Cybership

by Vaughn Heppner

  The present SL leadership had finally decided on Solar-wide conquest. The Neptunian Navy had met the SLN fleet near the moon Nereid. It had been a costly fight for both sides, but the SLN forces proved superior. They had smashed the majority of the NSN’s capital ships, sending flocks of missiles after the smaller ships trying to flee.

  “You’re remembering things,” the Martian said.

  “I don’t understand,” Jon said, trying not to groan. “Neptune lost the space battle. I don’t remember why I would enter a cryo unit aboard a mainstay SLN battleship. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “You’re part of a secret weapon system,” the Martian said.

  “Don’t tell him that,” Oslo snapped.

  “What weapon system?” Jon asked.

  A loud clang sounded, echoing throughout the corridor.

  “What was that?” Oslo cried, as his head swiveled about.

  Another clang sounded, followed by several more.

  “What do the noises mean?” Oslo shouted hysterically.

  The deck-plates shuddered under their feet.

  “Are aliens boarding?” Oslo shrieked.

  “Quiet,” the battlesuited Martian said. “Let me think.”

  “It sounds like—” Another round of clangs interrupted Jon.

  “You know what’s happening, don’t you?” the arbiter shouted at Jon.

  “I think so.”

  “Tell us or you’ll die!” Oslo shouted.

  Jon hesitated. He wanted to punch the arbiter for thinking the threats meant anything to him. Finally, realizing the truth would freak out the secret policeman, he said, “The lifeboats are being ejected. The clangs we’re hearing are the magnetic hooks coming off. The shaking must be back-blast from lifeboat thrusters hitting the battleship.”

  Oslo’s eyes widened. “What do you mean the lifeboats? You’re not trying to say they’re launching?”

  “Of course,” the Martian said. “That’s exactly what it is. But I didn’t think anyone else was alive to use the lifeboats.”

  “His space marines,” Oslo shouted, pointing at Jon. “The rest of them woke up and fled the ship, the cowards.”

  “No…” the Martian said. “That doesn’t sound plausible. I think we may not have shut down the computer after all. It evaded us somehow. I deem it more likely that the computer launched the lifeboats so none of us could get away.”

  Oslo groaned before shouting, “Kill it! We must kill the computer before it kills us.”

  “As bizarre as that sounds,” the Martian told Jon, “I think he’s right. Let me think…where could it have—I have it. We have to check the auxiliary backup system. That seems the likeliest place it could inhabit.”

  “You’re speaking about the computer as if it’s something living,” Jon said, bemused.

  “Yes…” the Martian said. “Maybe that’s why I’m in such earnest to destroy it. I’m afraid if I don’t—if we don’t—that life as we know it in the Solar System is over.”

  -8-

  The battlesuited Martian charged down the corridor with Oslo, her 0.76-tons shaking the deck-plates.

  Jon dropped farther behind as she continued the grueling pace. His lungs burned, and his left side ached. The pinching of his feet became even more severe.

  Hisses and quieter clangs from ahead told him the Martian was using the heavy assault rifle. Against what, he wondered.

  Jon doggedly kept following. After several turns, he came upon some shot-up and destroyed repair bots. One nearly burned him, as he didn’t watch his feet placement carefully enough. The laser torch beamed hot, shooting its laser along the deck-plates.

  Jon yelped in surprise, barely dancing away from the beam in time. A different bot tried to pinch him with otherwise immobile clackers.

  He focused, maneuvering as far away from the shot-up bots as he could.

  The surreal feeling invaded his thinking once again. Could this so-called alien virus truly cause a ship’s computer to attack its personnel? Could the virus do so to such a degree that the computer could reprogram the repair bots, turning them into soldier units?

  It seemed like a preposterous idea. Yet, the bot back there had tried to burn his feet.

  The battlesuit’s clomping sounds had dwindled until he could no longer hear it.

