by AJ Vega
Chapter 39: Lucid Dream
Julius gawked at the main screen. Minutes went by as he studied it, wondering if he was missing something, yet he saw nothing but empty space. The hackers must have been wrong.
However, they were not alone—a coalition of forces from the UEP, Confed, and Venusians. Undoubtedly, Laina must have informed them of the location. So far, they had not made any aggressive overtures.
“Sir,” Ramey said, “do you want to go to battle alert?”
Julius tried to count the forces present. Carriers, battlecruisers, destroyers, dreadnoughts, frigates—it must have been the majority of their respective arsenals.
Once again, it was too much for the tactical computer to track, so he could not even get an accurate assessment. However, their weapon grids were inactive and they appeared to be in joint formations.
“Not yet,” Julius said. “Is com still down?”
“Yes, sir,” Jessen said, “and I still can’t get a hold of DC.”
Julius glanced at the damage control displays—there were still fires to put out and a lot of structural damage. Without the DC teams to fix it, they could lose the ship.
“Captain,” Jessen said, “I’m getting a conference request from the Confed.”
“I thought com was down?”
“It is. This is being routed internally—courtesy of the hackers, sir.”
“Open the conference,” Julius said.
The Martian Confederacy logo flashed on the screen, then an unusual face appeared. The man had thin, gray hair and wrinkled skin, his eyes dull and milky. A familiar crimson robe hung off his thin frame.
“Xanthus,” Julius asked, standing up from his command module, “you’re alive.”
“Is that you, Julius?” he asked. “I’m sorry, my vision is not what it once was. Yes, I was saved by some very skilled doctors. Although my physical body is still old, my mind thankfully remains sharp. They can’t tell me how long this weak body will last, but my will is strong.”
Julius felt relieved. Xanthus seemed like an honorable man, and it would certainly help their cause to have him on their side.
“I’m glad you’re alive, Your Excellency. I take it from the posturing of these vessels, that there is a cease-fire or truce in place?”
“You assume correctly, Captain. It was actually the easiest brokering of peace I have ever negotiated. All it took was one look at this old face. The fear that the A.I. could do this to them too—to all of us—was enough. Add to that the massacre of Venusian Peackeepers on Venus-1… the images I was shown of what the A.I. did to those people will be permanently imprinted into my mind.”
Xanthus bowed his head and stayed silent for a moment. Julius wondered what it was Xanthus was referring to– he hoped that none of the crew was a victim of it.
“Nevertheless,” Xanthus finally continued, “I am happy to say that the state of war is over between the worlds.”
Xanthus squinted his eyes.
“Is Laina with you?”
Julius felt a pang of guilt at the question.
“No. She is in the infirmary. She was injured in an attack.”
“Will she be all right?” Xanthus asked. “We have a sophisticated medical hospital in our fleet. If you would allow it, we can transfer her over and give her the best medical treatment possible.”
Julius had not received an update from Lankey, but he could not risk putting her in the hands of a potential enemy.
“The wounds are superficial. We have a good medical team here and she is expected to fully recover. But thank you for the offer just the same.”
“I see,” Xanthus said. “If the situation changes, the offer remains open. I promise we will release her to you after treatment. There will be no police action.”
“Thank you. I assume she informed you of this location?”
“You assume correctly, Captain. Our science teams have been analyzing the anomaly and are in the process of devising a plan to reveal it. Our admirals are also in conference with the other governments to form an attack plan.”
“What anomaly? Attack what?”
“Ahh, my apologies, Julius. Your sensors are not as sophisticated as what we have. If you look at the fleet’s position, you will notice we are in orbit around something. That something is hidden in the shroud—and it is huge.”
The Sea Wolf shook and he saw new damage indicators appear on screen. The fire in the aft section reached a munitions cache, igniting it. Fortunately, the cache had been nearly depleted from the earlier fight, so the explosion must have been small.
“Is everything okay?” Xanthus asked.
“Yes. What do your people think this anomaly is?”
“It is probably easier to show you. I will have a rendition of what we have compiled sent over this conference link as a gesture of good faith.”
Xanthus outstretched his hand.
“Julius, I am being told that your ship is heavily damaged and could implode. Please allow us to help you.”
Julius gave a quick glance to the damage control screen. In all the battles he had taken the Sea Wolf into, he had never seen her so shattered, but he would not submit to being boarded.
