“He’s too unconventional,” One said, as he tugged at his collar. His face shone with perspiration. “He lacks…Party loyalty.”
“Your protégée is a traitor?” Justinian asked in amazement.
“I wouldn’t put it like that, Chief Arbiter.”
“How would you put his treachery, hmm?” Justinian asked.
One licked at his wet lips as he tugged at the collar again. “My aide-de-camp, a major, is nonpolitical in many ways. He…he does see the need for many of Social Dynamism’s policies.”
“This is astounding,” Justinian said. “By your own admission, you harbor seditionists on your staff. By saying this major sees the need for some policies, you mean he disagrees with others. Which policies does your protégée find offensive?”
One gave the Premier an imploring look. “You want a genius, Madam. That’s what you’re telling us. We three, we’re not geniuses.”
“That’s an understatement,” Justinian said.
“Let me summon him,” One said. “Let me get him. Perhaps if you explain what you want, he’ll conjure a former campaign from the past and give you the answer you seek.”
Justinian laughed.
The Premier pushed her lips outward. “Very well, get him. I’ll give you…half an hour.”
One looked as if he wished to reply. Instead, he stood, saying, “With your leave, Madam Premier.”
She made a shooing motion with her right hand.
One didn’t give the other two a glance. He spun around and practically ran out of the interrogation chamber.
“What about us?” Three asked ponderously.
“Do you have a magic aide as well?” Justinian asked silkily.
Three glanced at Two. He seemed befuddled.
“Chief Arbiter,” the Premier said softly. “I’m going to…freshen up for a few minutes. Could you take care of these two while I’m gone?”
“With pleasure, Madam Premier,” Justinian said, grinning wolfishly.
The Premier rose without another glance at the two military commanders sweating under the glaring lights. Turning away, she headed for a side door.
“Madam Premier,” Three shouted. “I think there’s been a mistake. I have an idea you might want to hear.”
The Premier did not look back or slow her pace.
“Madam Premier,” Three shouted. “Please hear us out.”
She opened the door, walked through and closed it behind her. She paused a moment, hearing four loud gunshots. She did not smile. This genius had better have an idea or two, or Justinian would add to the pile of the dead.
-2-
The meeting reconvened, with the Premier and Justinian sitting at the high table once again.
Below, in the harsh lights was the Marshal of Earth with his supposedly genius protégée. The marshal was a nondescript individual, looking more like a middle-aged bank manager.
The protégée was quite different. He wore a brown uniform with red stripes running down his pant legs, signifying him as part of the General Staff. He was youngish with dark, shiny hair and an athletic frame. He looked up at them frankly, and there was no fear in his expression. That was strange and Justinian found it rather unsettling.
“Major Frank Benz reporting, Madam Premier,” the protégée said crisply.
“Do you know why you’re here?” Justinian asked.
Major Benz shifted his gaze from the Premier to Justinian.
As he did, the Premier watched the major closely. Most people feared the chief arbiter for good reason. The major still showed no fear. That was beginning to seem unnatural.
“I do know, sir,” Major Benz said. “You want to learn how to defeat Jon Hawkins.”
A moment of silence passed. That was an indelicate way to speak to the chief arbiter of the GSB.
“Do you know a way?” Justinian asked softly, dangerously.
“Of course,” Benz said. “You simply lure him from his ship and assassinate him.” The major snapped his fingers. “It is done.”
Justinian’s shoulders shifted forward. “Cheeky answers will ensure the Premier’s displeasure with you, Major. I can assure you that you will not enjoy the outcome.”
“If you want honest answers,” Benz said, unfazed, “you would do better to keep your threats to yourself, Chief Arbiter.”
J.P. Justinian smiled. A wolf ready to devour a plump rabbit would have been less gleeful.
The Premier studied the major closely. Where did his unnatural confidence come from? She did not like it one bit.
“I’m curious,” she said in a deadpan voice. “Why are you deliberately goading the Chief Arbiter?”
