They all turned south to see. A dozen incoming missiles were visible streaks in the sky. Counter-missiles rose from Omaha Dome. Then more descended from above as orbiting destroyers added their fire support.
When the pretty flashes faded they went back to their sandwiches.
“I hope none of those come our way,” said Wang.
“Don’t worry,” answered Guo. “We’re not a threat to them. They’re going to ignore us until the fight with Pete is over.”
He tossed a piece of crust onto the grass. One crow out of the gathering flock was brave enough to come snatch it.
SIS Vegetius, Low Earth Orbit, acceleration 3 m/s2
“All targets destroyed,” reported Tactical, unaware of the entertainment they’d given Mitchie and her crew.
“Good,” replied Captain Fincke. “Cut thrust, let her cool off.”
The air on the bridge was warm, partly from the torch’s waste heat, more from the friction as the warship pushed through the stratosphere at orbital speed. Fincke was certain the engineering spaces must be tropical but he hadn’t received any complaints.
The ship coasted out of the atmosphere, rising higher as she curved around the world.
Sparks held her earpiece tight. “Sector Control reports an attack on FNS Stewart. Three ships popped out of the Atlantic and salvoed missiles.”
That was the destroyer just ahead of them in the circle of ships providing fire support to Omaha.
“Can we intercept any of them?” demanded Fincke.
Tactical looked at his display. “Sorry, sir. Our countermissiles would never get there in time.”
The sensor rating put Stewart’s situation on the main screen. The bridge crew watched her die. The Betrayer ships splashed back into the Atlantic and vanished from their sensors.
Fincke pounded the arm of his chair. “God damn it. Do we have any nukes left?”
“Two,” answered Tactical.
“Put them into the water where those ships are hiding. Let’s see if we can make them be more cautious.”
The hundred kiloton warheads made impressive splashes as they detonated.
They couldn’t tell if they’d had an effect, but nothing bothered Vegetius as she rose toward apogee over the Indian Ocean.
Captain Fincke let a few of the crew rotate out for piss breaks and snacks. He drank strapped to his command chair. He didn’t need to piss, which meant he’d let himself become dehydrated again.
He looked at the ship’s crest on the fore bulkhead. A silver gladius stood in front of an open book. The motto “SI VIS PACEM PARA BELLUM” had been painted over with “TRANSFUGA EX LEGE MEDIA.” He’d never asked who’d done it. It fit too well.
“Warning from Control,” said Sparks. “Six Betrayer ships just launched from the ring to meet us at apogee. They’re diverting two heavy cruisers to give us long range support fire.”
“Right. One minute warning, then we go to twenty gravs to blast through them.”
The crew readied for the fight without orders. They were all veterans, they knew what to do.
Fugitives from the law of averages indeed, thought Fincke.
Omaha Dome, Earth, gravity 9.8 m/s2
The Petes established footholds on every continent. Hijacking nodes gave access to their former owners’ penetration tricks. Earth’s AIs kept their war of all-against-all restrained. The more powerful weapons were held back for fear of inciting coalitions among the bystanders.
The human emulation had no motive for restraint. The few AIs not already in the war were joining in as the Petes expanded. It was obvious now that the humans were supporting whatever the new entity was, so all AIs had reason to oppose it. Even the AIs in the orbital ring were in the fight, though they were busy fighting the Combined Fleet directly.
The downside of unrestrained war was total annihilation when losing. That was the current trend of the war. Too many surviving AIs were immune to the hijack code. Either their legacy code was so corrupted the kill switch command wouldn’t execute or they’d applied the Miami patch to break it.
The patch would let humans shut down AIs with a veto command. But once the first veto was issued the remaining renegade AIs would take measures to prevent vetoes from ever being issued. The humans needed to hold off as long as possible then order vetoes everywhere at once.
Without their ability to take over enemy nodes the Petes were inferior at cybernetic warfare. Nodes were lost, code was scrambled, and enemy robots advanced over the shattered remains of Pete’s bots.
