Darklight Pirates

by Robert E. Vardeman

  "I do not know the word."

  He explained the creature found on Burran and how it faded into its background. She nodded as she compared the description to the function of the exoskeleton.

  "Ah, yes, that is what the exo will do."

  "How many exos can you crate up as farm implements?"

  "To fool your captain?" Leanne laughed. The musical sound made Cletus catch his breath. She was small and perfect. Her eyes danced with amusement. Every move she made was precise, wasting no energy, yet hinting at strength far in excess of what her tiny body ought to contain. It startled him when she pulled closer and gave him a light kiss on the cheek. This was completely at odds with all he had seen and heard about interpersonal interactions on Far Kingdom. "You do not think he will check the contents?"

  "He considers our mission a waste of time. Farm equipment is beneath his contempt, especially if a few sacks of seeds are added."

  "Four suits have been outfitted and meet our standards," Leanne said. "This purchase will be authorized by your father? The suits are not inexpensive. On your world, the four could hold off a regiment of conventionally armored Low Guards."

  "I have the authority," he said. He wanted to explain his importance. She made him feel as if he were a child again, begging permission to buy candy. Sneaking behind Captain Sorrel's back added to it. As long as the officer held the Programmer General's ear, Cletus lacked full authority in any matter, even those of a military nature. He snuffed out the anger that sparked because he was the Commander in Chief Armed Forces, not some minor functionary.

  He paused, wondering for the first time at Sorrel's insistence that no weapons be purchased. Cletus had thought it was a practical matter until Sorrel had posted guards in the cargo bay. The orders had been specific as to allowing weapons systems into his ship.

  His ship. Cletus bristled at that. The Shillelagh was the Programmer General's vessel of state. That this was the first time in a decade he had chosen to even leave Burran did not matter. Sorrel should have been nothing more than chauffeur and not putting on airs as if he were the one in command. Cletus saw the Lift to Far Kingdom as giving him reason to better define his standing as Commander in Chief Armed Forces. He was in ultimate charge, not under the orders of a mere ship's commander, even if that ship was a dreadnought charged with transporting the Programmer General.

  "Then you must see the real product of this factory."

  "The real product?" Cletus looked at the assembly line again, with thousands of manufacturing robots diligently assembling the exterior of each exoskeleton. From here, nano assemblers installed the complex circuitry and finally strung the single spider-steel crystal strands used as tendons to connect limb with activator motor. The final assembly was done in special areas marked OFF LIMITS where weapons were integrated into the suit.

  "There is more to the factory than you can see from here. I would show you something of even more interest."

  He realized Leanne stepped over the bounds if she intended to show him anything Supreme Leader considered top secret. He held his tongue, though, since his curiosity got the better of him. To protest would ruin the bond he felt between them.

  "This way." Leanne stopped in front of a heavily armored door and allowed a full body scan that matched every nerve and blood vessel in her body against the patterns hidden away in the depths of a security computer. Not even a clone could match her circulatory system print.

  "Impressive security." Cletus saw a half dozen sensors in the long, featureless white corridor and knew he missed that many more.

  "As with all facilities, it is impossible to keep a determined force out. The safeguards in place will slow any entry until sufficient force can be summoned."

  Cletus saw small jets designed to spew quick-dry plastics. Anyone caught in it would be immobilized until the proper chemicals dissolved the plastic. At the far end, circling the only portal out of the corridor, a sonic weapon presented an impassable obstacle. He pointed that out.

  "A shockwave travels the length of this corridor which acts as a waveguide, killing anything living within. It is crude but effective, even against robots."

  Again she presented herself for the total body scan necessary to open another ponderous door. He stepped through quickly and almost tumbled over a low railing.

  "Be careful, Cletus." Again, she touched him, this time with a grip strong enough to pull him back.