“To show you the uselessness of attempting to intimidate me,” Benz said.
“You are impervious to pain?” the Premier asked.
“No.”
“You don’t have any loved ones you’re afraid of losing?”
“I have loved ones,” Benz admitted.
“Why risk them like this, then?” the Premier asked.
Benz shook his head. “Madam Premier, the Marshal explained the situation to me. You want me to pull your chestnuts out of the fire for you. I can do this. Threatening me won’t make me any more inclined to help you. I already wish to help.”
It was time to stop this. “I’m unused to this kind of talk,” the Premier said forcefully.
“Honest talk?” asked Benz.
Justinian turned to her. “If you care to leave the chamber, Madam, I can summon several persuaders. They would persuade the major to take a more respectful tone with you.”
“Madam Premier,” the Marshal of Earth said meekly. “Major Benz has always been troublesome. I can attest to his brilliance, however. If he had been one whit less brilliant over the years, I would have sent him to the firing squad myself. For all his brilliance, the major has a serious issue with authority.”
“In my presence,” the Premier told Benz, “you will keep your cheekiness to yourself.”
“As you wish,” Benz said.
She almost ordered him shot. She did not like the major. If she shot him, however, she would lose the service of his supposed brilliance. But if she wasn’t going to shoot him immediately, continuing to threaten him without doing anything would only diminish her in Justinian’s eyes. She could hardly believe anyone like this could be near the centers of military command. That was positively frightening.
“Chief Arbiter, I would like you to explain the situation to the major.”
Perhaps her order surprised Justinian as he did not respond immediately.
“Madam Premier,” Major Benz said. “Perhaps I could explain the situation to you. It might be more beneficial for all concerned.”
Justinian slapped the table. It was clear he wanted to teach the major a bitter lesson.
Suddenly, the idea amused the Premier. Justinian was her sharpest, ablest tool. Sometimes, though, his efficiency troubled her. Maybe it would be good to have a sharper tool than Justinian in her armory, as a balance against the Chief Arbiter. It was an interesting possibility.
“Speak,” she told the major.
Benz crossed his left leg over his right knee, letting that leg dangle. He clasped his hand over the left knee, rocking slightly back and forth as he began to speak.
“The alien vessel has badly upset Social Dynamism’s timetable for complete Solar System conquest,” Benz began. “I have read the altered reports of the actions in the Neptune System. It is clear to me, and likely clear to the GSB, that the cybership almost succeeded in the Neptune System. I have often wondered if Jon Hawkins has not done us a service by eliminating the alien threat. These past years, Hawkins has attempted and partly succeeded in repairing the giant vessel. He freed the Saturn System from Social Dynamics—”
“Hawkins is a gangster,” Justinian said. “He did not free Saturn. He subjugated it.”
Benz shrugged. “Say it how you wish. I don’t care. The Neptune and Saturn Systems are presently outside our jurisdiction.
I think we can agree on that.”
Justinian drummed his fingers on the table.
“Uranus appears to be going rogue, and I imagine there are rumblings in the Jupiter System,” Benz said. “The Inner Planets are safe for now, and the Asteroid Belt fortresses—”
“Never mind all that,” the Premier said. “How do we defeat the cybership?”
“I suggest you do more than defeat it,” Benz said. “Where there is smoke there is fire. If one alien vessel reached the Solar System, more will surely come. We need the cybership’s technology. I would imagine the GSB has already stolen some of the specs—”
Justinian slapped the table even harder, interrupting the proceedings.
The Chief Arbiter cast a baleful glance at Benz before turning apologetically to the Premier. “I beg your forgiveness, Madam. The idea that the GSB stole anything grated against my sense of justice. We liberated the stolen tech from the arch gangster, Jon Hawkins.”
“Agreed,” the Premier said. “Please continue, Major, but watch those slips of the tongue. I doubt you say those things by accident.”