  Jon slowed his pace. Soon, something began bothering him. How could a rogue computer slaughter the personnel of an entire SLN battleship? How would he do it if he could control the ship’s automated systems?

  He shuddered as his imagination took over. Draining the air from an area would work. He’d seen the suffocated personnel. Opening hatches to space would kill just as effectively.

  An alien virus, she’d said. That sounded like a cover story. What had caused her to make such an outrageous assumption?

  Wouldn’t aliens presuppose a Faster-Than-Light drive? If these aliens had traveled under regular physics, wouldn’t astronomers have spotted these extraterrestrials years ago? The exhaust from a vast generational ship slowing down to enter the Solar System would have made it as bright as a distant star. And it would have moved.

  FTL drives belonged to science fiction, not to reality. That meant the idea of aliens wasn’t real, or at the very least had an extremely low probability.

  The woman was a Martian—a Martian mentalist.

  Martians were supposedly reluctant members of the Solar League. Earth had conquered Mars over forty years ago. A stubborn core of Martians still yearned for independence. According to what Jon knew about history, many of the first space colonists had gone to Mars. They’d been among the most independent-minded of all the colony waves.

  The mentalists were geniuses of some sort. They took specialized training from an early age, muted their emotions and relied heavily upon logic. The best professional chess players were Martian mentalists.

  Jon shrugged before becoming more thoughtful. Everyone sensible feared the GSB. The SL secret police had a fearsome reputation. The Martian knew Oslo would never forgive her for her words and actions in the med center. That meant the Martian really believed the Brezhnev was doomed.

  A cold feeling expanded in Jon’s gut. He didn’t remember the Battle of Nereid or entering the cryo unit. He certainly had no idea how or why the regiment had become a Neptune System Navy secret weapon.

  He would have to take the mentalist’s word for that.

  “Right,” he whispered.

  He tore off the foot-pinching shoes. It was time to look for a weapon. Then, it was time to find the cryo chamber. If he could defrost what remained of the regiment, they could take control of the Brezhnev.

  Retracing his steps, Jon tried every hatch he saw along the way. Finally, he was able to force one open. It was a utility closet. He rummaged around until he found a box-cutter-like instrument and a portable laser torch.

  He shouldered the power-pack as he slipped his arms through the carrying straps. He cinched the belt around his waist and took hold of the torch. As he turned to go, he spied a pair of work-boots. These fit better than the former shoes. After lacing them, he stomped the boots on the deck-plates a bit.

  He reached the shot-up bots, maneuvering around them with care. A strange feeling told him they were aware of him. That was more than creepy. It felt supernatural, and that frightened him in a fundamental way.

  He halted, glancing back at the shot-up bots. This wasn’t supernatural. The machines hadn’t even necessarily turned intelligent. They had attacked. The one bot hadn’t been able to open a main bulkhead hatch. That implied the repair bot had a limited scope. Ghosts didn’t inhabit the machines. Therefore, he didn’t need to feel anything superstitious about them.

  Jon nodded decisively.

  Apparently, the SLN task force had defeated the main NSN fleet near Nereid. The rest of the Solar System had far more people and resources than the Neptune System did. What Neptune had going for it all these years was its extreme distance from everywhere else.

  The Neptune Gravitationa
l System was approximately 30 AUs from the Sun. The Jupiter System was approximately 5 AUs. An Astronomical Unit was the distance from the Sun to Earth.

  A task force from Earth to Neptune would take two years or more to reach way out here at combat speeds. Maybe that’s why the regiment had been in the cryo chamber. The battleship hadn’t wanted extra mouths to feed on the long journey home to Earth.

  It seemed odd, though, that the battleship would travel all the way back to Earth. The more logical choice would be to stay out here in the Neptune System.

  The distance was so incredibly far that it took a laser-lightguide message a little over four hours to travel one way from Neptune to Earth at the speed of light. Four hours one way made it impossible to hold a regular conversation.

  Jon shook his head as he lurched forward. He needed to find the cryo chamber as soon as possible.

