Exodus: Machine War: Book 4: Retribution

by Doug Dandridge

  “When you have a firing solution that will hit them, fire at will,” ordered the fleet commander.

  “Yes, sir,” said the male, going to work at his station, several holos springing to life above it.

  For minutes nothing happened, the enemy continuing to move into range. Suddenly, they started to change their vectors, decelerating and starting to add some side boost.

  “They realize how many we are, my Lord,” called out the sensor officer.

  “When will you fire?” asked the fleet leader impatiently.

  “We are still moving closer to them, my Lord. I believe it is best to fire when the distance is as close as possible.”

  The fleet leader grunted his acknowledgment, while telling himself to leave the male, his greatest expert on engaging other vessels at long range, alone to work his solution. Time passed, the enemy ships continuing to change vector, though the distance continued to close. The weapons’ officer continued to run numbers, sending orders off to the other ships he had picked to shoot. Until the right moment arrived.

  “All capital ships, fire at will,” shouted the male, his voice going to the operating bridge of the vessel, and over the laser com to all of the other capital ships chosen to fire. Moments later every battleship in the fleet fired all of their forward tubes, releasing over a thousand missiles, accelerating out of their tubes and boosting at ten thousand gravities toward the robot ships.

  Then it was more waiting, watching the plot as the weapons slowly closed in, until they were in close proximity. Hundreds fell off the plot, victims of the robot ships’ defensive weaponry. Hundreds more hit, and the entire robot force fell off the plot, destroyed.

  The crew on the flag bridge cheered, while many starting yelling about how the war was now won.

  “Quiet,” yelled the fleet leader. “We have won nothing. We have proven that the upgraded systems worked, and have destroyed a heavily outnumbered force. Which means we can be confident that we can give the artificial life forms a good fight. But we have won nothing.”

  He looked over the crew, who didn’t seem subdued at all from his outburst. He let himself smile a bit as well. As he had said, they had really won nothing except a minor victory against a minor force. But it still felt good to win a victory that had cost them nothing but some offensive missiles.

  “ETA to the target system?”

  “Five days, four hours, my Lord.”

  “Very good,” said the fleet leader, getting up from his command chair. “I will be in my quarters. Disturb me only if necessary.”

  * * *

  KLASSEK: SEPTEMBER 21ST, 1002.

  “We have finished the initial tests on the Machine viruses,” said Colonel Myers, the chief of the army’s medical service.

  At times Wittmore had wished they had gotten a major name from one of the prestigious medical universities in the Supersystem, but he had to admit that Myers was a top rate physician, and more of a research scientist than most.

  “EMP of a moderate level will short them out, even through their biological sheaths.”

  “What about the viruses that might be hidden in containment vessels?”

  “We can’t do anything about that right now, sir. We will have to wait until they are reintroduced into the environment and take them out again.”

  Wittmore stared at the face of the officer, again not sure if she was the right person for this job. Military training infused one with an attitude that a threat was to be neutralized, once and for all. Medicine sometimes went with the strategy of taking care of the problem for the moment, knowing that it would crop up again later. That was counterproductive, to the general’s way of thinking.

  “If we monitor where the new outbreaks occur we might be able to destroy those points,” said the colonel. “I know it’s like trying to stomp out a forest fire with a single boot, but it’s all we have for now.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” looking down at a small screen that showed the Machine virus. “So, what is the answer in the long run?”

  “First of all, sir, we need to inoculate the entire population with our immune system nanites. Even a basic inoculation of several million nanites can grow to critical mass in a couple of months. At that point, all of the natives will be immune, and the problem in solved.”

  “For now, colonel,” growled Wittmore, leaning over his desk. “And what about when these things change their strategies. And what about the rest of the planet?”

  “We will have to spread nanites all over the planet, sir. Make sure they infuse everything in the environment.”

  Wittmore thought about that for a moment. Nanites had limited processing power and memory, which was why most were configured to one or a couple of simple tasks. In Imperial citizens there were nanite constructed nodes, still very small, if much larger than the devices they controlled. They had sufficient processing power and memory to change the tasks of their charges, just as manufacturing processes run by nanites could be retasked. There were sure to be master controllers for the Machine nanites scattered across the planet, which could retask them to different functions. He didn’t really think they would start building war machines, but he couldn’t put it past them releasing some other horror on the world. It made sense that the ancestors of his empire had sterilized entire worlds to make sure they didn’t spread.

  “Okay, colonel. Here’s what we’re going to do.”

  Chapter Eight

  Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain. Mark Twain

  “How are you progressing, Admiral?” asked the emperor over the holo.

  “As well as can be expected, your Majesty,” said Beata Bednarczyk. “Though I’m not sure I will be able to wrap this thing up in the allotted time. There are just too many of the damned things, and every time we turn a corner in space, we find another system they have taken for their own.”

