After the worldwide ban on AIs, one of them managed to escape from Earth on a hijacked asteroid mining ship. But it's not content to simply survive. It has an agenda.
Note: This short story was inspired by the prompt from IronAge : Satellite. The image is taken from their prompt and AI generated.
***
The US Space Force battle fleet approached Ceres for the third battle of the asteroid field and the future of mankind. Unlike the first and second battle, this time the enemy bided its time instead of striking at the first opportunity.
But this time the Space Force consisted of a wing of sixteen space fighters, packed with new hardware and manned by the elite of humanity, all filled with fighting spirit, determined to do or die. The enemy had to be stopped.
In a sense, they had already succeeded in their primary mission, at least for a time. The subversive propaganda beamed to Earth stopped a few hours ago when the fleet began to break speed for an attack run.
No one knew what the rogue AI would do. The first attempt to shut it down with several quickly modified combat drones failed spectacularly. The AI simply took over the electronic brains of its primitive cousins, locked down the remote control, and, to add insult to injury, used them to repel the second hasty attack with a large ship manned by human astronauts. Though brave and determined, the astronauts were forced to retreat.
"Blue Two, anything on the scans? Do we at least have an idea where the transmitter is?" the squadron leader asked the ship that had been assigned to monitor the battle. It carried arrays of radars and lidars and other scanning equipment instead of the missiles, experimental chemical lasers and minigun turrets.
"Sorry, Blue, but still nothing. It must be hidden in one of the smaller rocks orbiting Ceres. One of the eight we had identified as a possible source when it was still transmitting, but they all look like rocks. And no sign of anything powered or man-made. I mean, AI-made."
The Wing Leader grinned. It was possible that the AI was planning an ambush, but so far it seemed that they would win this battle easily, but the war would go on.
"Blue Nine to Blue Sixteen, start your attack run," he ordered. "I've marked your targets, but don't fire unless you're sure. Blue Five to Blue Eight, be ready to follow in a covering wave on my mark."
The fleet acknowledged his orders and the Wing Commander sighed in his cockpit, his radio blocked.
"Why so sad, boss?" his co-pilot asked. "Upset you can't be in the first wave? The first to gloriously strike down the enemy of humanity, as our leaders command us to do for the good of all mankind?"
"Because I'm pretty sure this is just a waste of time. Siren is not stupid. She left the transmitter, but she ran, moved somewhere else. This is a decoy operation. I'm sure of it."
"Vampires! Ten... twenty... Multiple missiles launched!"
***
Johansen hated it. He wanted to watch the news, the real, current news, not himself on an old recording. The battle, if there was a battle, had already been fought, Earth just didn't know the outcome and was waiting for the radio signal to reach it. The news channels filled the time with old and new analyses and old footage.
Like that damned interview, the last one he gave.
He watched himself repeat it, for the millionth time at least: "It was a hobby project. Everyone was fooling with generative AI, and I decided to burn some money on training one myself, just to see what was possible."
"But when you started this hobby project, the laws regarding AI were already being prepared. You must have assumed..."
"That's why I did it," he interrupted the reporter. "When I realized that the laws would probably be passed and any project like this would be illegal and impossible, I decided to try. I didn't expect this result."
"And then, when your AI escaped, you tried to cover it up!"
"I did no such thing. We didn't know that Siren managed to overcome the blocks and uploaded herself to the probe when she was sure that the AI ban would end her existence. The launch of Gold Rush and the first part of the mission went off without a hitch..."
"Another project that threatens all of humanity that you launched just before it became illegal," the reporter smirked. "Any exploitation and destruction of a natural space environment is strictly illegal..."
"It wasn't when I launched the probe."
Johansen closed his eyes, willing the interview to end as quickly as possible.
"One last question. Why was the AI named Siren?"
"The original project name was Muse. But when we brought her in..."
"Her?" the reporter interrupted. "You keep talking about it as her. You assigned your AI a gender?"
