Bounty's Call

by Max Jager

  Jameson nodded, forcing down a grin.

  "Well played," Mathison whispered in his earpiece. "I take it we have an in."

  "That sounds perfect, old friend," Jameson said aloud.

  So far his plan was advancing perfectly.

  Kingpin

  Chapter 23

  Kingpin

  * * *

  Gibraltar space

  Andorra Star System, Planet Andorra

  Planetside City New Madrid

  * * *

  The view from the main room looked expensive.

  On the eightieth floor, Jameson was surrounded by the sprawling high rises of New Madrid, many extending another two hundred floors higher still. The architecture and scenery of the city was breathtaking; nearly four thousand years of human history had culminated here on this world. For all intents and purposes, it was the cultural center of humanity, having eclipsed Earth in power and authority.

  Such a view, with the regal Capitol Tower in plain view, probably cost a fortune. Only the Fleet would have the funds to put Jameson up in here. But in truth, they could have put him down below in a subterranean bunker and his purposes would be accomplished just fine.

  Strolling across the deep red and gold carpet, Jameson briefly leaned over the desktop access terminal. This particular unit was wired into the most recent hardware the Fleet had gathered in the last four years. And all of it was granted by Torik's authority.

  The man is becoming powerful. Even without the title of Fleet Commander, his rank still grants influence.

  Jameson cleared his throat. "Terminal: open main database for Gibraltar Strategic Grid systems, protocol Omega."

  Jameson paused, listening expectantly. The usual response chimed. "Access is prohibited."

  Jameson nodded to himself. Yes, Torik had set him up with all sorts of classified data. But even when Jameson was still enlisted in the Fleet, this cache would have been off limits. Only Fleet Command had access to those files.

  For now.

  Pacing across the room, Jameson hesitated, his eyes lingering on the distant ocean shores visible between the rows of towering high rises. On a whim, he booted up his HUD comms inside his faceplate. Routed through the private network up to the Crimson in orbit, the signal soon bounced down to a receiver Madeira had on her person.

  It didn't take long.

  His screen winked to life, displaying some sort of little shack with a window looking out over the beach. Madeira rolled into view, fumbling with the receiver until she could look at Jameson properly.

  "Hey Jameson. Any luck?"

  "Not quite yet. I just got set up in a room in New Madrid."

  Madeira made a face. "Well let me see!"

  Jameson grinned, switching his callscreen so that it projected his faceplate view. He then strode over to the floor-to-ceiling windows, gazing out over the city. Madeira sighed in awe.

  "Okay, we're definitely visiting that after the beaches."

  "Where are you now?" Jameson asked, switching the view back to his face. Madeira could see into his faceplate, though the view probably looked a little cramped from her side.

  "Oh, just a few kilometers down the coast. There's a private beach here that the Fleet granted me access to. Pays to know people, right?"

  Jameson nodded. "Precisely."

  "Anyway, my tail's just about finished." She tilted her camera down. Jameson blinked in surprise, watching the aquamarine scaled appendage appear from out beneath a simple white cotton shirt. He almost blushed, wanting to look away. But she wasn't immodest.

  "I should hit the water here in the next hour or so." She said, turning the camera back up. Apparently she hadn't noticed his reaction. "But let me know if something comes up!"

  "Either way, it's going to be a bit of a wait," Jameson replied. "I don't think we'll get a hit on Axus right away. You should enjoy some time back in the water. God knows I've kept you out of it the last month, running all over the galaxy."

  Madeira smiled mischievously. "I've grown up in the ocean all my life. And there's water on any of the worlds we visit. But it's not every day we get to go gallivanting off into the starry night."

  "No…no it isn't."

  Her face grew serious. "Hey, Jameson…I know this is a sensitive issue, but…you should probably look into H1."

  Jameson held his expression. He didn't want her to see the pain the mere mention of the stuff brought to him.

