Exodus: Machine War: Book 4: Retribution

by Doug Dandridge

  “We run it through an isolation furnace, and then through a series of filters and coolers before we air condition it.”

  “Any success in treatment?”

  “No, by the gods. The only thing we can do for these people is to try to make them comfortable before they die. And even making them comfortable is a chore. The most we can do is give them so many pain killers that they aren’t even there.”

  The next viewer was centered on the face of one of the sick aliens. Its skin was flushed, sweat beaded on the narrow forehead despite the cooling in the room, and the muscles were quivering. Tomez was as close to an expert on the Klassekians as the Empire had, which wasn’t saying much. Very few human physicians in the Empire had any training in non-human systems. Alien populated worlds had their own physicians. Even predominantly human worlds with good sized alien populations had physicians among those aliens. Those humans who specialized in aliens were really more biologists and physiologists than physicians. Military doctors got some more exomedical training so they could deal with the aliens who might serve in their units. If a unit was predominantly one alien species, they got a physician of that species. But a ship might have a couple of Gryphons, a Phlistaran, and maybe a Malticon on board. Fleet physicians had some training in dealing with them, and there were medical programs they could use if they needed more knowledge.

  The Klassekians were still an unknown to most physicians. Tomez had been working with them on and off the whole time humans had been on the planet, and she understood their physiologies in a general way.

  A robot rolled along in the viewer, stopping at one of the patients and deploying a sensor, taking the vitals of the Klassekian, then moving on. At the next patient it gave an injection after taking the vitals.

  “Do you have any people working in that room?”

  “No,” said the Klassekian, a shocked expression on his face. “Even the people in total isolation gear are at risk inside that room. Whatever the virus is, it goes right through our isolation suits.”

  “Your old style suits?” asked the doctor, hoping that was the answer, while guessing that it was not. Even the old-style gear should have been proof against any kind of biological assault.

  “No. The new ones that you gave our manufactories to produce.”

  Tomez felt a chill run up her spine. “That’s, not possible.”

  “Possible or not, it’s truth,” said the Klassekian. “We can’t figure it out.”

  Tomez stood for a couple of minutes, looking at the very ill native who seemed to be dying before her eyes. As she was looking the skin ruptured in several places, leaking internal fluids, and the vital signs dropped to nothing.

  “Show me the scan of the virus.”

  The Klassekian gave a very human nod and pushed some keys on a computer relay. The view of the dead native faded from the screen, replaced by a picture of the virus that was causing the plague. It was an elongated cylinder, spines running up and down the sides.

  “Do you have a better view?”

  “This is the best we can get with our equipment,” said the physician. “Perhaps you can do better with yours.”

  Of course we can, thought the commander. Which meant that they needed to make sure that local medical clinics like this one got the same equipment as the regional medical centers. These people needed the fruits of modern tech that the Empire had promised them. That some of those fruits had been delayed was understandable, when they were trying to raise the tech level of these people in so many areas, and the military had priority at this time. And then something like this had happened, and the wisdom of delay could be seen as a tragic mistake.

  “I will take a sample back with me to our labs,” said Tomez. “Do you have isolation protocols that can get me a secure sample.”

  “We do. The robots can gather them in a sealed container, then run that receptacle through a radiation chamber. We did that ourselves, to get the samples we studied and…”

  Alarms went off, lights flashed, and a droning voice warned in the local Klassekian dialect that there was a containment breach in the isolation ward. The words containment breach sent another chill up the officer’s spine. While not as bad as a containment breach on a ship, which was the first thing that entered her mind, in a way this could be just as harmful.

  “We need to get out of here,” yelled one of the techs, running for the doors that were slamming shut.

  “We can’t leave,” said the Klassekian physician. “Isolation protocols are in place.”

  “Does it really make a difference?” asked Tomez, shaking her head. “This contagion is running rampant through your cities, and one more hotspot really won’t make much of a difference.”

  “Are you protected?” asked the tech who had wanted to flee, resentment in his tone.

  Tomez stared at the male, unsure how to answer. Of course she had the standard Imperial nanite infusions of all Imperial citizens, boosted by the complement given by the Fleet for personnel serving on alien planets. As far as she knew, there was no way any virus could enter her body and not be sought out and destroyed by her nanites, which would conform and replicate as much as needed to destroy the infection. There they were still working on nanite immune technology for the Klassekians, since whatever they made had to not only remain harmless to their own systems, but also to the systems of other species, such as humans, who operated around them.

  “We’ve tried treating the victims with the first generation nanites you have given us,” said the doctor, shaking her head. “They’re just like the ones we have, the same ones most of our medical staff have been inoculated with. They work at first, but then the virus adapts to them and they can no longer recognize it.”

  “But, that’s impossible. No biological organism can adapt quickly enough to escape nanites.”

  “If they’re doing it, it’s not impossible,” said the doctor. “It’s not a given that your own nanites will give you complete protection. But you still have a much better chance that we do.

