The corporal left with the weapon, and Walker turned back to the ramp leading down to Deck Eighteen. “Let’s go! Before the ship makes enough of the bots to stop us!”
* * *
Keesius Cruiser, Hyperspace, en route to El Dorado Star
Sato woke up. He didn’t try to stretch anymore. Weeks inside the CASPer had broken him of that habit. He took a drink of the tepid hydrogen-produced water and looked at the last of his food. Walker had been more than generous with his supplies, but there was very little left to share. He didn’t ask for more.
The downloaded schematics of the ship floated in his cockpit Tri-V. It was a Keesius-class, he’d learned; something vastly different from an Egleesius, even if the two did look similar from the outside. He’d found that, as long as you asked the right questions, the AI was quite generous. If you’d never done anything to tick it off. The problem was, the closer it got to its destination, the easier it was to tick off.
He’d sent his last bot to get some supplies from Walker four days ago, before they’d jumped into hyperspace. The bot had bumped into one of the maintenance robots—just bumped into it—and the Keesius’ robots had torn his bot apart. No doubt the hapless thing had been taken to the manufactory in the aft of the ship and parts of it were now trying to kill Walker or Earl’s people.
“That was a good bot,” Sato said. He’d designed it himself. He stopped what he was doing, his eyes going wide. Why hadn’t he thought of that before? It was risky, sure. If he fucked up, the ship would kill him. Despite the modified CASPer, he had none of the weapons or defenses the troopers carried. The bots would carve him up like a bento box and the metal parts would go into the manufactory. He took another swallow of water to keep from hurling.
Even with his plan, his resolve didn’t follow. Not immediately, anyway. He wasted another day planning what would take him, at most, two or three minutes to accomplish. Once again, the ship’s AI was cooperative. Why wouldn’t it be? It wasn’t like the Human in his powered suit had done more than explore and ask questions. He was confident his plan would work. The AI had exacted revenge on Sato’s robots, but not on him, although even a child would realize they were mere extensions of his will.
The clock in his mind from his pinplants was a constant reminder. Less than two days until they reached El Dorado. He’d always wanted to see the star. An unusual spectrum yellow giant that looked gold. No surprise when Humans first laid eyes on it they’d named it El Dorado. Humans loved symbolism. There were no planets around the star, just a scattering of asteroids. Unusual for a G spectral stellar mass. What was more important about El Dorado, though, was the system was the last destination before the ship’s target.
With carefully worded questions, Sato had received the information on how the ship would complete its mission. By the time it arrived at El Dorado, there would be enough antimatter to complete the mission. The ship would consume almost all its remaining fuel accelerating, then use the shunts one more time to jump to the Capital system. It would also then pull the same trick Pegasus could, arriving almost on top of Capital Planet, no more than a light minute away.
He estimated about six hours of fuel would available for acceleration to max speed. By the time the Keesius jumped into Capital, it would be going somewhere around 21 million meters per second, or about 10% of the speed of light. It would cross that light minute in six seconds, giving it just enough time to open its doors and fire its huge particle cannon. That shot would clear a lot of the atmosphere away. The antimatter would detonate against the planet’s surface. Added to the energy of an 80,000-ton ship traveling at 10% of C? He’d run that calculation several times. Capital would be obliterated. The Keesius was a very efficient terror weapon. For that matter, it was a very efficient weapon in its own right.
Arion would be right behind them when they entered the El Dorado system, maybe a couple minutes at most, but there would be almost no time to act, as the Keesius would begin accelerating almost immediately. He had to act now, before they arrived at El Dorado.
He awoke the day before they would arrive. He ate the last of his food, so he wouldn’t be doing what he was about to attempt on an empty stomach, and drank some water. Afterward, he wasn’t full, but he also didn’t have an empty stomach for the first time in days. He was out of time and out of excuses.
He disengaged from the Tri-V and floated aft, moving with gentle puffs of his maneuvering jets. It took a while to get all the way aft. The ship had started putting robots at each level, so it could monitor the direction of movement the mercs took. At each level, the bots observed Sato, but did nothing.
Eventually he got to the manufactory. He’d known where it was for some time. Two bots were always there, guarding it. However, the corridor leading to it wasn’t guarded. He floated next to the entrance in his suit and waited. Every 98 seconds. Right on cue, a brand new maintenance bot floated out.
Even though it was new, most of its parts weren’t. The bots had been salvaging their dead for quite some time. It was the advantage the ship had; it only needed to remanufacture the broken parts of the bots that had been destroyed. The “new” robot turned to head on its assigned task, and he acted.
Sato hit it with a carefully tuned radio beam of pure white noise. The robot veered off course, no longer under control, and hit the wall. Sato maneuvered forward and grabbed the robot with his suit’s arms, holding it in place. He only had a short time before a salvage team arrived with material to feed the manufactory, or one of the guards came around the corner to see what was wrong with this one, so he moved quickly.
