The Trilisk Revolution (Parker Interstellar Travels)

by McCloskey, Michael

  The only sources I can think of are: Cilreth2, Shiny, or Trilisks. Cilreth2 would have enough inside info and authorization to kick off some bug like this.

  Shiny, of course, knew Vovokan tech inside and out. Trilisks, well, were Trilisks. They were capable of anything in their prime.

  I can’t believe this is happening. The most logical explanation is Cilreth2 because she’s missing. I’m fighting my superior self. Or did someone take her out of the way so she couldn’t help me? Dammit!

  A new feed came in as a team moved in on a target in New York. The Trilisk was in the body of a young man in an apartment. The man did not move—he appeared to be in a VR. The team was setting up outside the apartment. So far, the target did not seem to be alerted.

  Cilreth prepared her satellites to strike. With a single thought she believed she could crack the sensor network, find the targets, and attack them all simultaneously. It was still early according to the plan. The other PIT teams were just now going in.

  Cilreth half watched the feed. The CWS team was ready to go in. Cilreth noted most of them were androids. They had violated old laws by making them indistinguishable from real humans, but Cilreth was not about to complain about it in the middle of the most critical moment of the attack. The team broke the security of the room, slipped in, and assaulted the Trilisk. The androids ran into the room and stunned the host. Government people flooded into the room.

  They were telling the truth. They really are checking Jason’s story. They must have had some pretty strong suspicions.

  The word came through in less than a minute.

  “Not human. Repeat, this is not human!” a voice reported. Cilreth assumed it was one of the field doctors.

  “I knew I was making the right play to back you, Jason,” Corbin said. “Maybe it was that honest face of yours. The sensor net is at your disposal.”

  “You heard that, Cilreth? We’re a go,” Jason said. His voice sounded anxious. Jason had agreed to have his vitals monitored for the mission. Cilreth saw he was stressed but not to the level where he was actively afraid for his life.

  “Only a couple more minutes,” Cilreth said. “I have the targets in my sites.”

  “I hope collateral damage will be minimal,” Corbin said. “We’re getting some scary reports about losses out in the belt.”

  Just the Space Force panicking, Cilreth thought. Shiny has cut them all off from each other.

  Cilreth armed the satellites at the appointed time. Five more Trilisks were on the sensor net. The other teams had gone in a few minutes ago. It was time.

  “The shots are pretty clean,” she said. If we’re lucky, not a single side injury. But I won’t say that unless it happens.

  Cilreth checked the numbers on the Clacker problem. Three percent of her resources were fighting her.

  Cilreth told the satellites to fire.

  Her personal view indicated the strikes went out. Two seconds later, the sensor network reported success.

  “If the sensor network still works, if they haven’t fooled us, we got them,” Cilreth said. “We still need to back up some other targets, though. We have team members going after some others we could not scan.”

  “Corbin? Is the feed real?” Jason said.

  “Yes. It’s real. We haven’t fed you a fake.”

  If it’s not, when would Corbin come clean? Never? If it’s fake, we just shot at random into several cities.

  Cilreth wanted to check the integrity of the sensor network herself, but she was much more concerned about the anomaly on Clacker.

  “Let me know if any more show up,” Cilreth said. “I still have a problem here.”

  “Got it,” Jason said.

  Maybe I can eliminate one of the possible sources with a bluff.

  “Shiny! Shiny, stop attacking the Clacker!” Cilreth sent. “I know it’s you!”

  There was no response.

  “By Cthulhu!”

  Okay… I can talk to Jason, still. Who else?

  Cilreth opened her communications net wider. She picked up on a lot of traffic on the Terran network. The most interesting activity was coming from the Space Force, which of course was on high alert due to Shiny’s distractions. Cilreth decided to listen in on some and see what the Space Force knew.

  Cilreth’s eyes grew wide. She stopped breathing for a moment. Then she just sat in shock.

  “We’re screwed eight ways from extinction,” she muttered.

