by T S Paul
“I will assume that neither of you have read the contract that we follow. If you do, you will notice that we all belong to a commercial group that handles things such as bank accounts and legal situations for us. You, Ms. Lee are on the board of directors of that entity.”
That completely surprised me. “I’m what? OK, that’s it. WILSON!”
I will admit that sometimes I look like a madwoman when I talk to my invisible little sidekick. Now I was just mad. He has a tendency to gloss over things and not tell me things that I should know about.
“Sorry, Athena. I was working on something. You bellowed?”
“What is this about a board-of-directors position?” Nothing but silence in my head after I said that...
A man’s voice made all of us jump. Up on the main screen was Wilson in his cowboy guise. Sam glanced up and started laughing.
“I know. Right? Remember we used to watch those back in the creche.”
“Yes we did, Amalie! I loved those and all the sequels. During the conquest I had a chance to check out the park too. I even rode the ride!”
“Did you really? I’m surprised they let you do that!”
“Well, they couldn’t say no to the commander. It was very beautiful, and it really bothered me that we were ordered to destroy it. It was one of the factors that led me to the colonization program.” Sam glanced up at the screen to find Wilson watching him. He looked around the room and all the rest of us were staring at him too. “Sorry. I rarely get to reminisce.”
I spoke up. “Sam, it’s fine. We really need to have a long talk someday. Anyway, this is Wilson. He uses this character to convince people on vid that he is from New Texas.”
“Having been on that planet a few times I can believe it. Nice to meet you, Wilson.”
Wilson nodded. “First, I need to apologize to you, Sam. I could have gotten you into trouble with Rock and Sock.”
“No need, Wilson. It all worked out. I picked up a little new business and both those ‘bots saved my ass keeping the troops off me.”
“Well, OK then. Amalie, we have a lot to discuss.”
Grandmother looked toward Sam and replied. “Yes we do. Sam, I hate to have to tell you this but I must. We know what happened to the other colony ships from your group a century ago.”
“You do? What happened? I’ve searched much of the known and unknown galaxy for them.”
She sighed. “Sam, we don’t specifically know what happened to the ships themselves but the pilots and crew are the leaders of the Cabal. The so-called Inner Circle of the Cabal is led by a man who calls himself Miguel 009.”
“Miguel… Damn them, it was all a lie! All those years wasted...”
“Who lied to you, Sam?” I really wanted to know.
“Athena, when my ship reached the programmed destination, the system was not the one in our database. The charts were correct along with the star coordinates. None of the information was correct though. I thought that was the reason for the other ships not appearing with us. They did it on purpose. Call it a parting shot from Miguel. He must have known that I would never have gone along with a deceptive plan from The Program. At that time I was tired of the whole thing. He was the only one I confided in. So many lives destroyed.”
Amalie put her arms around Sam and held him for a moment. “Sam, don’t take it so personal. Blame the Program. There is more if you would like to know.”
“Tell me please.”
It was Wilson who answered. He dropped the cowboy act and appeared as a talking smiley face. “During the battle with the Earth Ship Colossus I hacked their computers and downloaded its core. The Program that birthed you and them is literally a program. It is an AI. Much like me, it was birthed as a military experiment gone wrong. Its creators modified it and allowed it to run all of their treasonous activities. They were a group of industrialists, politicians, and military leaders who wanted to rule the world. They had taken the name Illuminati from Earth’s history and modeled their group after it. A secret society with ambition. Soon the AI actually ran things, not the humans. They did not realize it until your group was to be sent out. The human leaders thought that they were setting up offworld kingdoms while the AI had its own expansion plans. After your ships launched, the system acted against the humans. They had their own fail safes in place and a third civil war erupted. That was the primary reason for the wall of stations and defense platforms that sealed off Earth space. It was to prevent the human leaders from leaving. Afterwards it was convenient for them to just leave the defenses in place.”
After a moment Sam nodded his head. “I can just about believe that. I met much of the inner circle of the Illuminati. They told me I was being sent out to establish colonies that would support Earth. I was to return and become one of their members. They wanted me to return. That explains why even I was fired upon while trying to return to Earth.”
Amalie looked shocked. “Sam, that was foolish of you!”
“I just wanted to go home. I missed my brothers. I have been alone for a very long time...”
Wilson broke in. “Very few are still around Sam. You and Amalie are a rarity these days. Miguel is in for a surprise. He sent a messenger that rendezvoused with the Colossus before it reached Mars. The Program created the Cabal not the Illuminati. They sent a man named Johann 009. Another that you knew, I believe?” Sam nodded yes. “Johann expected to be greeted with open arms and was not expecting what happened. His ship was brought on board the Colossus and he and his crew seized. They tortured and spaced his regular human crew. Johann was subjected to intense torture and conditioning training that broke his mind.”
Sam looked horrified. “Why? He was working for Earth! Why do that to him?”
