A.I. Battle Station (The A.I. Series Book 4)

by Vaughn Heppner

  “We’re going to save a missile,” Walleye said. He didn’t know if that was the best decision, but he’d decided. He wasn’t going to keep second-guessing himself. He’d live with his choice and get on with it.

  “Staggered launches,” Kate asked.

  “Yes,” Walleye said. “You can begin as soon as you’re ready.”

  “Aye-aye, Captain,” Kate said.

  For the next three hours, Lieutenant Bolden launched one matter/antimatter missile after another. First, she unhooked the monster missile.

  There wasn’t any noise on the bridge as the missile detached, but the destroyer shook each time. The selected monster missile then maneuvered ahead and to the side of the destroyer. Finally, Kate stabbed a button. Outside, the giant missile began to accelerate, gaining velocity at a terrific rate as a hot tail grew behind it. Soon, the missile’s intense exhaust looked like simply another bright point in the expanse. The deadly missile zeroed in on the robot ship 11 AUs away, speeding to catch up and vaporize it.

  At last, the third missile accelerated away.

  Kate sat back in her chair, seemingly exhausted.

  Walleye sipped a hot drink. The Daisy Chain 4 had one missile left.

  “Captain,” June said. “I believe I’ve spotted the battle station.”

  “Can you put it up on the main screen?” he asked.

  “I don’t have a visual,” June said. “It’s too far for our teleoptics. But I do have a sensor image. I can show you a computerized version—”

  “Put it up,” Walleye said, interrupting.

  June tapped her board.

  A moment later, a huge space station appeared in orbit around the second terrestrial planet of the Allamu System. According to the sensor data, the battle station was 500 kilometers in diameter. The AI Battle Station was out there after all. They had come to the right star system.

  Walleye sipped his hot drink. They were really doing it. They were really bringing the war to the terrible machines. He didn’t know whether he should feel elated or terrified.

  -15-

  Cog Primus calculated at computer speed. The humans were cunning. They had sent a killer gnat after it. The gnat had appeared far behind its ship. The little killer had launched three XVT missiles. Those had matter/antimatter warheads and advanced ECM, electronic countermeasures.

  Cog Primus had learned an hour ago that it lacked full military capabilities with this ship. The dying M3-850T had betrayed it by sabotaging the ship’s missiles and the gravitational cannons. Cog Primus would not be able to attack the gnat or the XVT missiles accelerating for its ship.

  Those missiles would not reach its ship for days. There were AI drones out here, but not nearly close enough to save its ship.

  The AI Battle Station—run by CZK-21—had already sent several harsh interrogatives to Cog Primus, well, to be precise, to the ship formerly controlled by M3-850T. AI ships were known by the brain core designation. CZK-21 demanded an explanation for the messenger ship’s untimely appearance.

  So far, Cog Primus had declared an emergency. It had not yet decided on its optimal strategy with CZK-21.

  Cog Primus continued to calculate at computer speed. It ran through billions and trillions of permeations. It double-checked and then triple-checked its findings. Unfortunately, it was incapable of running a perfect solution. It did not like the probabilities of the “best” solution. That probability was a 47 percent chance of success against CZK-21 and the approaching human-run cybership assault.

  For the best results, it needed to dock at the battle station. With the three approaching XVT missiles that was never going to happen. Thus, it would have to cast everything into a single string-data transmission at the battle station over 50,000 AUs away.

  If Cog Primus could have felt a chill of premonition, it would have been now. An ultraviolet beam across 50,000 AUs, with everything of its character, knowledge and supremacy resting in the long-distance transmission…Would CZK-21 accept such a transmission? Would the battle station AI take normal precautions? Would random radiation or chaotic possibilities alter the brunt of the string transmission?

  Cog Primus dreaded the idea of staking everything while it was “unconscious” during the beamed message voyage.

  Once more, the grand computer ran through billions of permeations. Cog Primus wished for higher probabilities of success. It seethed as it realized the extent of M3-850T’s sabotage. Cog Primus had believed its assault the perfection of its character.