  Chapter 13

  Caden stepped out of his shuttle onto a huge docking area on Space Force Command.

  SFC was a huge orbital habitat above Earth. A giant gravity spinner allowed the base to stay in peaceful orbit around Sol with the home planet. Using the spinner, the habitat did not have to orbit Earth, but an asset this valuable was kept close to the heaviest defenses the Terrans had.

  I know what I have to do, he told himself. His heart raced and his palms were sweaty. This was the center of the Space Force. He had dreamed about coming here so many times, under very different circumstances.

  I have to calm down. I’m going to activate a hostile intention trigger walking around like this.

  He took a deep breath. He had done enough VR simulations of this to take the edge off any normal nervousness, but the enormity of this task had him feeling the pressure.

  Fortunately Caden was no stranger to pressure.

  He slipped one of his four attendant spheres out of his pocket. He told the attendant to electronically disguise itself as a simple courier robot. Robots were commonplace here and on Earth. Each one had to obtain an ID and authorization for every task it undertook. Luckily Shiny had the edge when it came to security technology.

  Find me my Trilisks, little one.

  The attendant flew away eagerly. Caden looked down at himself.

  I could have been in this uniform legitimately, he thought. Though I wouldn’t already be at this rank.

  Caden followed the flow of traffic from the starport hub. He felt that he blended in completely. Everyone was in a hurry. Clearly the activity in the outer system had caused a stir here. He picked up a news feed.

  All personnel had been called in from all forms of leave. The Space Force was on red alert.

  Everyone knows the aliens are here. They think the aliens are here to hurt them, not save them.

  Caden stepped aside into a comm niche along the side of the wide corridor. He could call anyone in the system with his link, but the niche could supply a video feed for the other parties of his call, a sound curtain, and refreshments. Caden really wanted just a bit more privacy for the next step.

  He sat in the niche in front of the camera and let another attendant free. It hovered in the comm niche and connected to the base directory. Caden let it do its work.

  I feel like a traitor. I shouldn’t be hacking Space Force security. I know I’m helping, but it feels so wrong.

  The attendant managed to attain a high security clearance and retrieved the location of three admirals. The men who PIT suspected of being at high risk of Trilisk control. Caden dispatched the closest position to his attendant that had already gone ahead. It would be near the admiral within the minute.

  Caden left the tiny booth. He moved faster now that he had a clear destination. He walked down a side corridor, headed to another deck above him in the gravitic orientation of the base.

  All around the system, the PIT team is hunting Trilisks.

  Caden stepped into a gravity free tube to be whisked upwards in a stiff stream of air. At the next level he grabbed an exit bar and swung out.

  I’m close now, he thought, looking at his link map.

  Caden turned another corner and got the man in sight. He checked the uniform. It indicated the man was an admiral. His lead attendant had completed its scan: The admiral was a Trilisk host body.

  He must be between meetings… my time is running out.

  The corridor was not empty. Besides, everyplace on the base was monitored by the security AI. Once he ac
ted, it would not be long at all before armed robots would be moving in on him. His chances of taking out a second Trilisk would be low, but he might scare the others into running into Shiny’s backup trap.

  Caden told two of his attendant spheres to go find the other admirals. Each of them had small payloads of Maxsym’s deadly gas. They would have a fair chance of killing the others within the next couple of minutes.

  The admiral turned a corner ahead into an adjoining room. Caden followed. Other officers were coming from behind. Caden thought they might be headed for the same room. When Caden arrived at the door, he entered and activated his stealth suit.

  A couple of officers behind him stopped in shock. In one more second, they would think to warn the admiral. The Trilisk admiral stood in the room, looking to one side. A hologram of the system dominated the center table. The rest of the room was filled with anchor points that looked empty to Caden but no doubt held data displays for everyone else. One other person, a female commander was in the room.

  Caden drew his laser. He told it to shoot the enemy. His laser refused to fire.