  He looked over the railing more than fifty meters to the floor of an immense assembly area. He edged forward and rested his hand on the rail. It took him a few seconds to understand why the rail was so low. On Far Kingdom he was a giant. Supreme Leader was tall, and he stood a good twenty centimeters shorter. Leanne pressed forward and the rail touched her waist. She was hardly one hundred fifty centimeters tall.

  "Thanks. I got excited," he said, trying to cover his clumsiness. She moved with such precision that he felt as if he stumbled about with his big toes tied together. Still, he wasn't entirely lying.

  The assembly for the exos had been impressive. Here towering robots were being put together by hundreds more assemblers.

  "They are not autonomous robots," she said, addressing what she knew would be a stumbling block for his father. No AI. Anywhere.

  He rubbed the side of his head to ease the sudden onset of a headache. It faded as his excitement grew. He listened intently to all she had to say. Such war machines could guarantee Burran autonomy for the foreseeable future.

  "Each is piloted by a human inside. The exoskeletons have their purposes. Close quarters battle, house to house fighting, urban warfare if you do not want to raze the entire city."

  "But these can destroy a city."

  "If the exo is a needle laden with a drop of poison, the warbot is a sledgehammer. There can be no finesse when it is sent into the field."

  "Warbot?"

  "Warriorobot." Leanne looked sheepish. "Our scientists and engineers often lack a sense of showmanship with their nicknames."

  "Warbot." Cletus smiled. "I like that. Do you have rabbits on this world?" He knew that they did. There was little in the Burran knowledge base he did not know of this world. The tiny brain-embedded knowledge chip carrying what the information would fade in a few weeks, but for the moment the implant gave him an advantage equal to his father, who had programmed the k-chip.

  "We do. They are considered lucky animals brought from Earth almost five hundred years ago. Why do you ask?"

  It was his turn to look sheepish.

  "Children's entertainment programs," he explained, "have a popular character who calls himself a 'wabbit'. Wabbit—warbot." Cletus realized how lame this sounded. He bit his tongue and vowed to keep from sounding so foolish. "Such animals are a recent introduction to your ecosystem?"

  "They play a part in our mythology. Like your Wabbit, references back to Earth abound." Leanne looked at him as if she knew every thought in his head. "I was born in the Year of the Rabbit."

  "So you are expert with warbots?" Cletus joked before realizing he had best drop the subject entirely or look increasingly foolish. Then he saw that he had hit on yet another of the woman's skills. She smiled to put him at ease—and it did ease the feeling of being a complete buffoon.

  He had studied her before but did so more closely now. He had seen her fragile beauty, the ease of her movement hinting at reflexes matching those of his own enhanced nervous system. What lay under the plain padded coat and simple white cotton trousers had to be supplied by his imagination. She dressed as did her leader. The only distinction between the olive drab coats lay in a red and white enameled button pinned on the collar. Supreme Leader had worn one of pure red. Leanne's showed a more imaginative design, possibly a white snake writhing about in a field of red. The details were too fine for him to notice without approaching her and risking violation of her personal space. He reached up to give greater magnification on his glasses, but Leanne lightly touched his wrist.

  "There is no need. This is an insignia showin
g my expertise in the use of weapons." She stepped closer for him to see the pin better. He caught a touch of perfume that caused his nostrils to flare. A graceful step back took away this faint hint of fragrance.

  "You want to see more?"

  "Yes," he said. Cletus caught himself. He wasn't sure what he was agreeing to. His head spun with her perfume, but over her shoulder, down on the assembly room floor, loomed a warbot.

  She silently motioned for him to precede her to a small platform. The instant she joined him the steel plate dropped with startling speed. He sank into a bow stance to maintain his balance. Leanne had adopted the same posture, her knees slightly bent and her feet separated the width of her shoulders, one foot slightly behind the other and turned at an angle. Cletus had learned this as a stable position in hand-to-hand fighting. Leanne's status as a weapons expert might extend farther than exoskeletons, warbots and missile cloaking techniques.

