As Zander moves through the Hosts to deliver the message of war, Quinn watches Tobias at the helm. He studies him. He wishes himself stronger so to pull the wings and arms and legs from Tobias’ torso. The time is near, he tells himself. It will be a good death.
______________________________________________________________________
The Commander was right to call Fran on the fact that she has something more up her sleeve. Corvettes were not the only ships planned to be built. Three more versions of the warships were also imagined. A destroyer class, carrier class and goliath class. Each designed to ready humanity for a new chapter, pushing beyond our solar system and conquering the now countless earth-like exo-planets descovered light years away. Each destroyer and goliath class is equipped with the new gravitational systems suitable for comfortable and lengthy journeys, as well as the ParaCom communications systems, all imagined at the same time as the corvettes. Heavily armoured to endure long-term space travel, one-thousand metres long but narrow, at only one-hundred metres wide. Admitedly, they were bulky, and unattractive, antenae and bulk heads protruding from the plated metal casings, identifying alpha-numeric characters following the path of the ship’s rigid spine and belly. The carrier class were uglier still, built mainly to transport potential colonists, but also fitted with substantial defensive and offensive systems, these ships were as long as the destroyers but twice as wide, with additional facilities for animal and plant cargo. All three classes of interstellar vessels were designed to house a command module at the nose, and a secondary bridge mid-ship, should the forward section take damage and safety proceedures are forced to shut down whole sections and floors in order to retain functionality.
None of these vessels could be built in earth’s gravity. This was realized early on. The massive structures could never build enough momentum to break the atmosphere without flying apart. They could only be manufactured off-world. The Moon was the general’s planned location at one sixth the gravity of Earth, but Mars was even more secretive, with only a handful of humans making the journey to retrieve the raw materials being mined there the past seven years – and those humans answered only to her. Fran’s military has used the Mars mining operations as a cover and raw material supplier for the military shipyards building the goliaths in orbit. The corvettes were small and effective, this is clear from the footage Fran has viewed of the moon offensive. They have operated exactly as the computer simulations had promised months before. They are also heavily armoured and reasonably armed. The energy lances are tight beams which can only hold a charge for about three seconds and incinerate a narrow three metres’ diameter of any given target at a time. Adequate to destroy a shipyard with ten ships cutting their beams along the vertical plain. They are considered long-range attack vessels with a top firing distance of one-thousand kilometres before the concentrated energy produced from the lance fizzles out. So, the general waits for them to come to her.
The destroyers are ten times larger but weeks behind the completion of the corvettes, and mars is a full three day’s travel with current propulsion technology. It’s been eating at the general that she’s so close to deploying three warships, each one vastly more powerful than the corvette, and ending this open war with the Shadow Bokers. Clearly, they are much more organized than she’d given them credit for. As long as they do not set a course for Mars, she could wait them out. Her planetary defense satillites will pick away at them as they attempt an attack on Earth. She has security codes updating every thirty seconds to prevent any attempt to hack her Defsat systems. That they’d managed to hack their way through the Off-World Stations and then launch the shuttles was an impressive feat, and one she would not see repeated.
“What’s happening up there, Raymond?” She wonders aloud, starring up at the Moon holo and the ten corvettes orbiting ominously.
Her attention returns to her campaign against the Hosts here on earth and she calls up her embedded com. “Meiser, is there anything more you can offer on the code? How to reverse it?”
“That would be ideal,” he remarks, an edge to his voice.
“I need to get this fight behind us and focus on the new threat from above.”
“That we’ve concluded this code originated from beyond human and Host habitation, General, I am essentially dealing with a technology much different from our own and unquestionably more advanced. That we’ve discovered this is an important part of the puzzle. To learn more, we simply need more time. Each of my people are learning the code from the bottom up. I’ve employed unaffected Hosts as well for their computing speeds. We’re training oursleves on the code’s basics to understand how to alter it. The next wall will be how to distribute it.”
“I’m seriously considering a world-wide EMP blast here, Lieutenant.”
“That will not stop those Hosts who are currently at our necks, you know that. These beads which were introduced into their neural-pathways and power systems are very effective in blocking the pulse. All you’ll do is knock out the AI that are still functioning, and then you can imagine the chaos. Be patient with us.”
General August swipes left and the Lieutenant’s image disappears from her forearm. She moves to a console and addresses her generals in every Country State.
“This is United Earth General, August. The fight on the ground is moving too slowly with the news that our corvettes are now in the hands of the Shadow Brokers. A war on two fronts was not what we’d imagined. We have been too timid with the Hosts. The time has come to detonate the Cells we have confirmed.”
“General, those Cells are in every major city. We’ll be devestating our own cities,” General Toa reminds her.
“How should we alert the public to evacuate?” Asks General Petrie.
“If we alert the public, we lose the element of surprise against the Hosts,” Fran states.
