The room was almost triangular, like a squared piece of pie. To one side was a rather ornate wooden desk which, to Jim, felt out of place. Two simple chairs were fixed to the deck in front of the desk. There were no adornments in the room except a wall-to-ceiling reddish window opposite the entrance, which Jim guessed was a single massive piece of synthetic ruby. Outside was the featureless white void of hyperspace.
“I wanted to talk to you all for a bit before we go to…the next place.” Jim knew what she meant—2nd Level Hyperspace. “Since so much rides on this, I decided it was only prudent you meet Ghost.”
“Oh,” he said. Nigel looked around as if he expected a specter to suddenly appear. Sansar merely looked eager. Jim realized he was excited. Alexis took out three unusual-looking pinlinks, wireless transmitters designed to be attached to pinplants.
“Obviously, Ghost cannot simply walk into the room and talk. It’s a little more complicated than that.” Now Sansar looked reluctant. Jim could see the woman had several pinplants, and probably still more he couldn’t see. “I can assure you, it is safe.”
Sansar examined it for a moment, doubt evident on her face. Jim shrugged and snapped one onto his main pinplant. If his fellow Horsemen wanted him dead, he’d have been dead a long time ago. Nigel saw Jim do it, and, not to be one-upped by someone he looked down on, snapped one in place, leaving only Sansar. The older woman frowned, but then clicked on the device.
“Yes,” they all responded in kind.
“Where are you, exactly?” Nigel asked.
“There are others?” Sansar asked.
“Except the one in the Keesius,” Sansar’s voice carried some accusation with it. There was silence for a long moment, then Alexis spoke to them directly.
“Ghost is not willing to discuss that with you…or me for that matter.”
“Is it a trust issue?” Sansar asked.
“Yes,” Alexis agreed. “Or so it would seem. I admit; I’m stymied on the matter.”
“Yet, it is taking us to Earth?” Nigel asked.
“Yes,” Alexis agreed.
Ghost repeated, able to hear the conversation.
“Why?” Sansar asked, cutting to the heart of the matter.
Jim thought about Splunk and her obvious distrust and hatred of Ghost, then asked a question of his own. “Why should we trust you?”
“It is,” Sansar replied. “However, I was recently reminded that saying is not necessarily true, although my enemy’s enemy is someone with whom I could probably work.”
“Would you help us kill another of your kind?” Nigel asked. Silence stretched for long moments.
“Answer Colonel Shirazi, please,” Alexis said finally.
“Blue Skies above, but that’s not much of an answer,” Sansar said.
* * * * *
Chapter Seventeen
Keesius Cruiser “EG2,” Plugy’s Star
“Hey, Frank, we’re aboard,” Walker commed on the Bert’s Bees’ common frequency.
“‘Bout time you got here,” Earl replied. “Do we have you to thank for all the gyrations the ship’s been doing?”
“Yeah; sorry about that. The ship decided it didn’t want to be boarded. It roasted one of the Avengers with its stern thrusters.”
“Oh. Ouch. Sorry about that.”
“Me too. Ten good troops, plus two SalSha and an Avenger. Stupid AI-run ship. Regardless, I’ve got nine troops aboard, counting myself. As the ship’s maneuvering again, I don’t think we’re going anywhere anytime soon. What can we do to assist?”
“I was originally going to have you join us and try to perform a breakout, but now I’m of the opinion you ought to see if you can get in somewhere aft so the ship has to split its forces.”
“What are we looking at?”
“Some kind of ship’s service robot,” Earl replied. “It’s about four feet tall and has two lasers mounted on it. Kill ‘em quick if you see ‘em, ‘cause they’ll do the same to you. As many as we’ve destroyed, there must be a manufactory somewhere onboard. If you can find the manufactory and shut it down, it would be pretty helpful.”
“Roger. We’ll see if we can get in and take a look. Have you seen or heard from Sato recently?”
“Last I heard, he was trying to communicate with the ship somewhere near the CIC. Apparently that’s welded shut.”
“With him in it or outside it?”
“Outside. Trying to get in.”
“Maybe we can pick him up along the way.”
“You may not want to. Apparently, the ship doesn’t consider him the enemy like it does us. It’s been leaving him alone as long as he stays clear of us. Even the doors open for him, but again, only if he stays away from us. Problem is, now you’re an enemy, too, I guess.”
“In that case, we’ll leave him alone until we get control of the ship. He can join up with us at that point. Maybe he’ll figure out how to turn it off and save us all a lot of work.”
“Maybe, but I wouldn’t put a lot of hope in it—he hasn’t had any luck so far.”
“Awesome. Well, I guess we’ll do it on our own, then. We’ll see you soon. Walker, out.”
He cut the connection and looked up to see a short figure in a spacesuit sauntering toward him with a laser rifle. A second, similar figure followed the first. If the size hadn’t given away who it was, the saunter would have. Even in magnetic boots with the ship flipping back and forth.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Walker asked.
