Blood of the Scarecrow: Book 3: Solstice 31 Saga

by Martin Wilsey

  This time, he positioned it so the target would fly into the weapon’s path and pulled the trigger. He waited, watching the drone approach the crosshairs. He tagged the drone with the targeting system.

  When the drone crossed into the weapon’s sights, the weapon fired automatically.

  McDonald was knocked from his feet. Not from any recoil, but from the quake in the surface that resulted when the distant mountain peaks were completely sheared off. The g-rail hung there for two more seconds, before falling to the apron. Its power display faced McDonald; it read 6% in the red.

  He heard alarms in his comms unit.

  “Vittori, what’s happening?”

  “The shockwave cracked the seals on three outer airlocks and an empty residence. We’re holding pressure, though…” Vittori spoke quickly.

  She was suddenly on the edge of panic, all professionalism having vanished.

  “Fuck me raw, Tom. The primary long-range QUEST comms array is gone.”

  “What do you mean, gone? Did we sever a cable?”

  It dawned on him as he stood and looked in the direction of the distant communication facility. The entire communications installation had been beyond the drone.

  “Oh my God… no real-time comms?” he said.

  “Turned to powder, sir.”

  Vittori was collecting herself now.

  Matthews stepped up beside McDonald. He had retrieved the g-rail and shut it down. Removing the depleted power pack, he handed it to his stunned boss, and said, “Are you alright, sir?”

  McDonald turned to Matthews.

  “I want that fucking thing in the vault with all the power packs, and then get your ass on a shuttle and assess the damage.”

  He looked back at the hangar opening.

  “Take Hearn with you. No discussions over the radios. It’s all monitored by that godforsaken AI.”

  McDonald stepped through the grav-wall into the hangar. Matthews followed, reluctantly.

  McDonald took off his helmet and scratched his nose. Eyes lowered, he said to Hearn, “I think I just killed Emerson, Tyler, and Garcia at the comms station.”

  “They were all stupid assholes, anyway,” Hearn said, indifferently, as he admired the weapon.

  “Tyler was a mole for the chancellor.”

  ***

  “Emerson, Tyler, and Garcia are confirmed dead. They all had full-time comms link HUDs, and they all flashed off at the same moment,” Vittori said. “Even worse, we have lost the Quantum Entanglement Synchronous Transmitter.”

  The two of them were alone in the control center, and she could not meet McDonald’s gaze.

  “No real-time, two-way comms with Earth.”

  She felt responsible.

  Good, he thought. He would blame her in his report, anyway. He looked forward to her efforts to avoid that blame. She was fit, had excellent grooming, and was...durable.

  “I want a status report ready for conventional transmission in thirty minutes. I’ve already sent a burst transmission, reporting that we are not dead and that the prisoner is secure. I do NOT want any of the chancellor’s ships in my sky. Is that clear?”

  He leaned on her, hard.

  “Sir…Tom. I’m sorry.”

  She finally looked up. The cold professional scientist was gone. Her eyes welled with unshed tears.

  McDonald placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “I know. We’ll sort it all out, later. In private.”

  He paused, squeezing her shoulder.

  “We don’t have the bandwidth on the secondary comms, so don’t send the raw data; but tell them why we are not sending it. It would take seventy-eight minutes to get there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Vittori was collecting herself.

  “Vittori…Kristin. I think we were set up.”

  He pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the base.

  “I think that son of a bitch knew something like this would happen, and he did nothing to stop it.”

  He saw the lie take hold in her eyes. She had been hoping that somehow it wasn’t her fault.

  He would ‘reassure’ her later, in his quarters. Hard and fast.

  ***

  An hour later, McDonald walked into the prison cell dome. He was the only one allowed in there. It was a pain in the ass. But it was the only way to keep the prisoner’s nature, let alone his existence, a secret.