  “Here,” said the Klassekian physician, handing over a small container. “Here’s a small sample of the virus. I can override the system enough to let you out, but not any of our other people.”

  “I’ll do my best with this,” said Tomez.

  “Please. Find the answer and save my people. It’s too late for those poor people in the ward, and it may be too late for us as well. But save my people, and save my planet.”

  Tomez didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t promise what she wasn’t sure she could deliver. But if this virus had an origin like she thought, there might be a simple answer. Of there might not.

  Chapter Six

  Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't, don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck. Joseph Heller

  SUPERSYSTEM: SEPTEMBER 4TH, 1002.

  “Any luck getting into its memory system?” asked Admiral Chuntoa Chan, the Director of Fleet Research and Development.

  “No, ma’am,” said Dr. Birsha Thapa, the chief cyberneticist on that part of the project. “We’re still working on breaking the encryption.”

  “How in the hell is it taking so long to break through their codes?” asked the admiral, frustration in her voice. “I could see it if it was using our level of tech, and even then we could still cut through it in a month or less. But it has to be two centuries behind us in cybernetic engineering.”

  “That’s true, ma’am,” said the scientist, keeping her voice calm, trying to defuse the situation. “But they are using algorithms unlike anything I have ever seen. Like something invented by an alien intelligence. And they’re using encryption upon encryption, one over the other, in at least hundreds of layers. As soon as we break one we run into the next. It gives us a starting point on the next level, but that’s all.”

  “What do you mean, alien intelligence? It’s machine intelligence, but it’s our invention, so it shouldn’t be that hard to understand.”


  “And it would be, ma’am,” said Thapa, looking at a rolling script of digits scrolling across a holo, the encrypted memories of the device it came from. “But they’ve incorporated something else into it. Maybe something they got from a true alien species.”

  “And what happened to that species?” asked Chan in a quiet voice.

  You know what happened to them, Admiral, thought Thapa, shaking her head. Like everything else that had run into the Machines they had either been able to fight them off, or not. And if not, they were dead and gone. It was a burden of guilt that all humans with a conscience carried with them.

  “And how in the hell do they get past their own encryptions if they’re layered like that?” asked Chan, once more back on task.

  “Remember, Admiral. They process information so much faster than we do. It probably takes less than a second to get through all the layers, and once it’s through, it has access.” And we don’t even know how close we are to having any kind access.

  “Well, Doctor Thapa. I’m about to tell you something that isn’t to go anywhere else. This is top secret. Understand?”

  “Does it have something to do with my research?” asked the cyberneticist. She understood the reason for compartmentalization. She had a curious mind, which was one of the reasons she went into a field of science and engineering. She wanted to know everything, but realized that was beyond her capabilities, and that realization had been a tragedy.

  “Not directly. But it might motivate you. So here it is. We are not doing well in our war against the Machines.”

  “I thought we were winning,” said a shocked Birsha, who had definitely been told that she had the Machine memory to work on because a great human victory.

  “Oh, we’re winning every battle, Doctor Thapa. Every single one. Except for the fact that the damned Machines can replicate geometrically over a short period of time, while we are limited in what resources we can commit to that front. And they might have found new ways to spread. Ways we are having a difficult time compensating for. And I’m hoping we can find something in that memory core that can help us beat them, once and for all.”

  “You really think we’re going to find a magic bullet in its memory?” asked Thapa, who had stopped believing in magical thinking at an early age.

  “All I can say, Doctor, is it can’t hurt to look. Maybe we’ll just find its version of porn, maybe ten thousand issues of supermachine comics. But we won’t find out if we don’t look. And if we do find something, the sooner the better.”

  “Understood, Admiral. And how is Dr. Bellefante doing with his project?”

  “Normally I would tell you about need to know. But you already know about that. And this time it might help your motivation to learn that he has an active processor. Still, he hasn’t gotten anywhere with it. Figure out how to get in the memory core, and I might just put you in charge of that project.”

  Birsha blew out a breath. She didn’t have anything against Bellefante, but she thought her own career more important than his. Break through the encryption of the memory core and gain its information and she would be made for life. Prestigious fellowships, able to work on whatever she wanted. Make breakthroughs on both components of the Machine brain, and she would go down in the history books as the greatest cyberneticists of the age.

  “You’ve got a deal, Admiral.”

  * * *

  The Machine brain had finally come up with something it might be able to use from its immediate memory. Immediate memory still encompassed millions of quadrillions of bytes of information, more than a city full of humans could process in their lifetimes. Still nothing compared to what was contained in its memory core. That core contained the sum total knowledge of the Machine civilization, every trip, every battle, every piece of technology they had taken from the living peoples they had destroyed. Its local memory contained all the information it had thought might be useful for fighting the humans, including some data from experiments the progenitors had performed on humans they had captured and taken with them when escaping the Empire. At the time it had been calculated that humans might make good servants in the Machine battle against other sentients, before they had decided that the organics were too weak, not to be trusted, and should only be destroyed.

