Empire Ebook Full

by B. V. Larson

  Welter looked as if he were about to object, but shrugged instead and turned back to his console. I knew he didn’t like Marvin much, and more importantly didn’t fully trust him. I couldn’t blame anyone for that. The idea of allowing Marvin to seed our defensive the brainboxes sounded crazy on the face of it. The trouble was we didn’t have any choice. There simply wasn’t enough time to rewrite and debug the code for gunner brainboxes now. We couldn’t setup simplistic self-learning boxes, either. By the time they figured out which way was up and how to fire their weapons, the Macros would be all over us.

  About ten hours later, the scout ships came in and made their final report. The enemy ships were going to arrive sooner than we’d projected. They were slowing down now, but only at the last minute, using maximum burn. I deduced from this they knew something about our fleet disposition. Our own ships would not make it to the battle in time. They’d raced toward us, crossing the Thor system as fast as they could, starting the moment the EMP blast had been delivered.

  In the final hours before the attack struck us, Welter pulled me aside for a huddled conversation on this very topic. Marvin was in the control center, tweaking the holotank settings. His metal arms snaked out in a dozen directions. Some supported his central mass, while others held aloft cameras or worked tools.

  “I don’t like it, sir,” Welter said quietly, nodding toward Marvin.

  I glanced toward Marvin, who scanned us with a half-interested camera before turning back to the work at hand.

  “Explain yourself, Commander,” I said.

  “He knew when the attack was coming. He stashed himself in the single spot aboard the station where the EMP wave wouldn’t reach him. Then, he comes out full of nanites, the very substance we need. Next, we use his software to program our PD systems.”

  “I understand your thinking, and you make a strong case, but—”

  “That’s not all, sir,” Welter said. “The enemy knows what we have and where it is.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because they’re going to arrive less than an hour before our reinforcements do. You can’t tell me that’s just a coincidence.”

  “You think Marvin told them?”

  “Didn’t he just ‘discover’ how to use the rings to make transmissions? Isn’t he the only one who really knows how to do it? Who else ratted us out to aliens in remote star systems?”

  I sighed. “You have a point. But I don’t see what we can do about it.”

  “We can pull the software on the PD systems and disconnect that self-built robot.”

  I shook my head. “We’ve got nothing to put into the PD lasers. We don’t have enough human gunners and we can’t train new software. We’re out of time.”

  Commander Welter frowned at Marvin suspiciously. “Is that all you’ve got for a solution? We’ll just have to wait until we see how this all plays out?”

  I nodded. “That’s right. If Marvin has ratted us out, we’re all as good as dead. That’s just how it is. I understand how difficult it is accepting our situation, but try to be a realist. We’re out of time for second guesses.”

  Welter looked at me oddly, and raised his eyebrows. “I have another possible solution,” he said quietly.

  “Talk.”

  “Let’s retreat from the base. We’ll leave everything on automatic and evacuate.”

  I stared at him. “You want to bail out on this station?”

  “If we are compromised, we’re going to lose anyway. My way, no one dies. If we aren’t compromised, I still don’t like our odds. Let the enemy chew on the station. We’ll come in with the fleet and clean up afterward.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t. It’s your call, sir.”

  I turned away from him and approached the holotank. I had to give his idea serious thought. I certainly didn’t want to abandon the battle station, but I didn’t want to fall for an enemy trick twice in the span of a few days—and die a fool.

  “Marvin,” I said, “we need to have a private little chat.”

  “I’m heavily engaged at the moment, Colonel,” he replied.

  I warranted the attention of only a single camera, and that gave me a fleeting glance. The rest of them were hard at work at the base of the holotank, which he had opened to the guts.

  “What are you doing right now, anyway?” I asked.

  “The holotank is made of somewhat specialized nanites,” he said. “They have color variance and can light up like tiny LEDs. These are looking rather dull, being generic replacements, I’m making adjustments to the—”

  “That’s great, Marvin,” I said. “I’m sure in the coming battle they’ll be highly visible and helpful. But I need to talk to you right now.”

  Three cameras steered my way. “Very well, sir.”

  I left the bridge and Marvin slithered and scraped after me. He currently resembled a very large slinky with attached trashcan-sized segments. His arms whipped and strained to drag himself over the hull.

  “Putting on a little weight lately?” I asked him.

  “I might be beyond the specifications you laid out for me last month—but only slightly.”

  We stood in an empty, echoing passage way. I stopped, figuring this was as good a place as any to have a private talk. The station was ninety-five percent empty.

  “If I had to guess, I’d say you were about double the agreed upon maximum mass.”

  “Possibly there was a misunderstanding,” Marvin said, eyeing me with a bouquet of cameras. Some of them studied my feet and my hands, but most were focused on my face, taking me in from many angles at once. “I was measuring my allowed equipment on the basis of weight, not mass. Since our station maintains a working gravity of fifty percent Earth-normal in most areas, my calculations—”

  “Never mind about that now, you cheater. Let’s talk about your motivations and intentions, Marvin.”

