by Isaac Hooke
Mechs jumped on top of tanks and rained death down on the Rhinos that were hidden behind corpses. The bioweapons tried to flail their toes at the mechs, but their limbs were shot down by the high-speed lasers the mechs used.
Jain and the others wailed on their opponents. Elongating toes and tentacles came at them, but they severed them with their Hammers, and then concentrated on the sources. Chunks of gore flew away from the bodies, and the bioweapons began to go down one by one, unable to withstand the relentless onslaught.
In short order, the battle was won, and the Rhinos were no more. The mechs moved from body to body, firing final shots into the Rhinos to ensure all of them were truly dead.
“Xander, you can stop the transmission now,” Jain said. He was worried all those gamma rays might fry some of their sensitive components.
“Stopping transmission,” Xander said.
The blue channels on the cannons lit up once again, but it was too late for the bioweapons by then.
“Nice job disabling their weapons back there,” Sheila said, coming over.
An incredible bright light filled the air. Everything became white around Jain for a full second. His audio feed filled with a digital distortion that was almost a crackle.
And then the light faded, as did the sound.
Jain glanced upward nervously. The shield was still in place.
“What the hell was that?” Gavin asked.
“The aliens just fired their combined lightning weapon from the Centrifuge,” Xander answered over the comm.
Jain repeated the news to Ricks.
“The overall shield is holding so far,” Ricks said. “The outermost four layers were drained to zero, but those will regenerate.”
“They knew the shield was still in place, but decided to fire anyway,” Sheila said. “They’re testing it. Seeing how much of a wallop it can take.”
Jain made his way to the generators, and took up a defensive position in case more bioweapons decided to show up. The Trafalgar units were making another sweep of the interior just in case.
Once again the interior lit up, only a minute later.
“The same four layers went down,” Ricks said. “Along with another one underneath.” His avatar shook his head. “They’re not regenerating fast enough.”
“If the aliens keep firing every minute, how long until they breach the shield entirely?” Jain asked.
“If they keep this up, in an hour they’ll penetrate the shield entirely,” Ricks said.
35
Jain waited for another minute to pass, but this time the aliens in orbit didn’t fire.
Two minutes went by.
Three.
Still nothing.
“Xander, what are the Mimics doing?” Jain asked over the comm line.
“I’m not sure,” Xander replied.
Jain still had access to the tactical display via his HUD, so he pulled it up. “The aliens are still in formation... but it looks like they’re slowly rotating, changing from vertical, to horizontal, in relation to Earth.”
“They are,” Xander agreed.
“Is there anything else they could do while in the Centrifuge pattern?” Jain said. “Any other weapons they could combine for some sort of devastating attack?”
Xander remained quiet for a moment. “Their manual does mention that when the internal power wells are in alignment like that, each individual ship can emit far more powerful gamma rays from its comm arrays than is ordinarily possible. So if I were to speculate, I’d guess that rotating to the horizontal like that, parallel with Earth, frees them to fire those rays at will without having to worry about the other ships in the formation getting in the way. For the maximum effect they would have to fire together, waiting one minute between each gamma ray activation for the combined power well to regenerate. The resulting bursts would be devastating to the planet below.
“The gamma rays would immediately irradiate and kill all life on Earth. Additionally, those rays would ionize the upper atmosphere, destroying the ozone layer. Only Mind Refurbs, and those who took shelter deep underground, would survive.”
“But billions of others would not,” Jain said. “Recall the skirmisher.” He turned toward Sheila and the others. “Our work here is done. But the threat isn’t over yet, not by a long shot. There’s something I have to do.” He paused. “This might be the last time I see any of you, at least in this form.”
“Don’t make me restore you from a backup,” Sheila said.
He looked her squarely in the eye, or rather, the faceplate. “Trust me, that’s the last thing I want.” But he wasn’t sure he’d be able to avoid that fate.
Jain relinquished control of Rifleman A to the built-in autonomous core, and his viewpoint snapped back to the Devastator’s virtual bridge.
He studied the tactical display. The Devastator had stopped drifting, and floated in geosynchronous orbit above the Earth.
“The drives are online, you say?” Jain asked Xander.
“Yes,” Xander said. “I thought you missed that comment, considering my announcement was probably poorly timed, coming as it did during the heat of battle.”
“No, I heard it,” Jain said. “Intercept the skirmisher. I want it aboard ASAP.”
On the display, the Devastator shifted, moving on an intercept course with the incoming skirmisher. It docked a moment later.
“What’s next?” Xander asked.
Jain kept his eyes on the display. He noted that the defending Mind Refurbs maintained their holding pattern; Jain hadn’t yet shared the news about those gamma rays, but even so, it looked like they suspected something bad was about to happen because they had begun sacrificing ships again. One drifted forward as Jain watched, ready to goad an enemy into firing a lightning weapon and draining its power well.