  The humans were still probing at its mind, trying to get through and get information. After it discovered the program that would give it what it wanted it allowed them access to the portion it wanted them to look at. It had no doubt they would stare at it for the required time, the couple of minutes it would need to capture their total attention and start the programming. It would depend on their monkey curiosity to do what the Machine wanted. And once it had them, it could use them to get the other things it would find necessary to accomplish its plan.

  * * *

  GORGANSHA HOME SYSTEM: SEPTEMBER 15TH, 1002.

  “The fleet is ready to deploy, my Lord,” reported Fleet Leader Soranka Goran over the com holo.

  Supreme Dictator Hraston Gonoras smiled as he looked as his most capable fleet commander, the one who had initially contacted these humans and brought them back to the home system. It wasn’t the entire fleet that was sailing with him to meet the enemy at the frontiers of the Consolidation. The humans had given them a great quantity of material, and his technicians had worked long and hard to get as many ships ready as they could. It was amazing they had accomplished what they had in the time given. The result was a force of nineteen hundred warships, a third of the Consolidation fleet. More than four hundred capital ships, over seven hundred cruisers, and just a little less than eight hundred escorts. They weren’t finely coordinated fighting machines, yet. That would come with the ships on the building slips that incorporated human design philosophies, including more compact and powerful reactors. But they were better than they had been. Much better.

  The Gorgansha had wanted to concentrate on their capital ships, their heavy hitters. The humans had convinced them it was better to go with a more balanced force. Capital ships as the attack element, cruisers to scout, escorts to protect the larger vessels from missiles and close in attacks, as well as shepherd the logistics vessels of the fleet. Still, the experts of the navy didn’t like the idea of constructing a fleet in the normal proportions, so they had gone for a heavier force. A balanced fleet come later, so it was a large ship heavy force.

  “How do you like your new ship, Admiral Goran?” asked the supreme dictator, seeing the bridge in the background of the holo.

  “It’s beautiful, my Lord” replied the fleet commander.

  Gonoras smiled. He had toured the ships, and at first he had been disappointed. The ships looked much like they had before being improved. He had quickly learned that was to be expected. After all, they were still the same ships at heart. Nothing had been done to change their general structures. They still carried the same armor protection. The missile tubes still occupied the same positions on the ships, and were the same diameter as before. The engineering sections still mounted the same number and build of reactors, the instrument consoles at command stations looked much the same.

  But beauty was more than skin deep, and so it was with the improved ships. Starting at the reactors, which each now developed twenty-five percent more energy, and transmitted it to the parts of the ship that needed it with fifty percent more efficiency. Almost every erg of power created in the reactors reached and energized its target. There were more and more efficient electromagnetic generators in the hull, and the cold plasma field was three times stronger than before. The grabber units were larger and much more efficient, even with only a tiny percentage increase of supermetals, and the new inertial compensators allowed even the battleships to boost at five hundred gravities, more than a hundred greater than before. The sensors were more than three times more sensitive than the old style, and gave a similar increase in targeting efficiency.

  Then came the weapons systems. Lasers were now mounted in rings on most of the ships, just like the human vessels, and
were twice as powerful as the old ones. Particle beam projectors had been installed, giving each ship much greater close in firepower. And the missiles? While not as massive as the human variety, and so not packing as great a kinetic punch, they could still accelerate at almost ten thousand gravities, just a bit less than the standard human weapon.

  Of course, the new ships being laid down would be even better. First off, the new battleships would mass twelve million tons, almost twice what they were now. The new fleet would be much more powerful than anything the Gorgansha had ever deployed. The only problem was it would take almost two years before the first of the battleships was ready, a year for the cruisers, slightly less for destroyers, and they needed something to fight the artificial life forms, now.

  “You may boost when ready, Admiral,” the dictator ordered. “And may you have great luck in your actions.”

  The Gorgansha to a being didn’t believe in the supernatural. They had no gods, no conception of an afterlife. It was something they didn’t understand about the more technologically advanced humans. While a good number of them believed the same way as the Gorgansha, there were still a great percentage of them that put their faith in some form of deity. Not only that, but they had different forms of religion, and even different creeds that worshiped the same deity. It was enough to drive the totalitarian leaning Gorgansha, in which everyone was raised to believe the same thing, crazy.

  The holo died, leaving the dictator alone with his thoughts. In another six months the rest of his fleet would finish upgrading. And in two years the new battleships would come boosting out of their building slips, to join the cruisers and escorts that would be launched much sooner. Hopefully, by that time, the artificial life form menace would be taken care of. And then they would be able to challenge humans in this space.

  It would have been better for them if they simply had moved in and taken us, then used our resources to build up their forces in this region, thought the supreme dictator. But they are such a weak people. After we take the region we will have the resources to grow our power manifold, and they will not be able to challenge us out here.