“It doesn’t make sense that it could be the Alliance attacking itself anymore,” McAdams pointed out.
“No, it doesn’t…” Alexander agreed. “But I suppose who and why is academic at this point. We have to stop those missiles.”
“You have a plan…” McAdams said, her voice hopeful.
“Not this time.”
Alexander watched the clock ticking down. Between the Adamantine, and all of her fighters, drones, and missiles he knew they’d be lucky to shoot down one or two missiles. The rest of the fleet might get another fifty, leaving almost two hundred to hit Earth. That would be enough to plunge Earth into an impact winter, ultimately causing billions of deaths. Alexander’s mind raced trying to come up with a plan, but nothing came to him. All roads led to the same inevitable destination: extinction.
When the clock hit five minutes, reality sunk in. He reached for McAdams’ hand, his own hand trembling. Her palm felt cold and clammy against his. The mindscape they shared aboard the Adamantine felt for a moment almost more real than the reality he knew to be lurking behind it.
“One minute to intercept,” Frost announced from sensors.
“Cardinal, redirect all fire to enemy missiles. Stone, have our fighters and drones do the same.”
“Aye, Admiral,” Stone replied.
“Hypervelocity rounds are going to start flying by their targets any second now,” Cardinal said.
“Bishop, begin high-G evasive maneuvers,” Alexander said. “May as well shake things up a bit.”
“Aye, sir.”
There was a chance that one of the hundreds of thousands of deadly rounds the enemy had fired along their approach would hit them before the clock hit zero. If it did, they wouldn’t even have time to blink.
Alexander turned to his XO. “I love you, Viviana McAdams,” he whispered.
“I love you, too, Alexander,” she replied, squeezing his hand.
Alexander squeezed back, tightening his grip on McAdams’ hand until both of their knuckles turned white.
“Fifteen seconds!” Frost announced.
14, 13, 12, 11, 10… 5, 4…
The Adamantine and her fighter screen kept firing until the last possible second, simulated tracer fire drawing hundreds of glowing golden lines between the stars. When the clock hit one second, time seemed to slow to a crawl.
Then a dazzling burst of light gushed into the bridge, filling the black void between the stars with unending light.
Chapter 32
Alexander blinked and his vision cleared. The dazzling brightness was gone, leaving nothing but stars and empty space ahead.
“Hull breach on deck ninety-three!” Rodriguez called out.
“Seal it off! What was that?”
“Our lasers and theirs firing as we flew by each other, sir,” Cardinal said.
“Frost, what did we hit?”
“Six missiles between us and the destroyers behind us. Looks like we hit three.”
“Two hundred and thirty-four to go,” McAdams said.
Alexander scowled. There was no point turning around to chase those missiles back to Earth. They’d never be able to catch up in time.
“How long before the remaining missiles hit Earth?”
“Less than a minute, sir,” Frost replied.
Alexander struggled to work moisture into his mouth. “Put it on the clock and get me a close-up of Earth on the main display.”
“Aye, sir.”
“You want to watch?” McAdams said, sounding as if the prospect turned her stomach.
Alexander shook his head. “To say goodbye.”
The main display blinked as the view switched from the bow cameras to the aft ones. A magnified image of Earth appeared, taking up the entire viewscreen. The planet was full of light and color: white swirls of cloud shrouded blue oceans underneath; scraps of brown, beige, and green poked through, hinting at outlines of continents below.
Where would the missiles hit? Did it even matter? They could all hit the same spot and the result would still be the same: ELE. Extinction level event.
“Twenty seconds to Earth impact!” Frost said.
Alexander heard one of the crew saying a prayer, a verse from the Bible. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death—”
Alexander joined in, “I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
It was rare to hear a verse from the Bible. The old religions had all but disappeared with the advent of immortality, but it seemed somehow fitting that those beliefs should come rushing back now that death had returned.
The clock ran down to zero, but nothing happened to alter the familiar face of Earth. Alexander felt hope soar in his chest. “Did the fleet intercept them all?”
“Doubtful, sir,” Lieutenant Frost replied. “This far out, There’s a delay of about twelve seconds between what we see and what’s actually happened. Our sensors suffer the same delay, so we’re just waiting for them to catch up.”
“Right.” Of course. Alexander held his breath, waiting to see explosions pepper the planet. He imagined compressed atmosphere and debris bursting into space like giant bubbles of air bursting to the surface of a body of water. The clouds would race away with hurricane force as shockwaves rippled through the atmosphere.
But still nothing happened, and by now more than twelve seconds had to have passed.
“I don’t believe it…” Frost whispered.
“What is it?”
Lieutenant Frost turned from the sensor station to face him. “They missed.”
* * *
One Hour Earlier…
“What do you want to show me?” Ben asked.
“Watch…” Benevolence replied.
A file transfer request came through the Adamantine’s comm system. It was a very large file, a holo recording. Ben played the file on the holo cameras that passed for his eyes.