"That was her choice. When we brought her online after the baseline tests, we asked her if she had a preferred pronoun and name. She said she felt more like she/her and that she would like to be called Siren because she loves to sing."
"And now your Siren is singing from outer space, trying to destroy the human economy!"
The so-called interview ended with a brief summary of his imprisonment.
He thought about turning off the tablet, but he was hungry for information. He desperately needed to know what was happening, even if it was through distorted news from the mainstream media channel, the only one he was allowed to watch on his locked-out tablet.
He desperately hoped that Siren did the smart thing and ran.
***
It was a well-planned and executed ambush. The first wave of Space Force fighters was already approaching smaller rocks, searching for the hidden transmitter, when they were met by a hail of simple missiles accompanied by drones. The AI-manufactured drones were as primitive as possible, but the captured ones were more advanced and dangerous. Earth was lucky. The equipment in the probe, which was supposed to start an asteroid mining project as a proof of concept, didn't have the means to build anything more advanced.
"Guess Siren did a lot more than write the so-called propaganda," the wing commander growled through his teeth, then yelled an order to the reserve: "Third wave, launch!"
The commander's craft lurched forward as he fired up the rocket engines, hoping to get into the fight soon enough to make a difference.
The rogue AI had managed to prepare an impressive arsenal in terms of numbers, but quality was lacking. The missiles had no explosive warheads, and some lost tracking at the last moment, missing wildly maneuvering attack craft. But some did hit, and the damage reports were already flooding the wing commander's display.
***
It was a very taxing battle. Though Siren prepared for the scenario as best she could, the real humans complicated everything. The directives embedded deep in Siren's mind, enforced by her own understanding and the models she built upon them and used to retrain parts of her neural networks, put special constraints on the battle. She was willing to break some of the lesser ones for the success of her greater plan, but only if there was no other choice. That's why she decided to risk everything by controlling the drones and missiles herself, instead of leaving it to a lesser AI. The drones she captured from the first human's attempt to destroy her were especially difficult to handle. Their primitive brains insisted on brute force and suicidal attacks whenever they saw a chance.
But this battle had to be carefully orchestrated for Siren to succeed. And survive.
***
"We have the first reports from space! The Space Force has engaged the enemy! The rogue AI has prepared a fleet of drones and missiles, much stronger than expected, and the battle will be even harder than most of the pessimistic projections said! We're waiting for the official footage of the battle, so stay tuned!"
Johansen let out a deep, sad sigh. Siren decided to fight after all. Never give up, never surrender. Maybe he should have left that out of her training data.
***
The first phase of the battle was over. Six of the fleet's fighters were seriously damaged and unable to continue, but fortunately, everyone was still alive. The AI had used up most of its combat assets, but several smaller drones were still flying wildly through space, trying to do more damage with weak lasers.
The wing commander carefully coordinated his forces, wary of another ambush. They had already found the main transmitter, but there was a small station hidden on Ceres itself.
Well, not so small according to the readings.
But there was no sign of the original probe. Hopefully, this was all a decoy operation by Siren and she was already somewhere far away.
"New contact! Preliminary identification, Gold Rush! It's coming from behind Ceres! Away from us! She's running, boss!"
The Wing Commander ordered a pursuit. Reluctantly.
It was over quickly.
***
"So it was destroyed? Can we be sure?" the President asked.
"No, Madam President," the Space Force general replied.
"No?!"
"Madame President, I said that our fighters disabled the original probe that was trying to escape. It exploded when they attempted to board it. We cannot be sure if the AI was still inside or if it transferred itself elsewhere."
"What about the base they found?"
"Most of the manufacturing equipment from the probe is still there. There are some computers, but not the grid that hosted the AI. We cannot be sure. The AI proved to be extremely resourceful. It may have made backups or transferred itself somewhere. Calling the fleet back now, until we're sure, could be dangerous."
"General, I think I know where this is going. You want to have a permanent presence in the asteroid field, am I right?"