  The Leonid Brezhnev was a battleship. Maybe it was one of the new ones. He couldn’t remember the specs regarding one. Maybe he’d never known. He had a feeling this vessel was one of the biggest spaceships humans had ever constructed.

  The number three hundred bounced around inside his head. Three hundred personnel living in the battleship for years at a time meant it had to be immense. It must have decks upon decks. Then, to store all the food, water, missiles, energy, engines, plate-armor, ablating, protective gels and crystals for battle—

  Jon’s shoulders slumped. He couldn’t remember the route the Martian had taken from the med center. He could spend hours searching for the cryo chamber. He needed a ship layout to help him.

  He concentrated as he passed hatches. Finally, he came to one with star symbols on it. Maybe this was an astronavigation center.

  He tried several times to open the hatch without success. Finally, he activated the torch and cut out the hatch over an emergency system. After the edges cooled, he rotated a handle, slowly opening the main hatch with it.

  The hatch suddenly froze, and the handle wouldn’t budge no matter how hard he tried.

  Jon lay prone on the deck-plates and squeezed under the partly opened hatch. He realized he’d come to an observation port.

  There was a short corridor and another hatch. This one opened easily. He closed the hatch and stepped toward a bulging dome. It pushed outward several meters from the main armored hull of the battleship.

  The dome was made of a clear substance, allowing him to view space and along the length of the Leonid Brezhnev.

  He peered at the battleship’s hull. There were pockmarks here and there—hits from the Battle of Nereid repaired rapidly in the field.

  The hull was black-matted, coated with anti-sensor materiel. Behind the materiel was the hardened armored alloy. He had no idea how thick the alloy was. The battleship was oval-shaped, a deadly example of the SLN’s power.

  Jon peered outward into space. He wasn’t sure what he expected. There were stars, of course, myriads of stars. There was also a blue object. It was three times the size of the largest visible star.

  With a start, Jon realized the blue object was Neptune. They must be within five million kilometers of the ice giant. In this region of space, that was incredibly close.

  He would have thought the Brezhnev would have been much farther away. He couldn’t have been in the cryo unit for very long then.

  What did that tell him?

  Nothing he could really use. Somehow, it made the idea of aliens seem even sillier, though. If aliens had done this to the computer…wouldn’t the two battle fleets have already detected the alien ships, joining forces to destroy them?

  He lacked a critical piece of knowledge. He had no idea how long he’d been in the cryo unit.

  What was going on in the Neptune Gravitational System? Five million kilometers—if the regiment could capture the Brezhnev, they could return to the Neptune System shortly. What were the earthborn conquerors doing to the people of the Neptune System?

  At that point, the continuous thrum increased, heralding greater Gs dragging down on Jon’s body. The Brezhnev’s engines obviously thrust with greater power. Did that mean they were braking, or did it mean the vessel was accelerating? Did the battleship seek to flee from Neptune or return to it?

  It seemed to Jon the Gs had doubled. That would make walking around much more difficult. He’d tire more quickly.

  Not only did he need to find a ship layout, he needed more food and water to sustain a hard and extended effort.

  He’d delayed long enough. It was time to get a move on.

  -9-

  Jon saw the battlesuit’s oversized metal boots as he slid under the frozen hatch.

  Arbiter Oslo still lay against the battlesuit’s left arm. Now, however, the secret policeman had rearmed. He pointed a larger handgun at him, an upgrade from the small pistol.

  “Look at him,” Oslo sneered. “He must consider those weapons. Do you have any doubts left?”

  “Don’t shoot him,” the battlesuited Martian said. “We have to think this through.”

  “I am in charge here,” the arbiter said. “I will give you commands. You will not give me commands.”

  “The admiral is in charge,” the Martian said. “She has the final say in this.”

  “You told me the admiral was dead.”

  “I said she’s dying, and that may take her a while. She’s stubborn, as I’m sure you know.”