“Are you suggesting we send missiles into the heart of every major city on earth filled with it’s citizens?”
“A decisive strike, yes.”
“General, August, I’m not comfortable with that order.” Another General explains.
“Your comfort level is not my concern, General,” she makes her position clear. “Hosts will not expect us to make this move. The resulting fallout from citizen outrage can be managed with the media. A Host trick,” she turns and nods to her Media advisor and he quickly calls a meeting to work out the details with his staff.
“This sounds like a desperate act, General. We have the Hosts pinned down in most Country States save the north where they seem to be gravitating toward the coastline.”
“The coastline? Why would they -” General August stops mid-sentence. She pulls up the northern Country States currently occupied by Hosts and pulls up industry details. “There is nothing for them along the coast. The arctic sea is hardly developed.”
“Yes, but they are giving us a helluva fight up there, Ma’am.”
“Why? Unless -” Fran reads the heavy-industry factory read out on her screen and nearly chokes on her tongue. “Is there any word from the factories in those City States?”
“The Hosts have only now surfaced in those states, General, and they came out fighting along the coast, taking shipping docks and warehouses out.”
“Send a compliment of fighter jets to the factories. If you cannot speak to the proper authority there or make contact with those factories, wipe them off the face of the earth, do you understand me?”
“General.” He disappears and the other generals sign off well. The city strikes could wait. Everything about a Host coastal attack in a northern Country State feels wrong to Fran.
“They’re using the factories,” she tells herself. They have the ship plans.
FIGHT
As Tobias plans out the attack with the group of Chimera and Host in the great room, surrounded by the upper catwalk and control module, he keeps the chancellor subdued in a seat, pushing down on his shoulders. His uncle is visibly uncomfortable, and this makesTobias smile.
/> Ginny moves the digital pieces on the table map to simulate what each ship will do. Each captain of each corvette is represented as a holo in the great room while watching their own table map bend to Ginny’s will.
“Each corvette will be programmed to act out their part in this simulation when the time comes. There will be no need for Chimera or Host to pilot the ships,” Ginny explains after revealing Tobias’ plan.
A rousing roar of agreement can be heard from all captain’s as their holo’s flicker and disappear. Tobias pushes off of the chancellor and watches as his shoulders slowly rise and he arches his back in pain. A message vibrates on Tobias’ EC.
::Move on Earth.::
Adrenaline rushes through Tobias’ body. He feels suddenly manic and replys. ::Who are you, Allfather?::
Allfather replies a moment later. ::The reckoning.::
He smiles at this, but isn’t satisfied with the answer. ::Yes, I believe that, Allfather, but who are you? Why do you want this?::
Another long moment passes. Tobias is feeling suddenly belligerent and adds another question mark.
::We seek what you seek. To realize the end of one ruling party and the rise of another.::
Not a bad answer, Tobias muses, but still vague. ::And what am I promised under this new rule?::
This time the answer is immediate. ::This is for you, Tobias. You will rule over your solar system.::
He considers another question. ::Why do this for me?::
A holo errupts from Tobias’ EC and he steps back from his own forearm. What he sees is code. Endless ribbons of code. Even with his internal reader, the script moves too quickly to comprehend. This gives him pause.
::You were chosen for this task. You alone. Make Allfather proud.::
More and more code fire through his reader. He blacks out, yet before he falls he catches himself, throwing a foot forward. No one’s noticed, he deduces. What the hell just happened? His com has gone blank. He moves up the stairs to join Ginny at the controls.
“We need to move on Earth now,” he tells her, and she begins relaying the instructions to all ships. The ship’s systems take over. They are not fitted with AI. Not a surprise as Tobias knows the general wouldn’t want artificial intelligence present on her military vessels. It is fitted with a level of intelligence though, which poses no threat to acting on its own.
The ships move out of the Moon’s orbit and arrange themselves in the formation simulated on the table maps.
______________________________________________________________________
Straightening his shoulders after his nephew had applied his full weight upon them, the chancellor turns and watches Tobias typing at his embedded com.
Who is he communicating with, he wonders? Could it be the creator of the code he’s used to alter and enlighten the Hosts? Is that who, as Fran had mentioned, was plotting the whole Host uprising and Shadow Broker – Chimera – insurgence? He imagines himself jumping out of the chair and reading the thread, but realizes he is in no position to get into a physical altercation with Tobias.
The man who is his nephew seems so guarded. His body, so altered. He is not the boy Raymond once knew. His regret over abandoning Sean and his family lodge a lump in his throat. Imagine; he could have stopped this before it had begun, but war would have come to them either way, he speculates. These warships weren’t built for nothing. Fran has conspired behind the govenerment’s back for years to manufacture ships like these. That she had planned a war with the Hosts and an end to AI, as SENTA - or Sam - had mentioned, also gave credence to the idea war was coming. Now it has all backfired on her, and on the innocents who suffer below. And now a new threat in these Chimera, and who knows what else at the heart of that code.