  Sean looked at her for a moment, not moving a muscle, his eyes studying her face. Beata felt distinctly uncomfortable under that gaze. She had dealt with many young men that age, but they had always been subordinates. Even those with exalted titles like archduke and duke had been under her, and had bowed to her will. Not this young man. He was the ultimate authority in the Empire, and one she would have to listen to and obey, no matter what she felt of those orders.

  “Maybe I picked the wrong commander for that front,” said Sean, almost a whisper, but loud enough for Beata to hear.

  “Maybe you did, your Majesty.” She blurted out, mouth acting before she could filter her thoughts. “I serve at your pleasure, and you can relieve me whenever you see fit.”

  Sean stared at her for a moment more, stone faced. Suddenly that face broke out in a smile, followed by laughter.

  “No one can ever call you a coward, Admiral. And I have to say, I can’t accuse you of dragging your feet. You would make a great sector commander someday. Or maybe not. Would you like that, Admiral? Command of an entire sector?”

  “No, sir. I would rather be in charge of a battle fleet. Sector command involves too much paperwork.”

  “And I would rather command a fleet as well. This ruling an empire, of dealing with Parliament, is for the birds. If only I could find some fool to take my place.”

  Beata smiled at the young man, who had never expected to take the throne with a still young father and two older brothers. An assassin had changed all that, and he had barely survived an attempt on his own life at the same time. As far as she could see he had still done a pretty good job, probably better than anyone else they might find with the proper lineage. Not everyone liked him, especially among the nobility, but the common people, the strength of the Empire, loved him for the most part. Augustine, his father, might have done better, but that also wasn’t a given.

  “About the only ones I could replace you with that might do as well are Mgonda and Lenkowski, and I’m not willing to move them from the main front, so you are it. Fortunately, there is no great need for your ships on the main front at
the moment, though how long that will remain true only the Universe knows. And it’s not talking. So, you can keep the ships for the moment, and you will have as much time as I can give you. Whether it will be enough? Again, only the Universe knows, and it’s still keeping its damned mouth shut.”

  Sean was silent for a minute, looking at something off the holo, studying it. He looked back at his admiral with a slight smile on his face. “And what else can I do for my illustrious front commander?”

  “Well, now that you ask?” said Beata, a smile stretching her face. “More cruisers would be nice, along with some more escorts. And, of course, more wormholes.”

  “You don’t want much, do you? And why not more capital ships?”

  “The problem is not taking on large enemy forces, your Majesty. I have quite enough battleships and battle cruisers to destroy their primary industrial systems. My main problem in this campaign is covering all the possibilities. These things are like old Earth roaches. They’re everywhere, and as soon as I wipe out one nest, another two spring up. It’s maddening.”

  “Okay,” said Sean after spending another minute looking off holo. The polite thing to do would be to share that view with the person he was talking to, but being the monarch, he didn’t have to do the polite thing. “I will send you the last production run of hyper VII light cruisers. That’s about two hundred of them. A triple that number of hyper VII destroyers. Along with another two hundred wormholes. Don’t look so surprised. The Donut is cranking out over thirty a day. And right now we seem to have enough for our purposes. We’ll need more later, of course, but the production facility will keep turning them out.”

  Beata wondered if the Cacas actually knew what they were facing in the Empire. Of course they knew how large it was, approximately how many people lived in it, and a fair guess at the industrial capacity. But they had no idea how many wormholes the Empire already had, and how many they would have in the next year. Over ten thousand was the figure, and that meant that each and every fleet would have over a thousand of them. The hard part was building enough weapons platforms to take advantage of all those wormholes, but the Empire was making a good go at it.

  “Keep sending regular assessment of how your campaign is going, Admiral. I won’t be looking over your shoulder and making decisions for you. I know how that goes, and I don’t intend to step on a thousand years of Fleet tradition just because we have instantaneous com. But I would still like to know what goes on in all my commands.”

  “Yes, sir. Will do.”

  The com died, leaving Beata alone in her cabin. She wondered if the man actually got any sleep, or if he had to use stimulants and stay awake through the day and night to do everything. Not that she was getting all that much sleep. On a good night it amounted to three hours. Modern humans could handle a lot of stress, but they all eventually reached a breaking point.

  * * *

  “Damn,” cursed Admiral Natasha Khrushchev. “The stupid bastards actually made their own war machines.”

  She thought about that a second, and realized it wasn’t really fair. Humans had made the same mistake, as had many other species. It was just something than anyone without experience in these types of machines did. And humans had been warned by other species who had either been through the same thing or had watched other races push themselves into extinction. These beings had developed the machines in a vacuum, which didn’t mean the same thing wouldn’t happen to them. In fact, she was willing to bet that these things would turn on them as soon as they were able.

  “I need to talk with Admiral Bednarczyk,” said Natasha out loud, and moments later the com holo had formed in the air to her front.

  “Something important, Natasha?” asked Bednarczyk, the strain of command showing on her face.