“As you wish,” Benz said with a bow of the head. “My point is that we must capture the cybership. We must have it in order to defend the Solar System from more alien incursions.”
“I understand,” the Premier said. “That still doesn’t tell us how we defeat the one already here.”
“Firstly,” Benz said. “We must treat it with utmost respect. This, the Solar League has done since the fiasco in the Saturn System two years ago. On all accounts, we must never directly face the giant vessel.”
“Then, we’ve lost,” the Premier said.
“I would suggest otherwise, Madam Premier,” Benz said. “There is but one cybership. The Solar League possesses many warships. There was once a military paragon by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte.”
“I’ve heard of him,” the Premier said.
“In the final years of his reign, Napoleon’s opponents came upon an elegant solution for defeating his armies. First, I should point out that one enemy general once said that Napoleon’s presence on the battlefield was worth fifty thousand soldiers. Since Napoleon’s generalship was so daunting, the allied commanders decided to always retreat in his presence, but to always fight France’s armies when he wasn’t there to lead them. The allies avoided him and slowly whittled down Napoleon’s military advantages.”
“I don’t see how that does us any good here,” the Premier said. “The cybership is one unit. It is always where it is.”
“Quite true,” Benz said. “But the cybership can only be in one location at a time. That is the key. I suggest you send a fast task force to the Neptune System. Conquer it. If Jon Hawkins takes the alien vessel to chase your task force from Neptune, rush with another battlefleet into Saturn System. My point, Madam Premier, is to allow Hawkins to only control the space the giant ship is in. We will allow him nothing else.”
“How does that defeat the cybership?”
“For that, Madam, you must turn to the GSB. They must give the military the specs to the alien weaponry. We must arm our ships with the potent alien weapons systems. In time—and it may be a long time—you can send a fleet on equal footing against Jon Hawkins. That is the moment to do what he did: storm the giant vessel and make it your own.”
“That sounds incredibly daunting and quite long-term,” the Premier said.
“No one said this would be easy,” Benz said. “I’m simply showing you that it’s possible.”
She stared at the supposedly brilliant major. “If I agreed to your solution, how would I position the Solar League’s fleets?”
Major Benz unclasped his left knee, sitting back against his chair. He smiled. “Here are my beginning recommendations, Madam Premier…”
-3-
Captain Jon Hawkins sat in a flitter’s front passenger seat. The pilot was a young ensign from the Neptune System. The giant Bast Banbeck lounged sideways in the back seat. He leaned against the window and put his legs on the seat lengthwise.
The flitter was a small air-mobile vehicle. They used them in the Nathan Graham as main corridor transports. Some of the corridors were eighty kilometers or more in length. That was much too far to walk.
“You should build a belt system in the ship,” Bast said from the back.
“What’s that?” Jon asked.
“The belts are like conveyors,” Bast said. “A person steps onto a belt and it moves him along.”
Jon envisioned the slow conveyors in spaceports that helped people get their luggage to a boarding terminal.
“The conveyor would never go fast enough,” Jon said.
“It would,” Bast said, “but you’d have to build a multiple belt system. The outer belts would move slowly. Each succeeding belt would travel a little faster. The fastest belt would zip one along. One would move from belt to belt to increase speed and to decrease speed later.”
“If the whole belt system broke down, then where would you be?” Jon asked. “Back to using flitters. Air-cars may not be as elegant as your belt system, but it has more fail-safes built in.”
The Sacerdote became thoughtful. “I suppose a belt system would work better in a peaceful setting. On a warship, it would be more prone to breakdowns.”
“Still…” Jon said.
Before he could say more, something fast and small punctured the windshield. The pilot’s head snapped back, with a neat little hole in his forehead. The pilot slumped forward against the controls.
The flitter pitched, swerved, going down hard.
“Look out!” Jon shouted.