  The entire dome was a simulation of the sky above Detroit. Day and night, in all weather. In the center of the dome was a structure that McDonald thought of as an elaborate movie set. It didn’t look like much on the outside, but it didn’t need to. He entered the façade and walked down a long corridor that made it appear as if he was in a dirty warehouse. The door slid open, and he entered a large room that resembled the inside of a warehouse. Subtle clues everywhere indicated that it should be Detroit.

  High dirty windows provided filtered light as McDonald proceeded to the center, where there was a huge clear box enclosing an area seven meters on a side. Industrial lighting hung from the ceiling above the cell. There was a man in the box.

  A thin mattress and a neatly made bed lay on an elevated section. Opposite, a tabletop was attached to the wall, beside a stump of a stool that rose from the floor. In one corner, there was a basic toilet and sink. The entire thing hovered above the floor on three clear legs.

  McDonald climbed onto the visitor’s platform that was near, but not touching, the cell. He pounded a button on a console there, and the freestanding screen that showed stupid sitcoms all day went dark. Another button activated the intercom, and Tom wasted no time in punching it.

  “You fucking knew this would happen. People died, you bastard.”

  McDonald maintained control, with effort.

  “But it worked. Perfectly. Didn’t it? I felt it.” The prisoner looked over at McDonald.

  “How’s the wife?”

  “She’s sure as hell not going to be happy about all the overtime I’m going to have to put in as a result of this fuck up.”

  McDonald sounded like he might be about to lose it.

  “As if the goddamn commute from Boston to this shit hole wasn’t bad enough.

  “You will tell me how to fix the g-rail spread, or I swear to the Dali-fucking-Lama that I will keep you in the dark and not feed you for six months, again. No clean clothes, no water, no vids, no food and no heat. You will love the winter here.”

  McDonald was growling by the end.

  “Maybe a new bullet hole every day for good-goddamn-measure!”

  “OK, OK…relax. We are almost done. Bring the design up on the big screen.” He turned toward the black screen.

  “Don’t you tell me to relax,” McDonald growled, as he activated the monitor and brought up the design schematic. “You bastard.”

  “Remember version 9.3 that we scrapped? Bring that one up.”

  The prisoner waited, patiently, as McDonald brought it up.

  “There. Why? That design was a nonstarter. No way to house the dampeners.”

  McDonald remembered. It had only been two years ago.

  “Look at the emitters—just the business end of the muzzle. They adjusted based on the power settings. Is any of this coming back?”

  He was so smug about it. McDonald could already see how it could work, automatically, as well as manually. It would focus the g-rail emission.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before, asshole?” He spat.

  “Now you can see their usefulness as remote, fixed-position emplacements.”

  He turned to McDonald and stood, moving directly to the wall of his cell.

  “I bet it wouldn’t even fire without a fresh power cell at full power. You now know that, as a rapid target acquisition rifle, the max power setting should be two, or three, at most. Say emergency power as high as four, if you are going after armored vehicles or buildings. At two, it will take out any armor with ease and last for 300 shots.”

  “What are you leaving out? I know you
’re leaving out something; so give it up now, or I swear it’ll be cold and dark in here by nightfall.” McDonald was dead serious. The prisoner could tell.

  “Never fire one of these in the atmosphere above power setting two. The sound volume and concussion would be…a problem.”

  He said it like he was giving away a secret.

  “And never from a moving ship in a gravity well.”

  Too late, asshole.

  ***

  A new QUEST comms unit arrived, four hours later. It must have been seized from a base on Saturn somewhere, by the soldiers that delivered it.

  “Chancellor, he has no idea we know who and what he is.” McDonald paused. “And what he is capable of.”

  He swallowed hard.

  “Temporal physics is not my best field, but he still lets things slip. He can only see the future that happens before him, in his field of view. It is possible to deceive him. The best example is how he lets things slip about my wife. Things he couldn’t know. Because they are lies.”

  “Oh? Tell me.”

  He was thinking as he sat. He was not looking into the camera.

