“By that time, all of Mars was cheering for you,” Vela said. “To the people, any alien represents the AIs. By choking the small alien, you were choking the AIs to the people. The Great Assembly passed the laws you desired. If the new secret police chief wanted to die hideously, she could keep hold of you. The city would have stormed the Alamo, though.”
Benz would have nodded, but all this talking and ingesting of data had exhausted him. He rested his head against the pillow.
He fell asleep again before he knew it.
-14-
Benz felt better after a solid ten-hour sleep. His mind didn’t feel so fuzzy anymore. It also felt as if he could stand if he gave it a go.
A nurse entered with a tray of food. It might have tasted bland to Benz at one time. Today, the mush and protein drink might have been the most glorious foods he’d ever ingested.
He smacked his lips afterward, asking for more.
A doctor entered, tsking as he overheard that.
“Not just yet, Premier,” the doctor said. “You’ve been through the grinder. I’ve put you on regenerative therapy. Let’s stick to the routine for a few days. Maybe after that…”
Benz was happy to be eating food, happy to be alive and overjoyed that the bullets hadn’t destroyed him. He was also ecstatic the alien hadn’t put any control units in his brain.
“I need to get up,” Benz told the doctor.
“Good. You should move, if just a little. I’ll summon an aide—”
“By myself, Doctor.”
“I don’t advise that just yet.”
“Nevertheless, that’s how we’ll proceed.”
The doctor looked as if he might become mulish.
Vela entered. She might have overhead the arguing.
“I’ll be with him,” she told the doctor.
“This is against my wishes,” the doctor said.
“Yes, yes,” Benz said. “Let’s not turn this into an issue.”
The doctor inspected Benz and nodded curtly, exiting the chamber.
“Do you have to throw your rank around like that?” Vela asked.
“What good is rank if you don’t throw it around?” Benz countered.
“Maybe your continued health,” she said.
“Forget about that. I want to know what’s happening. I want to know—”
“That’s why I’m here,” Vela said. “Let’s walk. I doubt you want to talk in here.”
“Good idea.”
As he was free of tubes, Benz rose and changed into regular clothes. The small amount of movement left him breathless. He tried not to show it, but—
“You’re pale, and shaking,” Vela said.
“It’s nothing.”
“Frank—you ought to know that you almost died. The alien—”
Benz didn’t hear the rest. He felt lightheaded, faint, and barely managed to plop into a wheelchair. He sat there panting. Maybe Vela was right. Maybe he should listen to the doctor. Just how close had he come to dying? He didn’t like thinking about it.
“Do you want to lie down?” Vela asked.
“No!”
“The way you say that means you do, but you don’t want to show weakness. Are we going to go over the same routine you exhibited after Hawkins called—?”
“Vela,” he said, maybe sharper than he’d intended.
She raised her eyebrows.
“I know…” he said. “I freaked out that day.”
She gave him a look.
“I’m not freaking out now,” he said.
She bent a little, nodding, agreeing with him.
“I think I know what happened,” Benz said. “Or did I already tell you about that?”
“You said something about the first alien having contaminated your mind.”
“Did I go into detail?”
“Not much,” Vela said.
Benz had stopped shaking and his stomach no longer felt quite so queasy.
“Can you wheel me out of here?” he asked.
“Of course, darling,” Vela said, moving behind the wheelchair. She began to push.
The doctor noticed in the other room. He didn’t say anything, although he looked like he wanted to.
Soon, Vela wheeled Benz through an empty corridor.
“I figured you don’t want too many people to see you like this,” she said.
Benz was feeling queasy again because of the motion. He closed his eyes, but that only made the feeling worse. He opened them again.
“Can you stop a moment?” he asked.
Vela parked in the corridor as she stood behind him.
“I hate being so weak.”
“Darling,” she said, “you let the alien use your body for target practice. I imagine you charged her. Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“You charged an alien with a gun?”
“She was frail,” Benz said. “She set the gun down for a while because it was too heavy for her. After that, I figured she lacked the strength to use the gun skillfully. I clearly miscalculated, but not utterly so, as I’m still alive. I wonder how old she was.”
“What makes you think she was old?”
“Anna Dominguez, the Party Secretary Chairwoman. I suspect the one I faced under the Alamo was the oldest of all.”
“Why did she summon you to the Alamo’s basement then and face you alone?”
“What else could she do?” Benz asked. “She had one real trick. She could take over one or maybe a few more people at a time. I wonder if she needed proximity in order to do that. She was all alone, Vela. She couldn’t trust anyone else. She was in my mind, but I also saw a bit into her mind. She thought of herself as a Seiner. That’s what they call themselves. She thought we were dirty animals. She thought it soiled her being in my mind. The AIs are arrogant, but so was she.”
Benz shook his head ruefully.
“I doubt we could have ever worked together,” he said. “Isn’t that crazy? Maybe there are resisting aliens out there. That doesn’t mean any of them are going to want to work with us. They’re aliens.”
“What do you mean by that?” Vela asked.
“Different. Not like us.”
Vela thought about that.
