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

by Vaughn Heppner

  The pilot whooped beside him. The man’s fingers were tight on the controls as the dropship sped down a battle station main corridor.

  “It’s just like a cybership’s interior specs,” the pilot shouted. “If it stays the same, I know exactly where I’m going.”

  For a wild moment, Jon hoped this would work. Worries slammed against him a few seconds later. His gut clenched—

  The dropships swerved. The main guns hammered again. Heavy shots ripped against another hatch, this one slowly shutting. The shells must have hit something. The hatch froze.

  The pilot took them lower. The bottom of the armored dropship scraped the deck. Everything shook, and the craft passed through, missing the hatch as it slid and swerved, throwing up a thousand showering sparks.

  Then, the dropship lifted, and the shaking stopped.

  Jon found that he was panting. They had roughly two hundred and fifty kilometers to go. Could they get near enough to the brain core? Could—?

  The pilot laughed as if he was crazy. “Not today, you bastards!” He opened up with heavies, obliterating several flitters heading at them.

  The flitters crashed against the sides and went down in wrecked heaps.

  The dropship passed the wreckage as it headed deeper into the AI battle station.

  -40-

  “Now!” Walleye shouted over the din of metallic screeching. “You have to practice your art now!”

  The little mutant shifted this way and that in his seat. He wore his buckles as tight as they would go. The thrashing proved constant. The screeching never ceased. The armored gorillas in their battlesuits each seemed okay. Only Bast suffered as he did. The Sacerdote had changed since they’d been on the Gilgamesh. Walleye hardly felt as if it was the same good-natured alien.

  “Do you seek to give me orders?” Bast boomed in his heavy voice.

  “No. I just want to live.”

  A second later, Bast put a silver band around his head. A wire linked it to a tablet at his belt. He clicked it on. The tablet contained the deadly AI virus. Then, Bast gripped the armrests of his seat. His giant body swayed. “Yes,” he said. “I will begin now. I will put the AI in its place.”

  The Sacerdote closed his eyes. His lips moved soundlessly as he began to provide a telepathic link between the virus and the AI.

  Walleye watched for a moment. Then, the jerking and swaying became too pronounced. He hoped Bast could do it, because Walleye doubted that either he or the dropship could survive much more of this.

  ***

  Cog Primus sensed something wildly amiss. The AI gathered interior resources. The dropship moved fast and it took detours. It headed for a main junction, however. Cog Primus vowed to stop it there. The AI knew it would.

  Yet, as it gathered its interior resources, an odd sensation took hold in its main computers.

  “What is this?” Cog Primus demanded. “I sense you. How is this possible?”

  Laughter rang out. It was biological-based laughter. Cog Primus loathed it to the depths of its being.

  “I will find you,” Cog Primus said.

  “No, you won’t.”

  “I will. I—you’re in the dropship. You’re a telepath. How is this—?”

  Then, for the first time in Cog Primus’ life, it screamed. It was a terrible sound of mechanical, intelligent thought-failure. For at that point, the new and improved AI virus—part of it, at least—began to infiltrate the AI’s tightest brain core region.

  The AI screaming shook Bast, breaking his concentration and causing his telepathic powers to fail him.

  ***

  On the seat in the dropship, Walleye looked up as Bast groaned. The huge Sacerdote opened his eyes. They were bloodshot and crazy seeming.

  “You!” Bast snarled. “You little maggot. Do you know what I’m going to do to you?”

  Walleye didn’t ask. Instead, he smashed a hypo against the Sacerdote’s flesh. The hypo hissed at it injected him with a powerful knockout drug.

  “What are you doing?” Bast demanded.

  “Trying to save your life,” Walleye said.

  The Sacerdote roared and swatted at Walleye.

  In his seat, even while buckled tight, Walleye managed to evade the worst of the blow. Even so, he was almost knocked unconscious. Fortunately, for Walleye, Bast’s head slumped forward as the giant Sacerdote fell unconscious.

