But the admiral had no illusions that this tactic would work twice. He would need every trick, every strategy to keep his own fleet on its toes or the AI would adapt and eat them for breakfast.
“Bring us about. Form the battlegroup to an Epsilon three formation.”
Before the admiral’s thirty plus ships could finish their maneuvers, Gaia 2 had delivered her reply.
Five GDF destroyers fired an energy beam towards a sixth ship, which at first didn’t make any sense. But three seconds later that sixth ship unleashed a massive, golden beam of energy towards a ship starboard of the Victory. One of Zenakis’ ship, the Medusa, was hit and, half a second later, it exploded into large fragments. Secondary explosions vaporized the debris into nothingness.
What the hell?
“Medusa’s been destroyed!” said the tactical officer. “They just one-shot one of our destroyers.”
This was not what Zenakis had hoped for. He knew Gaia 2 would retaliate, but he never expected that one single, long-range shot would down one of his ships with such ease.
Admiral Zenakis rubbed his beard nervously. “Open a channel to Athena.”
“Channel opened.”
Athena filled the Victory’s holo-screen with her soothing presence. The admiral’s eyes grew big. She’s surely a beauty.
“What can I do for you, Admiral?”
“Can your ships sustain such weaponry?”
“I’m not sure. My scientists are calculating this right now. We believe we could manage to deflect two, perhaps three shots with our shields at full strength.”
“Which would explain why Gaia 2 hasn’t fired on you yet.”
“Like I said, we’re having this confirmed. But I agree. Gaia 2 must have sensor data providing her with the weakest shields from the fleet.”
“She was looking for the weakest link, and she found them in my battlegroup.”
Athena nodded.
“Any suggestions?”
“We don’t have much choice. Your tactic to weaken her shields is good. We’ll just have to maneuver a lot closer to one another, so we can deflect some of these ultra-powerful energy beams.”
“Agreed. You’re effectively becoming our shields.”
“This is just a stop-gap solution though, Admiral.”
Athena was right, but what choice did they have? They had destroyed three of their ships, then a handful of seconds later, one of theirs was gone. They could just rinse-and-repeat and hope she ran out of ships faster than they did, but that would cost them too many ships and lives, and Zenakis was not ready to lose all that if it could be avoided.
Daniel’s squadron approached its new coordinates shortly after the loss of the Medusa. The power of this multi-ship firing sequence had taken them all by surprise.
The golden beam of energy was much more powerful than the Damocles main guns. This would make this engagement all the more difficult.
But right now, Daniel’s squadron had their new targets. His squadron entered firing range of their target, a ship designated GDF-8, and all four wings of StarFuries fired a pair of torpedoes towards it.
A split second before the torpedoes hit their targets, the GDF destroyer jumped out of view.
“Dammit!” shouted Daniel.
He opened a channel to the Hope.
“Captain, didn’t we ask the Olympians to deploy their jump-interdiction field?”
“Negative, Daniel. Zenakis wanted to be able to use his own jump engines as part of our strategy.”
“Yeah, well, he’s going to have to reconsider that part of his strategy. We need the jump-interdiction field up. Have him request Athena to drop it when he needs to.”
“I agree with you and will transmit your suggestion to the admiral but, in the midst of battle, asking for the field to drop might take a few seconds too long to save a ship or execute a deadly battle maneuver. I’m not sure this is doable. At least not for us mere mortals.”
Daniel understood what Sarah meant. When Chase controlled multiple ships with his mind, he could effect split-second decisions. Having someone like the admiral at the helm, no matter how good a strategist he was, would slow things down. Even giving the order vocally would add precious seconds to any battle maneuver.
“Understood. What do we do now?”
“Engage the nearest target, with lasers this time. We can’t waste torpedoes. I’ll broadcast whether the JIF is up or down directly to your instruments. In the meantime, try to do what you can with laser fire.”
“We both know their shields are too strong for that.”
“Daniel, Yanis modified our weaponry. Have faith.”
Faith was the one commodity Daniel felt they were slowly but surely losing with each new minute of this engagement.
“Roger that, Captain.”
Daniel opened a channel to his wings.
“Hold off on the torpedoes for the time being. Engage your next target. Divert every ounce of power you can to your weapons systems and fire at will.”
“If I’m not inside Gaia 2’s matrix, why have we jumped towards Earth?”
“Chase, things weren’t going well. You had lost consciousness. Aphroditis told me to bring you back on board immediately,” said Ares.
“You talked with your sister? How long have I been out?”
“You’ve only been out an hour or so. You should get back in . . .” Ares gestured towards the destroyed regen tank. “Well, another one of these.”
“I’m fine. I have problems focusing, that’s all.”
“You should let the tank regenerate your brain tissues.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” said Chase, closing his eyes.
A white light enveloped Chase’s body and pulsated in and out. He grimaced and winced several times. As he repaired his own brain, images flashed in his mind, but this looked more like the future than the past.
He saw himself battle Oryn and Miseo on a ship with unfamiliar internal designs. He assumed it was a Fury ship. Outside the viewports, Chase saw Earth Alliance, Star Alliance and Olympian ships battling the Gaian Defense Force armada.