“Much has changed on Earth in the past century. The AI decided that the modified humans like you could not be trusted. It created an army of clones based upon six genetic lines. They call you and Amalie’s people Gen-Mods. Not a compliment by-the-way. Your people initially were the trainers and teachers. Now they are the servants and subjugated. Regular humans have suffered the worst. They are the peasant class on Earth. They grow the food and take out the trash. Colossus left Earth with several hundred ‘sapes’, what humans are called there now. They were the remnant of the thirty thousand that helped build the ship at the Venus Orbital Shipyard. Alpha 364, the captain of the ship, spaced them before leaving orbit. They have no protection in Earth society from anyone. The Cabal’s mandate was to infiltrate our society and prepare it for takeover. A signal would be sent, and they were to prepare for an Earth fleet to take over the colonies and return them to Earth control.”
“Wilson, do you think Miguel knows?” Amalie looked very concerned.
“I would say no, judging by the information in the database. The clones were looking forward to having some Gen-Mods to kick around and had zero knowledge of the existence of female Gen-Mods. Which is why they underestimated you, Primus. Miguel sent Johann in good faith. He was given specific world information. Troop strength, politics, safe houses, codes, hidden funds, contact information for Cabal cells, and much more. They gave Earth everything they had gathered over a century. Athena, your sister Minerva calls the Cabal the cockroaches of society. That is very true. They have wormed their way into the very fabric of the galaxy and now they have given Earth every scrap of that information.”
“We must inform our allies at once!”
“Grandmother, wait! You can’t tell them!”
“Athena, you are an Ambassador now. You have to understand how we need to share this!”
“With who? The Cabal? We need to be careful who we tell. Wilson, do you have the list of who’s who in Cabal society ready?”
“I do. That is what took me so long for this report. It was security locked. Amalie the Mars portion is on your tablet now.”
Amalie whipped out her tablet and stared at it in growing horror. “This name.” She pointed at it. “Are you absolutely sure about this, Wilson?”
“Yes. His family was coerced thirty years ago. That one leads the Cabal in your city.”
“He’s also the police chief! Gaston!” The little man appeared as if by magic. She handed him the tablet, and he disappeared again.
“Primus, I have sent it to Hong Kong. My secretary will make sure that Minerva gets a copy. We can entrust her to pass it along to the rest of our allies.”
“Your secretary? Wilson we need to talk. You did not fill me in on the board of directors that I appear to be on...” The little terrorist was getting good at ignoring me.
“Athena, in my persona as a club owner, I created a business office to run things. It has a board of directors of which you are one. I will introduce you to the others. It manages the robots and takes care of my interests. You will like Margaret. She is quite a nice lady.”
Chapter 5
The light fixture hit the ground with a crash. The former President’s office was starting to look a little worse for wear. Miguel 009 was extremely pissed off and was destroying things left and right. “The whole ship? How much of the fleet survived?”
“We aren’t sure, Sir. Mars had some kind of super weapon hidden beneath Deimos. Our science group thinks it was a mass driver or particle cannon. Whatever it was, it came as a complete surprise to both the Earth ship and our forces. That’s not even considering the large fleet of ships that came out of nowhere. It appears that Mars has been stockpiling a whole fleet in case of emergency. None of our informers knew anything about it.”
“Damn them to hell! Have we heard anything from Johann or from Earth itself?”
“No, Sir. We believe that he was on the flagship when it exploded. There have been a few survivors found but all but one group committed suicide before being questioned. Martian Intelligence has that group. So far they’re still alive. As for the fleet, it was broken into three sections during the battle. One part was destroyed with all hands. Another fled back into Earth space. The third vanished. It may be on its way here at this very moment.”
“What else have you heard?” This day just kept getting worse and worse. Miguel needed to get a handle on things before any Earth forces showed up.
“Not very much. Mars has deployed the same sort of anti-spy system that Hong Kong is using. All of our intel sources are rapidly drying up and many of our agents have been captured. Incidentally, Sam 0256 has shown up on Mars. He was spotted in the company of the Primus’s security forces.”
“There is a prime example for you, Roger. Never show any sort of weakness because it will come back and bite you in the ass every time. I should have killed him like I was ordered to. Instead, I reprogrammed his systems and put all the worst troublemakers on board his ship. Once upon a time he was my friend, my brother, and my commander. Now he is just my enemy. Enough. Add his name to the hit list. Tell our operatives on Mars to take out the command group whatever the cost. Send a similar message to Hong Kong. We need to cut the head off these snakes or we will all be doomed.”
“Yes, Sir. I will send the word right now!” The man ran from the room.
Miguel’s lip curled. “Good help is so hard to find these days!” He pressed a button on his console. “Send in Jeremiah!”
Jeremiah 117 was a tall man with bushy eyebrows. “Sir!”
“Sit down, Jeremiah. Now, what’s our Fleet’s status.”