  He juggled his cameras, trying to gauge my mood. It was obvious when he did this, and I tended to automatically put on a poker face to make it hard on him. Marvin made most people nervous. Personally, I felt a surge of stubborn resolve when I dealt with him. He could be very evasive.

  “There is some concern among the staff regarding your loyalties,” I said. “Are you with us in this fight, Marvin? Are you doing your best to save the station and human lives—or are you involved in some kind of elaborate experiment?”

  To my mind, Marvin wasn’t really evil, but I had to admit he was a consummate rule-bender. Usually, his greatest motivation was his scientific curiosity. If there was a mystery to be delved into, he would do questionable things to indulge his thirst for arcane knowledge—very questionable things. Sometimes, his actions bordered on treachery.

  “I understand your concerns, Colonel. You want to know if I in some way instigated this invasion, is that correct?”

  “I want to know how you’re involved and what inside information you might have that you’ve been withholding.”

  “I’ve read an idiom in your files. Confession is good for the soul.”

  “I know of the concept. What confession do you have for me today?”

  “I knew they were coming. I didn’t know how or when. I deduced that the single Crustacean ship had to be a ruse or sneak attack, rather than a true diplomatic mission.”

  I nodded, feeling my cheek muscles bulge. I was becoming angry, but I was trying not to show it. As I stared at him, Marvin angled one of his cameras a little wider to get a good profile shot.

  When I could control my voice, I spoke with forced calmness. “Okay…let’s go over what you know that you haven’t been telling me. We’ve deduced that the enemy have intel on our positions. Their attacks seem too well-timed to be coincidental.”

  “Ah, an impressive insight. Yes, the evidence is there. In the scramble to build up our defenses, many commanders would have missed it, but not Colonel Riggs, the—”

  “Just tell me who the spy is and how they’re opera
ting,” I said. Internally, I was really hoping he wasn’t going to tell me he’d been feeding data to the Lobsters on the side. Because if he’d done that, I was going to have to space him, no matter how valuable he’d been.

  “Think about it,” he said, almost as if he was enjoying himself. “Isn’t the answer almost obvious? Who in the Eden system has a possible grudge against us? Who is here and has the means to observe our fleet movements? Who is here and has the technology to transmit a report outside the system?”

  I stared at him for a moment, fighting down a flash of rage. He knew the answer, he knew it was vitally important, but he still wanted to quiz me. Marvin was a marvel when it came to understanding his priorities.

  Still, despite my emotions and the critical nature of the information, I had to admit he was going at it with the right approach. The answer had to be right there, in the facts he’d listed. I thought about all the players in the system. We had the Star Force Marines themselves. I accounted them all loyal to Earth, Star Force, and to me personally. That’s why they were here. I crossed them off my list immediately.

  If Crow’s loyal Fleet forces had been present I would have put them on the list of suspects, but they weren’t to my knowledge. I moved on. Next on the list were the indigenous species. There were three: the Centaurs who would never do something like this due to their strict codes of honor, the Microbes who lacked the technology, and—

  The light bulb finally went on in my head. “It was the Blues,” I said.

  “Of course,” Marvin said. His tentacles writhed with what I figured was some kind of pleasure. Like a joke well-played, he was enjoying our little mind-game. He liked leading me down his path of logic to make the same conclusion he’d already made.

  “What proof do you have, and why did you withhold this information?” I demanded.

  “The rings have been vibrating—that’s not exactly the right term to describe the phenomenon, but it is close enough. They’ve been relaying messages which I’ve detected, but been unable to decipher.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t know who’s using them to communicate?”

  “The answer is obvious. I wasn’t doing it, there were no functional Macros or Nanos left in the system, and the only other possible source was the Blues. Therefore, it had to be them.”

  “But you didn’t know what they’re saying? Who they’re talking to?”

  “I’ve been trying to figure that out. But I’ve failed so far. Everything I know about their communications I’ve deduced—just as you and your crew have now done.”

  I nodded. I felt less stressed. Marvin had only committed one crime, that of omission. “Do you realize that not reporting this is tantamount to being part of the conspiracy?

  “A tortured series of logical steps,” he said. “I only just figured it out. None of it is more than conjecture. Am I a fiend for withholding probabilities, rather than facts? My suspicions have only recently been proven true.”

  I shook my head. “Why did you bother to conceal the information at all? Why not just tell us?”

  Marvin looked evasive. I recognized the pattern. His cameras focused on my face, preparing to read my emotional responses. At the same time, several of his limbs braided themselves pointlessly. He reminded me of a nervous kid, uncertain of the ferocity of a parent’s well-earned discipline.

  “I didn’t want you to stop the transmissions. I wanted to study them, to learn the encoding sequence the Blues are using on this entirely new communications medium. It’s been fascinating me for weeks.”

  I snorted. “I’m not surprised you were overcome with scientific greed. But how in the hell could you stop the transmissions?”

  “By jamming them, of course. We can transmit garbage through the rings, and since they only seem to carry one signal at a time, we’ll block the connection.”