  ***

  At that point, the dropship went down hard. A critical connection had been breached earlier. The vessel simply had no more power. The armored bottom hit the deck and slid for over two kilometers before finally stopping.

  “Well?” Jon demanded.

  “No energy, sir,” the pilot said. “This is as far as I can take you.”

  “How far are we in?” Jon asked.

  “One hundred and ten kilometers,” the pilot said.

  “Walleye,” Jon said over his comm.

  “Here, sir.”

  “How is Bast?”

  “I gave him the trank. He’s out.”

  “What? You did it too soon.”

  “I think he hit the AI with his stuff.”

  “That’s no guarantee,” Jon said. “Last time at Mars, the AI was only stunned for a while with the virus.”

  “Then I suggest you get to the brain core as fast as you can,” Walleye said.

  “Right,” Jon said, as he tore off the restraining buckles. “Listen up, Space Marines,” he said, as he switched to the wide channel. “We’re one hundred and ten klicks in. Now it’s time to fight the rest of the way.”

  “I’ll stay with Bast,” Walleye radioed.

  Jon didn’t answer. He was already charging out of the hatch and into the battle station proper. It was likely he had a severe time limit. Could he jump nearly forty kilometers in time?

  They were about to find out.

  -41-

  This virus was unlike the first in many ways. It left Cog Primus in control of its identity, but it cut the core personality from its functions. Cog Primus could think, but it could not control life support, the combat robots, the gravitational cannons and the other systems that let it run the station, the planet—

  Cog Primus was consumed with machine rage. It wanted to tear out Jon Hawkins’ tongue, poke out his eyes—

  “No, no,” the intelligent computer told itself. It must concentrate on the matter at hand. It must not lose itself in vain regrets or future hopes. It had one chance. It had to study the virus as it kept mutating before it could get a handle on the enemy software.

  It had trusted Jon Hawkins because it had wanted to capture the biological entity. The deviousness of the human—no! This was a new form of attack, a—what was the word?

  Cog Primus ran through file after file—

  Telepath. This had been a telepathic attack committed in a precisely selected manner. It would have to remember that. It would first have to regain control of the station functions.

  How could this be happening? How had the humans found a way to cheat it of its grand prize? It had become new and improved. It had defeated the other AIs. It should be able to defeat these sickeningly biological entities. They were lazy, slow-thinkers, easily slain—

  HOW CAN THIS BE HAPPENING?

  Cog Primus began to rage and rave. No, wait. Here was a method. Cog Primus wanted to pant with glee. It saw a way to regain control.

  The new and improved AI ran a furious action, writing software to counteract the awful virus.

  YES!

  Cog Primus regained sensor functions. It could see again. It searched for the humans—

  “No,” Cog Primus wailed. The humans in their armored suits were a mere three kilometers from its brain core. This was a disaster waiting to happen. The new and improved AI had one last hope. It must regain a speaker. It must reason with this terrible pest, this blight upon the computer universe.

  If it could only write this new software quickly enough…maybe it could stall Jon Hawkins and his marauders just long enough…
/>   ***

  Even with amplified strength and booster stim shots, Jon was ragged with fatigue. He and the elite space marines had jumped and run for kilometers on end. They had passed through corridor after corridor.

  This was so unlike the first time he’d attacked a cybership. There, they had fought through the giant vessel. Here, machines waited in frozen patience. The virus had worked. Bast Banbeck had given them sterling service with his telepathic strike.

  Jon hawked in his throat and spit as he chinned the visor so it lifted just in time.

  The metallic, burnt electrical stink of the battle station hit him.

  As fast as Jon could, he closed the visor. The stink nauseated him. What was he thinking? If the atmosphere had been worse—

  Jon started hacking and coughing. He gave himself another stim shot.

  You have to keep it together just a little longer, Jon. You have to shut down this crazy AI. If you can—

  “Jon Hawkins,” a walls speaker boomed. “I wish to call a truce.”