“Your Excellency, I have much respect for you, but I am not a fool. Your true concern is not about this ship, this crew, me, or even Laina. Your concern is over Chorus’ conduit. This ship will sink and the conduit with it before I allow us to be taken in as prisoners.”
“No, Julius—no,” Xanthus said. “You have me painted wrong, my friend. I am on your side; I am probably the only one who is.”
A computer-generated image appeared on the main viewscreen. It was a round space body, occupying a seemingly empty area of space off The Sea Wolf’s bow. It was within 100,000 kilometers distance and the scale on the technical readouts made it out to be moon-sized.
Moon-sized?
“Xanthus, this anomaly… I think it’s …”
“Yes, I know. It appears to be another A.I. Moon.”
So that was it. Daniel somehow took Chorus, got the information he needed out of her, and found the A.I. Moon—a parting gift from Majesty.
“Julius, I don’t have to tell you the war machine that will be unleashed upon us if the A.I.’s offspring activate the nanobot factory on that moon. We must destroy it completely.”
Julius agreed: destroying the moon was the logical thing to do. However, thoughts of Daryl filled his mind. If Chorus was right, she could save him—but only with the power of the moon.
“I have unique experience with this, Xanthus. Allow me to assist. I am probably more qualified than anyone to lead this attack.”
Xanthus stayed quiet a moment before answering. “That is a most gracious offer, Julius. But given the circumstances, I do not believe it is something that the Admiralty would agree to.”
A man appeared on the conference, quickly whispering something into Xanthus’ ear.
“Ahh,” Xanthus said, “it appears that the fleet is ready. Please keep your distance, Julius. Your ship is simply in no shape to help us. We are about to begin the plan. I must go now.”
“Wait! What is the plan?” Julius asked.
The conference link ended, and the only thing on the screen now was the graphical overlay of the invisible moon.
The coalition forces began to move. They broke formation and one of the ships, a Confed destroyer, moved closer to the moon and then stopped. Moments passed with nothing happening.
“Gentlemen, do any of you detect anything?”
His officers each worked with their instrumentation before answering.
“Captain,” Jessen said, “that lone Confed destroyer, it appears to be transmitting something. It almost looks like a wave directed at the anomaly.”
It had not occurred to Julius that the moon would be connected to the Ocean. He opened a conference channel.
“Waverider—I’m sure you’re monitoring all of this—can your team m
ake sense of whatever that destroyer is doing?”
“Sure, one sec,” Waverider said, “almost have it.”
Just then, a sudden disturbance appeared. The empty space the moon occupied began to darken and the stars around it winked out. In its place a world suddenly appeared, but this moon was not like the one from his dreams.
Instead of a bubbling black cauldron, its cloud cover was an inviting green-blue color. It reminded him of Chorus’ hypnotic gaze. Within the cloud cover, thin bands of white ran across its axis, perfectly separated by a fixed distance, covering the moon with numerous, horizontal stripes.
“Sir—uhh, Captain,” Waverider said, “the destroyer was trying to hack into that moon’s systems. It was an abysmal failure, though. They were attempting to inject code for a simple backdoor demon.”
Julius became startled.
“Demon? What the hell do you mean by that?”
“Uhh, a demon is a kind of program. They were trying to sneak it past the moon’s firewall—”
“Okay, that will be all,” Julius cut him off.
Julius could see the destroyer begin to move in closer to the moon, followed by two other ships: one UEP and the other Venusian.
As they approached, another disturbance appeared on the surface of the moon. One of the white bands began to rise up in an arch from the cloud surface.
“Magnify,” Julius said.
The viewscreen superimposed a close-up image. The white band was a gaseous nanobot swarm. It arched up from the cloud cover like a waterfall, but remained anchored to it, forming a loop. The swarm expanded in size, rising farther out—in the direction of the incoming ships.
“Go to battle alert—but keep the weapons grid offline.”
“Aye, aye.”
The viewscreen widened to 360 degrees, and the bridge lights changed color.
The coalition ships immediately began firing at the loop. Missiles and white streaks of energy lashed out at it.
As the weapons fire impacted against it, he could see black voids within it as the nanobots were destroyed. But the gaps were rapidly replenished by the moon’s atmosphere.
The nanobot loop swung over the three ships and passed directly through them all at once. It tore through the hulls of the ships, snapping them in half like a buzz saw. Multiple explosions lit the screen as the moon claimed the three ships. After the explosions subsided, it left the bleeding wreckages of the three ships.
The loop retreated back into the surface of the moon, disappearing into the cloud cover.
Julius tried to estimate the lives that were just lost—it had to be thousands.
