by Ivan Kal
“It looks so. Weapons, can we shoot down the missiles?” Adrian asked. They needed to keep that ship alive.
“No Ship Master, our missiles weren’t designed to track targets so small. There is nothing we can do.” Noah said regretfully.
“What about our railguns? Can we shoot the missiles down with them?” Adrian asked.
“In theory, but Adrian, we would need to fire them at the place where the missiles will be. It will take minutes to calculate based on the missiles track, I can’t do it fast enough.” Noah said.
Adrian tried to think about any other way, the Concordis ships didn’t have any point defense, and firing their own missiles wouldn’t work, they were all tracking missiles, and had evading capabilities. They might shoot down some, but not all.
“I can do it Adrian.” Adrian heard Iris in his head.
“What?” he asked.
“I can do the calculations. But I will need access to the ships computer.” Iris said. Adrian thought about it, but he couldn’t see any other way.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, but you will need Bethany’s and yours codes in order to let me into the system, and they will know about me, I won’t be able to hide.” She said. Adrian made his choice, he trusted Iris.
Adrian turned to Bethany.
“Do you have any ideas?” He asked.
Bethany shook her head. “No.”
Adrian took a breath.
“I’m going to need you to trust me, and enter your command codes into the computer.” Adrian said.
“Why?” Bethany asked suspiciously.
“I have a way of saving that ship, but doing that will require allowing someone into the ships computer.” He said.
“Allowing someo-” Adrian interrupted her.
“Bethany, we need to protect that ship.” He looked at her imploring her to trust him.
“Alright.” She said, and entered sent her codes over her implant. Adrian did the same, and a then he gave Iris access to the ships computers.
“What the hell! Something took over my station!” Noah cried out.
“There is no need to panic Noah, she will do the calculations for the railguns.” Adrian said.
Both Bethany and Noah turned towards Adrian. “She?”
“Hello, my name is Iris.” Iris said over speakers.
“Adrian, what is this?” Bethany asked confused.
“Everyone, meet Iris.” Adrian said. “Iris, is an Artificial Intelligence” Adrian said.
“But, how? Where did she come from?” Noah asked.
Instead of answering Adrian just touched the side of his head. Noah looked even more confused at the gesture. But Bethany got it.
“Your implant.” Adrian simply nodded.
“I have the calculations, we need to fire in thirty seconds, or we will lose the window.” Iris said.
“Weapons, execute the targeting solution.” Adrian said.
“Yes Ship Master.” Noah said.
“And fire missiles at the Concordis ship.” Adrian renewed his previous order.
***
Captain Smith looked at his first officer totally helpless, the Viking has opened fire on his ship, and they had no way of defending themselves. The Bismarck’s hull was tough and thick, and Smith hoped that they survived, but he knew there would be casualties. He should have never agreed to this mission, he knew that it was wrong, and yet he followed orders, to do otherwise would have been treason.
“Impact in seven minutes Captain.” His weapons office said.
“Turn the bottom of the ship towards the missiles.” Captain Smith ordered, the hull was the thickest there. He hoped that it was enough.
“Captain! The Olympus ship has opened fire.”
“Good. At least the Viking won’t get away unscathed.” Captain Smith said.
“They fired missiles at the Viking, but sir, there is something else going into empty space.” The sensor officer said confusingly. “The computer, can’t make sense of it, it says that it is a meteor shower.”
“Get me the tracks on that shower.” Captain Smith said.
A few moments later he saw that the new tracks interjected with the missile path. After a few moments of studying the tracks Captain Smith exclaimed. “Those are ballistic weapons, Olympus ship is trying to shoot down the missiles!”
***
Athena’s railguns turned as one, all pointed at an empty point in space, as one they started firing, in thirty seconds the railguns launched over five hundred metal shells at the fraction of the speed of light towards empty space, they were fired in such a way as to blanket the entire area, anything that crossed their path was going to be crushed with the kinetic force that would rip it apart. Six minutes later their path was interjected with fifty Concordis missiles. Missiles had evading capabilities, but their processors weren’t fast enough to recognize the danger until it was too late. By the time the evading protocols were initiated twenty missiles were struck by metal shells, and ten more exploded, hit by the blasts created from the destroyed missiles, the remaining ten engaged their evading protocols, but Athena’s targeting solution took every possible path in account, and the ten missiles were quickly destroyed by the defensive fire.
Six minutes before, after the railgun fire died down, Athena’s missile tubes opened, and ten 20 kilotons missiles shoot of towards their target. The missiles were slower than railguns at short range, it will take them a little over eight minutes to arrive at their target.
***
“All missiles have been destroyed Captain.” Vikings weapons officer reported.
“The enemy missiles will reach us in two minutes Captain.” Sensor officer said.
Captain Dowson glared angrily at the screen. The Olympus ship had managed to destroy all of the missiles he sent at Bismarck, something that he believed was impossible just a few minutes ago. And to add to it that they launched ten missiles at his ship that he had no way of stopping. He wondered what the designers of this ship thought when they came up with it. Sure, they gave them thick armor, but no other defensive capability. He would have to have a talk with his superiors about that when he returned home. But for now he had a job to do.
