This was an old hauler, June realized. The light should have shined as soon as the outer hatch closed.
Walleye checked a gauge, waited and finally activated the inner hatch.
It opened.
June began to hyperventilate. Had some of the robots stayed behind to guard the hauler, or was Walleye right about them?
The mutant pulled out his tangle gun. Would the sticky threads hold a robot?
June moaned as they entered the main area of the dark ship. No lights or alarms came on. Walleye pulled out a flashlight with his other hand. He clicked it on, and a powerful beam pierced the darkness.
June couldn’t talk. She could hardly think. There were all kinds of hardware in here. None of it appeared normal. It seemed, well, alien. So far, though, no robot had popped up to kill them, or worse, turn them into drones.
Walleye kept advancing, carefully pushing himself from place to place. In terror, June followed. Her stomach squeezed harder and harder. She almost wanted a robot to pop up. The suspense was making her sick.
The robots did not comply. There was just this alien junk piled almost to the ceiling in places. Some of it looked like alien robot parts. Other stuff seemed like computer hardware.
Finally, Walleye opened a hatch, going in headfirst. June followed right behind him. Walleye pointed. She had no idea—
He pointed more insistently.
Finally, she turned around and saw a switch. She pressed it, closing the hatch behind them. When she turned around, Walleye had floated before normal-looking Evans hauler controls.
Eventually, Walleye twisted off his helmet. He seemed okay. June twisted hers off. The stink hit her immediately. It was awful, but she didn’t choke, only made a face.
“We did it, Luscious. We made it, and so far, no robots.”
“Now what?” she asked. “We stirred them up with the heavy lifter.”
Walleye grinned, nodding. “Let’s hope it gives us enough cover so we can slip away.”
“You’re not serious. We have to land this and show Luxor Evans. Maybe we can—”
June stopped talking because Walleye was laughing too hard.
Wiping his weird eyes, bringing the laughter under control, Walleye said: “You have to excuse me, Luscious. I’m working under intense pressure. I keep seeing your friend with that thing in her skull. This is far more than just Makemake. This is more than just the Kuiper Belt. I’m thinking this could be about the human race.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Aliens, Luscious. Robots. They aren’t friendly robots, either, but horrific bastards. This is for all the marbles.”
“Huh?”
“You’re going to have quit talking for a bit. I got to figure this out and see if I can outsmart these alien peckers.”
***
The hauler applied increasing amounts of thrust before quitting altogether.
Time passed.
Walleye said they might as well see if they could figure out any of this alien junk while they waited.
They didn’t turn on the comm. They didn’t check the sensors. They just drifted along in high orbit, hoping to get onto the far side of Makemake.
An hour passed. Then another. June had stopped handling the alien hardware some time ago. Walleye kept right on checking.
He now motioned his head toward the piloting compartment. He carried a chest-sized thing with him, squeezing through the hatch with it.
“What is that?” June asked as she followed.
“I think it belongs with the main computing unit. It strikes me as a memory core. We’re going to take it with us.”
“You keep saying things I don’t understand.”
Walleye smiled indulgently. “I explain until I’m out of breath. You hear some of it, but…”
“What? You think I’m stupid?”
“Hardly. I think you’re terrified just like me. I think you’re having a hard time getting your head around all this. You keep getting a blank look on your face. You want to zone out and forget about the horror. But you’re too strong-willed to stay that way. You zone back in, and I try to explain what I already told you earlier.”
“Why doesn’t that happen to you?” June asked.
“Who said it doesn’t?”
June shook her head stubbornly.
“Okay. I’m a hard case because of my mutations.”
“You’re not that different from others.”
He raised an arm as if to show her how short it was.
“Except for a few…” June trailed off.
“Deformities?” he asked. “Is that the word you’re looking for?”
She felt herself slipping away again.
“Don’t answer that,” he said. “I’m not saying my mutations make me stronger. I’m saying because I’ve learned to live with the way I am, that I’m already hardened inside.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “It’s why we’re alive and have our brains to ourselves instead of being enslaved. I plan to keep us that way.”
“I’m surprised we’ve gotten this far in the hauler.”
“Me too,” Walleye said. “I can only guess that the heavy lifter struck the great project. That would have alerted Makemake, and gotten the security people moving.”
“Walleye,” she said, staring at him, realizing something. “You did warn them. You did give Makemake a chance.”
He shrugged. “If I were a guessing man, which I am, I’d say there’s a huge fight going on in Makemake right now. My money is on the robots, though.”
“Why?”
“They have the advantage of surprise and likely superior weapons. By the time Luxor realizes what he’s really fighting…” Walleye shrugged again.
The little assassin sat at the piloting board, studying a screen. “We did it. We’re on the far side of the planet. Probe sensors will see us, but it will take time for anyone to fire at us. If there’s fighting on the other side—better strap in, Luscious. We’re going to go as long and as a fast as we can. I don’t know how long that will be, though. Ready?”
She nodded.
Walleye manipulated the piloting board.
