Part 17: A Message to Mourn

Heroic Sacrifice



: Deep breaths. Like a straw. Drinking through a straw.

: I... I shouldn't take it out on him. As much as I want to. It looks like he's taking it out on himself. And he still has two more families to do this to.

: ... Uh... G-Gabriel...

: Ezra, come on. He's a military officer.

: No, it's alright. Now isn't the time for decorum. Hell, once I'm done for today, I'm not going back to the barracks for a little while.

: It's alright to call me Gabriel, if that's what you're more comfortable with. Neither of you are in the service, after all.

: ... Gabriel... could you... tell me more about... Mom? And her time in the service?

: Please, just... tell me about her. Tell me what you thought of her. Anything.

: I don't know how much your mother has told you about her time with us. I wasn't her recruitment officer or her bootcamp instructor, but when I took her into my unit, I had... read her briefing.

: When she first joined the service, she had no history and no prior training. But thanks to her job as a land surveyor, she was an adequate pilot for single-user spacecraft. Still, she needed to be taught the very basics on how to manage a weapon.



: She was a free-thinker; a journeywoman with a fighting spirit. Despite being a civilian, she joined the effort as soon as the Earth came under attack.

: You'll understand that, in every branch of the military, we frown on individuality like that. It tends to lead to insubordination.



: She had that sort of fire in her eyes that you could never tame, you know? You could temper it and you could influence it, but the heat was too strong to put it out.

: In any other universe, she likely wouldn't have made it past boot camp. But Earth was under attack; we needed all of the able bodies we could get.

: I say this with all sincerity that Eden was the most determined fighter in our corps.

: We had conscripts, volunteers, specialists... people from all walks of life, including Ghians. Some of them were there because they wanted to die a hero. Some of them were there because they had something they believed in.

: She was qualified to suit up in a Gen Two by her fifth year.



: Well – we needed soldiers.

: I always got the impression that Eden was there on personal business. Like a Riklid had slapped her in the face or something.

: Her fighting spirit was indomitable. Irreplaceable.

: The Earth Airspace Defense Force doesn't condone individualism, and yet, we could have used more people like Eden in the worst of it.

: I... hope that's an adequate answer.

: ...

Eden seems like she was meant for more than flight piloting. Her attitude would probably have served her better as a squadron leader given her potential. Maybe she had made it to such a rank in her flight division, if she had been tasked with the very important task of delivering a crucial payload to the Riklid mothership.

: While we're on the topic, I was asked to bring something to you both.



: Someone... close to Eden, let's say.



*The soundtrack fades out. The screen fades to black, then fades back in.*





: It's a codex, Dad.

: I...



: What's on the codex, then?

: Loaded into this codex is a Second-Generation artificial intelligence. A special one.

: I understand that you're a student in electrical engineering, Miss Foy. You had been studying Third Generation models when the war was declared over in our favour.

: ... Sure. That's right.

: As you both know, we had been turning towards using androids and artificial intelligence as the war with the Riklid continued. The Third Generation models were to replace our soldiers in the war wholesale, provided manufacturing could keep up.

: Second Generation models are actually hollow suits of armour that our soldiers wore into the field of battle. The AI helped them operate the suit: everything from basic movement to assisting their aim during combat.

: Yes, we're both aware.

: The Second Generation AI that's been loaded into this codex was the AI that operated the suit Eden wore. Each suit – and therefore each AI – was assigned to each person through the duration of the war, so, it would have been with Eden from the start.

: ...

I assume a starfighter pilot would need such a suit of armor not just in case they were shot down, but also because it could link up to the fighter's systems as well.

: It was the AI that requested to visit you both.

: Why would you grant that?

: I'm sorry?

: Why would you grant the AI's request? It's not a human. It's a program that operated a suit meant for war.

: How is it possibly going to empathize with what it is we're going through?

: Perhaps it can't, Ezra.

: But this is highly irregular, for an AI to behave like that. You're right in that most AI's are just programs that are meant to make decision-making for soldiers on the front lines easier. They shouldn't be capable of acting out of line like this.

: It'll cost us nothing to hear what it has to say, at least.

: I don't care what it has to say. It's a damn robot. Mom is gone. I don't want a consolation prize.

: You're right again, it's not Eden. But that AI is the last thing that was with her in her last moments. Whatever impact Eden had on it, it was strong enough that it broke its programming so it could travel across the solar system to us.

: You're suggesting that we empathize with it. A machine. Some... lines of code.

: Correct.

: ... *sigh* Fine. Fine. Whatever. Show us the damn thing.

: As you say.

I think these two are being a little harsh on the AI's choice to deliver a message. If Eden gave it an order to and Gabriel is aware of that, wouldn't her wish be taken into account?



These codex's lines are spoken.

: I am a Second Generation artificial intelligence, serial number six-two-two-zero-one-four-three-one-one-four-nine-five. My pilot, Eden Foy, gave me the designation 'Kirby.'

: I am speaking with Nathan and Ezra Foy?

: ... Yes. I am Ezra.

: It is good to meet with you both.

: Cut the pedantry and get to the point...

: I know that there is no protocol for this scenario, but Eden had given me a task.

: Before she had embarked on her last mission, she had recorded two messages; one for each of you. She had instructed me to deliver it to you myself.