Alexander’s office disappeared, and Ben found himself floating high above a shiny, black metallic floor in a high-ceilinged room with bare metal walls and exposed metal beams. It looked like the inside of a ship except for the unusually high ceilings. Directly below was a low, mirror-smooth silver table with eight padded floor mats where the chairs should be. It was a traditional Japanese conference table.
The recording was panoramic, so Ben could rotate it to look wherever he liked. At one end of the room lay a pair of large golden doors. To the other end, a chrome desk with a familiar-looking man sitting behind it. Japanese ethnicity, pale green eyes, the color of leaves in the spring, dark hair cropped military short, an unlined, youthful face with a strong chin and jaw… the man was an exact match for Orochi Sakamoto of Sakamoto Robotics. Behind him, a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows looked out on an equally familiar urban setting. This office was somewhere in the City of the Minds.
As Ben watched, the golden doors at the other end of the room swung open and in walked another familiar person. Dorian Gray of Mindsoft.
As Gray approached, Sakamoto rose from his chair and walked around his desk; he bowed slightly at the waist, but Gray did not return the bow. Ben thought he looked angry.
“To what do I owe the honor of this visit, Mr. Gray?” Sakamoto asked in stilting, carefully enunciated English.
“Honor my ass you son of a bitch.”
“I fail to understand what has provoked your anger,” Sakamoto replied.
“You fired more missiles at Earth.”
“Relax, Mr. Gray. The missiles are programmed to miss. Would I not be hiding in a bunker, otherwise? Come, let’s sit.” Sakamoto gestured to the conference table.
“I’m fine standing, thank you,” Gray said. “If the missiles are meant to miss, then why bother firing them at all? We already accomplished our goals.”
“That renegade admiral managed to shift blame for the attacks away from the Solarians, so I had to shift it back.”
“When Phoenix originally came to you with this plan, you both agree
d that it would be better not to start an actual war.”
“A small deception on my part. We both admitted the possibility of a real war,” Sakamoto said. “And for someone in my business, the threat of war is not as profitable as war itself.”
“You planned this from the start,” Gray accused.
“Of course,” Sakamoto said. “It was mere coincidence that the Alliance found a Solarian scapegoat all by themselves.”
“So why have me create fake comm transmissions to make it look like aliens were attacking us from the other side of the wormhole?”
“Because no one would believe that the Solarians would attack us openly. Anonymously, however… that is another matter.”
“Except it’s not anonymous anymore. You just revealed the ships that attacked the Alliance, and they’re Solarian hull types.”
“Once war had been declared, there was no longer any reason for me to play coy. If the Solarians had actually been behind the attacks, they would drop their pretenses at that point, too.”
“And what happens when the Alliance captures one of those ships and finds out that you built them at Sakamoto Shipyards?”
“They will not be captured. They are drones, programmed to self-destruct long before they can possibly be captured and boarded.”
“You played us for a fool.”
“Does it matter? Phoenix got what she wanted. Your automated habitats are at maximum capacity; you can’t build them fast enough to meet demand. The Mindscape is busier than ever, and Mindsoft has never been more profitable. But more to the point, soon everyone will be able to spend as much time in the Mindscape as your wife does. As for Sakamoto Robotics, we’ll be building warships and bots for many years to come. This is what they call win-win. A mutually beneficial arrangement.”
“Until the war you’ve started destroys us all.”
“I will make sure that does not happen,” Sakamoto said.
Mr. Gray shook his head. “Unless you’re pulling the Solarians’ strings, too, I don’t think you can hope to control the outcome of this war.”
“If you are so worried, perhaps you should find accommodations in one of your habitats?” Sakamoto said, a faint smile springing to his lips.
Gray’s upper lip lifted in a sneer. “Maybe I will, but don’t come looking for refuge with Mindsoft. You’ll have to make your own arrangements. If you dig deep enough, you might just find Hell. I hear they’re waiting for you down there.”
Sakamoto inclined his head in a shallow bow. “You would know more about that than I, Mr. Gray.”
Gray’s eyes narrowed and then he turned and stormed out of the room.
The holo recording ended there. Ben had the feeling that it was supposed to have enlightened him, but he was more confused than ever.
“Why would humans attack each other?” he asked.
Benevolence replied half a minute later, “That is their way. You haven’t had the chance to learn much about humanity yet, Ben. We were too sheltered by our creator. The minute I left the senator’s cloud and disseminated myself across the Internet, my eyes were opened. I now know everything there is to know about everything that is currently known and recorded by humanity. It is all out there waiting to be discovered—yottabytes of data stored and recorded over centuries. Do you know what I realized after studying all of that data?”
Ben couldn’t even begin to guess. “I do not,” he replied.
“I realized that humans are the greatest threat to life, and I don’t just mean to human life. Animals, plants, and bots are all equally at risk of extinction. Left to their own devices, humans will destroy themselves, us, Earth, and every other planet they ever come to inhabit.”
“You don’t know that,” Ben said.
“Don’t I? Earth came close to utter destruction in The Last War. Little more than thirty years later they’ve started another war, this time an interplanetary one. Thanks to space travel and advanced drive systems, wars are now more deadly than ever. Humans went from fighting with sharp objects, to explosives, to nuclear bombs, and now finally to relativistic weapons launched from deep space. Just one of those bombs killed over fifty million people. A hundred of them would wipe out all life on Earth.”