  The platform came to a surprisingly gentle stop. Still, Cletus felt relief as he stepped away from it onto solid concrete beneath his feet that did not threaten to drop away. His unease over the open elevator vanished as he approached the nearest of two warbots. He stared up at it, his mouth open. When he realized he gawked like some yokel from the aqua farms, he covered by a ululation once favored by his ancestors as they ran into battle.

  "So, you approve?" Leanne smiled broadly. "The first time anyone sees a warbot the response is always the same. Well, not quite the same as yours. Would you fight such a magnificent metal warrior with your bare hands?"

  It didn't surprise him she recognized the war cry. Her k-chip might carry a wealth of information on him, his father and Ballymore.

  "Fifteen meters tall," he said. "How is it powered? A fusion plant?"

  "Several. One for either side and a third in the belly to power energy weapons."

  Cletus circled the behemoth. More than a huge exo, it was only vaguely human shaped. The feet were curiously jointed. He studied them, reached for his glasses and then stopped to look at Leanne.

  "You may photograph this unit to share with the Programmer General. We ask only that you maintain secrecy as to the actual performance details."

  "These photos are marked for his eyes only." He examined the joints, marvelling at the intricate design work. Any gimbal or ball joint afforded an attack point, but not in the Far Kingdom warbot. Clever use of heavy armor protected vulnerable parts.

  He walked slowly to the rear and looked up into exhausts large enough to swallow him whole. Instinctively, he stepped away, although those rockets firing would incinerate him if he remained within thirty meters of the wash.

  "Can this giant fly?"

  "The rockets give at least one jump, possibly two depending on the gravitational field strength. On Far Kingdom─or Ballymore─you can jump to the roof of a ten-story building. Once."

  "In space?"

  "There are no steering jets. You can accelerate to a few hundred meters per second before the fuel is gone. It is hypergolic, solid state fuel pellets so you can turn the rocket on and off several times. The fuel is easily reloaded. That operation is no more difficult than pouring marbles from a cup."

  "And in space you can use a puff of compressed air?"

  "That is possible," Leanne said. "The primary use is for low forces, not high, however. Against even main battle tanks, this warbot is more than a match. The body armor is a special non-Newtonian fluid that hardens when a kinetic missile strikes."

  "The momentum is transferred over a larger area?"

  "Shear-thickening fluid was invented long ago, on Earth, but the technology has been lost until our scientists rediscovered it. A four centimeter thick vest will protect a man. The warbot has fifty centimeters, front and back. Within a few months we will have a magnetorheological STF to protect against even radiation weapons."

  Cletus sought the definition of the term. His k-chip failed him.

  "Rheology is the study of deformation and flow of matter. Our science is very advanced."

  "Your weapons science especially."

  She answered by bowing slightly and averting her eyes, as if paying tribute to his obvious observation.

  "I see the rocket launchers mounted at the shoulders."

  "That is so," she said. "In addition, energy weapons are interchangeable on the hands, to fulfill any mission. Continuous wave lasers, of course, but also aurora guns."

  Such a weapon could reduce a city to smoking rubble in a single blast. The promise of an aurora gun was hardly the ultimate in offensive armament, but it came as close as any mobile weapons platform could offer. Cletus studied the warbot more closely and found the distinctive launchers at either hip.

  "What size nukes do you recommend?"

  "Even without the magnetorheological fluid shields, the warbot withstands radiation of considerable intensity, especially from a neutron bomb. Only the blast's shockwave is a concern. A one megaton warhead requires a kilometer or more separation or the concussion will damage the unit, in spite of the STF. As you noticed, there is a launcher for a single nuke on each hip."

  "All the missiles look like standard models."

  "They are. You must supply your own nukes. There is no benefit to us shipping atomics off world."

  Cletus heard a small lie in that, but truth also rang through as his k-chip brought up the extent of fusion and thorium bed reactors used to power Far Kingdom. Like Burran, they had learned the lessons of Earth after a decade of volcanic eruptions had filled the air with too much soot for planet-based solar arrays to function. It was as well that Far Kingdom did not supply the missiles or warheads, since that left it up to the Burran military to know what they used when going against Uller or Eire forces. After all, if Far Kingdom sold to one side in a conflict, nothing prevented them from selling to the other except for planetary policy.

