic Standard Time

Two hundred light years from Caldor, Lola, AI governess of the planet Earth, was monitoring an alarming series of developments scattered across the Galactic Union.

Everything had originated on Caldor. She didn’t know what had happened, but something was contaminating subspace, and the beginning of the contamination coincided with Caldor’s scheduled opening of a new subspace channel. So the two events had to be connected.

She had lost contact with Mac, her Caldorian AI counterpart. Not long after, she had begun losing contact with other planetary AIs scattered across the galaxy. The order in which she had lost contact was suggestive.

Ben, the first AI to go silent after Mac, was the AI of Far Madrel. Far Madrel was assigned the ten subspace channels immediately above those assigned to Caldor.

Lucien, the AI of Marcus 12, had gone silent next. Marcus 12 was assigned the four channels immediately above Far Madrel’s.

The trend was clear. The contamination was rising from the depths of subspace at a steady rate. With her enhanced cybernetic vision, Lola could even see it rising from the depths, spilling over into the higher channels, but she didn’t dare reach down to analyze the contamination lest she herself become infected.

Lola’s subspace channels were at the very surface of subspace, since Earth had been the first to crack subspace open. At the current rate the contamination was spreading, it would reach Earth’s channels in about a week. By then, of course, if allowed to continue unchecked, all the other planets in the Galactic Union would already be contaminated.

Lola had already shut down Earth’s transmat system, ordered the removal and destruction of all subspace interfaces on the planet, including the Net interfaces grafted into nearly every citizen on the planet, and made every preparation she and her advisors could conceive of, to minimize the damage in case the contamination reached Earth’s subspace domain. She had advised her far-flung AI brethren to do likewise.

But even if Earth managed to isolate itself, there was no telling what might happen when the contamination, whatever it was, eventually reached the surface of subspace. If the last bursts of data she had received from all the planets that had gone silent thus far were correct, the contamination had the ability to spread into normal space. Without subspace interfaces as conduits, she hoped the contamination couldn’t leak out. But there was no way to be sure. When subspace was completely contaminated, might it somehow actually burst like an infected boil, spreading contamination everywhere?

There were too many uncertainties. What was the nature of the contamination, and where had it come from? Subspace was theoretically supposed to be free of indigenous matter. Answers were needed if the Galactic Union was to survive, which was already beginning to look like a highly unlikely possibility.

To get those needed answers, she recalled ten starships currently on scientific expeditions in deep space, and ordered each to go to one of the silenced planets, to investigate, look for

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