The flitter nosedived against the deck, bounced, hit again and crashed sideways. Airbags had banged into life, saving Jon and Bast from severe injury and possibly death. The flitter rolled over, caromed off a bulkhead and tipped right side up. At that point, the crumpled air-car had shed all its momentum.
Seconds later, an airbag hissed and deflated. Jon yanked his knife free from it. He ached all over from the airbag, and a red welt on his cheek showed the force of the bag.
“Bast!” Jon shouted.
The windshield had starred in the crash. Another tiny hole appeared. Something hot and stinging creased Jon’s left cheek. He realized a sniper fired at him.
With a snarled expletive, Jon slashed Bast’s airbag. It hissed and began deflating. Jon cut off his restraints and dove over the seat as two more shots caused the windshield to finally shatter into pieces.
“Someone is shooting at us,” Jon said.
Bast groaned. There was blood on his head, and he seemed to be unconscious.
It had been some time since the GSB had managed an assassination attempt. Jon couldn’t believe this one was happening deep inside the cybership.
He kicked open a rear passenger door and lunged outside into the corridor. It was more of a stumble than a real lunge. Another shot caused him to collapse onto the deck.
Jon glanced at his left leg. It was bleeding. He crawled madly around the flitter to the back. Perching on his good knee, he managed to pry open the trunk. He grabbed an OB-7 rifle.
Dropping behind the flitter, Jon pulled out a comm unit. It had starting squawking.
“Jon?” Gloria asked from the comm.
“I’m under fire,” he said, giving the mentalist the corridor designation. “It must be a traitor.”
“No,” she said, sharply.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Stay low, Jon. I don’t think this is the GSB.”
It hit him then. “Do you think it’s an octopoid attack?”
“That was one of the worst regions of the ship a year and a half ago,” she said. “We thought we’d flushed them from there. Now, I don’t think so. It will be about seven minutes before someone is there. Can you hold out that long?”
Jon looked up, and he saw something squat and hand-sized sail toward the flitter.
“Grenade,” he said. Jon tried to get up and run. He fell flat onto his stomach i
nstead as his wounded leg buckled under him.
The grenade exploded, lifting the flitter, knocking it airborne and over him, missing him entirely. He could feel the vibration of its landing onto the deck plates.
“Jon,” his fallen comm said. “Jon, are you okay?”
Jon spun on his stomach. He didn’t know if Bast was still alive or not. He no longer had cover. He faced the direction of the sniper-shots and the sailing grenade.
Raising the OB-7, he shoved the butt against his shoulder and peered through the scope. He searched—
“Gotcha,” he whispered.
Gloria was right. He saw an octopoid in the scope. It looked exactly like the ones he’d seen in the engine compartment several years ago. The robotic creature aimed a grenade launcher at him as it clung to a bulkhead.
Jon pressed the firing stub. The OB-7 automatically adjusted for distance. An explosive pellet ejected from the barrel. He pressed several more times.
The octopoid raised the grenade launcher as if to study it. Had the launcher jammed? Had the thing only loaded one grenade?
An explosive pellet struck, blowing off a metallic leg. The octopoid dropped, evading the other pellets. Those harmlessly exploded against the bulkhead.
“On no you don’t,” Jon hissed. He aimed, and fired again. The octopoid was scuttling away across the floor. This time, he hit the brain core area.
The octopoid exploded spectacularly. That meant it had self-destructed. They had yet to get one of those things intact to study it.
Jon used the scope as he searched for another one. He could find nothing more. The single octopoid appeared to have acted alone. Had the grenade launcher been an over-and-under? Had it run out of sniper ammo? And why had it struck now after all this time? It hardly made sense.
“Bast,” Jon said to himself.
He crawled to the flitter, pried open a bent door and reached for the Sacerdote.
“Bast!” Jon shouted. “Bast!” The alien wasn’t breathing.
-4-
Jon watched three flitters land hard in the corridor. A door opened and Gloria jumped out. The mentalist ran to him.
The A.I. Gene (The A.I. Series Book 2) Page 20