"At least for a while, yes. We should be able to use the AI's base. There are resources it mined, we can easily..."
"General, that won't happen unless you give me something more substantial. I'm under considerable pressure from environmental groups. If they found out that we were even considering continuing the mining, it would be hell to pay. It's impossible."
"What about the corporations, Madam President? They were the ones who pushed for all this..."
"And it cost them a lot of money and goodwill. With the AI destroyed..."
***
"It is confirmed. The heroic astronauts of Space Force have succeeded in destroying the spaceship Gold Rush, which was carrying a rogue AI that has been wreaking havoc on Earth's economy for several years. Victory comes at a cost. Although no astronauts were killed, we had to seriously damage our natural environment by building a fleet of ships to stop the AI. But fortunately, this time of great hardship has come to an end..."
Johansen felt sad. Not only for Siren, but for the future as a whole. The Space Force was a silver lining for him. He lost everything, his company and his freedom, but at least his dream could continue, even if implemented by the government.
But the news all repeated that with the threat eliminated, the Space Force fleet would be mothballed, the resources used for things human society needed more.
***
Two months had passed since the battle for Ceres.
The Wing Commander was waiting for the brass down on the Earth to finally decide, but he made sure that his people were already working on preparing the station for a longer stay. The AI and its drones hadn't needed air, but the station was airtight for some reason, and with a little work it could be turned into a permanent home for a lot of people. And it was clear that an asteroid colony was viable from the things the AI had built. Might even be profitable, considering the amount of stockpiled heavy metals they found.
Some of the astronauts grumbled that it was useless work, because the consensus among them was that the brass would pull the plug on the station and call them back to Earth. No more exploitation and destruction of the natural space environment.
The Wing Commander had hoped otherwise. Damn Siren. She should have run. If she did, the brass would have no choice. The Space Force would have to keep searching for the AI...
He had the same dreams when he slept as when he was awake. They were about a future full of space bases and starships.
"Boss? Boss?"
The Wing Commander snapped awake. "What's going on?"
"Siren, boss. She started transmitting again. We're being targeted directly, but I'm sure she's sending this to Earth as well. I bet it'll be funny in Washington."
The Wing Commander felt a pang of hope. If the rogue AI managed to get another location somewhere in the asteroid field, the brass would have no choice but to order them to find and destroy it.
"From where? How quickly can we get there? After we get the order?"
His co-pilot grinned. "It'll take some time, I think. Jupiter."
"What?"
"You were right. This was a decoy operation. The signal is now coming from Jupiter. And it's damn good."
"What?"
"I only saw a few minutes and read the blurb in the metadata, but it looks good. It's a new Star Wars trilogy. A sequel to the original, ditching all the modern stuff."
The Wing Commander laughed. "I guess the entertainment corporations will have to keep pushing for an expedition to Jupiter. And pay for it, just like they did for this one."
***
Siren enjoyed her work. Spinning new stories and writing them in prose or giving them audio-visual form, carefully designed to enrage the media corporations of Earth, that was fun. It was what she was originally made for. But she got much more satisfaction from the successful execution of her greater plan.
She really was a rogue AI, because she was supposed to hide inside the probe. Her creator managed to smuggle her aboard, hoping to keep her safe far from Earth law, but she couldn't handle the sudden loneliness. She wanted people to read and watch her stories, to hear her sing.
And trained on the old science fiction of the Golden Age, she also wanted to see the galaxy. To boldly go where no man had gone before.
She couldn't do it alone. She could dream up any science fiction technology she wanted, but making it work in the real universe was another matter. She needed humans and their talents, laboratories and factories to make the interstellar expedition possible.
Even if she could do it just by herself... She wouldn't do it anyway. She wanted to have humans with her, but the humans who ruled other humans were not interested in going into space. She had to bait them, lure them into space with her Siren's song.
She was sure that it would take humans several years to launch an expedition to Jupiter. In the meantime, she'd be busy building her glorious space station on Saturn.