“I see what you mean,” she said. “We think they should be practical. But what’s practical to an alien might be completely different to a human.”
“Exactly,” Benz said.
“So where does that leave us?”
“First,” Benz said. “I believe I overacted the other day after Hawkins’ message because the empath had done something to my mind when he attacked. The empath wasn’t able to stop me. I could overpower his mental attack. But I suspect he seeded my mind for the last Seiner.”
Benz twisted around as he tried to crane back to look at Vela.
“Why did you leave the shuttle that day while we were still in the hangar bay?” Benz asked. “Did you suspect the alien down there might have psionic powers?”
Vela nodded.
“Were you staying upstairs in order to keep control of the Gilgamesh?” Benz asked.
“That was part of it.”
“It wouldn’t have worked for long,” Benz said. “The alien would have made me order you down to Mars. If you wouldn’t have listened, the crew up here would have made you listen. Surely you must have realized that.”
“Frank, I stayed behind in order to fashion a mind shield.”
“What?” Benz asked, straining to look back at her.
Vela patted him on the shoulder as she moved in front of him.
“I suspected psionic powers,” Vela said. “So, I went to a laboratory and fashioned a helmet. I used lead and created circuitry to block various electrical impulses.”
“Do you think that would have worked against the Seiners?” Benz asked.
“I have no idea. I hoped so. What else could I do?”
Benz thought about that, finally smiling.
Vela wasn’t smiling, though. She had a serious,
worried expression.
“Okay,” Benz said, noticing. “What is it now? What did you do?”
Vela squatted on her heels, putting her hands on his knees. She looked up at him, but seemed reluctant to speak.
“Tell me,” he said.
“We’re headed for Makemake,” she said.
Benz stared at her, realizing that Vela had made a huge decision while he’d been under. Finally, he exhaled as he looked away.
“Are you angry with me?” she asked.
“No,” he said, but he wouldn’t look at her.
“I had to make a decision,” Vela said. “I believed I knew what you were hoping to achieve by going to the Alamo. I believe you understood the alien had psionic powers. I think you wanted to grab that alien and take her along, as you wanted to use her against Hawkins, to give you an edge at least to know what he was thinking or maybe feeling as he spoke to you.”
Surprised by the accuracy of the revelation, Benz glanced at Vela.
“You know me better than I realized,” he said. “That’s exactly what I was hoping for. The Seiner even offered me that. She must have read the desire in my mind. By that point, though, I no longer trusted her. All I wanted was to kill her so her kind couldn’t use us—or me—again.”
“I saw the video of you banging her head,” Vela said. “It was brutal, but that was just the thing that made most of Mars love their leader. They could relate, as everyone wants to grab an AI by the proverbial throat and do what you did.”
“Good PR,” he said moodily.
Vela stood and began to pace. Finally, she whirled around and made wild gestures as she spoke:
“The problem with the aliens—the Seiners—made me realize how little time humanity must have left. We have a window of opportunity. Hawkins is right. We have the AI virus. How long will that work against them? A year? Two years? The longer we wait to make a telling blow against the AIs, the less chance we’re going to have of finding such an opportunity.”
“That’s pure guess work,” Benz said.
“No, it’s not. It’s logical. It’s rational. Soon, the AIs are going to strike at us again. We have a target with this battle station. We have a secret weapon. Now, we have to maximize our military power. One of the most fundamental rules of war is to concentrate your strength against the enemy. I don’t think humanity can afford to have us hang back at a time like this.”
Benz thought about that. Said so straightforwardly, so starkly—he looked up.
Vela searched his face.
He kept looking at her. Three cyberships striking an immense AI battle station—did they even have a ghost of a chance?
“What about Mars?” Benz asked.
“You heard Hawkins. He’s willing to reinforce the Mars Fleet. I think we should take him up on the offer.”
“A fifty percent or one hundred percent increase?” asked Benz.
“Fifty sounds wiser,” Vela said.
Benz looked to the side. He felt so worn down. He felt weak. He’d charged a gun. He’d charged a Seiner telepath. He’d killed her. He’d killed the other Seiners as well. The Seiners had infiltrated Martian society and almost made it to the top position. How many other aliens were out there? How many other aliens would hate humans or think of them as animals? Could they find any alien allies?
Benz considered Bast Banbeck. Yes, there were good aliens out there. To now head off into the unknown, having one ship to Hawkins’ two—
“I’m not sure the Gilgamesh should dock at Makemake,” Benz said.
“What then?” Vela asked.
“We should head for a point between the scattered disk region and the Oort cloud. I don’t want to tempt Hawkins more than he can handle. If we go to Makemake, he’ll have more than just two cyberships to our one. He’ll have home field advantage.”
“I see what you mean,” Vela said. “Maybe that’s why you’re the Premier and not me.”
A tired grin spread across his face. He’d fought so hard and traveled so far, and now he was about to fight harder and go farther. Where was this going to end?
“You made the right decision, Vela. You’re right. This is our opportunity. It’s time to take it and see if we can grab more than a few extra years from the AIs. It’s time to see if we can begin to turn the tide of the war and play the game like big boys.”