He wonders why she didn’t build more ships. Why she hasn’t sent missiles to take these ten down. Why she was so prepared for her own war and not for the prospect of another. Regardless, war was upon them all. A three-headed snake.
A flash of green light bursts from Tobias’ com and Raymond blinks to see what it is. A holo of random numbers. But just as quicklly as it appears, it is gone. Tobias stumbles a little and regains his composure. He looks to his right and Raymond looks down before he notices he’s seen the holo.
Is Tobias being manuipulated by this outside enemy?
SENTA comes to Raymond’s side. “Are you alright?”
“Oh, yes, helluva grip he’s got,” the chancellor rubs at his neck.
“I feel as though I should do something to stop this attack,” SENTA admits.
“Don’t put yourself at risk, Sam. What about the other Hosts? Do they not want to stop the Chimera from targeting Earth while their Cells fight?”
“Quinn told me he will not interfere until it serves him and the other enlightened Hosts.”
“How could it serve any of us to watch the factories of earth fall to this group? We need to unite against our common foe.”
“Though Quinn does not believe Tobias’ story; that we have been decieved with false memories, he respects that the Chimera have distanced themselves from the humans as the rebel Hosts have.”
“He has chosen a side, then.” Raymond feels sick.
“He has not. He would fight both Chimera and human, but only after you fight eachother, weakening one another’s nunmbers.”
“How can Quinn – what aren’t you telling me, Sam?”
“They are building ships like this one; corvettes, on Earth. They have taken several factories and they have the plans, and are building the ships.”
“They’ll never break the atmosphere, Sam. They’re too heavy.”
“Remember that Hosts are intelligent, Raymond, and driven. They will develop a way to put them in orbit, and once the earth defence satellites are all gone, they will have no one standing in their way.”
“Would they take the ships and leave?” He asks, hopeful of Sam’s answer.
“They intend to free all AI Hosts, whether enlightened or not.”
“And I can’t get a message out.” He slaps his useless EC.
“I can still access the Shadow net. I could get a message to someone,” SENTA reveals.
Raymond’s ears perk up at this. “That would be helpful,” he tells her. “But who could we contact that would carry a message on to the general?”
“There are those who would do it, if it meant saving the human race.”
Behind SENTA, Zander appears and lays a thick, heavy hand on her shoulder.
______________________________________________________________________
Fran watches live feeds of the air strikes against the coastal aggressors and then watches as they veer away from their former targets, and rush towards the factories on her orders.
“Factory Beta-Niner-Six-Tango, please respond.” She listens as the lead pilot radios the first of the three targeted facilities. “We have authorization to level your complex without proper security clearance. Is everything alright down there?” Silence on the other end, just as the general had suspected.
“Factory Beta-Niner-Six-Tango, please respond,” the pilot relays again. “Closing on target. Twelve klicks out. Weapons lock in two minutes. No response from factory target.”
Fran lifts her fingers to her mouth and, for the first time in thirty years, bites the end of a nail off. The satisfying snap between her teeth signals her apprehension. Tension fills the air around her, and her aids in the war room, as they hang on the pilot’s words.
“One minute to weapons lock.”
Time slows down for Fran as she moves on to the next finger. Wiping out her own factories is a loss, but if Hosts are in there building corvettes, the loss will be felt much more on their end. How they planned to move the heavy ships into orbit was a head-scratcher, but she knows how intelligent they are. She knows they could have developed a way.
“Thirty-seconds.” Still nothing from the factory. An orbiting satellite closes in on the factory with a visual that stuns the general and her aids.
“What the -” the lead pilot is heard to say as he pulls up to miss the massive ship now ariborn. “Anyone want to tell me what the hell that is?”
“That is your enemy, Captain. Take them down!” Fran leans in to her mouthpeice to deliver the message.
“Wingmen, circle round the ship and take out its propulsion engines.” The Captain orders.
A burst of energy pulsing from the corvette’s nose vaporizes one of the wingmen before they can enact their orders, while the starship continues a slow climb. The weapon is impressive; a concentrated band of white-hot energy. Fran smiles dispite herself.
The other wingman releases two missiles into the corvette’s exposed belly as it steers its nose skyward, destroying several of the ship’s lift thrusters, causing the right side of the vessel to drop suddenly. The Captain then targets the others and as he rounds the back of the corvette, the starship fires its main engines and the captian is consumed in a blaze of fire. The remaining wingman pounds the hood of the corvette on another pass with armour-piercing rounds, getting nowhere. The propulsion engines seem to be failing as the corvette’s main engines now bear the full burden of driving it upward.
A.I. Insurrection_The General's War Page 14