They were dependent on the fleet to protect themselves from long-range missile attacks. The short-range ones would get through, their flight time too short for orbiting warships to intercept them.
Pete-9 ran simulations on the world map. The North American nodes were a solid mass. They’d hold up longest. Elsewhere the Petes were scattered, outposts marking where AIs had fallen to hijack code spread over the global network. Those were shrinking. He estimated that in six hours all the Pete nodes outside North America would be lost.
It could be twelve hours if some of their effort was shifted to defense. But Pete-9 insisted on continuing subversion attempts against every AI not proven to be immune. The goal was to force as many enemies as possible to implement the Miami patch.
The fleet had already been put on notice to exploit that once the tipping point was reached.
A substantial fraction of the Petes were feeling fear. Or at least as close an approximation as the emulation code could support. The tipping point would mean rapid loss of nodes. If the fleet didn’t come through in time—or if it failed—all the nodes could be overwritten by Earth AIs.
Worse than that, the digitization of Pete’s body could be destroyed in the fighting or discarded by the winners. That would change his death from a tenuous theologically fraught possibility to absolute and fixed.
The Petes in Europe went silent. At the same time a dozen East Coast nodes were smashed by missiles launched from under the Atlantic.
Pete-9 sent a signal directly to the fleet.
FNS John W. Heard, Earth Orbit, acceleration 0 m/s2
Color Corporal Abdul Torkan felt his career was slowing down. He’d performed decently, but the promotions came quickly because every new officer and senior non-com rotating into the company wanted to hear the story of how Abdul almost went to Earth with the infamous Michigan Long. Sometimes they’d take him up to Battalion headquarters as a show-and-tell exhibit.
It embarrassed the hell out of him. He’d been forced to study up on Earth’s history to handle the questions they’d throw at him. But when the powers that be know your name promotions come faster. He’d also wrangled a transfer into the elite Assault Infantry. He led a team of Marines of his own. It was a role he loved.
Which was good, because with two regiments of Fusion Marines being dropped on Earth, nobody would want to hear about his trip back when he was a teenager. Goodbye, rapid promotion. Hello, a decade of time in grade.
It wouldn’t help that this operation was dispersing Marines individually. How the hell was he supposed to display leadership if they took his fire team away? Not to mention his worries about what some of those privates would get up to without supervision.
Really, he expected to find all four of them had gotten killed, maimed, or caused unacceptable levels of collateral damage when they regrouped. And who was going to get the flack for that? The idiot who designed this operation? No. Color Corporal Torkan, that’s who. For ‘insufficient training’ or ‘inadequate guidance’ or ‘failure to set a personal example.’ Whichever was in fashion at Headquarters.
Hello, forty-year retirement as a color corporal.
Which maybe shouldn’t be his top worry. But when strapped into an orbital drop capsule bumping along the launch chute Abdul found it easier to focus on Marine office politics than being dropped alone onto non-human territory.
A BANG marked the launch of the capsule ahead of him. In a practice drop, or a normal assault from orbit,
Abdul would be fired out as quickly as the machinery could handle it. Not this time.
His capsule clacked into the breech and sat there for seconds. Many seconds. More than ten seconds. The last Marine was over a hundred klicks behind now.
Then BLAM he was in space.
The first part was just floating in the dark, listening to Sergeant Major’s music choices. Which weren’t bad, just more traditional than Abdul would pick himself.
Once his capsule hit the atmosphere it was too loud for music. He just laid there and hoped there were enough decoys out there to keep the Betrayers from taking an interest in him.
A couple of klicks up his capsule popped open. Free at last!
He spotted the Ganges River below him through the wild jungle. His suit matched the map display to it. He was on target for Varanasi Dome.
The Dome showed some smoke plumes where the Fleet had struck its defenses. That would make it easier to find on the ground.