  I made a wild sound of exasperation. “You can jam them?”

  “Yes. But keep in mind, that will let them know we are aware of their activities. Right now, we have an advantage. We know they’re communicating with the enemy, and we can study the code and break it. This could be invaluable.”

  I threw my hand high. Several cameras followed the gesture, and a single thin tentacle lifted to shield the cameras in case I became violent and brought a fist smashing down into them.

  “You didn’t tell us because you wanted to learn a new language you hadn’t detected before?” I demanded, my voice rising into a shout. “There’s no point in learning the code! They will simply change it when we’ve broken it!”

  “No, I don’t think so. This is not an internal code. The Blues don’t have full control of the Macros, remember? They no longer have the ability to reprogram their creations. The Macros aren’t fast learners, either. They will stick with the same code indefinitely, rather than devising a new one.”

  I thought about it and nodded. He had me on that one. They’d never changed their language since I’d met them. They were several versions behind the more advanced communications protocols used by the Nanos.

  “Marvin,” I shouted, “you still should have told me about all this!”

  “It was an unforgivable omission.”

  “And yet you are again expecting my forgiveness?”

  “Yes.”

  I remembered what it had like to raise my own teenagers. I’d been a frustrated parent, but had never experienced anything quite like dealing with Marvin. “I should crush you down into pellets and stuff you into the railguns. You’re big enough to make a full load for a battery. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I displace sufficient mass for one-point-eight volleys by my calculations.”

  I stared at him. What was I to do with him? I felt even more like a parent at that moment. He knew he had me. We both did. I could punish him for this, but the only punishments I could devise for a robot involved deactivation or dismemberment. But I couldn’t do that when I was facing a battle within hours. We needed him too much. Even just putting him on hold for a while would weaken our chances of survival.

  He knew all this, of course. He’d known it all along and I suspected he’d already calculated what my responses would be. He’d studied me, and had carefully gauged my responses in the past. He knew my buttons, and how to push them. He was a master at this process of asking for forgiveness, rather than permission.

  It was hard to deal with a robot, especially one that was arguably smarter than you were. I still wanted to punish him, but I didn’t in the end. Possibly, it was because he was right, in a way. If we could break their code, it would be a coup for our side. We would be able to perform espionage at will.

  Finally, after thinking it through and calming down, I turned back to Marvin. “All right,” I said. “I’m not going to make an expensive cannonball out of you.”

  “A wise choice.”

  “However,” I said loudly, “you’re to keep this conversation to yourself. And you should know that you didn’t need to withhold this sort information, and shouldn’t do so in the future.”

  “Why’s that, Colonel Riggs?”

  “Because by talking to me you convinced me to allow you to continue your research. Break their code, Marvin.”

  “I will, sir.”

  “And next time, don’t leave me out of the loop.”

  “You’re an even better commander than I’d hoped,” he said, and slithered away.

  I was left in the corridor, staring after him with troubled eyes.

  -6-

  The enemy came at us with a shocking display of power. Hundreds of high-yield missiles flocked through the ring and blew themselves up in a mass of explosions. Starting very near the ring, the rippling explosions pushed into our space. The nuclear warheads popped with interlocking blossoms of fantastic power. The effect was odd and entrancing. It was like watching brilliant foam puff up out of a hole in space.

  I understood their strategy, of course. They were doing this to clear the mi
nefield they knew must be there waiting for them. They were expending their missiles at a terrific rate, but must have figured it was worth it. Soon, the explosions would die down and the ships would emerge in their wake, rolling up to attack us.

  But the strikes continued their advance. The missiles exploded in an ever-expanding mushrooming pattern, reaching deeper and deeper into our territory. The missiles came in waves that had been carefully pre-plotted.

  “Is this their new strategy?” Welter asked quietly.

  I glanced at him then turned back to the holotank.

  Sandra shifted nervously beside me, watching with growing concern as the fireballs kept puffing out bigger and bigger into a single amorphous blob. “They’re going to just keep pounding out missiles until they reach us and envelope the entire station.”

  I frowned at the barrage, which continued unabated. It was big, but still couldn’t be more than ten percent of the way to our location. I had to admit it was alarming to see such a display of power. Could they have enough missiles to keep this up? To keep pounding away until we were engulfed? Surely they would run out of ordnance long before that.

  Having no air to burn, the warheads quickly dissipated into background radiation and spreading particles of debris. But they did press forward, destroying the entire minefield I’d laid there long ago in anticipation of catching a smaller invasion force. As I watched, I was glad I hadn’t bothered to waste time and resources shoring up the front line of mines. This feeling of relief quickly evaporated, turning into an edge of worry. The others on the bridge had fallen silent by now, overawed by the display of explosive force. Sensing their mood, I felt a little bravado was in order.

  “Ha! What a waste!” I said.

  Sandra’s eyes met mine, but soon crept away to the holotank again. Welter didn’t so much as glance at me, and not even Marvin bothered to assign me an extra camera. If the situation had been less dire I would have been annoyed. I took in a deep breath and made another attempt.