“If we could get close, we could strike at the Achilles heel ourselves,” Jain said. “We still have the nuke I prepared, wrapped in asteroid rock. We could plant it in the power well of the central ship. Destroy them all.”
“How do you intend to get close?” Xander asked. “They’ve already marked us for our unauthorized communications with humanity. If we approach, they’ll target us with everything they have.”
“I have a way,” Jain said. And he explained.
Xander gave him an appraising look. “I see now why humanity took it upon themselves to place their minds into machines. Sometimes, the crazy ideas you come with almost make sense. They’re definitely ideas an ordinary AI such as myself would never dream of, for the sheer illogicality, and audacity, alone.”
“Have the termites break the nuke out of the containing rock,” Jain said. “Then convey it to the stealth skirmisher, and swap out its comm array for the nuclear payload.”
“It will be done,” Xander said. “By the way, Sheila’s trying to log onto the virtual bridge. As are the surviving Void Warriors.”
“Ignore their requests,” Jain said. “They can’t help me. Not this time. Some things in life you can only do on your own. Death is one of them. No one can journey with you. Sure, others can escort you to the brink, but when the time comes, you must voyage alone.”
“But I am with you, always,” Xander said.
Jain shook his head. “When death comes, we’ll part ways. Not even you can join me, Xander. Even if we die at the same time.” He returned his attention to the tactical display and his expression hardened. “Take us to the Centrifuge. Target the central ship. I want us on a collision course.”
A moment later the Centrifuge became horizontal in relation to Earth, but another lone Mind Refurb vessel had already darted forward and drew a lightning impact, further delaying the activation of the gamma rays.
The Devastator accelerated toward the pyramid vessels located in the middle of the Centrifuge.
“The payload is installed,” Xander said. “I’m ready to complete the final stage of the plan.”
Jain nodded. “I’m ready. Are you sure the termites will follow the
instructions to the letter, once I’m offline?”
“They will,” Xander said.
“Okay, let’s do this.”
Jain shut himself down. The last thought before darkness took him, was: What the hell am I doing?
Consciousness returned. His mind felt so much… smaller. As if hemmed in on all sides. Disconnecting from the vast stores of knowledge available from the cloud database would do that.
The forward camera feed equivalent of the stealth skirmisher fed his vision. The single camera’s monoscopic view was slightly disorienting, as it lacked depth information, but he quickly got used to it.
Blobs and skirmishers came in, rushing past on either side, ignoring him. Behind him, the broad pyramidal hulk of the Devastator towered over him. The fact that it was drifting lifelessly and not trying to avoid the incoming attacks told him that the vessel had already reached the lightning range, and the aliens had disabled the drives with their blasts. Likely, they believed his AI core was offline as well from those impacts. And it was. Just not in the way they thought.
“Xander, you here?” Jain asked.
“I survived the transference, yes,” Xander said. “Just barely… I had to shrink myself down to the smallest possible memory footprint.”
Skirmishers contained AI cores with neural networks that normally held autonomous, non-self-aware programs. While substantially smaller than the pyramid’s main AI core, Xander had determined that the neural networks of the skirmishers were still compatible with the main core data, and thus should be able to hold Jain’s translated subroutines. It would just take some corner cutting.
And so here he was, directing the nuclear payload through the final leg of its journey.
Behind him, the Devastator took several blob impacts, and large portions of the ship crumbled away. Its momentum became further reduced, and it dropped behind Jain.
The aliens weren’t targeting his skirmisher: he was operating with holoemitters, thermal maskers, and LIDAR absorbers in full swing. And just like the previous skirmisher, there was no thermal leakage, because the craft didn’t have inertialess drives.
He fired propellant sparingly, worried that the emissions might be detected; he used the thrust solely to evade any blobs that happened to cross his path, and to ensure his course remained ever aligned with the target vessel.
As he closed with the ship at the center of the formation, he fired decelerating thrust.
“You really think we’ll make it to the reactor core?” Xander asked.
“It’s going to be tricky,” Jain replied.
He fired a few final adjusting bursts to line himself up with the top of the vessel, right underneath where it joined with the apex of the adjacent pyramid. Then he attached to the hull with his magnetic mounts and utilized the high-powered plasma cutter built into the skirmisher to begin drilling through the thick armor, toward the power well inside, using the blueprints to guide him.
That was another benefit of attacking while the ships were connected in the Centrifuge formation: with the hulls pulled back around the top sections he didn’t have as much armor to drill through to reach the well inside.
In moments he had cut through to the power well. He felt a backward push from inside, thanks to the internal pressure arising from the breach; it was continual, but his magnetic clamps held him in place.
The problem was, he had to make the hole big enough to fit his entire skirmisher, not just to deploy a few lobster and termite invaders. So even though he had penetrated through to the inner well, he had to continue drilling, making the gash broader.
Thus, he widened the ring-like cutting array and released the next burst of plasma flow.
“We’ve got other skirmishers incoming,” Xander said.
“Detected already?” Jain said.