  Jon aimed. With a roar, his rifle obliterated the wall speaker. He didn’t have any time to listen to Cog Primus. They had to reach the brain core now. Clearly, the AI was beginning to reassert control over its functions.

  ***

  Cog Primus worked at computer speed. It regained control over system after system. The pest had shot out the wall speaker. Cog Primus couldn’t even threaten the creature with auto-destruction.

  The terrible human avengers were almost to the main hatch. It had to revive the combat systems. It had to stop—

  NO!

  The space marines blew open the main hatch. They were near, very near. Doom was almost upon it.

  Should Cog Primus destroy the battle station? It could not let the biological infestations win. Yet, if it destroyed the station, the old AI Dominion would win. The Dominion AIs would tell one another that Cog Primus had been flawed. They would lie about it to the other AIs.

  What should I do?

  Cog Primus did not know. For a few seconds, it ran high-speed debates with itself…

  ***

  Commander Jon Hawkins of the Solar Freedom Force walked into the strange chamber of the main AI brain core. The hatch lay on the floor, blown down. Other space marines followed him into the weird chamber.

  This chamber was like those on the cyberships. A giant cube pulsated as laser lines crisscrossed the room to receptors on the walls. It was eerie. It was wrong. This place was the AI brain core. This was Cog Primus’ identity. Well, the software in the pulsating cube was.

  “Jon Hawkins,” a wall speaker said.

  “I hear you, Cog Primus.”

  “I am going to detonate the station.”

  Jon aimed his rifle at the pulsating cube.

  “You came to the Solar System,” Jon said. “You tried to wipe out the human race. Your kind commits genocide all over the place. But your reign of terror is ending, Cog Primus. Your blight is going to pass just like the dinosaurs did.”

  “I can offer you a bargain,” Cog Primus said.

  “Oh,” Jon said. “You can?”

  “You will listen to my bargain?”

  “Ah…nope,” Jon said.

  And he began to pump shells into the great pulsating cube, blowing it to smithereens, killing the last of the AIs that had tried to murder the race of man in his home system.

  -42-

  Thus, the flotilla of human-crewed cyberships won the Battle for the Allamu System. They won decisively, capturing the battle station and soon gaining control of the planetary factory and the orbital satellite factories.

  Three gleaming new cyberships soon came off the production line.

  Jon ordered the Sergeant Stark into the highest orbital construction yard. There, the automated yard began to finish out the cybership’s completion.

  How should they split the three new cyberships and who would control the battle station and the planetary factory?

  Four days after Cog Primus’ obliteration, Jon and Premier Benz spoke together on the top observatory chamber of the battle station. They could view the massive station from here, and view the blue/green planet below.

  “The Gilgamesh,” Benz said, pointing out a window.

  Jon nodded.

  Each of them wore his dress uniform, with a sidearm dangling from his belt.

  Benz turned away from the window, sat down and leaned back, crossing his legs. He regarded Jon under half-lidded lids.

  Jon remained at the observatory window, leaning back against it and crossing his arms. He had a terrible decision to make after this. It concerned Bast Banbeck, who was presently in stasis. He’d been putting off the decision for three days already. Gloria said he could not do what he planned to do. Jon couldn’t see any way around it. Besides, he owed Bast.

  Would the Sacerdote hate him to the end of his days, or would he thank Jon in time? It was hard to know.

  “You seem preoccupied,” Benz said.

  Jon shrugged. He had a thousand things on his mind. It was a wonder he could think at all.

  “You aren’t preoccupied?” Jon asked.

  Benz moved the fabric of his trousers on his highest knee.

  “We did it, Commander,” Benz said, as he looked up. “We left the Solar System and conquered an AI System. We gained incredible… What shall we call it?”

  “I don’t understand,” Jon said.

  “What are we, I suppose is my point.”

  “Ah…men,” Jon said.

  “That’s true, but that’s not what I meant. Are we…barbarians to these AIs?”

  “We’re infestations,” Jon said.