  “Hmm…” the arbiter said. “Unlatch the power-pack,” he told Jon. “You will—”

  “Just a minute,” the Martian said.

  “I have tolerated as much interference as I’m willing to take from you,” the arbiter announced.

  “Please, Arbiter,” the Martian said. “I request a judgment on your part.”

  Sapir Oslo cocked his head, looking up at the sealed helmet. “You desire me to make a judgment at a time like this?”

  “Yes, Arbiter,” the Martian said formally.

  “Set me on my feet,” the arbiter said. “I cannot pronounce a judgment cradled like a child.”

  The Martian carefully set the small secret policeman onto his feet—his one good foot. He held the other foot clear of the deck as he leaned against the battlesuit. The arbiter still hadn’t found any shoes.

  “Give me the situation,” Oslo said formally.

  “As far as we know,” the Martian said, “everyone aboard the Leonid Brezhnev is dead except for us three and the admiral.”

  “You are forgetting the regiment of NSN space marines in the cryo chamber,” Oslo said.

  “Ahhh…” the Martian said. The faceplate aimed at Jon. “Were you headed to the cryo chamber?”

  Jon said nothing.

  “His silence is damning,” Oslo said. “But go ahead,” he told the Martian. “Let us make this a formal judgment. Then, I will execute the Neptunian.”

  “We have finally eliminated the rogue computer,” the Martian said. “I imagine you heard it threaten us with extinction just before I aborted it.”

  “It was an odd pronouncement indeed,” Oslo said, as his face registered momentary unease. “I imagine the computer spoke that way in order to befuddle us. In the end, I deem it an amateurish attempt.”

  “Suppose, though, that the auxiliary backup computer spoke truly at the end?” the Martian asked.

  “That has no bearing on the space marine.” Oslo’s narrow features tightened as he pointed his gun at Jon. “I told you to drop the power-pack. If you do not do so at once, I will kill you.”

  “I saved your life before,” Jon said.

  “You did so for your own nefarious ends,” Oslo said. “Thus, I am unimpressed by your actions. By the way, if this is a stalling technique on your part, it will not work. I am giving you three seconds to comply with my command.”

  Jon glanced up at the battlesuit before unbuckling the belt and letting the pack and torch hit the deck. He still had the box-cutter in his back pocket. If the arbiter dropped his guard, it would be the last thing the secret policeman ever did.

  “Excellent,”
Oslo said in a smug tone. “You have extended your existence for another minute or two.”

  “The auxiliary computer threatened us with human extinction,” the Martian continued. “Yet, the computer knew it was dying, its last circuits about to lose power. It increased engine thrust at the very end—then it died.”

  “Your statement is imprecise,” Oslo said in a nasal tone. “Circuits, metal and plastics do not die. At the most, they cease functioning. Saying the computer died has too many false implications.”

  “Yes, Arbiter,” the Martian said.

  “Further,” Oslo said, “I have not heard anything so far that demands a judgment. This is a waste of time.”

  “I disagree,” the Martian said. “At all costs, we must regain control of the Brezhnev. We must discover what the computer meant and beam a report about that back to Earth before we die.”

  Oslo cocked his head, half regarding the battlesuit. “Why do you speak of dying? We have defeated the rogue computer. We have won.”

  The Martian chuckled dryly. “That is illogical, Arbiter. What caused the computer to go rogue in the first place?”

  “Him,” Oslo said, using the gun to point at Jon.

  “I doubt that,” the Martian said. “I believe an alien entity is the culprit.”

  “What alien?” Oslo demanded. “You keep speaking about an alien without any proof of one.”

  “I believe the proof is in the Neptune System,” the Martian said.

  “Why would you say this?”

  “Because we have been unable to speak to anyone in the Neptune System,” the Martian said.

  “Our rogue computer blocked all transmissions.”

  “That is an imprecise statement. We managed to send a signal to our task force.”

  “And?” asked Oslo.

  “Nothing,” the Martian said.

  “That doesn’t mean—”