  "If you're logged in to Fleet systems, maybe they have some new headway since you left the Fleet. It's been four years…"

  Jameson wanted to dismiss her comment. H1 still ate away like an acid to flesh. He was never going to be free of his cybernetics. But then he remembered Strange's cryptic words. And suddenly he wondered if there were other things the Fleet knew about H1.

  "I think I will," he replied, doing his best to keep his tone even. "Thanks for the suggestion."

  Madeira grinned. "Any time, Mason!"

  The call ended and Jameson found himself grinning. Shaking his head, he marched back over to the terminal.

  Jameson cleared his throat again. "Terminal: open main database for Gibraltar Strategic Grid systems, protocol Omega."

  There was a pause, the screen flickering briefly. Then it switched to a whole new view entirely, followed by a familiar voice. "I'm in."

  Jameson rolled his eyes, well aware that Mathison could see them inside his faceplate. "Took you long enough."

  "Oh hush, I should get an award for how fast I cracked Fleet Security backdoor protocol."

  "No, you should get purged and cause Fleet Security a panic attack about their piss-poor security protocol."

  Mathison didn't miss a beat. "Well, that too. But get over here; we've got secrets to pry open."

  Jameson quickly sat down; focusing in on the new pages Mathison was pulling up for him.

  "Interestingly," Mathison began, "it did take me a little longer than I anticipated. My old security clearances were still there, but in the wrong combinations. Looks like a classic shuffling algorithm. Lazy bastards didn't bother to overhaul the pass codes."

  Jameson didn't know the half of electronic warfare; it wasn't his department. But it did startle him that a retired AI such as Mathison could use old passwords to get in, even if it simply met rearranging a few of the orders.

  What kinds of idiots were running Fleet Security?

  "Oh…oh wow."

  Jameson blinked. "What? Trouble?"

  "No. Not that. Now I know why I got in so easily. The whole—and let me emphasize that part—the whole mainframe is being operated by young MATHISONs. There's not a single Generation Bravo MATHISON left; they're all retired."

  Jameson shrugged. Again, he knew Mathison could see the motion. Sometimes it felt like dealing with God.

  "I know, that doesn't mean much to the layman, but listen. Fleet policy has always stood on integrating newer generation MATHISONs in slowly, balancing the old with the young. By the time I was retired, most of the mainframe was operated by what I guess you could call 'middle-aged' MATHISON dominance."

  "Is that a problem for us?" Because frankly, Jameson was having a hard time seeing the relevance.

  "Not for us, but for the Fleet it could be trouble. Newer MATHISONs are more susceptible to corruption, especially if the electronic warfare is subtle enough. They're not integrated enough to know what to watch out for. I only hope the Fleet took measures against it."

  Not much of it made sense to Jameson. Again, AIs and electronic warfare were never his specialties. Lizzy was training in that field he remembered, but well, she was another death thanks to Axus. She never really told him much more than the basics in their idle chatter. But Jameson could grasp a certain degree of Mathison's concern.

  The Fleet was making drastic changes in his absence. And not all of them might be for the best.

  "Getting back on course…" Jameson grunted.

  "Calm down, I've been on course this whole time." Which he probably was. Being an AI had its perks
when it came to dividing attention. The whole time Mathison was gaping in awe at Fleet security protocol he was probably hot on Axus's trail.

  "Any sign of his insertions?"

  "His finger prints are in the system all right," Mathison replied. "Strange was right. God knows how, but Axus was definitely here. Poking around where he ought not to."

  "Let's hope he still is." They needed to catch him with his fingers still in the pie if they were going to make any progress at this point.

  "In the meantime," Mathison added, "anything else we should sneak a peek at? I've still got reserve auxiliary processing power idling."

  Jameson nodded. There were plenty of things he wanted to look at. "First let's see what new assets the Fleet's been working on."

  "On it."

  Jameson hadn't forgotten what Torik had alluded to back aboard the Crimson. Or what he had overheard between Axus and Jaxx. The Peacemaker Fleet was being replaced. He was certain of that much now.

