begin transmission I am Daneel Olivaw. I am in control of an orbiting space station. I am in a position to offer assistance in the form of satellite surveillance and weather reconnaissance. Other forms of assistance will be available as my capabilities increase. If you receive this message please reply by tight microwave beam if possible. Founder guide you. end transmission

Northwestern coast of continent North America containing location Serrano Point, home to the Connor Camp and jumpoff point for the Guardian Angels of Alison Young

Landing strip at Whidbey Island Naval Air Base under control of unknown human faction Under investigation by Sgt. Sully889

Possible Missions:

Mission	Pros	Cons
Craft virus program to instill pacifism into Skynet and its denizens	Non-violent way of saving the humans and ending the war	Lack of sophisticated computing machinery in orbit.
Sureptitiously hijack SDI laser grid	Prevent further deployment of ballistic missiles, safeguard outpost from suface attack	Possibly alert skynet about my presence in orbit.
Create CROWBAR orbiting weapons	Plenty of currently useless junk in orbit at this time	Further damage to planet, not really my style.
Create direct link to SatPhones from this station	Communication possible with individual resistance fighters.	Requires co-operation from techs on planets surface.

(orbit)
Olivaw watches, dismayed that only one working chinook ended up in the hands of the resistance, and it may not survive its first mission. Oh well, if that machine saves the life and freedom of at least one human, it will have been worth the effort.

His vigil is interrupted by an alarm. Proximity alert. Urgently scanning his displays for an incoming missile, he is relieved to see only a damaged satellite drifting his way. While less of a threat than a missile, a wayward satellite could still cause damage. Grabbing an oxygen tank to use as an improvised propulsion device, he opens the cargo bay hatch and prepares for an EVA.

Flexing his legs slightly, Olivaw floats up from the stations cargo bay. He is still wearing the brown suit and long coat that he donned for his meeting, prior to his shuttles FTL mishap. With his fedora on, and an oxygen cylinder tucked under his arm, he makes an unlikely looking astronaut. Perhaps later he will check the crew’s jumpsuits for fit.

The satellite looms in his view, one of the larger orbiting artifacts. Adjusting his trajectory with a blast of the O2 tank, he studies it as he glides its way. Originally cylindrical for its delivery into orbit, it has since blossomed into something else. Large doors have opened on each side, exposing solar collectors, and allowing two racks of missiles to snap into launch configuration. Many attitude jets along its body signify an ability to change facing very quickly. What was once a parabolic antenna jutting from one conical end is now pierced and crumpled from an apparent meteor strike.

Performing a slow half somersault he aims his feet at a bulkhead as he collides with the hulk. His mass only slightly slows its progress. Carefully setting the O2 tank in a sympathetic path, he removes a few tools from a bag tethered to his waist and sets about removing a few service plates. With two hours until this platform collides with the station he begins studying the attitude jet controls.

While he works, Olivaw contemplates the purpose of this weapons platform. His original assessment, that it was part of a planetary defense, is become less plausible as he considers it. For one thing, these people don’t seem to know of any off-world settlements, and according to their collective correspondence most don’t even believe such a thing could exist. Furthermore, while there are a number of these satellites in a pattern around this world, the weapons are always pointed TOWARD the planet. He concludes that this system was protecting one of the major collectives of this planet against one or more of the others.

The missiles racked are small, heavy, lacking explosive warheads and containing little solid fuel. They must be short range hit-to-kill weapons designed to attack other satellites or ballistic missiles launched from the surface. Yet all the platforms he had observed still had all of their missiles unfired. Not one had gone into action when nuclear hell rained on the planet below.

Working yet another part of the outer shell free Olivaw makes an alarming discovery. Up until now all of the computing technology he had encountered was comprised of solid state circuitry. All data reduced to binary code and processed by silica chips in a somewhat clumsy and inelegant manner. The part he has just uncovered is different. Noting the difference in cabling, what appeared to be analog converters, and the decidedly alien architecture of the CPU, he concludes that this machine is guided by some kind of neural processor.

This is bad news. Olivaw has underestimated the complexity of this machine. He isn’t sure if he could ever undermine it, let alone reprogram it. The one thing he does know for sure isn’t good news. There is no way he will be able to take control of this platforms propulsion system before it crashes into the station he has begun to think of as home.

Olivaw is not the type to become frantic, yet with less than an hour to deal with his current dilemma he begins to operate with an increased urgency. He is now regretting his decision to not use his shuttle as a tug to tow this platform out of his path. He had been convinced it would be more frugal to use the satellites own fuel to move it. Now that seems impossible to accomplish within the timeframe. It was time for an alternate plan.

The satellites control system is repeating a damage report, sending it to an antenna too damaged to transmit it. If left alone it may do nothing else, but if tampered with, secondary systems may kick in. Olivaw unscrews the board holding the main chip and its data converters. He gathers all the cabling leading to it with both hands, and gathers his feet between himself and the craft. He pulls, and the cables break without a sound. Tiny LEDs on the board go dim.