His customized CASPer had a number of special modifications. One was an extra pair of arms mounted on the front of the cockpit. That pair was considerably more delicate in nature than the two huge arms on either side, and they were controlled by his pinplants. If he’d known how, Sato could have performed neural surgery with those arms. What he did know, however, was how to build robots from scratch. He’d built the two he’d come aboard with, and the ship’s bots were not very different from his own. It was a weakness he should have thought of weeks ago.
Using the manipulators, he cracked open the disabled bot and went for its programming boards. Sato chuckled as he took its brain apart—the fastening mounts were salvaged from one of Sato’s own bots. The operation went quickly because he knew how they were built—the Keesius had obliged when he’d asked for their schematics. In less than five seconds, he’d substituted a board of his own design, cobbled together from his water reclamation system. He wouldn’t need it in a few hours, one way or the other. He added a little something extra, then closed it back up.
Sato moved forward, away from the bot, as quickly as he dared, making sure to be well out of sight of the bot before he cut the jamming signal and brought it back to life. In another second, he was within view of one of the robots guarding the manufactory doorway. Here was the moment of truth. If the Keesius realized he’d been the one to temporarily disable the robot, he was fucked. The robot turned a laser toward him, and for a second he thought he was about to die. But nothing happened.
Sato jetted over to the hatch and used his CASPer’s heavy arms to open it; the maintenance bots observed him dispassionately as he went through, then one of them grabbed the door and pulled it closed. Safely on the other side, Sato activated the program he’d inserted into the control board.
Using his pinplants, he could see through the bot’s eyes. It was right where he’d left it in the passageway. He could see the Keesius’ AI was working to diagnose what was wrong.
Sato was a master programmer, but he knew he wasn’t nearly good enough to outfox an AI, as he knew how elegant their programming was. Sato had ignored the colonel’s orders once, years ago, and tried to hack his way into Ghost. The AI’s response had cost Sato the entire computer system that was attached to the interfaced gear—everything had been fried to the logic level. Sato had never learned how Ghost had managed it.
Ghost hadn’t even bothered re
porting Sato’s attempt. It was an act of contempt, because Sato had been so casually defeated. The doctor had learned one small thing in the disastrous attempt; don’t try to hack an AI. This time, he’d set up the best firewalls in the modified bot that he could. It was working, but he knew it wouldn’t hold for long. Sooner or later, the AI would turn its full attention to the problem, and then it would blow through the firewalls Sato had installed like a bulldozer through a sandcastle.
Sato triggered the programming he’d written, and the bot came back into the manufactory room, where another bot was just being finished. The bot continued to ignore orders from the ship, and Sato went back out through the hatch as the guard bots moved to intercept it. The guards were not quick enough, though, and his modified bot flew next to the manufactory, and the “little extra” Sato had installed—a bomb he had put together from various components in his CASPer—detonated. Sato leaned his suit around the corner of the door; the bomb had been more than enough to destroy the manufactory well past the point where the AI could repair it in the time remaining. It had also destroyed the two guard bots that had gone in to investigate the bot he had modified.
“Sato,” Walker asked. “Are you okay? We detected an explosion aft.”
“Yeah,” he said, feeling a little giddy. “That was me.”
“Are you all right? What happened?”
“The manufactory is offline. If you can tear through the remaining bots, there won’t be any more!”
“That’s great!” Walker said. “We were actually on our way to the manufactory, but I guess we don’t need to.”
“No, you do not,” Sato replied. “I am on my way forward to join you. There is nothing more I can do here. I would like very much to see the CIC when you get it open.”
Sato had just started forward when a section of bulkhead next to him suddenly glowed. He looked back toward the door into the manufactory; another robot was approaching from down the passage as it fired its lasers at him. “Chikushō!” he exclaimed as he turned and jetted off as fast as he could, maneuvering back and forth as the laser bolts went past him. He turned a corner and raced as fast as he could straightaway down the passage while he was out of sight, then turned another corner, trying to work his way back to the ramp.
He rounded another corner, only slowing down enough to make the turn, and slammed into a bot coming down the passageway toward him. He reflexively chopped down, and the metal hand of the main CASPer arm slammed down onto the bot, crushing the top portion of it. Smoke oozed from inside it as a laser bolt drilled into the bot’s back.
Sato looked up; two more bots were coming down the passageway toward him. He flipped his monitor back in the direction he’d come from. Two more were rounding the corner there. He was trapped!
Grabbing the destroyed bot, he picked it up like a shield and jetted full speed down the corridor toward the pair that had just shot at him. The bot shield was hit several more times as Sato hunkered down behind it. Almost on them, he slowed, letting go of the bot, and it shot forward at them like an unguided missile.
Both bots tried to maneuver, but it hit one of them, and then Sato’s CASPer slammed into the other. He grabbed it as they crashed into the wall at the end of the corridor and threw it at its partner, which had just disentangled itself from his robot missile. More bots seemed to be coming from all directions, and there was no escape.
Three feet away, he spied a door, and he pushed off the wall toward it. Several laser bolts drilled into the bulkhead where he’d just been as he reached the door. He hoped it was unlocked, or he was about to meet his ancestors.
Success! The door opened, and he darted inside just ahead of the laser storm that raged down the corridor behind him.