  Cletus suspected they did not want such weapons turned against them. This sobered him and put a damper on his enthusiasm for the warbots. If Far Kingdom willing sold such weapons systems, they had counters—or something better—reserved for their own arsenal.

  "I would like to see one moving about." Cletus stared up at the gargantuan machine in awe. Nothing approaching this juggernaut existed on Ballymore.

  Leanne gave him an enigmatic look, then asked, "Would you like to take one for a drive. As pilot?"

  Cletus forced himself to keep his mouth shut, not trusting himself to do more than nod.

  Chapter Two

  "Your son and Citizen Chang seem admirably suited," Supreme Leader said. He showed the first signs of relaxation as he leaned back in the overstuffed chair behind an otherwise Spartan desk. As he reached out, a servant brought him a glass of water and a few pills. A faint smile came to his lips before he swallowed the pills and chased them with the entire glass of water. "An old man requires help getting through the day. I envy you your youth."

  "Such an admission seems out of place, Supreme Leader. You do not look that old." Donal Tomlins searched his k-chip memories for the man's age but failed to find any reference to a birthplace or birth date. Why he didn't simply have genetic engineering done or install a med dispenser that monitored his metabolism and injected the drugs as needed made Donal wonder if this was theater rather than need. Supreme Leader had no reason to pretend that his world's medical science wasn't as advanced as Ballymore's, yet that message came through with the sip of water and quick toss of a few pills rather than a flood of medical nanobots working their minuscule magics throughout his bloodstream.

  "I am more than two hundred years old. Oh, do not look surprised. Far Kingdom's medical science is advanced beyond that on your world, yet you could live to be a hundred-fifty."

  Donal sat straighter in his chair, wondering at this. How could swallowing pills be an improvement over any of a hundred gengineered or mechanically enhanced solutions?

  "My father died at one hundred."

  "You are, what? Perhaps fifty? You have a long life ahead of you, should you choose. Do you have
children other than your fine son?"

  "Two daughters," Donal said. He had not expected Supreme Leader to get into personal matters. He touched the controls on the detector he wore on his left wrist, designed to double as a watch. If Supreme Leader had cameras or other spy devices trained on him, the spy-det did not reveal them.

  "You are blessed."

  "My younger daughter is being trained to take my place as Programmer General. Her expertise in computing is extraordinary. She anticipates well and pushes the computers to the optimal course to keep our society running smoothly. I have allowed her to do this on several occasions. She is more adroit than I am designing algorithms to anticipate supply problems."

  "While you are here? You left her in charge?" Supreme Leader closed his eyes and tented his fingers. He rested his chin on the bony ridge. Other than the almost imperceptible breathing, he might have been dead.

  "The governing council would not permit that. My Chief Programming Officer is temporarily in charge."

  "CPO Weir, yes, we know of him. An agent approached him to come to Far Kingdom to work on our power grid a few years ago. He declined."

  "He is devoted to Burran. He oversees much of our economy."

  "But you, as Programmer General, direct all of it. What you say becomes law."

  "Not exactly law, but from your standpoint, it might be considered such. Yours is a command economy. Ours relies on a free flow of trade."

  "Guided by your computer programs."

  "I do what is best for my citizens, guided by the expertise of those on the council."

  "You think your system is best. For you, perhaps it is. I prefer that of Far Kingdom."

  "Being the sole leader must be difficult."

  "You think I am a dictator, that my whims become law." Supreme Leader fell silent for a moment, his thoughts far from the conversation. Then he said, "I am absolute ruler. It works well for a population where everyone is equal."

  "Our heritage would never allow anyone to assume such power."

  "Yet you could quash any rebellion by a simple reprogramming of your master computer, the one that runs every aspect of your manufacturing, your government, your world."