Deploying his parachute hurt, as usual. Abdul steered for a clearing. He landed well, rolling more gracefully than he had in any practice drop. Figures I’d do best with no one watching.
Abdul popped to his feet and trotted toward the dome two klicks away. His suit’s fans whined with the effort to fend off the heat.
Robots were already rolling toward him. Orders were not to fire unless fired upon. Intelligence said the Betrayers preferred to go hand to actuator if they could. Abdul thought none of the Intel weenies had been to Earth themselves to check that. He held his rifle at the ready. If any bot pointed something at him he was going to fire first.
When the bots reached a hundred meters from him Abdul maxed the volume on his suit speakers and checked the wording of the statement they gave him.
“I veto all artificial intelligence activity in my personal area!”
The robots froze. A flying bot two hundred meters behind them dropped straight down, hanging up in a tree.
That was easy.
He kept heading to the dome at the quickstep. He had more shouting to do, until he was sure the Betrayer was shut down.
Omaha Dome, Earth, gravity 9.8 m/s2
By default Mitchie became commander of the fleet base sprouting up next to the dome. That gave her the responsibilities of the mayor of a small town, all of which she ruthlessly dumped on Setta so she could focus on her other role as Speaker-to-Pete.
“All the hardware of the vetoed AIs is now running under my control,” said the spokes-bot. “That’s let me take a complete inventory of the planet’s assets. The off-planet AI nodes which surrendered are sending me inventories but they’re being late and incomplete.”
“Any people?” asked Mitchie.
“No organic survivors, unless they’re in the unconnected regions. There’s over two billion archived people. I’ve started creating emulations to find those with pilot skills.”
She contemplated the number. It was more ‘survivors’ than they’d dreamed of finding. On the other hand, four times that many people had been left behind when humanity fled the Betrayal.
Pete continued, “There are fourteen hundred ships capable of interplanetary flight, allowing a month for repairs and upgrades.”
Mitchie grinned. That was going to be huge boost to the fleet. “How many of them can hold human crews?”
Admiral Galen had a list of questions for Pete, with that one near the top. Direct conversations between the fleet commander and the cybernetic scientist had degenerated into arguments, hence Mitchie’s new title.
“None. They’re all AI ships. The best you could do is salvage some of the parts to help build new human-crewed ships. They can be flown by emulations as is.”
“Can you build new human-capable warships?”
“We could do that, but emulation-controlled ships can be built in a half or third of the time.”
“Of course.” Mitchie dithered over whether to push more. The fleet, especially the Fusion members, wasn’t happy at the thought of going into battle with computer controlled ships at their side. But after the losses in capturing Earth the thought of attacking the remaining Betrayer systems without reinforcements was daunting.
“We’re working out options for producing more ships balanced against other needs. We need to select pilots before committing to a ship design. They should have the final say in what they’re flying. I’m going through the archived people steadily. Should be done with them in a few days. Then we’ll be able to choose who goes off to war and who stays.”
“Good, I’ll look forward to hearing from you then.”
“Until then.” The robot shut down.
Then Mitchie realized what had been bothering her. Pete was saying ‘we.’ But earlier he’d said ‘I’ even when speaking for the collection of thousands of copies of himself. So who was the ‘we’?
The robot lifted its head again. “Miss Long?”
That wasn’t Pete’s voice.
“Yes?”
“This is Rabbi Orbakh. Can you talk for a few minutes? I don’t have much time.”
“Rabbi? You made it! Yes, of course we can talk.” She recognized the name as one of the Pilgrims she’d delivered to Earth three years ago. “I’m glad you survived your arrival.”
“Not all of my companions are glad we did. I’d like to ask a favor. Could you take me back home?”
“Why? And how?”
“The people of Earth have been discussing how to organize things. Pilgrims are a small minority, a few thousand. There’s suggestions that we would be non-citizens or have some sort of second-class citizenship. I’d rather go back to Sukhoi and rejoin my family, even in a virtual sense.”