Chase swallowed hard.
“What’s going on, Chase?”
“I’m having difficulty healing myself. Every time I try to do deep healing on my brain, I keep getting flashes. Like glimpses of the future, but I don’t have that power— I shouldn’t have that power. It’s similar to when Aphroditis gave me her pendant when fighting the Titan.”
Ares remembered what Aphroditis had told him earlier about having left a part of her consciousness inside Chase.
“It’s possible the damage to your brain prevents you from using your healing powers properly, though I suspect it’s something else. I might have another explanation.”
Chase dropped the healing aura and shot Ares a serious look. “What aren’t you telling me, Ares?”
“It’s not something I’m hiding from you, Chase, more something I’ve just learned.”
“What is it?”
“Aphroditis told me she left a part of her inside you when she first touched your mind. I’m thinking whatever brain trauma you went through might have triggered access to her ability to see possible futures. I’m just guessing here.”
“If that’s true, then we may have a serious problem.”
“We’re in the midst of a large-scale assault with Gaia 2. We can’t seem to outsmart her and she almost got you killed. So yeah, I would say we’re having problems.”
“No, you don’t understand, Ares. The glimpse of the future—”
“What did you see?”
“If this is the future, then the Furies are coming.”
“Of course the Furies are coming, Chase. It will happen eventually.”
“No, you’re not listening to me. Oryn and Miseo are on their way to Earth now! I’m going to have to stop them in the middle of this battle.”
Ares took his head in his hands. “That’s some terrible timing.”
“It didn’t exactly look like
I was winning either.”
“What do we do now?”
“I’ve got to tip the balance of this fight in our favor. And I’ve got to do it before they arrive.”
Before Ares could voice his concerns about Chase’s physical state, he had teleported away from the medbay.
“I hate it when he does that,” said Ares, before teleporting away as well.
16
Argos looked around with unmasked satisfaction. Both Furies were still levitating hundreds of yards above the ground, looking at the destruction they had unleashed around them. For miles and miles there was only rubble.
“Now what?” asked Chris.
“I don’t know. Something must have happened, ’cause I would have expected more resistance from Gaia 2. She must be having trouble diverting enough CPU power to deal with us at the moment.”
“Let’s see if we can get her attention back,” said Chris with a smirk.
“I don’t see how we can do that.”
“Watch and learn.” Chris used his hands to amplify his voice. “Hey, bitch, is that all you can do? This is pathetic! Give us a real challenge.”
“Do we really want a challenge?” asked Argos.
“Well, if the idea is to distract her from blowing up Alliance ships, I’d say the more we do here, the better.
“You coward! Are you afraid of us?” Chris kept shouting at the top of his lungs.
Pieces of the rubble vibrated and levitated. Like a jigsaw they melded back together at impressive speed, and in less than sixty seconds, the city of Tokyo was pristine again.
“Looks like she heard you,” said Argos.
“Her ego is huge. It’s easy to get the attention of people who think too highly of themselves. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about,” said Chris with a wink.
“You have a peculiar sense of humor, boy, but I like you. You certainly have no problem speaking your mind without second guessing yourself.”
“What is there to second guess? You were not exactly uncle of the year until not long ago, but you clean up well.” Chris clapped Argos on the shoulder. “Now let’s kick some more ass, shall we, uncle?”
Argos smiled but it didn’t last long. “We’ve got company.”
Cedric arrived at the entrance of one of the underground bases where the nanites were located, deep in a shielded room to protect them from EMPs.
He ran over the latest of Kvasir’s code and readied his malware cascade for deployment. He added a routine to overload most of Gaia 2’s CPU with a multi-phasic worm that should help Chris and Argos inside the matrix as well: a self-replicating virus that would attack Gaia 2’s main systems as she spent CPU creating mental holographic projections.
The more she attacked Chris and Argos, the more processing resources it would cost her. Normally he wouldn’t risk such an ugly and obvious hack, but right now Gaia 2’s CPU was overloaded, and she probably wouldn’t be able to devote enough resources to poke holes in it; not while she battled their respective hacks, Chris and Argos, and the entire fleet in orbit.
He paused just before hitting the mental send command, wondering if this hack could be exploited against them should it fail to deliver.
He received a text message on his HUD in the form of a log alert.
“I know you’ve got your body back, and your friends are here. You have made a terrible mistake. I’m going to kill you all, starting with your precious fleet, then the impudent Furies inside my matrix. Then I’ll make the ones you call innocents on the face of this planet burn. Then I’m coming after you. When everyone and everything you hold dear has been wiped out, I’ll torture your treacherous little mind for all eternity. End of log file.”
Gaia 2 had been cut out of direct access to Cedric’s systems, so she had to leave her threat inside a log entry Cedric was monitoring. But her message actually helped him make his decision. She sounded panicked and angry, a state of mind when one is prone to make mistakes.
“Yeah, bitch, keep dreaming and, in the meantime, take that!”
Cedric sent the mental command to disseminate Kvasir’s hacks as well as his multi-phasic worm. He then opened a channel to the Asgardian.