“Jessen, are you detecting any survival beacons?”
“Aye, sir, a few hundred life pods by the look of it. Sir, they are moving in to recover the pods.”
A group of coalition shuttles moved into position, traversing the wreckage. As they approached, another nanobot prominence emerged from the moon’s atmosphere. The gaseous loop swiped across the area, further decimating the destroyer wreckages and forcing the shuttles to retreat. The attack claimed many of the life pods.
Once it finished its deadly swoop, the loop retreated back into the cloud cover.
Julius felt nauseous again—more lives lost. Even if they were not his own crew, he did not like just standing by and watching. It reminded him of the helplessness he felt back at CSOW, during the nanobot swarm attack. He would not stay on the ground and watch helplessly.
“Jessen, are there still life pods out there?”
“Aye, Captain. I don’t have an exact count. The targeting computer is not handling it. But I’m guessing at least a couple hundred still.”
A thought occurred to him.
“What is our distance from the moon?”
“We’re at 103,737 kilometers,” Jessen said.
“What was the range of the shuttles and destroyers—when the prominence attacked?”
Ramey brought up a replay of the attack—and overlaid distance labels.
“Exactly 105,000 kilometers,” Julius read aloud. “Does that not strike you as odd, gentlemen?”
The officers looked at each other a moment, but it was Ramey who figured it out first.
“Why aren’t we also being attacked?” Ramey asked.
“Exactly,” Julius said. “We’re well inside its range.”
Julius looked to his side—where Laina would normally be. Despite having practically thrown her off the bridge, he wished she were by his side now. She would have probably encouraged him to rescue the pods.
“We are going to help them. Jessen, are the capacitors full for a jump?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Punch in an escape coordinate—anywhere but here. Get ready to take us into the wreckage, but keep your finger on the jump button.
“Ramey, be ready to use a tow beam to scoop the pods into our landing deck. You will have to be quick about it. I don’t know how much time we’ll have before we’re attacked.”
They both acknowledged.
Julius knew he was risking the ship, but one look at the damage control display told him it did not much matter, though. The ship was as good as sunk anyway—and soon it would be the coalition forces scooping their life pods up.
“Execute.”
The Sea Wolf moved in.
The wreckage was profoundly devastating. Chunks, larger than the Sea Wolf, drifted—bleeding gases and plasma in their wake.
As they approached one of the derelicts, he could read the name on what remained of its hull: UES Mystic. The UEP had sent in its most damaged ship—the easiest one to sacrifice… a tactical decision. Their reputation for making ruthless military decisions was very much intact.
Their tow beam began drawing in the drifting life pods. Ramey adeptly pulsed the beam on multiple targets at once, just enough to initiate inertia, thereby being able to pull many at a time into their landing deck.
“Captain,” Jessen said, “something’s wrong with navigation. We’ve lost propulsion control.”
Julius looked at the damage control screen. Red lights appeared near the engine room. The only thing they could do now was make stellar jumps. Julius gazed at the machine moon. Still no activity from it.
“I guess we’re anchored here, then. Continue rescue operation.”
He wondered why the moon was not attacking them. Why did it not consider them a threat? Was it due to the condition the ship was in—but then why attack the unarmed rescue shuttles?
“Sir, some good news,” Jessen said. “I managed to get com working—with some help from Waverider’s team.”
As much as he did not want to admit it, Chorus’ hackers had proved valuable—despite the difficulty he had understanding them.
“Very good. Send them my gratitude.”
“You’re welcome, Captain,” Waverider’s voice sounded.
Julius had given up trying to prevent them from tapping into everything on the ship. They would remain as invisible members of the bridge crew for the time being.
Raising his command module, Julius moved closer to the viewscreen. He studied the A.I. Moon. Somewhere on that thing was Chorus, and she was the only thing in the universe right now that could save Daryl. He moved his module back to its home position.
“Open a conference channel to Xanthus’ ship.”
“Yes, sir,” Jessen said. “Actually, they were just trying to connect with us.”
Xanthus’ face appeared on the screen.
“Julius—first, thank you for retrieving the survivors. I hope that you will treat them as well as you treated us. Now… how are you managing to not trigger the moon’s defenses?”
Julius had no idea why—but Xanthus did not know that.
“I can’t tell you, Your Excellency—for now it will remain a secret. However, I again ask to help lead the assault on the moon. What was your plan?”