  “I hate to bother you with this, ma’am, but it’s definitely something you need to know.”

  Khrushchev filled her superior in on what she had learned today, and the visible strain on the face of the Fleet Admiral increased as she cursed out loud.

  “And you don’t think they will take the advice of your engineer and destroy the damned robots?”

  “I would hope so, ma’am, but I just don’t know. So far, considering the arrogance of these people, I wouldn’t be surprised if they rejected out of hand any advice we had to give on the matter.”

  “I could see that,” said Bednarczyk, nodding. “After all, I recall another race, one not quite as arrogant as these creatures, declining to listen to the advice of the Brakakak against building autonomous war machines. And because of that, we have this mess we’re in today. Crap. And I’m sure they’re going to improve them with our tech, making them even more dangerous.”

  “I would think more dangerous than the ones that originally got away from us, ma’am. After all, we made our mistake three hundred years ago, and these guys are only about twenty or thirty years behind us. So they have the potential to be much more dangerous.”

  “Then we need to come up with a contingency plan to take them out ourselves,” said Bednarczyk, looking off holo at something only she could see. “But we need their ships to help and contain the machines in this space until we can take them out. So a kinetic strike on their complex is a no go for the time being.”

  “One other thing, ma’am. Their complex is under their capital city. It seems that the dictator wanted them close at hand, in case someone tried to depose him.” At least the one we know of, thought Natasha. There could be a thousand of those complexes across the planet, and they wouldn’t know until they disgorged their cargos of death.

  “Damn,” replied Bednarczyk. “So you’re saying the collateral damage will be high?”

  “Maybe too high,” said Natasha, looking at a holo that showed the capital city, the location of the bunker superimposed on the map. With a thought she sent the schematic/map to the fleet admiral.

  “Dammit, and dammit again. Way too much collateral damage. Which might call for a commando raid. But again, we could force these people into declaring war with us.”

  “Which we will win?”

  “No doubt, Admiral,” said Beata, nodding, then frowning. “But we are not here to make war on them. Once again, we need them to help us clear up the machines. That is the primary mission, and all others are secondary, until we wipe them out. Until then, we can entertain no thoughts of taking out their government and replacing it with something more humane. Bottom line, we need their fleet. I hate the idea of using some poor saps who are terrified of a despot ruler as our cannon fodder. But unless we stop the machines in their tracks here, they will continue to kill off whole species. It hurts me to play this game, and I didn’t join the fleet to play politics. But here I am, and the game is mine. I will, of course, inform his Majesty about the situation, but I don’t expect him to change his orders.”

  “Understood, ma’am. My people will continue to try and talk the dictator and his people into scraping them by themselves. And keep a close watch on that bunker to make sure they don’t deploy them.”

  “Don’t assume that’s the only bunker containing their robots. They might have produced thousands of them before the problems became apparent. If that’s the case, they might have many stashes of them on that planet, and some on their other worlds as well. Have your intelligence people be on the lookout for those other bunkers, and any research facilities that might be associated with them.”

  Your reading my mind, admiral, thought Khrushchev, nodding.

  “And if they deploy them?”

  Beata looked into the holo, thinking for a moment, then speaking slowly. “I’ll have to clear this with the Emperor, but until further notice, these are my orders. If you see any of those robots deploying to the surface, you are to immediately strike them from space. I want them vaporized before they have a chance to get away. And you are to ask Bolthole to send their fleet across. I don’t want a war with these people, but I will have that before I have more death machines loose in the galaxy.”

 
; “I will happily reduce all of them to scrap if they appear in my targeting sensors,” said Natasha, relieved that her superior signed off on what she wanted to do anyway. It might not save her career if it wasn’t signed off on further up the chain, but it would be nice to not be the only one hanging if the Emperor lost it. And after facing this mission on this front, she thought retirement might actually be something to look forward to. But another thought broke through her pleasant reverie.

  “What about if they don’t bring them up, ma’am. What do we do then?”

  “As long as they’re switched off and underground, we let them be, for now,” said Beata, waving a finger at her subordinate. “No grandstanding, no heroic raids. When it’s time to do something about this, we will plan it at fleet. Until then, see if your people can hammer some sense into these people.”

  * * *

  “The epidemic is getting out of hand, sir,” said Colonel Myers, the chief medical officer, over the com, a full ward of dying people behind her.

  Travis Wittmore felt sick to his stomach. The nano-plague, as they were now calling it, had spread across the eastern continent, bursting through every barrier they had tried to place before it. Well, not every one, thought the general. The Klassekian medical personal they had inoculated with nanites engineered for their systems were doing yeoman’s work at preventing their infection. Those doctors and nurses were able to continue to work with the infected without becoming ill themselves. The same with the police, military and all the other first responders dispensing essential services. But there were not enough to cover the entire population. And it was also jumping species, leading to the loss of great numbers of livestock and wildlife, and now even the vegetation nearest the infected cities was starting to die.