: What's the point of that? She couldn't have just timed it to send on its own and cancel it if she lived?

: Taking the complicated route definitely sounds like something Eden would do, though.

: Eden and I had been through a number of skirmishes, but her last mission was something much larger. She knew that the odds of the mission failing were significant.

: She had only one prerequisite: that your individualised messages be received privately. It was her final command as my pilot.

: Please decide between you two who will receive their message first.

There, see? Eden gave it the order. No mystery, although I guess Ezra is right in that Eden didn't need, necessarily, to make the AI itself in the codex play the message directly. It also goes to show Eden was aware this was no normal mission, even if the Riklid seem to be lethal opponents, if this was the mission that made her record a message... Or maybe she always recorded one before going out, and her AI didn't mention this.

: You can go first if you'd like, Ezra.





: ... Yeah, I'm sure. I need... a bit more time.

: Alright, if you say so.



: ...

: You never answered my question from before.

: Why did you grant that AI's request? It's not a human. It's not even an animal. It's just some lines of code that you downloaded from a hard drive into a codex.

: The – or, rather, Kirby was... very insistent. All it told me was that it had a message to deliver to both you and your father, but it wouldn't say more, and it refused to cooperate by uploading the messages to our own systems.

: Your father was right in that that's not normal behaviour. We've never seen anything like it.



: So that's why? You brought it along just to save a buck?



: It's just a robot. That's what I kept telling myself, too.

: But Kirby was the last thing to be with Eden on her mission. Kirby and Eden had been together for years by that point, and it's not unusual for soldiers to begin to bond with their suits on an emotional level.

: We are, after all, human.

: Eden had recorded messages for her husband and her daughter, and it was her dying wish that they be delivered by her co-pilot. And it almost seems like Kirby felt just as strongly about delivering those messages as Eden did.

: We had just won a thirteen-year-long war against an evil, invasive alien species; the last thing we needed was less humanity.

Huh. Even Gabriel seems surprised by Eden's request to have the message sent directly via Kirby. Good on him for being a stand-up commander to acquiesce to her wish. I hope no one in the brass listened to it ahead of time, even if it probably would have been necessary to prevent intelligence leaks.

: So you thought that the robot in the suit deserved more empathy than my mom did when you told her to crash into that Riklid warship, is that it?



(Gabriel's following lines are spoken. You may listen to them here.)

: This isn't a conversation we can make headways in, Miss Foy.

: The lives of those four crewmen and women were in my hands, and I made a decision. One that I'll have to carry with me forever.

: If you aren't convinced by now that that's not something I took lightly, then nothing I say will make a difference.

: ... Look at him.

: That's not a man that's going to go home and sleep tonight. That's the look of a man that hasn't slept in weeks already.

: What am I doing...?

: ... I just...

: I just... want my mom back.

: I lost my wife in the first year of the war. That frustration you feel is something I'm all too familiar with.

: I wasn't above lashing out at others, either.

: When I calmed down, my first priority to myself – and to my wife – was to make sure that I would do everything I could to minimize that feeling, so that others would never have to go through what I did. I put everything that I had into the war effort.

: But, I...

: ...

: But he couldn't save me and Dad from it...

: What's important is that the war is over.

: Take your time to grieve, Miss Foy. But if I have any one lesson to pass to you, it's to recognize when it's time to let go. Losing my wife nearly consumed me.

: It won't be tomorrow. It won't be next week or next month. The time will come; it's up to you to know it when you see it.

Gabriel isn't half as hard as he looks. Maybe he was, and now that the war's over, he's trying to relax. His own wife's death counts for that, too. I picture her as a combatant or officer rather than a civilian, if she died in the first year of the war rather than at the outset.



: It's fine. Mister Houston and I were, uh... just talking.

: That's good.

: That's... good.

: Here, Ezra. It's your turn with him.

: Is there a rush? Do you want to talk about what the message for you was?

: Hmm?

: Oh, no. Sorry. Just...





: Look, just go, already. Before it gets the better of me.

: Right, sorry.

* * *

Databank: The Moon

Because the Moon had no atmosphere, it was never considered a candidate for terraforming. All the same, many domes had been established on its surface, primarily for non-civilian interests: resource mining; cosmology; and astrology, to name a few.

Because the Moon orbited the planet and was visible to most of the Earth's surface at any given time, it was considered a demilitarized zone: no weapons or militarized vehicles were permitted on the Moon's surface, similar to the Antarctica Treaty of 1959.

This quickly changed when the Riklid attacked. Just as it was not possible to terraform the Moon, it was also immune to the Riklid superweapon. All efforts were immediately turned towards defense and preservation of the Earth and of Mars through the Moon: all established domes and facilities were converted to military bases and factories to put out as many tools, weapons, and vehicles as possible to combat the menace. It was a small consolation compared to the resources - and the surface area - of the Earth, but if humanity was to survive, they would have to do what they could.

At 4:14 PM UTC, on June 20th, 2323, a decisive blow was dealt to one of the Riklid motherships, destroying it. The Riklid could no longer pin down both Earth and Mars at the same time. After thirteen years, the tide of the war had irreversibly changed course. On June 23rd, the last remaining Riklid warship had fled the system.

The Riklid War, as the thirteen years had been called, was considered a victory for Earth, Mars, and Ghi alike.