“The plan is to deactivate the moon’s defenses by breaking into
its systems, then land a coalition marine task force on its surface. They will deploy in special transports that are shielded with a technology that can protect its occupants from nanobot attacks. They will then infiltrate the nanobot factory and destroy it with a special bomb they carry.
“Obviously, the first part of the plan failed—we cannot deactivate the moon defenses. But it appears you have found a way around that.”
“Yes I have, “ Julius said, “so you’re going to have to trust me. Put the marines under my command, and I will lead the assault.”
Xanthus dropped his gaze, and he did not speak for a moment.
“Julius, it would be extremely ill advised and inappropriate for you to lead these forces. Please, tell us how you are circumventing the moon defenses and I promise to reward you and the entire crew of the Sea Wolf. I guarantee you amnesty from all the major governments: Martian Confederacy, United Earth Parliament, and the Venusian Initiative. I will draw up the agreement immediately and make it happen.”
The officers all turned to him. For the first time in a while, he saw hopeful faces. This was going to be difficult.
“No,” Julius said, “I cannot provide you that information. You give me those transports and bombs, and I will destroy the moon. And in addition to the amnesty, you will also honor the monetary terms from our original deal.”
“With the fate of humanity at stake, we squabble over money—”
“Don’t presume to lecture me on ethics,” Julius interrupted. “This is not the first time I have put the lives of me and my crew on the line to save humanity. But unlike last time, I am going to make sure there is a life to come back to when this is over—a life that is worthwhile. Do we have an accord?”
Xanthus let out a breath—he looked tired and weary.
“I must first confer with the other worlds. You must understand it is not a decision that is under my sole discretion. Please stand by.”
The screen went dark and they waited. At the speed that bureaucracy normally operated, he expected Xanthus to die of old age by the time they reached a consensus. To his surprise, he came back within minutes.
“Very well. It appears we are going to put our trust in you, my friend. The worlds have agreed to your terms. I am transmitting the document. It contains the seal of all the three worlds. However, we could not secure the cooperation of the Space Habitat Coalition, but I would think that is a small matter. I suppose you will make us wait to review the document prior to helping us?”
“No, Xanthus, I am counting on your honor for those finer details. Let’s begin this operation before the A.I. finds a way to activate that factory.”
“Your trust is well placed with me, my friend. I understand that your propulsion system is out. I will have my tactical officer coordinate with you on a plan to have you rendezvous with the marine shuttles, where they will be placed under your command.”
“Another request, Your Excellency. I do not want that sergeant of yours among the marines.”
Xanthus chuckled. “You won’t have to worry about that. Sergeant Premley has apparently gone AWOL—nobody knows where he is.”
Julius smiled. “Probably lost up his own ass. Thank you for trusting me, Xanthus.”
The conference ended. Ramey linked the Sea Wolf’s telemetry feed with the coalition forces. This filled their tactical with additional details and important information their own computer was unable to provide—and it marked all the targets.
Now they needed to get the marine transports on board the Sea Wolf. Unfortunately, with propulsion out, this was not possible. He could have used a shuttle to rendezvous with the marine ships—but whatever was protecting the Sea Wolf from attack might not extend to shuttles leaving it.
It did not take Xanthus long to realize the reason for Julius’ delays.
“You don’t know why you’re protected, do you, Captain? That is why you won’t disembark your ship.”
Julius simply did not have anything to refute him with.
“What I do know is that I am the best man to lead the attack. I’m sure you’ve read my files and know this.”
Xanthus’ silence spoke his misgivings. Julius had to think of a plan—something that would allow them to safely land the marine ships onto the Sea Wolf.
“Wait, there is a way we can make this work.”
Julius explained it to him: using projection technology, the Confed would produce decoys for the moon defenses to attack. The diversion would allow the transports to sneak aboard the Sea Wolf.
Once aboard, the Sea Wolf would jump as close to the moon’s atmosphere as possible so that they could launch the marine transports. However, there was risk in jumping so close.
The moon’s own gravity field might be strong enough to overload the gravitational amplifiers, preventing the stellar jump and knocking out the generators in the process. Moreover, with the condition the ship was in, the additional stress could rupture the hull and send the Sea Wolf to Davy Jones’ Locker.
“Jump drive at the ready,” Jessen said.
“All set here sir,” Ramey said, “at your command.”
The Sea Wolf and the coalition ships were coordinating their actions through Ramey’s station. At his command, the Martian Confederacy was ready to send over the real and projected marine transports. It might be the last order he would ever give.
“Ramey, initiate the operation.”