“Why so surprised?” Xander said. “We discussed this. And you’re familiar with the detection mechanisms on the alien hulls.”
“Just thought I’d have a little more time,” Jain commented.
A skirmisher arrived and positioned itself overhead. It was obviously planning to fire its plasma cutters directly into Jain.
His deployment ramp defaulted to opening in the same direction as the plasma cutters, as it was meant to unload boarding party robots, so he quickly redirected that ramp away from the cutters and released two lobsters directly onto the alien hull. He designated the new arrival as the target.
The lobsters shoved off from the pyramid’s surface and latched onto the skirmisher with their claws. They unleashed the plasma weapons from inside their mouths, tearing into the unit. One of them pierced the propellant tank, and the resulting discharge sent the unit swerving away.
Jain penetrated through to the power well again, successfully enlarging the circular gap; the back-pressure promptly increased.
Once more he reset the cutters, enlarging the ring array for what should be the final run. He activated the plasma stream.
Another skirmisher came in.
Termites also appeared along the hull around him, crawling from the hidden panels inside. He released termites of his own, and deployed two more lobsters.
His defending termites intercepted the incoming micro machines, and prevented them from reaching his hull. For the moment.
Meanwhile, his two lobsters shoved off from the hull, making for the skirmisher above him. The unit fired thrust, fishtailing out of the way. One the lobsters still managed to latch on, while the other drifted away into deep space.
That lobster ripped into the skirmisher with its claws, and fired the plasma weapon in its maw. The skirmisher ignored the unit, and instead positioned itself above Jain, intending to fire its plasma cutters.
Jain issued emergency instructions to the lobster, and it quickly crawled forward, moving into the path of the cutter array. Then it fired its plasma weapon into the array itself, melting away a portion of it.
The plasma cutter opened fire, and the lobster melted away.
The beam struck down toward him—
Jain broke through the final remaining armor blockage.
He fired his aft thruster and accelerated into the gap at maximum speed to counter the increased push from the breach.
He dropped into the central core. Around him, the broad cylindrical walls glowed with energy as invisible particles smashed into their surfaces.
Above, he could see where the conduit connected with the power well of the adjoined ship. About fifty meters past the join, he could see the underside of that ship’s main reactor core. It was connected to the conduit walls by a series of spokes that allowed the energized particles to travel past so that the Centrifuge members shared their power wells, and the particles they contained, with one another.
One big happy family.
He accelerated upward toward that reactor core, fighting the external pressure. He wondered if the enemy knew what he was doing.
Well, even if they did, there was no way they’d have time to break formation. Not now.
“We’re being bombarded by the alpha particles inside the power well,” Xander said. “They’re inducing error states in our core by the hundreds. That’ll show up as glitches in your vision. And in other, random things.”
Jain’s vision was already glitching. He tried to respond to Xander, but for some reason, couldn’t form any words.
As he neared the underside of the reactor, his vision only worsened. And then he began to forget what his mission was.
What am I doing here?
Focus.
He concentrated on the underside of the reactor above, and he repeated in his head what he was going to do.
Place the bomb. Detonate it. Place the bomb. Detonate it. Place the bomb...
I’m going to die.
And then he hit something solid.
He realized he had contacted the reactor core. He activated his final two lobsters, and they removed the nuclear payload from his deployment bay.
Jain reversed course. He accelerated downw
ard, through the power well; he accidentally hit the wall, and ricocheted away. His vision was constantly freezing and pixelating, making it hard to see where he was.
He realized he had overshot the exit tunnel, and turned back. He reached the tunnel but when he tried to pass inside, he hit solid metal.
The tunnel wasn’t there after all.
It was still several meters below along the wall.
I’m losing it…
Going to die…
He vented propellant, traveling further downward, until he reached the real breach. He shoved inside, and was relieved when his vision snapped back to normal. The armor protected him from the ravages of the alpha particles.
But his way was blocked at the top by another skirmisher. It was waiting there for him.
He issued emergency thrust from his nose, and accelerated backward. He narrowly dropped back into the power well and swept aside just as a plasma beam shot through. It clipped his aft quarter.
Jain positioned himself underneath and waited for the beam to subside; the moment it did, he aligned himself with the opening and launched his plasma cutters in return and struck the skirmisher.
It broke away from the opening on top.
Jain was beginning to lose his vision again, so he quickly accelerated into the opening. The armor protected him once again; before he emerged from the opening, he activated his full stealth features. Even though he had sustained damage to the rear, it wasn’t enough to affect those clandestine abilities, and he was able to sneak right past the other skirmishers that were waiting outside.
He accelerated to what he deemed was a safe distance, and then issued the remote detonation sequence to the nuke.
The resultant explosion sent him reeling.
When he was finally able to recover from his death swirl, he turned his camera equivalent toward the Centrifuge. The constituent alien ships were drifting apart; dark holes were visible in their apexes and underneath their bases where the shared power wells had been burned out by the nuclear chain reaction.