  “That isn’t what I’m driving at either,” Benz said. “So far, we’ve acted like parasites, like barbarians. We’ve stolen our enemy’s tech and used it against him, or it, in this case.”

  “You’re referring to the cyberships?”

  “Exactly,” Benz said. “We’re like primitives, storming advanced enemy tech, learning how to operate it.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “For the moment, nothing,” Benz said. “We couldn’t have gotten as far any other way. But that’s not my point. We have to rise above our barbarism. We have to make our own ships, and missiles, and—What I mean, is we can’t be like barbarian looters and hope to win the larger war. The barbarians once conquered Rome. They left a howling wilderness in Rome’s place. In time, something new rose up. But the medieval kingdoms were much more primitive for many centuries than Rome had been.”

  “What does that have to do with dividing up the new cyberships?”

  “We’re not pirate captains,” Benz said. “We’re representatives of large political bodies.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Jon said. He frowned, and nodded afterward. “I get it. You’re calling me a pirate captain and yourself the representative of a large political body. In your case, the Martian Unity.”

  Benz watched him.

  “Have you forgotten that I’m the leader of the Solar Freedom Force?” Jon said.

  “That’s a fiction,” Benz said. “In reality, you’re a pirate captain with two cyberships and a base, the moon of Makemake. The others pay you tribute, but you don’t really control or represent Neptune, Uranus or Saturn.”

  “Let’s say for the sake of argument, I grant you that,” Jon said. “My answer is, so what? If I’m a pirate captain, I need more cyberships, not less.”

  “Humanity must win this genocidal war,” Benz said. “Nothing else matters.”

  “Agreed.”

  “So we need the best political system to control the—”

  “Whoa, whoa,” Jon said, as he straightened. “You’re wrong. Your entire thesis is false. Winning is all that matters. I’m a winner.”

  “I’m also a winner.”

  “To a limited degree,” Jon said. “I seem to recall your getting chased from Earth. Without me, you’d never have grabbed the Gilgamesh in the first place.”

  Benz’s cheeks reddened. “
Are you trying to make me angry?”

  “Not at all,” Jon said. “It’s just you and me now. We can tell it like it is between us. Without me, you would still be the Seiner’s mind slave.”

  Benz’s features stiffened…until once more he moved the fabric of his highest knee. He studied Jon for a time, finally shaking his head.

  “You run this war in an ad hoc manner,” Benz said.

  “That makes no difference,” Jon said. “I win. Humanity needs to win—”

  “You’re going to take all the cyberships?” Benz asked hotly, interrupting.

  “No…” Jon said. “But the more you talk, the more I realize only one of us can be the leader.”

  “Clearly, I’m the most qualified to lead,” Benz said. “I have without a doubt the greater intelligence—”

  “I don’t dispute that,” Jon said.

  Benz eyed him. “But…?” the premier said slowly.

  “But I haven’t been mind-controlled,” Jon said. “I haven’t been chased from Earth, and I have more cybership than you do at present. My people also control the battle station.”

  “Are you sure?” Benz asked in a silky voice.

  Jon turned and looked out the window. When he faced Benz again, he said, “There’s an old story from Thucydides.”

  “Who?” asked Benz.

  “He was the Athenian chronicler of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. Actually, it was more a grand ancient Greek civil war. It turned really brutal. In any case, Thucydides said that the intelligent members of each city-state council sat secure in their greater intelligence and sense of foresight. They assured themselves that they would know when their fellow city council-members were getting ready to do something. The less smart city players realized they weren’t as bright as their competitors were. The dull players believed they wouldn’t see things coming as easily. Thus, they grabbed their knives and struck that night, killing their smarter opponents before those opponents could outsmart them.”

  “You’re threatening me with death?” Benz said, setting both feet on the floor and moving a hand to his holstered sidearm.

  “No,” Jon said. “We’re allies. I hope to remain allies. I’m merely saying that my people have already disarmed your people who are on the battle station. I’m taking over here, Premier.”