Suddenly, June’s head snapped back against the headrest. The hauler’s thrusters roared with power, sending them away from Makemake, on the other side of the dwarf planet from the city port.
-9-
Many hours later, a red light blinked on the comm.
June raised her head, peering at Walleye. The mutant was asleep. She called his name until he looked up.
The thrusters had shut down some time ago.
“We don’t answer anyone,” he told her.
“They’ll suspect the worst about us then.”
Walleye nodded but didn’t say anything more.
In time, the red light quit blinking.
More time passed. A different red light began to blink.
Walleye was awake this time. He adjusted an instrument, stared at it for a time and finally sighed.
“What is it?” June asked in alarm.
“Missile. It’s coming for us.”
“Is it a robot or human-built missile?”
“Don’t know. It doesn’t matter. We have to pack up.”
June nodded mutely. She’d been dreading this.
They’d already packed the escape pod with the items they would need, including the alien memory core, if that’s what it was.
Walleye opened the hatch to the pod. June followed him inside and buckled up in her crash-seat. He sealed them in and found his seat.
“Ready?” he asked.
“I am,” she whispered hoarsely.
Walleye pulled a lever, and once more, June’s head snapped back.
The emergency pod shot out of the hauler. It did not add any thrust, but drifted away from the hauler while still moving in the same general direction and at the same velocity. Walleye had aimed the hauler for Neptune a long, long way away.
They waited. It took several mo
re hours. Finally, on a small panel, they saw a bright light.
“Say good-bye to the hauler,” Walleye said.
“Are more missiles coming?” June asked breathlessly.
Walleye shrugged.
“You can tell me,” she said.
“I don’t know. I don’t care. We’re going to assume no more missiles are coming. Thinking that will give us more hope. But that doesn’t matter for you. It’s time.”
June stared at Walleye. She stared and stared as she felt her eyes growing progressively wider. This was going to be a lot harder than she’d realized.
Walleye sighed. “What is it now, Luscious?”
It was hard to force the words past a tight throat. Finally, she said, “You go into the cryo unit. I’ll stay out here.”
He grinned. “That’s not rational, Luscious. I’m smaller. I’ll eat less and breathe less air. Besides, this is going to be a long, long trip, years.”
“We can trade off,” she said.
“I can take years alone in space in a tiny environment. I don’t think you can.”
“Walleye—it isn’t fair. The cryo unit is too easy. We should share the pain.”
“Let me put it to you straight, Luscious. I don’t trust you. You’ll crack being all alone in this tight place. No. You go into the cryo unit.”
“I know you’re being gallant, but…” June didn’t speak her real fear. She’d seen Walleye in action. He was ruthless. She was afraid he’d freeze her, wait for six months, say, and decide to kill her and then freeze himself. That was the logical move for an assassin.
“I’m not going to argue,” Walleye said. “Either you—”
“Walleye, please,” she said, with tears in her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She closed her eyes. She wished she could trust him. She wished she could believe he’d wait those years and years. The desire for life was too strong in her, though.
“Don’t you trust me?” Walleye asked.
June opened her eyes just enough to see him. She pulled out the stitch-gun hidden in her coat, aimed at him and pulled the trigger over and over and over again. It finally dawned on her that the gun had clicked empty each time. Walleye sat there staring at her.
“No,” she whispered, beginning to shake. “I…I couldn’t trust you, Walleye. I wanted to, I really did. But…”
June Zen began to weep.
Walleye plucked the gun out of her grasp. He didn’t say anything. Instead, he waited.
After a good cry, using a sleeve, she wiped the tears from her eyes. She couldn’t look up.
“Well?” she whispered.
He said nothing.
“Just shoot me already,” she said miserably.
He still remained silent.
She wiped her eyes again and finally looked up at him. She couldn’t see any evidence of the stitch-gun.
“What are you waiting for?” she asked defiantly.
“For you to get into the cryo unit,” he said.
“So you can kill me later while I’m frozen?”
He said nothing, just waited.
That unnerved June. She hated the mutant. She turned away, biting a knuckle. She must have fallen asleep. She had awful dreams. Finally, she stirred. With a start, she sat up.
Walleye still watched her.
“What?” she shouted.
“Part of me wishes I didn’t see things so well. I could feel your conflicted thoughts. I could see your determination building. That’s when I palmed the gun and took out the stitches. I keep wondering if I did the right thing. I haven’t put you in the cryo unit yet…because I know it’s going to be a lonely few years.”
June’s heart sank. She couldn’t look at him anymore. She wanted to weep again, but she was out of tears.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He said nothing.
“Do you hate me?”
“Not a bit,” he said. Then he sighed. It was so mournful.
The sound ripped June’s heart.
“It’s time,” he said. “See you later, Luscious.”
“Walleye…”
June Zen didn’t know what else to say. Eventually, she went to the cryo unit, opened it and prepared herself. She looked up at him one last time. He had a stupid sad smile on his mutant face.
“Good-bye, Walleye,” she whispered. “Good luck. And thanks for everything.”
He nodded before looking away.