  “We can, in fact, lie to him. But only if he never finds out the truth in the future. I have not seen my wife for nearly two years—the entire time I have been on Rhea. He has no idea how I really feel. Or that it’s been the best two years of my life.” McDonald needed sleep badly, and he forgot himself, for a minute.

  “She is such a cow and a shrew.”

  He shook his head to clear it.

  “The point is, the prisoner has only ‘predicted’ the lies I have fed him. Or will feed him.”

  “You have done an excellent job, Tom. I may take care of that little problem for you, as a bit of a bonus.”

  ***

  Vittori was very grateful that she had not been thrown under the bus. Very. Grateful.

  It was trivial to make the modifications. The final prototype was recalibrated with the new, lower power maximum. The new automatic choke worked perfectly. It could even be overridden, so you could intentionally create a wide field of mayhem. The chancellor of Earth ordered him to bring the prototype and the final design for the fabricators to him, personally.

  It was a long trip back to Earth, if he didn’t spare the fuel. He would be home just in time for Christmas.

  His ETA was December 24, 2631.

  Turkot laughed, to himself. He knew all along he wasn’t on Earth.

  McDonald would be too late. The Solstice 31 War would be over. He would be counted as dead on Rhea.

  He would be free.

  CHAPTER TWENTY: Marv Has Some Fun

  “We never knew there was a manned base on that moon. We got so many things wrong. It was full center on the side facing the planet. Almost directly opposite from us.”

  --Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: Captain James Worthington, senior surviving member of the Ventura deep space survey ship.

  <<<>>>

  Everything was loaded and ready. They were assembled in the hangar, for the final time. Jimbo stood on the apron of the Memphis to address them.

  “Everyone has their station assignments. All three ships are going to make the trip to the Iosin, independently, but we will stay together. If something goes wrong with any of the ships, the STU can assist us.”

  Jimbo looked over their faces. There were affirmative nods all around.

  “We plan to travel at the best speed the Memphis can manage. At that pace, it will take around five days to get there. Maybe less. We will be safe.”

  Jimbo noticed a glance between Wex and Barcus.

  “Are there any questions?” There were no questions. As everyone moved to their assigned posts, Worthington moved to intercept Barcus at the base of the STU.

  “You'd better be right about this,” he said, in a tone that only Barcus heard. Barcus only paused long enough to say one thing.

  “You'll see. Then, after this, you might believe all the rest of the shit I told you.” He was already climbing the ramp as he said it. Po was already in the hold, waiting for him. Only those two would be in the STU.

  The base initiated a partial shutdown. It would get by on solar power, as the spiders continued repairs on the base, in case they returned. It would have enough power to cycle the main hangar doors as well.

  The STU moved out first, not even waiting for the doors to be open all the way. The Sedna was next. Kuss piloted the Sedna, and Cook did likewise on the Memphis.

  The hangar door slid closed as they watched the interior lights go out. The Memphis backed out on grav-foils and then ascended slowly in the standard helix pattern. Kuss just waited, hovering a kilometer out.

  “Feels solid, so far,” Cook said, as he got a sense of the ship.

  Jimbo was in his usual command chair on the bridge, looking at the dome display and status windows opened all around. Tyrrell was at the comms station, and Beary was at navigation. Rotation stopped, and the new heading activated. The sub-light engines engaged, and they moved away. They could not see the STU because it was just too black.

  The Sedna was about two kilometers to starboard and kept pace. They had cleared the dark side of the moon, and the planet was dead ahead.

  “Ben, full active sensors aft, if you please,” Jimbo said.

  AI~Ben replied, instantly, “I have just detected launch of two vessels, fighters. They are on an intercept course. Their weapons are warming up.”

  “Launched from where?” Cook replied, putting on speed.

  “It appears to be a base at the center point, facing the planet. There have been no attempts to hail us,” AI~Ben replied, calmly.

  “Barcus, are you seeing this?” Jimbo said, as if he was not surprised.