“Target Olympus ship. Fire all missiles.” Dawson said calmly. Let’s see how they will deal with a full load of missiles.
***
The Viking’s missile pods opened and four hundred missiles left the ship on an intercept course towards the Olympus ship. Two minutes later the missiles that the Olympus ship fired reached the Viking, five missiles hit them spread out across the ship doing minor damage to the hull, and destroying the ships communication relay. The other five missiles struck the back of the ship, three missiles hit and damaged the drives, one failed to detonate, but the fifth one struck and penetrated inside the hull, the explosion ignited the ships fuel tank, and a moment later the Viking exploded in a blinding flash that lasted only a second as fire consumed all the air inside the ship. Captain Dowson didn’t live long enough to see all his four hundred missiles struck down by Athena’s railguns.
Chapter Twenty-four
“The Concordis ambassador came clean, they told us the truth, or rather a version of the truth.” Tomas said. He was still in the meeting room that was now converted to a command room, Elias, Seo-yun, Laura and Nadia were all still there as well. It has been two hours since the Concordis ship surrendered to Ship Master Farkas, and Athena was currently escorting the ship to the Moon, Ship Master Farkas has put two security teams on the ship to make sure that nothing happens, but for now they were cooperating. Concordis leadership on the other hand was trying to shift the blame. They blamed their Minister of Defense, as the man who arranged for everything. Tomas managed to keep his cool, even though he was burning up inside. He still hadn’t made any demands of Concordis, he didn’t even contact them, it was them who initiated every conversation. Tomas knew that his lack of response was what scared them the most.
Other countries from Earth had also learn
ed of what happened. Their reactions varied, the League was condemning Concordis action, while the Coalition condemned Olympus for having armed ships in space.
“It doesn’t matter.” Tomas said.
“What doesn’t matter?” Seo-yun asked. Everyone in the room was shocked, they had just lost three hundred people.
“This.” Tomas said gesturing around the room. “Them, us, everything. They will never change. And I can’t do this anymore.” Tomas said tiredly.
“Tomas, it’s going to be alright.” Elias said.
“No, it’s not.” Tomas closed his eyes. No one spoke for a few minutes. Laura quietly instructed the staff members to leave the room, leaving only Tomas and his closest friends in the room.
“Tomas.” Laura started.
“I want you to call for a meeting. I want all the leaders of Earth to attend, we can hold it at Sedna.” Tomas said interrupting her, he said a bit unsurely.
The others looked at each other.
“A meeting? Tomas are you sure? Is that the right move?” Nadia asked.
“Hmm, yes, I have something to tell them all. But first I need to do something… I need to speak with Olympus. With every member of Olympus. I need to ask them something, and then we will see about the conference. Can you arrange that for me?” Tomas asked Nadia. She started to respond but thought better of it and just nodded firmly and said yes.
“Good, good. Seo-yun.” He said, turning his attention to her. “You said that you recovered charts, that the Alien ship made, scans of systems it visited on its journey?”
“Uhm, yes we have them.” She responded slowly.
“Good, I want you to do something for me.” Tomas said, conviction creeping back into his voice.
***
Three months later
Concordis President Lucas Von Holt sat in a comfortable chair in a large conference room in Sedna, The room was filled with leaders of every government in the world and their staff. Olympus limited them to four per party, and everyone agreed grudgingly, Tomas Klein and Olympus remained silent since the incident that took place three months ago. There was no retaliation, no prosecution, nothing, at least nothing on the political scene. On the other hand, every country from Earth that had the capability noticed an increase in Olympus activity. They have brought more ships to the Moon, more than anyone knew they had. At least five more warships were also confirmed orbiting the Moon, they started pulling people from their colony on the Moon, and dismantling the colony facilities and the station they had in orbit, and not just that, there was increase traffic from Sedna. There were no more people living here, only a bare minimum staff, everyone was sent out towards Mars. They knew that Olympus had facilities there, and apparently they were big enough to sustain their entire population. The scariest part was that no one knew the reason. Most believed that they were preparing for war.
He was brought out of his thoughts by the door opening. Tomas Klein entered the room, he was alone, and he made his way towards the speaking platform without a single glance at the people gathered here, when he reached the platform he looked around the room at all those gathered there. He spent a few minutes in silence, the other leaders and their advisors were discussing quietly among themselves. Russian president stood up and addressed Klein.
“Are we going to start this discussion or not? Why have you invited us here?” He asked, his voice was heard loudly and clearly through the speakers hidden throughout the room.
The others voiced their agreement, though not so loudly.
Tomas Klein looked around the room one more time before finally turning his gaze to the Russian ambassador.
“I did not invite you here to discuss things, you are all here only as listeners, I will talk and you will listen.” He said.
Tomas took a deep breath, and suddenly a text file appeared above every table in the room, and then he started talking.