“Chikushō!” he exclaimed again, unintentionally doing it over the comm system.
“Sato?” Walker asked. “Are you okay?”
Sato closed the door and locked it quickly, knowing the bots could get through it in almost no time, then he began beating on it, hoping to warp it so it couldn’t be pulled open easily.
“I am okay for the moment,” Sato replied, “but I may have made the ship mad. Do you think you can kill those bots…quicker? I am trapped in a storage closet and need some help.”
* * *
Deck Twenty-Three, Keesius Cruiser, Hyperspace
“We’re close by,” Walker replied after Sato gave him his position, “and we’re on our way.”
“Colonel,” Sergeant Enkh said, looking over the ramp to where Deck Twenty-Four waited invitingly. The lights had been on for the last couple of decks, so she was able to see again without her external lighting. “There are about 20 bots down there. Is this guy worth it?”
“You know that bomber we were attached to when we flew here?”
“Yeah.”
“This guy designed it. Not as part of a group, but by himself. He’s that smart and valuable. He’s important to our chances to win this war.”
“I see.” Her tone was flat. “Well, it all makes sense now. It sucks, but at least it makes sense.”
“What?” Walker asked. “What do you mean?”
“When the rest of the Horde went off with the Hussars, I asked Colonel Enkh to take me with her. She looked me in the eyes and said, ‘No, it’s more important you go with Colonel Walker. I had a dream that it’s important to our chances to win this war.’ I didn’t see how staying behind would help win the war, but what you just said is pretty much word for word what she told me.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Walker replied.
“Yes, it does. This is what I’m here for.” She put her hand on the shoulder of Walker’s CASPer. “Just get him back safe. Okay, sir?”
“I intend to get him back safely,” Walker said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Sir, I’ve done a lot of stupid shit in my life. It’s good to know that something I’m doing isn’t stupid, for once.” She pushed off Walker’s shoulder, using it to pivot over the railing as she opened her jets to full. “Blue Skies!” she yelled.
Foregoing the normal jets used to move in a space environment, she toggled her jumpjets and roared toward the enemy. She dropped her rifle, and began arming and throwing the K-bombs attached to her suit as fast as she could.
“Wait,” Walker yelled, but he could see it was too late. “Cover her!” he ordered as he dove over the railing after her.
He couldn’t catch her—she never turned off her jumpjets—and she hit the massed group of robots at full throttle like a half-ton bowling ball, scattering them in all directions. Then the K-bombs went off, and the oversized grenades coated the passageway in flying shrapnel.
Sergeant Enkh’s suit crashed into the far bulkhead, and her jumpjets cut off, although the suit had enough momentum to rebound off the walls at the end of the hall like a giant pinball. Walker spared her suit a glance as he shot the bots that were still moving; her suit had at least four holes through the front, any one of which would likely have been fatal. While her life signs were low, though, she was still alive.
“Tell…Sansar…I made a difference,” Enkh said, then her life signs went to zero.
“Come on,” Walker said as the other members of the squad landed nearby. His voice cracked, and he paused to regain control of it. “We need to get to Sato and make her sacrifice meaningful.”
He led them back to the ramp down to Deck Twenty-Five, which was free of bots. Not so the second passageway in, as Walker could see several flashes his suit identified as laser bolts. Private Enkh, who was on point, eased a camera around the intervening corner.
“Not too bad, sir,” he commed. “There are only four in the corridor.”
“It only takes one,” Walker replied.
“I’ve done this in the simulator,” the private said. “I can do it.”
Walker realized the assault was somewhat like one of his initial qualification simulators, where robots took over the Pegasus. He hadn’t had time to think about it, but that explained the flas
hes of déjà vu he’d been having ever since they’d come onboard.
“If you can do it,” Walker replied. “Take them.”
The private’s laser reflector popped out on his left arm, and he gently boosted into the corridor. In quick succession, the trooper’s MAC fired four times, then a fifth as a laser glanced off his shield. “Just like the simulator,” he said. “Well, except for the one that came around the corner after I killed the first four,” he added.
“Well done,” Walker replied. He went past the private, making sure none of the robots were moving. All had a MAC round-sized hole in their control sections. “Nice shooting,” Walker said.
“I’ve been playing with the code,” the private said, “and I added a piece of software that helps target multiple enemies.”
“It seems to be working,” Walker replied. “Send it to me when we get back; I’d like to take a look.”
It was obvious which door the scientist was behind, not only from the placement of the robots, but also from the laser marks on the door where the bots had been cutting their way in. “Sato, you can come out of the closet,” Walker commed. “It’s over.”
The door slid open an inch before it jammed, and a camera lens peeked out. After a couple of moments, two metallic hands appeared, the door was yanked open, and Sato came out. Walker had never seen his suit before and was amazed at all the modifications it had—including two manipulators in the front—as well as the laser burns on it; there were at least two that had almost penetrated the suit. From their placement, they would probably have been fatal if they had. In addition to being brilliant, Dr. Sato, it seemed, was also a very lucky man.
“Thank you,” Dr. Sato said. “I don’t think I would have lasted much longer.”
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