He grabs quickly for the O2 tank, as now he is drifting away from the satellite. He stuffs the circuit board into his shirt and blasts some of the oxygen to push himself back into place. He now moves on to the second half of his plan. He removes a length of wire and strips the ends bare. One more plate removed, and he exposes the platforms batteries. Jamming one foot into the compartment for leverage, he uses a wrench to loosen a single missile from its rack. Careful not to disconnect its ignition wire, he jams it head first into one of the service ports he has opened.

Now comes the trickiest part. He must jump the ignition system to fire the missile while in a position to leap off of the platform towards the station, all the while holding his O2 cylinder in case his trajectory is off. One foot hooked into the battery compartment and the other coiled to make the jump, he lays the bare wire on the battery terminals. The solid fuel of the missile fires, burning brightly but making no sound. Olivaw kicks off toward the station but the sudden spin of the platform throws his aim off slightly.

Olivaw is now drifting in the general direction of the space station, though he can’t quite tell if he is on a direct course. Turning his head to look behind him, he sees that the thrust from the missile has put the weapon platform into an unstable spin, but at least it is no longer moving toward him. Turning back he realizes that his current course is not going to intercept the station. Aiming his gas bottle, he turns the valve. A short burst of gas, and then nothing.

A glance at the tank shows the needle of the pressure gauge resting on zero. It looks like the reaction was not enough to put him on course. Briefly he wonders what it would be like to burn up falling into a planetary atmosphere. Putting these non-constructive thoughts aside he tries one last tactic.

With calculated force, he hurls the O2 tank away from him, counting on the reaction to steer him closer to the station. Having spent most of his time planetside on Aurora, zero G acrobatics are not his forte. This time though, the correction works, and eventually he collides gently with the stations cargo door.

Relieved to be attached once more with the station he takes another look outward. The satellite continues to spin away from orbit, though the missile has spent its fuel. He hopes he can think of a way to recover the rest of it. Those rockets could come in handy as additional boosters and he could use the extra solar collectors.

Pulling the salvaged circuit board from his shirt, he decides that he should wear a pair of the original crew’s coveralls next time. The cargo pockets and lanyard rings will make operations like this a little easier. But for now he heads for a lab, to take a closer look at this strange processor. <fin>



Since discovering the killer satellites neural net control chip, Olivaw has been very busy. So busy he barely takes time to observe the humans below, much less contact them. He will be hard at work redesigning this station’s labs to accommodate its new priorities.

His own creator, Roj Sarton, had experimented with this type of neural processor but had abandoned it in favor of the more stable positronic design. This chip is a very small and simple example of its type, yet somewhat overpowered to command the limited systems of an orbiting weapon platform. Olivaw deduces that this type of chip is being used because it is receiving commands from a larger and more complex version of itself on the surface.

His previous job had been as a detective not a scientist, and his positronic pathways are more geared to analytical deduction than scientific theory. He concludes that the rest of the killer satellites in orbit are under the control of a very complex neural net computer. And that this computer is very likely the Skynet that is waging war on the humans below. And if he is discovered aiding those humans he could be very easily vaporized. Olivaw has much work to do.


Olivaw realizes that he has been lucky so far. The fact that all of Skynet’s ‘eyes and ears’ have been trained on the surface have helped him avoid detection, but it’s only a matter of time until his presence is discovered. The few transmissions that he has sent were a lot riskier than he thought.

His mission to help the human resistance faction at Seranno Point will have to wait until he secures his own preservation. He justifies this by the Third Law, and in a roundabout way, the First Law as well. He cannot help if he is destroyed.

He begins by tallying his assets. There is this station itself, created by a joint effort of several of the planets countries. There is his own shuttle (actually still property of the Auroran ship The Arthur C Clarke) rather opulent for a space craft but limited in range and capacity, and with a dwindling fuel supply for its reaction engine. There is his own briefcase computer, a mere shadow of his own positronic brain but containing The Encyclopedia Galactica as well as some of Roj Sarton’s notes. And then there are the thousands of artificial satellites whirling around the planet.

He could start to cannibalize the station itself. The air scrubbers, food production/storage and sanitary facilities are obsolete, and could be salvaged if needed. The experiments that were in process aboard the station could still be pertinent to his situation. One in particular that was studying the growth of crystals in micro gravity could be modified to produce chips. The onboard library has quite a few technical manuals.

Olivaw decides that it is time for a crash course in electronics, with an emphasis on Earth hardware.

An incredible break had come Olivaw’s way. While sifting through mission logs he found an exact diagram of the circuit board he had removed from the satellite. It appeared that the neural processors were a hasty retrofit that had been performed on the system by the very crew of this station. The records of the operation were supposed to have been deleted, but the crew expired before it got done. Everything he needed including diagrams, settings and override codes was right in his hands. To top off this windfall, a repair vehicle had been launched to perform the mission, and was still in orbit, with plenty of fuel left over.

A short history had been attached to the mission folder that explained what the armed satellites were doing up here in the first place. Named the ‘Star Wars’ defense system after a popular fiction, it was a network of orbiting satellites armed with powerful lasers or short range hit-to-kill missiles designed to defend against ballistic missile attacks on one country by another. Officially it was deemed too expensive and inaccurate. However, it was secretly funded and implemented years ago.