“These are written confessions, one by Captain Reginald Smith of Concordis navy ship Bismarck, the other one is from Major Denis Taylor of Concordis army forces. These confirm that they were given orders by their superiors to execute a plan that resulted in the destruction of Cloud station, and deaths of three hundred Olympus citizens.” Tomas turned to the Concordis party and President Von Holt felt his mouth go dry. “The plan was for them to acquire data about Olympus technology. I have been keeping Olympus technology from your hands, and you all held it against us, even though you would have done the same thing if the roles were reversed, although, you would have done it for a different reason.” He looked around the room. “You resorted to violence and murder in order to obtain it. You did all that, when all you saw was technology that was barley a few years ahead of yours. And the sad thing is, that if you pooled your resources, if you set aside your differences, you would have been able to catch up to that technology in a few years at most. What you saw was only what we showed you, our technology is at least fifty years ahead of anything you have, and some even more. I never intended on keeping our advances from you, all I ever wanted was for humanity to become what I knew it could be. All you had to do, was learn to work together in peace, to care about your people and not your wallets. The moment you did that, I would have given you everything. But your actions have convinced me that you will not change any time soon, we went through a devastating war and still you couldn’t see that if we continue on this path we will doom our entire race. My people and I have reached a decision, we will not wait for you anymore, we will not watch as you kill each other nor will we allow you to kill us. We are removing ourselves from the equation. Olympus will leave the Solar system, we will start a new life on another planet, far away from you and your stupidity.” At that the room erupted. President Von Holt stared at Tomas Klein, he expected many things, but never this. Concordis has been preparing for war as the worst case option, they knew that there would be a response from Olympus. That is what they would do. And yet, leaving the Solar system? He knew that Olympus technology was better, but by that much? Perhaps if what Tomas was saying was the truth they could do it, and there was no reason for him to be lying about this. And then he realized what Olympus leaving would mean.
“What about our trade with Olympus? Earth is dependent on it.” President Von Holt asked.
The rest of the room grew quiet and turned to look at him.
“I made a mistake all those years ago.” Tomas said regretfully. “I made you too dependent on Olympus, but the fault was not all mine, it was you who allowed it. It will be hard, but you will recover, if you work together. Our facilities on Earth are now yours to do with as you see fit. But we will not be leaving you our technology, we will dismantle or destroy anything that we can’t take with us.”
The League President stood up.
“You would throw the world into chaos and run away!?”
“I’m not running away. We are just tired of looking after you. Sometimes children need tough love. We showed you the way, it is up to you now to grow up.” With that he turned and left, the room immediately exploded into arguments, Von Holt heard that the topic of most of the arguments was the distribution of the Olympus facilities, and territory. They didn’t care that Olympus was leaving. My god, he is right. We are children. President Von Holt thought, he looked around seeing his staff members joining the yelling matches. He turned from them disgusted, he walked out of the conference room. There was no one around, no security officers that were there before. He walked down the corridors, and then took the elevator up to the surface. As he stepped into the bright light of the day, he saw that Olympus transport ships were gone, and then up in the distance he saw small black dots that were gone the next moment.
***
Two months later
Seo-yun sat in her office on the station orbiting Jupiter, she looked at the screen mounted on the wall, it showed the image from outside the station. Most of the screen was taken up by Jupiter, but there in the distance she could see four massive ships, they were still under construction, but it w
ill take them only one more month to finish them. Most of Olympus fabricators were now working full time on their construction, the others were working on fabricating things that they will need for the long trip, mainly stasis chambers. It will take them just over a month to reach the number of stasis units for everyone. The last count put Olympus population at 7 and a half million. And every one of them had chosen to come with them. Five months ago, just after the incident, Tomas addressed all of Olympus citizens, some watched him live via FTL comm devices. Other watched as the signal got to them. He revealed everything. He told them about the alien ship they found, he told them about his childhood dream, he told them all of his plans, and Olympus listened in awe of this one man. A man who changed their lives, who made them better, who wanted to do that for all of mankind, but couldn’t fight against the corruption of the world. The feed went on for hours, he told them all of his fears, and all of his hopes, and he told them about all the advances, all the technology that they have, or were working on. He told them about the strides in genetics that will allow humans to live forever. He told them about his struggles, how he didn’t know if he should give that technology to the Earth, how he feared that it would destroy them, because they were not mature enough to wield it. And then he told them how he didn’t want to see any one of them die for the greed of others. He told them his plan, he told them that he wanted to leave this Solar system, Earth behind, and start over somewhere else. He asked them to come with him. And then he waited. The people talked with their families, their friends and their acquaintances. They sent him their response, every single one of them chose to leave with him, with the person who gave them so much.
Olympus was always run by Tomas, but even when they became independent, they still operated as a company. No more, the people have spoken, they made Tomas their ruler, their King, their President and their Emperor. They put their trust in him, knowing that it will be safe with him.
Olympus population moved to Mars, waiting there for the ships to be finished. The other ships that Olympus had were now retrofitted as transports that will take the population to the colony ships in a few trips. None of those ships will go with them, some will be scraped for materials, others destroyed, only the 8 warships that they had, will be fitted with stasis units and a hyperdrive, and come with them. The stations and shipyards they had in the system were already mostly dismantled or striped of all technology, their mining operations likewise.