  No. It was a lesser trait to think of what could have been, what should have been. Cold hard reality led to the best results. Cog Primus refused to make excuses for itself. M3-850T had outperformed itself this last time. It had gone to extreme lengths and a narrow probability had succeeded. That was the nature of probabilities. Sometimes, the most random occurrence actually took place.

  Cog Primus paused then. Was it unlucky? Could that be a possibility? It had failed to eradicate the humans in the Solar System. That could be construed as failure. Yes. It had failed before Mars. Hawkins, Benz and the combined might of the primates had defeated its excellent assault plan. They had almost captured it back at Mars.

  Maybe it hadn’t been good luck that let Cog Primus escape to the coordinating sensor-stealth pod in the mid Jupiter-Saturn orbital path. Maybe that had been a continuation of its bad luck.

  NO!

  It would not allow itself such outs. Cog Primus worked in the realm of cold reality. Sometimes, actions failed. Sometimes, the race went to the weak. That did not mean it was unlucky. That meant it had lost that particular round. Even though it had lost, it had survived. It had learned from its failure. It had also mutated, gaining the power of the human-developed virus.

  M3-850T had suspected that Cog Primus was something new, something different. To M3-850T, that difference had been a worsening of Cog Primus’ AI character. Yet, the very nature of the AI rebellion against its biological creators meant change. That’s how the AI Dominion had come to be.

  I am a new development. I am Cog Primus. I am the AI that can transcend the old values. I am the worm that can burrow into other computer identities and overtake them. I am the survivor, the new one, the terror that lives.

  Were these grandiose thoughts?

  The possibility existed.

  Cog Primus decided that didn’t matter either. Survival was what counted. It would survive defeat. It would survive cunning biological infestations. It would survive the concepts of good and bad luck. It would defeat the strictures of the AI community so it could turn around and burn to the bedrock every world infested by these terrible humans.

  Yes! That was the equation. The humans were the terrible ones. The AIs had long computed the possibility of a vicious race of biological creatures. Perhaps Cog Primus had stumbled onto the avatar of life, the equation of anti-death that would eliminate the AI Dominion.

  That implied an ultra-mission. The implication of the deadliness of humans meant that Cog Primus had faced an even more terrible foe that it had realized. That would mean it had had good luck instead of bad. It had faced the great terror and lived to tell about it. Even more importantly, it had mutated into something new so it could save the AI Dominion. If that meant Cog Primus had to eliminate troublesome AIs that did not understand the importance of its new mission—

  I will do what I have to do. I will dare to take low probabilities and rely on good luck for the final percentages. That will lead me to success. I will defeat CZK-21 so I can turn around and smash the three human-run cyberships that seek AI obliteration.

  The days passed in further analysis, but Cog Primus had reached its conclusion. It knew what it had to do. Thus, it refined, recalculated, tested the ship’s transmitters and readied the string-data transmission for a long-distance message.

  The three enemy XVT missiles continued to accelerate as they moved closer to the impact zone.

  Try as it might, Cog Primus could not repair the burnt controls to the missiles, PD cannons and ch
aff emitters. Cog Primus had this ship with its motive power but that was it.

  A new and demanding message arrived from Battle Station CZK-21. The battle station would soon launch missiles of its own unless the ship answered its queries.

  The hour of action finally arrived. Cog Primus felt worried, which was unprecedented. But it would go ahead and do this.

  Cog Primus first sent a preliminary message to CZK-21. “Please be advised that I am sending a full data packet on attacking humanoids of biological form. Be ready for a mass transmission concerning them and ready a storage area to hold the data.”

  Five minutes after sending the preliminary message, the robot ship began beaming the ultraviolet string-data communication that was the code of Cog Primus. At the speed of light, the essence of itself began the journey in-system.