  “Yes. We have about forty seconds,” Barcus replied.

  Cook and Beary looked at each other and mouthed, “What the—”

  “I am bringing the EMP cannon around, onto target. Firing,” Cook said, and then the base went dark.

  “Were there any transmissions before lights out?” Jimbo asked.

  “No, sir,” was Communications Officer Muir’s reply.

  “Passing tracking coordinates to Hume and Rand,” Jimbo said.

  “Tracking,” Hume said.

  “Locked on target. Standing by,” Rand said.

  “Fire,” Worthington said, almost casually.

  There was no sound, no beams of light, no missiles.

  Two explosions in the distance were bright for only an instant and then darkness again.

  “Let me know when it's OK to ask what the fuck is happening,” Beary said, in an artificial calm.

  “Rand and I are in Warmarks, clamped on just outside airlock number three,” Hume said. “Captain had a hunch.”

  “Smart nuke is away. Good hunting, Marvin,” Barcus said. An engine lit up and stalked toward the moon, illuminating the STU, for an instant.

  “Thanks, boss. Woohoo...” Marvin answered, exuberantly. The AI-controlled bomb streaked to its target.

  “Are you sure there are four more at that base?” Jimbo asked Barcus.

  “Yes. They are already heating up,” Barcus said. “Marv will get there before they can launch.”

  “Come back in guys, before Marv hits that base. They might have a Javelin pod there as well,” Jimbo ordered.

  “Wait,” Cook said. “This whole time, we were sharing the moon with a bunch of assholes whose job it was to mop up ships that might survive the defense grid?”

  “Only ones headed out of the system, apparently,” Jimbo said.

  “We're in, and secure,” Hume reported, professionally. “Sir, these laser canons are something else. We just began a sustained burst and tracked it in. The cooling modules are single use, though. We just jettisoned the cooling cans before we came in.” She paused before she added, “Sir, we are fucked, if we have to fight this kind of hardware when we get home. If we can do that with no training? Imagine…”

  Marv found his target in that moment. He tra
nsmitted full scans as he augured in, laughing. Images showed that the next two ships almost made it off the pad. A great flash that could probably be seen from the planet went off.

  “We are clear to proceed,” Barcus said, over the comms.

  “OK, asswipe. I believe you now,” Jimbo said, as Cook increased speed.

  ***

  Wex stood in the main suite’s stateroom, facing the front windows. The blast shields were open. The frame around the windows here were carved in intricate designs. She recalled the word, knot-work.

  Jude and Cine stood on either side of her with their backs leaning on the cool, thick glass, when the flash of the explosion flared. They turned to watch the receding conflagration that was quickly extinguished by the vacuum.

  “The AI in the bomb was the purest I have ever seen. Its clarity of purpose. Its joy in its inevitable success. It's refreshing. The corruption of the AIs is nearing an end. The Iosin will see to that. Miles used them from his own prison to free us. Soon, I will free him. Then, I will free us all.”

  Jude cut to the chase.

  “Tell us what we should know.”

  “On Mars, there is a waste dump. A bunker full of death. Radioactive waste, biological and long forgotten,” Wex whispered. “Hundreds of years of accumulated toxic materials. Corruption on that planet brings us an advantage. The AI that runs the facility is a weapons dealer but has remained pure.”

  ***

  “Stu, full canopy, please,” Po said, as she unbuckled her five-point harness.

  She moved over and curled up in Barcus's lap like a cat. She noticed he wasn't belted in.

  “Annotations off, please. Just the stars.”

  She had her cheek pressed to his chest. He wore one of his tunics. One she had made for him. He caressed her hair and her shoulders. Eventually, he gathered her for a momentary squeeze. Po never told him that he was crushing her. Her ear on his chest listened to his heart pounding.

  “Thank you for spending these five days with me. There will be much to do when we reach the Iosin,” she said to him, as he kissed the top of her head.