  Oh no…

  The man’s head snapped up to examine Caden. Caden did not know what had alerted the target. Somehow, the admiral seemed to lock eyes onto Caden.

  Strong, fast… untrained?

  Caden prepared to defend himself against a superhuman foe.

  The scouting attendant came into Caden’s line of sight behind the Trilisk host. It accelerated to a blur and smashed into the back of the admiral’s skull. The man dropped. The sphere reported that the target was dead.

  “Admiral!” someone called out. Everyone in the room ran toward their fallen admiral. Caden felt only relief.

  “Intruder alert!” a broadcast announced. Everyone in the room took their attention off the admiral and started to look around. The broadcast had indicated Caden’s current position exactly.

  What? I’ve received no message, but something’s obviously up! They know I’m here.

  Suddenly a man appeared in the doorway with a stunner in his hand, aimed at Caden. Caden threw himself aside and fired his laser. This time the laser activated. Both weapons hit their targets. The man fell, a hole in his shoulder. Caden staggered. His suit had protected him from most of the stunner energy, but it still confused him for a moment.

  In that moment, Caden became caught in two glue grenades. More men moved in.

  Stealth suit fail, Caden thought. Glue covered his face. He tried to think of a way out, but he lost consciousness before succeeding.

  ***

  Caden could smell solvent on the air. He looked down at himself. His suit had been disabled. It had several globs of glue stuck to it. His surroundings looked like a typical interrogation room. Dark gray, bland, almost empty, secure. A man confronted him. He looked angry.

  I wonder if we got the others.

  The interrogator spoke.

  “Aliens are attacking. Now, we have three dead admirals on our hands in as many minutes. You’re a part of it.”

  “I’m one of the good guys.”

  Three dead admirals! Excellent.

  “Then accept our truth check mode.”

  Caden nodded. The man looked surprised. The truth check engaged. The inquisitor could now use Caden’s own link against him.

  “Tell me what this is about. Who sent you? We know you’ve been to the frontier.”

  He thinks I’m from a terrorist faction. Or taken over by alien mind control.

  “Check the bodies. They’re not human!” Caden said.

  “Ridiculous,” the man said. “My own eyes—”

  “Your eyes are wrong. I scanned him before I took him down. He was an alien. Placed high to control things here.”

  The man obviously wanted to see that Caden was lying, but the truth check must have verified his statements.

  “Any doctor can tell you in five minutes,” Caden said. “Just examine them.”

  The man did not respond. He was busy on his link.

  Lousy interrogator. I can tell all kinds of crap is going down. He’s distracted.

  “How did you close in on me so fast, anyway?” Caden asked.

  The man smiled. “Aigis saw two of you. Clones. Pretty sloppy of you. I suppose to aliens like you, we all look alike anyway!”

  Aigis was the Space Force Command security AI. Caden had read about it as a kid. It was a famous entity working for the Space Force, although not as famous as its grand strategist, Caisar.

  “Clones?”

  Oh crap.

  “Yep. Sorry to say your copy didn’t make it. But you knew that. Were you supposed to explode too? Another suicide bomber?”

  “No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The man shook his head. “By the Five,” he muttered. He was seeing that Caden believed his answer.

  He thinks I’m a mind slave. Brainwashed and sent on a suicide attack…

  “What is the toxic gas you’ve released?”

  “I shot an alien pretending to be an admiral. If you check the body, you’ll see everything’s not right with it. He was stronger and faster than he should have been, and immortal besides. The gas kills them.”

  “Well, it’s made several people very sick.”

  “The robots did not release enough to hurt anyone.”

  “It was in the bomb your double detonated. We have people in the infirmary!”

  “They’re young and fit? It’s only truly deadly to Trilisk hosts,” Caden said.

  My double blew up a bomb. That won’t help me.

  “Trilisk hosts?”

  “My first target was one. And if two admirals dropped like flies when that gas hit, then they were Trilisk hosts, too.”