Vela’s shoulders slumped.
“What’s wrong now?” Benz asked.
“Nothing. It’s just… I wonder if we’re ever going to see the Solar System again. I wonder if I’ll ever get to walk on Mars again.”
“Do you miss Mars?”
“Desperately,” Vela said.
“I miss Earth just as much,” he said. “But maybe that’s for the best. That way, we’ll fight like demons so we can go home again. We have to win, Vela, or its lights out for the human race.”
-15-
The Gilgamesh began its long acceleration for the area of space between the scattered disc region and the Oort cloud. That was a long way from Mars.
As the pirated cybership gained velocity, Martian marines went outside and scoured every inch of the hull. They didn’t find any AI stealth units attached. Benz ordered the marines to try a second time. Still, they found nothing.
At the same time, a convoy of Saturn System haulers accelerated for Makemake. The haulers carried marines and technical personnel for Hawkins’ second cybership.
The giant vessel was still inside Makemake’s hollowed-out moon factory. The robo-builders did what they always did, working around the clock as they fashioned the monstrous cybership.
Soon, Hawkins and Benz exchanged messages. Bit by bit they worked out an agreement and an exit strategy.
Time crawled as humanity prepared for its first interstellar military mission.
Both men attempted to contact the Solar League. The league ignored every attempt.
Caracalla complained about Hawkins’ order to send Saturn Fleet units to Mars.
“What if the Earth Fleet bypasses Mars and heads to Saturn?” Caracalla asked Hawkins via a long-distance comm. “Saturn has less military strength than Mars does.”
“It’s also a lot farther to travel from Earth to Saturn,” Hawkins said. “Mars Fleet could reinforce Saturn at that point.”
The question brought a host of possibilities to the forefront. Once again, through long distance messaging, Hawkins and Benz attempted to work out a solution. In the end, they decided Caracalla would head the Outer Planets Strategic Council. He would determine what fleet units went where if the Solar League ever made overt moves once the cyberships departed the Solar System.
“There’s so little chance of that happening, though,” Hawkins told Caracalla, “that you don’t need to worry about it. The Solar League made a strategic error by concentrating on building defensive satellites. That’s the greatest safeguard we have. That’s why we can afford to strike with all our cyberships.”
It made sense. Caracalla agreed. The Union people of Uranus also agreed as did the remnants of the Jupiter System people.
Everything worked smoothly for several months.
The newest cybership left the Makemake factory. It lacked hull plating in regions. It did not have as many gravitational cannons as the other two cyberships but it did have mass and it had full propulsion and hyperspace capabilities.
In time, Hawkins’ two cybership headed away from Makemake. The Saturn ships changed their heading. The haulers would meet them once all of them were outside the scattered disc region.
Hawkins and Benz had agreed on an operational strategy. They would have greater velocity when entering hyperspace, so they would enter the Allamu System at greater velocity.
Benz had argued against the idea of wasting time and trying to come into the Allamu System from a different direction. If they lost the battle, it wasn’t going to matter anyway. If this was an AI ambush, then the AIs would already know about them and the Solar System.
“We must strike as hard and as fast
as we can,” Benz said. “That’s my recommendation.”
Such thinking sat well with Hawkins.
***
Hawkins named the newest cybership the Sergeant Stark.
“I suspect it’s going to be a bastard of a warship, so let’s give it a glorious bastard’s name,” Hawkins told his people.
No one disagreed.
Time passed…
Finally, three great cyberships neared one another as each left the scattered disc region. At this point, the haulers from Saturn System reached the Sergeant Stark.
The haulers disgorged their cargos. Once completed, the skeleton crews remaining on the haulers began braking. The haulers would head back to the Saturn System, returning the vessels to the various corporations that had lent them to the government.
Hawkins now had further meetings with Premier Benz together with their strategic and tactical staffs. They worked out possibilities, probabilities and emergency procedures.
Finally, they reached hyperspace launch territory. The ship teams individually plotted a course for the Allamu System. Afterward, the teams compared results. Each of them had come up with the same course.
At that point, the three Solar System cyberships turned on their powerful hyperspace engines. One by one, the great behemoths, the hopes of humanity, disappeared from normal space as they entered hyperspace.
The great gamble, the throw of the dice of fate—and the hidden ploy of Cog Primus—moved one step closer to completion.
-16-
Far from hyperspace launch territory between the scattered disc region and the Oort cloud, powerful Inner Planets telescopes watched each cybership enter the strange faster-than-light realm.
Once the three behemoths vanished, special couriers hurried to launch tubes. Five shuttles roared out of the orbital telescope satellites. Each of them entered Earth’s atmosphere, racing to Rio to bring the news to the hidden Premier of Earth and the Solar League.
***
The Premier of the Solar League sat in her underground office. She was a plain woman lacking hair of any sort. This was caused by a specific disease, one that she forbade anyone to mention in her presence.
Once, she had worked for J.P. Justinian when he had been the Chief Arbiter from Venus. Then, people had known her by the nickname he’d bequeathed her: the Egghead.
A.I. Battle Station (The A.I. Series Book 4) Page 16
