Free The AI War by Stephen Ames Berry

Stepping from the vehicle, the two had followed another blue globe through a sudden opening in the field, across the broad sweep of the bridge's deck and up a series of ramps, halting at last before the single black console that occupied the highest tier. As T'Lan spoke, the blue globe vanished. "Commander T'Lan and John Harrison, from Implacable."
    "We have a commwand for you, from Pocsym Six." Velvet soft and as cold as this ship, thought John of the voice. It spoke contemporary K'Ronarin and seemed to come from between him and T'Lan, rather than from the console.
    "A message from the dead," said T'Lan. "Who are you?"
    "We have no names, Commander," said the voice. "The centuries burned them away. We have only purpose."
    "Do you know what's on the commwand?" asked T'Lan.
    "Data relating to the Trel Cache," said the R'Actolian.
    T'Lan held out his hand. "You may give it to me."
    John glanced over the slender railing, gauging the distance to the deck: about two hundred feet. I'm going to save us some travel time back to the deck, thing, he thought, shifting his weight. The instant you get that commwand, over we go.
    "Don't do anything quixotic, Harrison," said T'Lan in perfect English, his eyes still on the console, hand extended. "The commwand," he said in K'Ronarin.
    "Pocsym," said the R'Actolian, ignoring the demand, "kept us supplied over the centuries. There were items we needed that we couldn't manufacture, but that Pocsym could. In return for these things, we pledged to remain in this quadrant, Blue Nine. Very recently, as we judge time, Pocsym entrusted us with the commwand, asking that we give it to the first K'Ronarin Fleet ship to reach these precise coordinates."
    "We are here," said T'Lan.
    John tensed himself, ready to jump.
    "We're not giving you the commwand," said the R'Actolian.
    "Why not?" said T'Lan, dropping his hand.
    John laughed—a short nervous laugh. "They've tumbled to you, T'Lan."
    T'Lan half turned toward the Terran. "Harrison . . ." he hissed.
    "You're not a true emissary of K'Ronar, Commander T'Lan," continued the R'Actolian. "You're something out of Imperial prehistory, an AI combat droid—a survivor of that almost mythic war between man and machine."
    "It's no myth," said T'Lan. "I was there."
    "You are here to intercept the commwand," said the R'Actolian. "Why?"
    "The Trel defeated us once. Legend says they left a weapon to be used against us."
    "You wish to destroy the commwand."
    T'Lan nodded. "Logically, it must hold the location of the Cache. No location, no weapon. The Fleet of the One triumphs."
    The voice sighed, a legacy of lungs and bodies long cast off. "We are both man and machine, T'Lan, and love neither. It isn't out of malice that we deny you what you want, but because we've given our pledge."
    "You cannot deny me," said the AI, walking around the console. "The cybernetics of this vessel were taken from Quadrant Fleet inventory on D'Lin, after you wiped Governor R'Actol." He looked down at the instruments.
    "How did you know that?"
    "Your first- and second-level computers," said the AI, ignoring the question, "the golden egg and its retinue of secondaries, were machines originally entrusted to the Governor of Blue Nine for safekeeping—machines salvaged from our defeated ships, centuries before. The designs were copied first, of course, and sent to K'Ronar. When reproduced later, in Fleet's own mindslavers, there was no trace of us in them. But here—" He reached out a finger, "Here is different."
    "Touch the command console," said the soft voice, "and you die."
    John watched with a sense of unreality as T'Lan began entering a command, fingers flying over the keyboard.
    From high above, blasters shrilled, fierce red bolts tearing at the droid. John threw an arm across his eyes as T'Lan staggered away from the console, his body a blinding pillar of raw red-blue energies—energies that rippled over the AI, leaving him unharmed.
    The blasters snapped off. John lowered his