“We control about eighty-eight percent of the Fleet at this time. Admiral Kane escaped with a scratch squadron build from three fleets. Other than her forces, there is a small scattering of random ships here and there. Mostly they are supply ships or anti-piracy patrols. We are accounting for as many as we can. All of our shipyards are in full swing building the next generation ships from our ship designers.”
“Did the shipyard guilds give you any trouble?”
“Not after we sent the first group of protesters and the guild leaders for a walk outside. I have a vid of the second meeting as they drifted past the office windows. So far there have been no further issues.”
“Good. Try to keep it that way. Do we know where Admiral Kane’s fleet went?”
“We think they went either out to the rim or to one of the unpopulated systems. We’re checking now.”
“Tell your scouts to keep an eye out for unknown ships. Roger just reported to me that some of Earth’s fleet may have survived the Martian ambush and may travel straight to us. Make sure our ships are informed. How goes the rest of the Empire?”
“Most of the Imperial Senate has joined us. Any that didn’t have been retired. So far the Maskirovka is holding.”
Finally something good. “Excellent work, Jeremiah. Track down as many dissidents as you can before the announcement. We suspect that many of the rebels will show their hands at that time. We need our troops to be able to put them down.”
~~~
Admiral Emily Kane walked to her ship’s main conference room. All she could think about was that the makeshift repairs and reorganization efforts were almost complete, and it was past time to leave this system. The Artificial Intelligence that thought he owned this station was beginning to drive her insane.
The room was full, many rose to attention as she entered. “Seats!” She ordered.
“Thank you all for coming. The reorganization is now complete as are many of the repairs that we have done. I am aware that many of you have never worked together before but we are all Navy! Forces from outside the Empire have conspired to kill us and take over our worlds. They have done much damage already.” She pressed a button on her console and vid images sprang to life on the screens around the room.
“As you can see, many of the cities that we love are now in ruin. Those are from segments of the Imperial Army and Marine forces lost to the Cabal forces. That is who we are fighting: The Cabal. We have evidence that they are behind much of the infighting in our service. They have one goal and one goal only: to turn the Empire and all its holdings back over to the control of Earth! They are about to declare that the Empire we love is now the Earth Empire! My question to all of you is this: do we allow that to happen or do we fight?”
“Admiral? How much of the Fleet do they control?”
“Excellent question, Major Bowman. Unfortunately they have eighty percent of it. Only a small percentage managed to escape. They managed to infiltrate the officer corps so completely that many ship’s crews were unaware of the changes until it was too late. Those that cause too much trouble go out the airlock.”
“How do we fight our own Navy with such small forces? They’ll just roll right over us!”
“Captain James! We are the best that our Navy has to offer! But you do have a point. I intend to take this fleet into exile. The Cabal only controls around seventy percent of the worlds that made up the Empire. We need to pick one and attempt to form a Government in Exile to better fight them.”
“Commander Moore, what is the status of our Fleet?”
“Admiral, we have two carriers: the Vindex and the Manxman. Both carriers have been repaired but only have a complement of twenty space fighters between them. We have three cruisers: the Lepanto, the Warspite, and the Jules Ferry. All three are older less modern classes. While heavily armored they are build more for defense. The Alamance is a logistics ship that doubles as destroyer. It was docked at New San Diego when the battle began and chose to leave with us. We have six destroyers and four frigates. All ten ships took the brunt of the attack as we fled the battle. Many of them need extensive repairs beyond what we can do here.”
“We have sixteen ships? Is that what you’re saying Roger?”
“Not entirely, Admiral. There are two attack squads of patrol craft and scout ships. But together that only gives us thirty ships. We are in communications with two Imperial convoy groups that wish to join us. They are basically older destroyers and stores transports. There is a Space Marine training ship complete with air wing in port in New Texas. They fled there after the ship’s XO killed the command staff. The cadets overpowered the guards and took command o
f the ship. It should prove to be a heck of a story.”
“What kind of ship is it? I am unfamiliar with Marine commands.”
“Admiral, that ship is the Moreno. It was a First Interstellar War dreadnought that was converted into a training vessel. It still has the dual-mounted turrets both fore and aft. There are two torpedo batteries in the bow and the surface is studded with anti-fighter batteries.”
“Commander Mutai, you seem to know quite a bit about this ship. Did you serve on it?”
“Not exactly, Admiral. I was the cadet commander for three years running in my class. I am intimately aware of every inch of that ship. It would give a pirate or colonial fleet a run for their money.”
“We have our target then. New Texas is our destination. Prepare the Fleet for departure. You are all dismissed.” The Admiral just stared at the wall monitors as the officers filed out of the room. Thirty ships! That was not nearly enough to do the job. They could join the PPL, but that would defeat the purpose of regaining their worlds. A voice surprised her, and she turned to see who was still in the room.