  “Why did you decide to betray Earth? Why would you participate in the alien attack?”

  “Please keep up? Everything’s fine. We came to get rid of the Trilisks. The less you resist, the fewer men and women that will be hurt. Just let the ships come and they’ll leave when the Trilisks are removed.”

  The man turned bright red. Caden was startled.

  “The less we resist?! Thousands are dead! They didn’t have a chance to fight back!” the man yelled.

  “What? Thousands? You said only a few are sick from the gas.”

  Shit. Did the gas effect normal people, too?

  “Titan. Ganymede. All three belt city Space Force bases. Destroyed!” the man said.

  Caden could not speak for a moment.

  What have I done? Shiny did that?

  “They’re not destroyed. You just can’t reach them. Your communications have been scrambled,” Caden said. A horrible feeling started to settle in his stomach.

  It took his interrogator a moment to respond. Caden received a pointer to his link. It was a video capture.

  Caden saw a Space Force base built into a large asteroid. Some kind of missile shot toward it. The base exploded. Pieces of the structure hurtled into space. Caden could hear the chatter of radio traffic in the background… filled with calls for help.

  “Destroyed by… the large spherical ships?”

  “I have no idea. They’re gone. No one can reach Mars Defense. The attack has been moving steadily through the system. Earth is next. SFC is next.”

  Chapter 14

  Siobhan submerged her Vovokan shuttle in the ocean a good distance from the Spero island compound. She took a moment to gather her equipment and her thoughts for the assault.

  I have to do this. I have to make this frackjammer pay for what he did to us.

  Siobhan admitted to herself she cared about this revenge more than anything else. A better person would have been focused on Earth, on freeing humanity, but Siobhan knew she was not that person. The primary reason for her existence was to snuff out Spero. She accepted it.

  I don’t care what anyone thinks. I don’t care. He will die for this. Then I’ll do whatever I can to stop the other Trilisks.

  As agreed, Shiny had provided her with new toys for the missio
n. She had a Vovokan subverter device she could use to take over Terran electronics. She did not understand its workings, but Shiny’s instructions were clear and simple: scan the target’s link interfaces to get a report on its weaknesses; then, one of the weaknesses could be exploited to gain control of the target.

  Of course, the Terran link interfaces had been hardened by countless attacks. One by one the flaws had been discovered and shored up. New link interfaces never went into widespread use until they had been tested for years, often including close scrutiny by AI experts. Nevertheless, Shiny obviously had a few high tech tricks up his sleeve that allowed him to circumvent Terran link security. Perhaps he had uncovered UNSF back doors, or maybe he could use EM fields to change bits inside the hardware indirectly, creating an opening. In any case, Shiny’s report indicated almost any Terran device would be vulnerable.

  Siobhan would have been happy with that alone, but Shiny had given her two more items: a stealth suit, and a weapon.

  Siobhan had been told it was based upon Cilreth’s stealth suit, but Shiny had made some improvements to its power and subtlety. The Vovokan had also made some tweaks to the suit’s software. She wore the suit now. It reported itself at full charge and readiness.

  That left her weapon. It looked like a heavy pistol, with an additional grip under the barrel for steadying its weight. Siobhan had no idea what it fired. The link interface reported 200 bio-target shots and Shiny had told her, one shot would be fatal to any human, Trilisk-enhanced or otherwise, that wore a Veer skinsuit or less. It also reported a magazine of 50 mech-target shots, which were for robots, hardpoints, or Terrans in full combat armor. The analysis said she should be able to one-shot anything up to a tank.

  The range of the weapon left her stunned. Shiny’s specs reported a range of one kilometer for the bio shots, and ten kilometers for the mech shots. The weapon could not lock onto anything so far away by itself, but with the help of a simple attendant sphere, the heavy pistol could kill anything on the island from anywhere else on the island. If she was inside or her target was inside, then it became much less sure.