“Hacks launched. I won’t be surprised if she loses control of her abilities both inside the matrix and in orbit for a few seconds. We may want to let the boys and girls up there know. They might have a short window of opportunity to do some serious damage.”
“I’m on it. Great job, Cedric. Good luck with your nanites.”
“Any news on Chase?”
“He woke up not long ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Tell him to get his butt down here as soon as he can. Him or Ares, but someone that can teleport.”
“I’ll forward your request. Why do you need only his butt, though? That seems counter-productive, and I wasn’t aware Furies could split their bodies like that.”
“What? No, that’s not what it means, Kvasir. It’s a human expression, dummy. It means to hurry the hell up. Just tell him to get down here or send me Ares ASAP, okay? In fact, if both could come, that would be ideal.”
“Will do.”
“Oh, and Kvasir?”
“Yes, Cedric?”
“Any chance you can link me with the rest of the fleet?”
“I’ve discussed it with Sarah. We can’t take the chance. If Gaia 2 reverses our hacks, she’ll get access to the whole fleet.”
“Right, makes sense.”
“But once you’ve unleashed the nanites, you’ll get access to Earth communication towers, won’t you?”
“True, and there is a comms unit in that bunker, so I’ll make sure the nanites work on it first before spreading around. Thanks, Kvasir.”
“Anytime, Cedric. Be careful.”
An armada of dark-painted battle bots rose from the ground of Tokyo and flew towards Argos and Chris. Hundreds upon hundreds of them.
“We may want to find a simpler way of getting rid of them than fighting them one by one this time around,” said Chris.
“I’m open to suggest—” But Argos didn’t finish the sentence, baffled by what he saw.
The bots fought each other instead of attacking the pair.
“Okay, that’s definitely weird,” said Chris.
“Maybe we should get a sitrep from Kvasir.”
“Good idea. Hang on.”
Kvasir, what’s up? Our enemies in the matrix are fighting themselves. Is that normal?
Cedric just launched the first wave of malware. He told me it would probably have an effect both inside as well as in orbit.
It had an effect alright. We don’t have to do anything. Perhaps we should get out of here?
Cedric said it would only be temporary. Gaia 2 will recover control over most of her systems, but right now she’s vulnerable.
Okay, thanks for the update. We’re staying put then.
“What did Kvasir say?”
“That Gaia 2 is being bugged by the engineers’ code right now, but that it will only last a few minutes, and she might get back in the game shortly.”
“We shouldn’t just witness this army of bots kick the crap out of one another. Let’s give them a hand.”
Chris flashed Argos a thumbs up before the two of them launched into the mix, and metal and silicon flew all over the place.
“We should expect Gaia 2 to be disoriented for a few moments, Admiral. We should go all-in and cause as much damage as we can,” said Sarah.
“This could be a trap. She could be trying to lure us in and then tighten the noose around our necks. I’m afraid it’s too risky. In my experience when something seems too good to be true, it’s because it is.”
“Admiral, I really think you should reconsider. This could be a one-time opportunity. We have to take advantage of it.”
“You should listen to her,” said Chase from behind her captain’s chair.
“Chase,” said Sarah with relief, no longer looking at the admiral on the holo-screen.
“
Admiral,” Chase continued, “if Gaia 2 is down, even for a few seconds, we can’t afford not to strike.”
“You put me in command of this armada, Captain. I value both your inputs but we keep doing things my way.”
Son of a—
The GDF ships all stopped firing at once.
“See, Admiral, it’s happening now. Let’s get rid of as many ships as this short window allows us,” insisted Chase.
“I’m willing to launch heavy, long-range fire towards that fleet, but we’re not getting right in the middle of her formation. The chances of this being a trap are too high. She could be setting a killbox.”
Chase regretted giving command back to the admiral. It was exactly what he had feared, that his obsession with doing things by the book would prevent him from seizing an opportunity when one stared at him.
“I’m taking command of the Earth Alliance ships, Admiral. You can cowardly cover us from a distance if you want. Chase out.”
Chase mentally turned off the holo-communication.
“Did you just hang up on him? And was it necessary to further antagonize him? Are you sure you’re okay, Chase?” asked Sara.
“I’m mentally drained, but I’m fine.” He took Sarah in his arms.
“I’m very glad to see you, but I’m not sure this was a wise move.”
“I should have listened to my instinct in the first place and let you command this armada. Zenakis is a fool. I don’t need or care for his consent. If Kvasir says the time to strike is now, then that’s what we’re doing. Would you mind?”
“No, not at all,” said Sarah, gesturing at the captain’s chair.
“I’ll only be a moment.”
Chase closed his eyes, interfaced with the Hope’s systems and then reached the rest of the Earth Alliance ships. He took control of the fleet and sent a message to Athena.
Athena, this is Chase. We need to strike at the ships now that they are in disarray. I’m sending you coordinates. When I send you the firing command, don’t hesitate to fire.
Welcome back, Chase. Won’t that anger First Admiral Zenakis, me taking orders from you?
Armageddon Unleashed (Universe in Flames Book 7) Page 18