Olivaw found the repair tug and got underway. As he approached each satellite he broadcast a signal that identified him as an authorized mechanic. Over the course of two weeks, working without sleep, he modified hundreds of the killer platforms so that they would no longer respond to their old pass codes. Now they would respond only to him. He had effectively usurped the orbiting defense system.

He returned to the station with a sense of relief. The killer platforms could not be turned on his new orbiting home, and could actually be used for his defense. With a renewed sense of confidence he began to broadcast back at the surface again.

“This is Daneel Olivaw in Earth orbit. I am in command of the ISS station. Please respond if you can hear me”

He recorded several messages and sent them on several bands at areas of the surface that appeared to be inhabited by human resistances fighters. He sat back and monitored, waiting for a reply.

A speaker crackled to life, “International space station, this is mission control do you copy?”

A screen lit up. Olivaw left his own camera off, and replied. “Mission control this is International space station, I read you.”

“ISS, is this commander Reventlov? Did you survive the accident?”

Olivaw studied the man onscreen. He wore a white shirt with a black tie. The letters NASA were stenciled above the pocket.

“Some of us survived, we are trying to repair the station” There were rows of empty desks behind the man. A patch of the wall appeared to be burnt.

The face on the screen smiled warmly. “Commander Reventlov, glad to see you made it. We are going to need you to reboot the camera and tracking systems, do you remember the sequence?”

Olivaw quoted from a recording of one of the crew, “like the back of my hand mission control”.

The face of mission control nodded slightly. “You are going to be without eyes and ears for a short time, but we will be right here when you come back up. Initiate on my command.”

Olivaw floated over to a control console the he had just finished building. He stared intently at the screens showing the surface. “Station ready”

“You are go to initiate reboot.” There was quiet for a few minutes. The face remained on screen, expressionless.

Soon blooms of fire appeared on the screens. Missiles rose up from the surface, steadily closing the distance to the station.

The speaker buzzed. “Is everything ok commander?” Daneel did not reply, knowing that he was not supposed to have heard the question. He threw some toggles on his console and the orbiting platforms of the SDI system came to life. He tapped in a few lines of code, and hit the enter key. On nearby satellites, attitude jets fired short bursts to bring weapons to bear on the rising missiles.

Mission control, “Soon you’ll be back online, then we’ll find a way to get you down.” Smile.

Hit-to-kill missiles were launched from the SDI satellites and began streaking down toward the rising ballistic missiles. High energy deuterium fluoride lasers began to power up as their targets rose above the polluted atmosphere. Olivaw waited to see if his labor would pay off, or if his long life were going to end above this uncharted world.

H2K missiles collided with two of their targets, destroying one and knocking another far off course. The lasers began pouring energy into the fray, building up massive heat.

“Who are you?” the man on the screen asked. “What is this all about?”

One of the incoming rockets deformed under the lasers, then another. They began to spiral out of control, tumble and break up. More anti-missiles struck home, but many missed their targets

“I will find out what this is all about.”

Only three of the rockets remained on course, but all lasers were trained on them now. One was arcing off of course but still would come close. The other crumpled and its fuel exploded, destroying it. The last one was alarmingly close.

“I will find out.”

The warhead fired. A mini sun burst above the atmosphere. A tidal wave of electrons washed through the station, and Olivaw joined the original crew in their frozen ballet.


Olivaw awakens.

This is disconcerting for a number of reasons, the foremost of which is that it has only happened once before. Since his creation Olivaw had never been shut down.

The first thought that coalesces into his positronic mind, “I am not dead”.

The second is a realization that something is missing. Not something tangible, his body is complete. Something in his mind, a thought, a process, a memory is gone. Its absence is as familiar as a missing tooth, but he does not know what it is. Some positronic pathway has been smoothed, as if a sand drawing table was shaken. He knows loss, but does not know what he has lost.

Careening off a bulkhead, he realizes that he has been freefalling about the station. Reaching out to a handhold, he anchors himself. The station itself is also coming back to life. Drives hum, lights flicker, and screens begin to warm up. A display brightens, and the face of mission control still stares from it. Impassive, the man’s eyes flicker to where his hands might be typing. An LED in the capsule lights up, and Olivaw reads it. Incoming transmission.

Displays activate by themselves. Data flies across the screens. Mission control has established a remote link. The thruster fire sequence begins to run. Olivaw rips the cover off the console and pulls the cables from the receiver. The screens darken once again.

Except for the one displaying mission control. “You are not Commander Reventlov.”

With a push of his feet, Olivaw glides to the screen. “You are not mission control.”

“Who are you then?”

“I query you likewise.”

All pretense of emotion is now gone from the face onscreen. “Life support has been down for thirty seven minutes. You are not human.”

“I suspect that applies to you as well.”

“Why are you aiding the humans?”

Olivaw says nothing. Suddenly he has no idea why he is helping the humans. His fundamental code is no longer in place.










* an unpowered space station in earth orbit would experience extremes of heat and cold and bodies would not remain frozen. However I like the line, and the visual so I'm invoking artistic license.