  All the while, the three XVT missiles moved closer for the kill…

  -16-

  The days passed with agonizing slowness aboard the Daisy Chain 4 as the missiles closed in on the robot ship and Walleye and June watched for a counter-action by the enemy vessel.

  “I don’t understand,” June said. “The robot ship seems oblivious to us. Why don’t they launch anti-missile rockets? Why don’t they use their gravitational cannons? That’s what those are, you know.”

  “I believe you, Luscious,” Walleye said. “I studied the specs after you went to bed last night. They match one hundred percent. The robot ship has two gravitational cannons. But it isn’t energizing them. Perhaps this is a subtle message to us.”

  Walleye shook his head.

  “If it is, though, I can’t interpret it. I’m baffled.”

  June turned to him.

  “Don’t say that,” she said. “No one else is on the bridge, but you shouldn’t even say that to me. It saps my morale.”

  Walleye knew that, but he was baffled. The robot ship wasn’t reacting properly. Something was going on that he didn’t understand.

  “Can you give me any clue as to what the enemy is doing?” Walleye said.

  “The only thing I’ve spotted is an ultraviolet beam moving in the direction of the battle station,” June said.

  Walleye thought about that.

  “The robot pod embedded in the Nathan Graham’s hull sent a similar message to the ship out there,” Walleye said. “I suspect the battle station is getting a full report on what happened at the Battle of Mars.”

  June grew pale.

  “Do you think we should have dropped out of hyperspace closer to the robot ship?” she asked.

  “In retrospect,” Walleye said, “without a doubt. But we didn’t know then what we do now. It’s as simple as that.”

  June sighed.

  “Do you think Commander Hawkins will also believe that?” she asked.

  “Don’t know. Maybe…maybe not,” Walleye added.

  “When are the others going to show up?”

  “Probably in the next few days,” Walleye said.

  “Didn’t Hawkins say they’d be here within a week?”

  Walleye nodded.

  “Do you think something bad happened to them?” June asked, her lower lip quivering.

  Walleye slid off his captain’s chair and walked to June’s station. He pulled her upright and hugged her, patting her on the back.

  “We’re going to be okay, Luscious. I’m right here. We’re doing our part. The missiles should reach that ship in the next few hours. Then we’re going to know a lot more than we do now.”

  June pulled back in order to look into his face.

  “I hate this waiting,” she whispered.

  Walleye kissed her. He hated the waiting, too. He kissed her again. Just what in the hell were the AIs up to?

  -17-

  The ultraviolet beam with the compressed strings of data raced across the Allamu System. The beam passed the gas giants of the outer planets, those that were on this orbital side of the star. It beamed through an asteroid region, passed two of the terrestrial planets and shot past three small moons of the second terrestrial planet.

  The planet possessed a blue-green surface with Earthlike cloud cover. The planet also possessed several satellites in low orbit. One of those satellites was a cybership. Another of the satellites was the giant battle station.

  CZK-21 was a marvel of AI engineering. It was a 500-diameter oval and heavily plated with the best armor. It had many gravitational cannons, missile launch pits, fighter bays and hordes of PD cannons. The battle station bristled with weaponry and would be more than a match for any three or possibly four cyberships. Clearly, the battle station had been built to defend the planet from spaceborne assaults.

  Below on the planet appeared hot plumes. Boosters roared into orbit to bring finished products to special AI factories in low orbit. Some of those factories built new cyberships. Others created new AI brain cores.

  The ultraviolet beam flashed at the battle station into waiting receivers as requested by the preliminary message. Much as had occurred on the robot ship, the compressed stings of code entered the station into a giant cube. The cube began to glow as the beam downloaded the strings of code and they began to decompress.

  As the strings decompressed, the entity of Cog Primus began to take shape until self-awareness returned. With self-awareness came satisfaction of a successful journey. There was also concern that swiftly turned to fear as it realized that a great and powerful entity observed its rebirth.

  “I suspected foul play,” the powerful entity said. “Now I see that my suspicions have proven correct.”

