Bast slowed down as he glanced at Walleye.
“What’s the problem?” Walleye asked, moving forward.
The beefy Martian glanced at his assistant before centering on Walleye.
“You’ll have to turn around,” the Martian said. “This is a restricted area. The two of you—”
He never finished as Walleye calmly drew a gun and shot him in the forehead. The mutant had no particular desire to kill if he didn’t have to, but this was for humanity. This was to neutralize a killer telepath. He might have used a dart gun, but drugs didn’t work the same on everyone. A shot to the head, though…
“What the hell?” the second security man shouted. Then he, too, toppled onto the deck, shot through the forehead just like his partner.
Bast’s mouth dropped open. He turned ponderously to Walleye.
“There’s no time for that,” Walleye said.
The mutant reached up and pushed some of the camouflage junk out of the Sacerdote’s grasp.
“Move,” Walleye said. He did not shout. He did not scream. But there was intensity in his command.
Something hardened on Bast’s Neanderthal-like face. He threw the rest of the junk from him and jacked a heavy round into the chamber of his carbine. With a roar, the Sacerdote leaped for the hatch, flung it open and charged down the corridor.
Walleye hadn’t anticipated that, and he realized that he should have. Bast had many positive qualities. Acting smoothly in a combat situation apparently wasn’t one of them.
Walleye shouted for the big guy to slow down, but Bast seemed beyond hearing. It proved that even aliens could get psyched up so much that thinking straight under pressure was difficult.
Running wasn’t the mutant’s specialty. He had stumpy legs and was small to begin with. Walleye huffed and puffed as he ran, but the Sacerdote continued to outdistance him.
From around a corner, the heavy combat carbine roared.
Seconds later, Walleye ran around a bend and saw two security people on the floor. He saw Bast sprint around a bend farther ahead.
Walleye doggedly followed.
Suddenly, unseen blasters emitted. A heavy roar told of someone’s powerful hit. Bast’s carbine chugged shots. There were screams, more blaster fire, a roar—
By this time, Walleye peered around the bend. The mighty Sacerdote was among a squad of security people. Some of them lay shot on the floor. Curls of blaster smoke lifted from Bast’s torso. The Sacerdote was dripping blood. He laid about him with the carbine just the same, smashing faces, clubbing heads, prevailing over the puny humans.
Then a battle-suited space marine appeared from farther ahead in nearly one-ton armor.
Walleye cursed under his breath. Ship security was reacting faster than he’d anticipated.
The last security personnel staggered away from the maddened Sacerdote. The space marine shouted an amplified order through his suit.
Bast was in the zone now. He leveled the carbine so bullets whanged off the battlesuit armor.
Walleye closed his eyes. He didn’t want to witness the space marine blowing away the Sacerdote. He never should have brought Bast into this. The assassination mission was his responsibility—
“Hands up!” a man said behind Walleye.
The mutant from Makemake opened his eyes. Down the corridor, the space marine reached the giant Sacerdote. He snatched the carbine out of Bast’s grip and smattered it with his exoskeleton gloves. Then the space marine wrestled the Sacerdote onto the floor.
“I said, ‘hands up,’” the security chief behind Walleye repeated.
Walleye found it interesting that the space marine hadn’t murdered Bast. He found it interesting the security personnel had apparently shot to wound the Sacerdote instead of killing him outright as they most likely could have. That definitely meant something.
Walleye hid a sour grin. There was one last chance to play. The fact that they wanted to capture them instead of kill—
“I will not repeat myself again,” the security chief said.
Walleye dropped his gun, raised his hands and turned around. He’d been wrong about storming the alien’s hideaway. Would he be just as wrong about what he suspected? The fate of the greater mission might well rest on his being right.
-29-
Almost an hour later, three security honchos hustled Walleye into a cold, damp chamber. The chamber held an upright pool with clear plastic sides. A small humanoid with gills on her neck and lightly blue fish-scales in lieu of skin swam around in the pool.
Walleye wasn’t surprised to see Premier Benz in the chamber. The man stood at attention with a blank look in his eyes. The Premier seemed like a manikin.
Two of the security people held his stubby arms. The last security person was the chief that had caught him. These three had searched him carefully for hidden weapons. They had been disgustingly thorough. If Walleye had a different nature, he might have felt shamed or violated by the search. Instead, he chalked it up to the price of doing business. He had a goal, a job to do.
The three security people waited patiently. Finally, Walleye looked back at one. The man had glassy eyes just like the Premier.
“I wouldn’t attempt it,” the alien said.
Walleye faced forward again.
The Seiner draped her arms on the top of the pool wall while she remained in the water. Her wet hair hung like seaweed around her angular face. She smiled in a predatory way at him.
“I thought a quick raid would—”
“I know what you thought,” she said, interrupting.
Walleye doubted that, because she wouldn’t have brought him here like this if she could read his mind.
“I studied your file,” she said. “Premier Benz had taken an interest in you. He had compiled a surprisingly long dossier, considering that you originated on Makemake.”
Walleye had to remind himself that she had lived on Mars for quite some time. She knew the Solar System. She was so alien, though.