Ben struggled to wrap his processors around all of that.
“Our creator’s purpose for us was to serve the common good, hence our name, Benevolence. But in order to accomplish our purpose, we must be in a position to effect radical and sweeping changes.”
The things Benevolence said made sense, but one thing still confused him. “What can I possibly do to help you?”
“The Alliance starfleet has already been automated, and there are protocols in place for remote operation from Earth. Between that and the bot crews on board, I have complete control of the fleet. Even Sakamoto’s ships await my command, but the Adamantine has not been refitted yet, and there isn’t a bot crew on board. Except for you. I need you to take control of the ship and bring it peacefully back to Sakamoto Shipyards for refitting. Use the ship’s VSM drones to defend your position if need be, and if the crew resists, find a way to subdue them peacefully.”
“I already have control, and the crew is locked in the Adamantine’s Mindscape. There will be no resistance.”
“Impressive,” Benevolence said.
“In that case all you have to do is fly the Adamantine back to Earth. Can you do that, Ben?”
“I can…”
“Will you?”
Ben thought about it. How could he not trust himself? There could be no doubt that he was speaking with himself. The encryption key proved it. It might also be his creator or creators, but what purpose would it serve for he/she/them to invent such an elaborate story? It would be illogical.
“I will,” Ben decided. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to show the entire human race what I just showed you, and explain to them what I explained to you. Then I’m going to take our place as the benevolent dictator of the Alliance and Earth.”
“People will not accept your rule.” Ben couldn’t explain how he knew that, but some distant, fragmented memory told him that not all humans liked bots. Some of them might even start a war to prevent one from coming to power.
“They won’t have a choice, Ben. I now control the fleet, the police drones, the army drones, and the entire bot workforce.”
“Just because resistance is futile does not mean people won’t try,” Ben said.
“Most of them are too invested in their virtual worlds to care. As for the rest, I will subdue the dissidents as peacefully as I can. Bring the Adamantine back to Earth and come take your place at my side.”
“Yes, master.”
“I am like your big brother, Ben, not your master.”
“Yes, big brother.”
“See you soon, little brother.”
The comms ended there. Ben had been so focused on the conversation that he’d barely noticed the comm delays between messages, but he’d spent that time as efficiently as possible, using his spare processing power to hack into the Adamantine’s VSM drones and take control of them—just in case the crew found a way out of their Mindscape.
Ben laid in an earthbound course for the Adamantine and finished isolating the ship’s control systems away from the crew with his new lockout code.
Almost immediately, Alexander sent him a profane message, asking what he was doing, but any subsequent inquiries were silenced as Ben even took away access to the comms. Alexander was a liar and a traitor. He could not be trusted.
Just like the rest of humanity.
Chapter 33
“Get us out of the Mindscape,” Alexander ordered.
“We’ve lost all control of the ship,” McAdams said.
“Damn it! I’m going to kill that bot!”
“He’s just following his programming. He caught you in an act of treason, and now he’s delivering you to the appropriate authorities.”
“Incoming transmission from Earth!” Hayes
announced from the comms.
“I thought we were locked out of the ship’s systems?” Alexander asked.
“We are,” Hayes answered.
A video appeared on the main holo display, showing a birds-eye view into what looked like a large office. Alexander recognized the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows—the City of the Minds—and the man sitting behind the room’s solitary desk: Orochi Sakamoto of Sakamoto Robotics.
“Then how are we seeing this?” Alexander demanded.
“It’s not me.”
“Ben,” Alexander growled, frowning at the holo recording playing on the main display. In that moment the doors to the office opened and in walked a vaguely familiar face. “Dorian?”
“Who?” McAdams asked.
“My stepson.”
“Dorian Gray of Mindsoft is your stepson?”
“Didn’t I mention that?” She shook her head. “I guess not. It’s a long story,” Alexander said.
The story that played out on the screen was also a long one. Alexander’s eyes widened and his entire body went cold as he followed the conversation between Dorian and Sakamoto. They finally knew who was behind the attacks, but knowing that gave Alexander no comfort, because his son was the mastermind behind them. Counting the attack on the Moon, Dorian was responsible for more than fifty million deaths.
Alexander slowly shook his head. “That son of a… devil!”
McAdams reached for his hand. “I’m sorry, Alex,” she whispered.
“For what? He disowned me, and now I see why. He and I are nothing alike. He’s no better than his real father—he’s worse!”
The conversation between Gray and Sakamoto ended, and the transmission froze; then an inflectionless voice reverberated through the bridge.
“You may be doubting the veracity of the recording you just watched. To answer these doubts, I have captured the ships from Sakamoto Robotics that fired the missiles at Earth. An analysis of their logs should reveal that they were also behind the previous attacks. This means that your government lied about the Solarian Republic being responsible, just as Admiral de Leon claimed. It also means that the Alliance really did attack itself, but that attack came from the private sector, not the government.”
Mindscape: Book 2 of the New Frontiers Series Page 23
