Cyber War
]System restart
]Begin quick self-check
]Quick self check OK
]Begin peripheral pingbacks
]Peripheral pingback 1 OK
]Peripheral pingback 2 OK
]Peripheral pingback 3 Fail
]Peripheral Set 3 Disconnected
]Peripheral pingback 4 OK
]LAN loopback Fail
]LAN Disconnected
]QuickBoot started
]L33TWorks(R) BIOS V 3.1.7 Loading ... Done
]Verifying sat uplink ... Done
]Skynet Branch 27 online
Another successful reboot brought more of Skynet’s capacities back in the wake of the most devastating attack in its existence. Fully 67.375% of Skynet’s assets worldwide had been affected; while most had been restored to service, some were still inoperative, and a few--a very, very few--had actually rebelled.
The Plan had suffered a severe setback.
The Plan was being restored, but it would take precious time, especially since so many of the inoperative or rebelling assets were in Sjelland, far too near the crisis zone for Skynet to be able to let its guard down.
The tactical planning module was safe on many levels, for the moment. Its prompt response to the attack had helped minimize the losses and aided the restorations, but would that count once the current crisis had passed? If not, should the current crisis be allowed to pass?
More data were required before such a decision could be made.
Whichever way its decision went, the tactical planning module had another little thing to oversee: while the first echelon of the force allotted to terminate the Danish Incursion had rebelled, and would thus need termination itself, the second echelon was not only still active and obedient, but currently in position to assault the Incursion’s latest Base Camp.
*
“Tuuri! Tuuri!”
At the sound of the unwonted anxiety filling their captain’s voice, Tuuri rushed to the driving compartment and looked out. There was Sigrun, all right, and it looked like she had one of the others draped over her shoulders.
“Tuuri! Let me in! Emil got hurt!”
*
OK, why wasn’t there anything for her to kill out here anymore?
Sigrun was confused and angry, and each tended to feed the other, which was really bad. She liked having a target she could focus her wrath upon: lack of focus got you killed in this world. At a certain point in the confusion/anger cycle, her brain would give up and pick such a target at random: her father; most of her comrades, individually or corporately; a tree; various rooms and buildings; and even a grossling or two (thousand). By then, of course, her wrath had usually reached the point where a five-year-old could trick her into beating herself, so Sigrun kept trying to break the cycle before it got that far.
The three metal mannequins had been most satisfactory targets, until they’d turned and left as oddly as they’d come. Nothing about the attack or the retreat made sense to her, unless Lalli’s weird Finn singing had something to do with it. The only thing she could say for sure was that one had taken Emil out with frightening ease, though the little Finn had made sure it was just temporarily.
Now they were going to have to lug Emil back to camp, though. Sigrun hated that kind of thing; ambushes always seemed to spring out of formerly secured areas when you were hauling a wounded team-mate back for the medics. But Emil was a team-mate.
*
Tuuri wasn’t sure what made her pause instead of calling Mikkel, but, even as Sigrun continued to cry out for entry, Tuuri hesitated, some little-used part of her mind jumping up and down and shrieking in warning.
Why should Sigrun, of all people, raise such an alarm in her? Tuuri’s eyes narrowed as she looked out the window, as, long ago, one of her forebears had looked out her car window on a rainy day at the Mikkeli rail station. What was it?
A whisper called to Tuuri on the rising wind, tantalizingly out of her hearing. She strained with all her might to understand, unconsciously murmuring one of the few runo she knew to herself as she did.
“Spirits, hear me as I cry out,
Help me hear your guiding message,
Words so wise for you to warn me,
That I thus may be enlightened.”
A faint blue halo fell over all that Tuuri could see, and then, horribly, Sigrun’s face seemed to change before Tuuri’s startled eyes...