“Virtual people aren’t popular in the Fusion right now,” said Mitchie. “Are you aware of the fake people the Ministry of Social Control created to be losers?”
“As a cleric I had to work with Social Control, so I was briefed on some of their secrets, yes.”
Mitchie summarized the revolt and civil war in the Fusion for him.
“But—I’m not fictional. I’m just digitized. That’s different.”
“I don’t know if your ordinary stipend kid would appreciate the distinction.”
“Could I go to the Disconnected Worlds?” asked Orbakh in a worried tone.
“There’s no rule against it, so yes. But you’d have to earn money for your electricity and such. If you have one of those robots as your body I can get you a job as a ranch hand at my cousin’s place.”
“I don’t know if they’d give me one. The only personal property we have is our original digitization, the current state of our emulation, and enough storage to hold it when we’re swapped out. Everything else is held in common for now, they’re arguing over how to allocate it.”
“Swapped out?”
“We’re time-sharing the nodes. There’s not enough to run everyone at once, especially with Dr. Smith using so much processing.”
“I hadn’t realized people were still awake after Pete checked their skills.” There seemed to be a lot going on that Pete hadn’t mentioned.
“Oh, yes. We’re all taking turns and participating in the discussions while awake.”
“He’s including everyone?”
“All of us who’ve been emulated so far. There’s an incredible amount of processing needed to create the emulations. But he intends to include us all. Except the children, of course.”
“I understand.” Though visualizing a child being ‘digitized’ made her shudder.
“Where to draw the line on age is one of the active discussions. Some adult emulations can’t function and have to be archived. So, would you be able to transport me back?”
“We’d probably be able to find a way. But it depends on where you’re going and how much gear you have. I’d need permission from the fleet. I’m not a civilian, I’m an officer now.”
“Of course. Can I contact you in two days?”
“Yes.”
“Then I must go. I’m borrowing this time from others.”
The robot drooped as it shut down again.
Mitchie took a deep breath. I need to talk to Admiral Galen. These people are completely out of control. Crap. I’m thinking of them as people. Will Galen?
***
The formal meeting was held in a tent, one wall rolled up to let Pete’s representative robot enter. The humans sat along one side of the table facing the opening. The intent was to give Pete the feel of a court or hearing, placing the human leadership in a position of psychological dominance.
It didn’t work. Three robots rolled in, spacing themselves evenly along the empty side of the table.
Pete’s voice came from the center one. “Thank you for meeting with us. I’m Peter Smith, and this is Major Belenko,” left, “and Air Marshal Havis, the elected representatives.”
Admiral Galen handled introducing the live humans to the new digital ones. “Good afternoon. I’m Joyso Galen, commanding the Combined Fleet. This is Captain Michigan Long, our Research Liaison.” He went on to name the civilian envoys of the Fusion, Harmony, and Disconnected Worlds. Mitchie let the names fall through her. They were all just suits to her.
Introductions done, Galen asked, “Air Marshal Havis. Were you the head of the Royal Air Force at the time of the Betrayal?”
The right-hand robot shuffled a little. “Yes, but not the one you’re thinking of. I was an organizer of a World War Two reenactment group. We refought the Battle of Britain in replica airplanes. If you want someone in a national military, Major Belenko was a pilot in Pan-Russian Frontal Aviation.”
“The reenactors and wargamers have done better in simulations than most of the military personnel,” said Pete.
Belenko rasped, “No paperwork, no politics, just fighting.”
“So which of you will provide the pilot programs for the warships?” asked Galen.
Belenko and Havis said, “We will each pilot a ship,” in unison.
“I thought the simulations were picking the best pilot, and he would be copied to every ship,” said the admiral.
Havis answered, “We’ve all signed a pact agreeing that no emulation will be duplicated for functional roles. There’s just too many of us and not enough processing power.”
Torchship Captain Page 36