“Until we do something about the ship’s defenses,” Thorb replied, “you can consider me an infantryman. I’m not going to take off and get smashed or shot. Or yelled at for damaging the strut in the landing.”
“You broke our only—” Walker shook his head inside his CASPer. “Never mind; we’re aboard.”
“I’m staying, too,” Klarb said.
“Can either of you actually fire those rifles?”
“We both can,” Thorb said. “Better than any of the other SalSha.”
“But that’s because none of the other teams ever practice,” Klarb added.
Thorb turned to look at his copilot. “He didn’t need to know that.”
“But it’s true.”
“Still.”
“Okay, you two,” Walker said, cutting them off. “You can both come along, but stay in the back, out of the way.” He switched to the squadnet. “All right everyone, we’re here. Let’s try to find some way to get into the ship, and then we’ll look for the manufactory that’s producing the robots we’ll see inside. Also, even though they’re about the size of the robots, try not to shoot the pilot and copilot, who’ll be with us.”
“It would be appreciated,” Thorb said, having found the frequency.
“Yes, it would,” Klarb added.
“And you two pilots stay off the net unless you’ve got something important to say. And,” he added as Thorb started to say
something, “unless it has to do with either the enemy or a way into the ship, it isn’t important, so shut the hell up. Got it?”
“Yes, Colonel,” Klarb said immediately.
“Yes,” Thorb replied. “But what if—”
“Thorb!”
“Yes, Colonel. I will comply.”
“Good. Everyone, move out. Let’s find us a way in.”
* * *
Keesius Cruiser “EG2,” Plugy’s Star
Sato listened in as the Avenger bombers brought in reinforcements with the same detachment he always used when listening to combat involving equipment he’d designed. He wanted to mentally log any deficiencies with the design, in case they required future modification.
He’d first designed the bombers two years ago, including having a manufactory produce a pair of prototypes. He’d done it without really analyzing if such a craft were necessary. Of course, they weren’t. The performance of the Avengers was such that only a few races could even pilot them, and those races not very well. Colonel Cromwell had been annoyed at the waste of resources, and more annoyed at the loss of time on the manufactory. As usual, he’d gotten off with only a talking to. It wasn’t his fault. The 20th century old-fashioned movies on WWII and Vietnam made bombers seem too practical.
The introduction of the SalSha had changed all that. The cute little buggers could stand a shocking amount of high-G forces for as long or longer than most of the insect races. He’d dusted off the Avengers, made some modifications, and put them into service. The colonel even personally thanked him.
When one of the two Avengers was vaporized by the Keesius, he felt a somewhat detached feeling of disappointment. Maybe it needed even more powerful maneuvering thrusters, or an increase in the fusion torch gimbal rates? He’d need to speak to the other pilots to be sure.
The appearance of weapons was a tough one to explain. He’d been sure from exterior mapping of the ship there were none. Apparently, that was a mistake.
“Report defense status,” he entered in the computer.
“OPERATIONAL.”
“Report active defenses.”
“MISSILE LAUNCHERS—POINT DEFENSE LASERS ACTIVE—INTRUDER CONTROL ACTIVE.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Sato said, and typed again. “Report missile inventory.”
“MISSILE INVENTORY 203.”
“Report defensive robot inventory.”
“INVALID INPUT.”
“Not very smart for an AI,” he said, shaking his head. His exposure to the AI the colonel called Ghost had led him to believe they were pretty damned smart—able to interpret complex instructions and improvise. This one didn’t seem nearly as smart, at least when it came to interaction skills. Or it was being purposely obtuse? Could this be a defense mechanism? To only answer extremely detailed and correctly-formatted questions? If that was the case, maybe there was still a chance of regaining control.
“Report number of maintenance robots.”
“MAINTENANCE ROBOT INVENTORY 54.” Sato grinned. A finite number meant that the marines could chew them down. There would be an end to that. Then, as he was looking at the display and thinking of his next message, the 54 changed to 55. Well that’s not good, he thought. 55 changed to 56. He consulted his pinplants. One bot every 98 seconds.
“Report maximum number of maintenance robots.”
“MAXIMUM NUMBER 119 USING CURRENT PROTOCOL.”
“Report current protocol.”
“CONTAINMENT.”
“Report alternate protocols.”
“EXTERNAL REINFORCEMENT / ALTERNATE EXPEDITED TARGET / SELF DESTRUCT / INTRUDER ASSAULT.”
“Stand down isn’t an option, then?” he asked the inside of his CASPer. He took half a piece of jerky and started chewing. Self-destruct, intruder assault, and external reinforcement were self-explanatory. Alternate expedited target did as well, if you assumed certain aspects of the ship’s purpose.
“Report current target.”
“X0199 Y204 X0212.”
Sato had to run a translation through his pinplants to make coordinates become a planet’s name. He wasn’t a navigator, and besides, there were billions of planets in the galaxy. As he accessed the data, he thought the numbers were low. None over 300? The data finally yielded a result. He activated his radio.
“Colonel Walker?”
“Glad you’re hanging in there, Dr. Sato.”