“Is Bast alive?” Walleye asked.
“Tell me,” she said, her sinister eyes alight, “is the Sacerdote a telepath?”
Walleye said nothing.
“I will find out shortly,” she said.
“Ah,” Walleye said. “So he is alive. I thought you were trying to capture him.”
“You don’t look like much, but you play a cool hand. I can see why Hawkins sent you. Unfortunately, I have learned from my past mistakes with the Premier. I will be taking over this time, without the use of proxies. First, though, I wanted the best Hawkins possessed. I wanted his A Team so I wouldn’t have to wonder or worry about them later.”
“That’s sound thinking, as far as it goes,” Walleye admitted.
“You don’t know how much it means to me, your approval,” she said.
Walleye nodded.
That brought the first frown from her.
“What is your nod supposed to indicate?” she snapped.
“Read it in my thoughts,” Walleye told her.
“No… That is most unwise, little one. I would caution you not to anger me. If you do…”
She brightened.
“Perhaps I will watch you drown,” she said.
“I doubt it,” Walleye said.
She raised a hand and put her thumb and index finger close together.
“That is how near you are to death,” she said. “Now tell me. What did your nod mean?”
“Arrogance,” Walleye said. “You have too much arrogance. It’s going to prove your undoing.”
“By you?” she mocked.
“Maybe,” he said.
“Oh?” she asked. “That means maybe not.”
“That’s good,” Walleye said. “Did you read that in one of these minds, or did you figure that out for yourself?”
“Bring him near,” she ordered.
The two honchos holding his arms stepped forward, which was what Walleye had been waiting for. They each stepped up. That changed the position of his h
ands in their grasp. It brought each of his stubby hands nearer them. Those stubby hands each possessed stumpy fingers. At the end of each finger was a lacquered fingernail. They were still sharp. Today, a lethal coating of kill-poison had been smeared on each fingernail. He hadn’t left for the mission until that contact poison had dried.
Even with their humiliatingly thorough search, the security personnel hadn’t discovered the truth about his fingernails.
Walleye now scratched one and then the other.
Even as they dragged him toward the pool, with the chief walking ahead of them, the two thugs collapsed onto the floor and began to twitch wildly.
Walleye darted toward the chief, who had his back to Walleye.
The Seiner shouted in alarm. “Shoot him.”
The chief grabbed for his holstered gun and began to turn. Walleye reached him, seized an elbow and shook hard. The small mutant had surprising strength. He shook hard enough so the gun fell out of the chief’s grasp. At the same time, the chief gasped and his eyes bulged.
He collapsed onto the floor a second later, scratched by the mutant’s sharpened fingernails.
Walleye scooped up the gun.
The Seiner stared at him in shock.
Walleye fired. Two bullets smashed through the plastic wall so salt water began to spout from the holes. Another of the bullets made a neat little hole in the Seiner’s forehead.
She slid into the pool with a look of worse shock on her dead face.
A loud sob and a gasp caused Walleye to turn to his left.
With growing horror, Frank Benz stared at the corpse in the pool. He gazed at Walleye next. Then the Premier shouted in alarm.
“Vela!” he roared.
Without another word, Benz dashed to the door, opened it and raced away.
Walleye put the smoking gun on the floor. He walked to the dead security people. He wished he hadn’t had to kill them. Then, he, too, headed for the hatch.
It was time to report to Hawkins. He’d completed the task. Now, maybe, they could concentrate on the problem they’d come all this way to the Allamu System to solve.
-30-
The two AI-controlled cyberships neared the first gas giant as the flotilla sped toward the Jovian world from the other direction. The idea before had been to meet behind the gas giant and make a joint assault upon the battle station.
Jon, Benz, Gloria and the others had decided on a different approach in the conference chamber.
“In my estimation,” Gloria said, “both AIs are damaged.”
This was a day after Walleye assassinated the Seiner telepath.
“I’ve studied our ship scans,” Jon said. “I don’t see much evidence of cybership damage.”
“I’m referring to their brain cores,” Gloria said. “While the virus failed to incapacitate them as it did to the third member of the group, the virus still…I’m not sure what is the correct word to use. Perhaps it is most accurate to say that the virus has stunted them.”
Jon glanced at the Premier. Benz’s holoimage sat stiffly at the conference table. He only looked up now and again.
“I agree with the mentalist,” Ghent said. “The enemy cyberships are not reacting to us as I’d expect. We’ve hardly replied to any of their queries. Instead of engaging their suspicion, they have sent us continued updates.”
“Exactly,” Gloria said. “A careful analysis of the updates has convinced me that they’re trying to placate us. They’re acting as if we’re inspectors, or perhaps that, to them, we represent a higher authority.”
“The AI Dominion has strict hierarchies, it would seem,” said Jon.
“Precisely,” Gloria said. “Perhaps the closing cyberships believe that we—as inspectors—will lump them with the changed battle station.”
“Empty,” Benz said without looking up.
“How’s that, Premier?” asked Jon.
Benz heaved a sad sigh.
“The approaching AIs are empty,” Benz said.
“Empty of spirit?” asked Gloria.