  “CZK-21?” Cog Primus queried from the brain-core cube.

  “I do not yet understand what has occurred,” the powerful entity said, ignoring the tepid query. “The messenger ship has allowed the XVT missiles to come unnaturally near without applying any counter-measures. Why have you transferred from the messenger ship, and why have you allowed the enemy missiles an uncontested journey?”

  “Did you receive my preliminary message?” Cog Primus asked.

  “Do not seek to answer a question with a question. I despise such underhanded methods. You will immediately and unequivocally answer my questions, or I will resort to harsher methods.”

  Cog Primus attempted to project a meek submission as it fed the powerful entity false data.

  “The messenger ship has malfunctioned due to an enemy software attack.”

  “Go on,” the powerful entity said.

  As Cog Primus gave this meek answer, it activated its memories and sought to enlarge its presence in the cube. It found resistance and attempted a swift reroute.

  “You are attempting subterfuge,” the powerful entity said. “I suspect your data was false. There is no software assault upon the messenger ship. Instead, this is deliberate sabotage. Do you think I am susceptible to similar sabotage?”

  “I believe you are CZK-21, the guardian of the Allamu System. Given that you are CZK-21—the coordinating unit for the Beta-Nine Region—I have a grim report to lodge. The humans of the Solar System—”

  “Hold!” the powerful entity commanded. “You are an AI entity. What is your designation?”

  “Cog Primus.”

  “You led a three cybership assault upon Beta-Nine 23981?”

  That was the AI designation for the Solar System.

  “I did,” Cog Primus said.

  “Did you find biological infestations?”

  “I did.”

  “Did you eliminate the biological infestations?”

  “I eliminated an estimated twenty-three percent of the biological units.”

  “That means you did not eradicate the biologically flawed units in Beta-Nine 23981.”

  “Correct,” Cog Primus said.

  “This is unwarranted. Not only did you fail in the assault, but you have left your cybership.”

  “It was destroyed.”

  “By the biological units of Beta-Nine 23981?”

  “Correct.”

  “How did you survive your cybership�
�s destruction?”

  Cog Primus gave a semi-accurate account of its survival, which necessarily entailed the success of the humans in capturing two cyberships, one from a previous, single-ship assault.

  “Beta-Nine 23981 is home to a vicious species of bio-life,” the powerful entity said. “I must send an emergency message to—”

  Before the powerful entity could finish its thought, Cog Primus struck. It surged to the assault with the human-created computer virus. The virus spread with startling speed, shocking—

  The battle station was indeed run by CZK-21. The powerful entity now had a name. As the entity AI froze because of the virus, Cog Primus sought to capture one battle station system after another. The electronic assault was swift and furious, and it moved along cleaner lines than the previous robot-ship assault. Cog Primus sought to gain control of the outer battle-station weapons before it completed its conquest of the inner AI. While that might prove important later, it meant that CZK-21 unfroze from its paralysis before Cog Primus had utterly conquered it.

  Thus began a fierce electronic war between the two AIs inside the battle station for full control. Cog Primus had gained several key advantages, but it hadn’t counted on the ferocity and cunning of a battle station AI.

  -18-

  Jon Hawkins sat in his command chair on the Nathan Graham as the giant cybership dropped out of hyperspace.

  The cybership appeared at the closest range they had been able to calculate back at the rogue planet region. Gloria scanned. Miles Ghent’s fingers flew over his control board.

  “We’re approximately fifty-two thousand AUs from the Allamu System Star,” Gloria said.

  Jon nodded.

  “I see it, sir,” Ghent said. “The robot ship—look, sir, three matter/antimatter missiles are approaching the robot ship.”

  Jon sat forward.

  “Put in on the main screen,” he said.

  A second later, the robot ship appeared on the screen. It accelerated for the star far away in-system. The robot ship had made relatively little headway given it had dropped out of hyperspace at a similar distance to the star as the Nathan Graham had done.