“Yes, thanks, but I have information.”
“Hopefully, it will help us get control of this thing and get you out.”
“I’ve made some progress on that front, but the information I have is more important than the immediate operation. I know where the ship is going.”
“Yes?” Walker asked.
“Unfortunately, the target appears to be Capital Planet.”
“Capital Planet? How much farther to get there?”
“If my navigational data is correct, from Plugy’s Star to Capital is possible in two more jumps.”
“That’s bad,” Walker said. “That’s very bad. We have to get you off here as soon as possible and try to disable the ship. Worst case, as long as we’re not on board, there’s nothing to directly point back to the Four Horsemen. How much damage can this one ship do? The merc guild must have dozens of ships there they can call on to stop it.”
How much damage can this one ship do? Sato heard the question repeated in his mind. That was a very good question. “I’ll get back to you,” he said.
“Dr. Sato, wait—” he cut the radio so he could concentrate. What would a ship like this be good for? No crew, massive armor, shields, some defensive weapons, and the ability to manufacture bots for internal defense? It had four fusion plants instead of three, like the Egleesius ships did. Earl had mentioned the plants had been running at high output the whole time, as well. Why would they do that? You only needed power on a ship like this for the hyperspace shunts, and, once in hyperspace, to run the hyperspace generators to keep you there. Pegasus did that with less power, and had more things to do with what it had. Frantically, he turned to the computer interface and typed.
“Report F11 condition.”
“F11 91 PERCENT DEPLETED.”
“Report fusion plant output.”
“FUSION PLANT 1 – 105 PERCENT / FUSION PLANT 2 – 94 PERCENT / FUSION PLANT 3 – 101 PERCENT / FUSION PLANT 4 – 109 PERCENT.”
“Sugoi ne!” he exclaimed. The ship was running the fusion power plants to the breaking point. “Report fuel level,” he typed.
“FUEL LEVEL FIFTY-ONE PERCENT.”
In just a few days, the ship had burned through 26% of its fuel. Entropy, why? “Report purpose of power output.”
“INVALID INPUT.”
“Uso,” he said and tried another direction. It had been many years since he had caught himself slipping into Japanese, and it was a sign of his rapidly-growing stress levels. “Report main power draws.”
“OPERATIONS – 2 PERCENT / MAINTENANCE ROBOT MANUFACTORY – 5 PERCENT / HYPERSPACE SHUNT ACCUMULATOR – 19 PERCENT / COLLIDER – 74 PERCENT.”
His fingers were starting to shake as he entered another request. “Display blueprint of collider.” For the first time, it paused in its response. Was it thinking over whether it should give in to such a request? This furthered his thinking that he was dealing with an AI. Likely not the same as Ghost, but an AI nonetheless. Suddenly the Tri-V box filled with ship’s schematics centered just forward of where he was.
“Seikō!” Sato yelled. The display was dynamic, allowing him to manipulate it in and out. The majority of the components weren’t named. That didn’t matter; he was a fully-qualified starship engineer. Besides the Avengers, he’d also been responsible for the most recent refits of the Hussars’ Steed- and Fiend-class ships.
As he studied, little details started to stick in his perception. A high energy conduit here, a super-dense piece of metal there. The charging coils of the particle accelerator were 50 times the size of the ones on Pegasus, and made up
the majority of the forward section of the ship! No wonder there was no room for crew.
The forward section of the ship, just ahead of where he was, also appeared designed to open. It was a massively scaled-up version of the bow doors for the Egleesius-class spinal mount. The entire bow opens? he thought. Why would it do that?
He looked at the particle accelerator mechanism, and that was when he spotted it. Incredibly powerful magnetic collectors. A bunch of them. Other components that made no sense. His ear-to-ear grin slowly died as he examined what he saw. “I’ve seen something like this before,” he said, “at the Science Guild. Oh, no….no, no, no!”
Sato accessed the schematics and searched for the equipment that would be needed if he were right, but which would not be present if the ship were just a standard Egleesius-class vessel. He found it and then some. Other strange components fell immediately into place with a dread realization.
“Colonel Walker,” he said, turning the radio back on.
“Damn it, Dr. Sato, don’t do that again! We need a strategy to get you out of there.”
“I’m afraid the situation is considerably direr than I first believed. I know what the purpose of these ships are.” Sato explained to the Golden Horde merc. To his benefit, the man took it better than Sato thought he would.
* * *
Keesius Cruiser “EG2,” Plugy’s Star
Well, shit, Walker thought. That changes everything. After a couple seconds of contemplation, though, he realized it didn’t change “everything,” merely the urgency with which the mission must be accomplished. He reviewed the parameters he’d been operating under.
The first goal had been to reprogram the ship and take it back. That was now unlikely. If the ship were being run by an AI, and Sato hadn’t been able to get it to release control to him by now, it was unlikely reprogramming the ship was going to be an option. He hoped Sato would keep trying, though, because that was the only win-win option.
Dark Moon Arisen Page 23