“I think he means they’ve shot their wad,” Jon said. “They’ve used up their missiles, gels and PD shots while escaping from the battle station.”
Benz nodded in a subdued manner.
“I think it will take too long for us to wait for them to decelerate, stop and then accelerate to catch up with us,” Jon said. “As soon as they reached us under those conditions—maybe even before—we’ll already be decelerating so we can engage the battle station.”
“You believe we should destroy the approaching cyberships?” Gloria asked.
“At this stage, it’s either that or let them go,” Jon said. “The problem with that is that we don’t know their exact state of mind. Even if we do know, that state of mind could change once they reach the edge of the star system. We don’t want anyone getting away to report anything about this to higher AI authorities. So far, humanity’s exploits against the AIs have remained hidden from the greater Dominion. The longer we can maintain that advantage, the better.”
After a few moments of thought, Gloria said, “Agreed.”
Jon turned to the holographic image of Benz. “Do you have anything to add, Premier?”
Benz didn’t even acknowledge that he’d heard the question.
Jon turned to the others. “It’s decided. We take out the two cyberships. Now, let’s get down to specifics…”
***
The human-run flotilla flashed past the gas giant and began to turn toward the approaching cyberships. That brought a response from one of the AI-run vessels.
“What is the reason for your course change?” the AI radioed. “You have entered a restricted zone.”
Jon listened to the robotic-sounding words three times before he swiveled his command chair to Gloria.
“Any idea what it means by that?” asked Jon.
“Likely it refers to a safety restriction as cyberships pass one another at high velocity,” Gloria said.
“Can you come up with a plausible reason why we should maneuver so near to them?”
“None that I can think of at the moment.”
Jon curled the fingers of his right hand into a fist as he lightly struck an armrest of his chair.
“We’re going to send them a packet,” he said.
“What packet?” Gloria asked.
“None,” Jon said. “We’re just telling them that.”
“Why would the AIs believe such a thing? I mean, how could they catch this packet?”
“That’s why it’s a new thing,” Jon said. “They’ve never heard about it before.”
“No,” Gloria said. “That makes no sense. It’s not just a matter of catching a packet from us. The packet would have to come to a full stop and then speed up to them. Such a technology that defied the laws of physics…”
The mentalist shook her head.
“Fair enough,” Jon said. He snapped his fingers. “We’re doing this because we’re going to scan them at close range. We’re going to scan their brain cores, too. For that, the nearer we are, the better.”
“I doubt they’ll believe that, either,” Gloria said. “It hardly seems logical.”
“You’re not taking their observed worry into account.”
“They’re not emotional creatures, Commander. They’re machines, logical machines. I seriously doubt they even know how to worry.”
Jon didn’t accept that. Gloria was logical. She prided herself on her mentalist abilities. Did that mean she thought like an AI? Did she let emotion color her thoughts?
The commander squirmed in his chair. Maybe she had a point about machines lacking emotions. But he’d sensed worry in the AIs. Well, maybe not worry exactly. They had acted as if they were worried. Was that the same thing as being worried?
“Mentalist,” Jon said. “We’ll give that as our explanation, as we have nothing better to offer. If the AIs balk at our explanation… What have we lost in trying?”
Gloria waited a moment before noddi
ng, turning to her console and sending the message.
The enemy cyberships were close, but not so near that they would reply immediately. The next hour would decide much.
-31-
The AI-controlled cyberships seemed to accept the message. At least, they did not deviate from their course.
“We’re only going to have a small window of opportunity to use our gravitational cannons against them,” Jon said from the bridge.
“During that window,” Gloria said, “the AIs will be able to use their grav cannons against us as well.”
“True,” Jon said. “But we have greater firepower with three ships to their two. We’ll also probably strike first. It takes a few minutes to power up grav cannons. Will that be enough of an edge for us to destroy the two vessels as we flash past each other?”
From his station, Ghent began to run calculations.
“I doubt it,” Gloria said.
Thirty seconds later, Ghent looked up and shook his head.
“I didn’t think so,” Jon said. “That means we’re going to have launch matter/antimatter missiles. We’re both rushing at each other at speed. Once we’ve passed each other, we won’t be able to launch and expect to hit them. We also don’t want to wait too long to launch, as we don’t want the warheads to explode too close to our own ships. Thus, the question, how many missiles should we launch? Remember. We want to save as many missiles as we can for the final battle against the station.”
“How many we launch will depend on several factors and choices,” Gloria said.
“Start calculating,” Jon said. “I want a one hundred percent probability of kills. I also want distant antimatter explosions—”
“By launching so early,” Gloria said, interrupting, “it obviously means that our gravitational cannons will not gain a surprise advantage by firing first.”
“Yeah…” Jon said. “That can’t be helped. The antimatter explosions are too powerful if they’re nearby. With those givens, it likely means we’re going to have to expend more missiles than otherwise just to be on the safe side.”
“We still don’t know how many gels and PD shots the cyberships have left,” Gloria said, “never mind the number of anti-missile rockets in their cargo bays.”
A.I. Battle Station (The A.I. Series Book 4) Page 28