June pulled down the lid, pressed the switch and laid back. Would she ever wake up again? Maybe. Maybe Walleye would do what he could for them. But would that be enough to beat the alien robots? She kept thinking about that as long as she could before she froze into a human Popsicle for the long journey to the Neptune System.
Part III
SATURN GRAVITATIONAL SYSTEM
+11 Months, 27 Days
-1-
At the far edge of the Saturn Gravitational System, Warship Nathan Graham decelerated at 22 gravities. That was much greater than it had accelerated at any point during its journey from Neptune to Saturn.
Because of the orbital variances and the vast void between the two giant planets, the one-hundred kilometer vessel had traveled three times the distance that Saturn was from the Sun to get here.
The Saturn System was far older in terms of time of human habitation than the Neptune System. It had far more people and had been in the grip of the Solar League for several years already.
Captain Jon Hawkins presently stood on the bridge of the Nathan Graham—the same chamber that was near the destroyed brain core. He studied the main screen, the moons shown there, the ringed beauty of Saturn and the approaching SLN fleet coming to do battle with him.
As a child with his uncle, and sometimes as a youth in the lower-level gangs, Jon had gone up to stare past New London’s main dome. At those times looking from the moon Titan, Jon had stared at Saturn with its intense rings. He’d always loved the view.
He loved it now as he stood on the bridge. He was coming home. He had been coming home for almost a year. Now, though, it was a reality, even as he pulled his first maneuver against the Solar League occupiers.
That was one of the problems with stellar battles. The opponents could usually see their foes coming from a long ways off and for a long time.
The SLN fleet admiral had been demanding to talk to Jon for months already. Jon had declined every time. Not that the fleet admiral had requested him by name. The Solar League did not even know he existed. They just knew a giant warship was headed for the Saturn System. They wanted to speak to the ship’s commander.
For months now, with the warship’s powerful scopes, Jon and his battle-team had been studying the Solar League deployment.
As far as they could tell, the fleet admiral possessed five heavy battleships of the Premier-class like the old Leonid Brezhnev. She also had four older Troika-class battleships. They were slower and less armored, and had inferior laser cannons compared to the Premier-class. Still, those four older battleships were tougher in a collision fight than the three battle-cruisers. The fleet admiral also had three motherships, a dozen missile boats and two heavy monitors. Naturally, she also possessed plenty of destroyers, gunboats, tugs and storage carriers. The last must have utilized their huge cargo holds, expelling prismatic crystals that had been stored in them to form a giant P-Field. The huge cloud of tiny scintillating crystals presently shielded the SLN fleet from the Nathan Graham’s super-powerful alien scopes.
Jon rubbed two fingers together as he studied the great P-Field. That was standard military tactics. The thick belt of tiny crystals—trillions of them—would block lasers and other beam weapons, at least for a time. The enemy had no doubt studied the former cybership and reached certain conclusions about it. The fleet admiral must already have her plan on how to take out the great threat from Neptune.
Jon rubbed the two fingers harder. If the former cybership had still been under alien control, the coming battle would have been
a simple matter. The cyber brain-core would have transmitted the self-aware message to the fleet admiral’s vessels. The newly awakened, human-built computers would have slaughtered most of the fleet from the inside.
Jon snapped his fingers. The problem would be solved if the brain core were still running the cybership.
Jon shifted his feet into a new position, moving closer to the main screen.
Alas, he could not fight the Solar League that way. The whole point of this was to save humanity from the grim AI enemy. As much as Jon hated the Solar League and all it stood for, he hated even more the idea of butchering all those fine soldiers and destroying possibly-needed warships. The coming conflict with the AIs—
“Sir,” Gloria said. “The fleet admiral is attempting to contact us again.”
Jon pursed his lips. He could well understand the fleet admiral’s unease. The great vessel from Neptune was no longer going to plow into the vast P-Field. The 22 gravities deceleration would give Jon more maneuverability than that.
A space vessel traveling as fast as the giant warship had been doing only had a few options. The laws of motion mandated the vessel to plow ahead in the direction it traveled. Under normal human-built ship capacities, the fleet admiral might figure they could decelerate at 5 or 6 gravities, and that for not too long.
Decelerating as hard as they did—at 22 gravities—would soon bring the great warship to a halt. In the enemy’s point of view, that would be far too soon in front of the vast P-Field. Given that this ship could decelerate at 22 gravities, it could also accelerate at that rate, too. That would allow the Nathan Graham incredible maneuverability.
The fleet admiral’s tacticians would have seen what that meant. The giant vessel could easily out-maneuver the P-Field, rendering it useless. Worse, the giant unknown vessel—from the fleet admiral’s perspective—was huge. That implied it had longer-ranged weapons.
For instance, the range a laser cannon could reach—with destructive energy—was dependent on two factors. The first was the energy flowing into the laser cannon. The second was the size of the firing lens. The bigger the lens, the longer, theoretically, the beam could travel before it dissipated.
Since the Nathan Graham was vastly larger than the fleet admiral’s biggest battleship, this ship’s weapons should have much greater reach.
The A.I. Gene (The A.I. Series Book 2) Page 8