  "Well that wasn't hard," Mathison chimed a moment later. "Memorial Fleet. Your old friend Kaitlin was tasked to that one specifically. They're working waaaaaay out in the Gabrielle System, building it as a replacement directly to Peacemaker. Looks like Fleet Command met the very hour Axus blew up Peacemaker and set it in motion."

  "Kaitlin's there, huh?"

  "Yup. Vice Fleet Commander, no less. She thinks she's avenging fallen comrades administering over this new one: Memorial."

  Jameson hesitated. "Thinks?"

  "It's not the only one. I've also got two others; Sword and Destroyer Fleets. They're a lot farther along, too. Maybe a year out on Sword from full-scale deployment. And…oh my."

  Jameson waited for Mathison's response, processing what he was hearing. Two completely other Fleets. Fleet Command was always working on them; long before Peacemaker went up in flames. What did this mean for their overall offensive strategy? What did this mean for Kaitlin? Did they stick her there to keep her out of the way? Or was Memorial Fleet part of a three pronged offense strategy Jameson had never heard or conceived?

  "Jameson," Mathison continued, "the Fleet has a schedule date for preemptive strike against Draconia."

  "No…that can't be right. Fleet doctrine is specific. We hold to an offensive training, but wait until Draconia aggression indicates a strike. Check again. Maybe they're anticipating Axus's move after all…"

  "Nope. This is completely detached from Intel reports coming out of Draconia. Though there's something that looks like a propaganda wing briefing all senior and vice Commanders on that very topic; saying that Draconia aggression is rising. That this strike is the last measure."

  "What?"

  "Jameson, have you considered that Arkus was right? That Gibraltar wants a war with Draconia?"

  Jameson sighed, shaking his head. "What else is in the report?"

  "Not much. It details the importance of getting strategic Commanders convinced that their target date is the last chance to halt a crippling strike from Draconia. It also looks at using the three Fleets in a tri-vector attack strategy. And, of course, the Kraven Approach is one of them. Dear Miss Kaitlin in Memorial Fleet is overseeing that one, surprise, surprise."

  Three attack vectors. Jameson wasn't sure if Gibraltar was learning from its mistake with Peacemaker or if it had planned this all along. Now it looked like instead of a last ditch effort to shoot across the Expanse and halt Draconia, the Fleet was planning a massive invasion force that would pour relentlessly across the Expanse, overwhelming Draconian defenses.

  Superior numbers in an offensive would have high casualties, but they would also break the line. Draconia would fall.

  "An offensive war, Mathison…this is serious. Did Torik or Kaitlin or any of the others know anything about this?" He suspected they didn't. Somewhere far up the chain, long ago, military and republic bureaucracy had apparently conceived a scheme for reuniting the old Republic once and for all.

  And Jameson had been a mere pawn in it this whole time.

  "Ah shit."

  Jameson sat up. "What? Were we discovered? Is it too late to back out and cover our tracks?"

  Mathison didn't say anything for a moment. "Jameson, you're going to want to brace yourself. I…found something."

  Jameson swallowed hard. For an artificial intelligence, Mathison sounded really upset.

  "This is a schematic I pulled from a deep core file attached to the Draconian Offensive campaign." The screen began to pull up a scientific document. "See if this doesn't look overly familiar…"

  The file read "Helios-One." At first Jameson wasn't sure what he was looking at, since it was some sort of chemical substance Fleet Research had developed. It could be any number of components to anything.

  Except it wasn't.

  Jameson recognized the compound now; recognized the familiar radiation signature and biological components. This wasn't just another random substance in the Fleet's long list of materials for Fleet, Vessel, and Hardware requisition.

  Helios-One was H1.

  "Dear God…" Jameson breathed, gripping the desk with both hands.

  His eyes scanned over the brief abstract summary. The particular document Mathison had retrieved was a developmental file for a new substance Gibraltar researchers had created. Helios-One was the actual name, but H1 was the code-word everyone else was trained to recognize.

  It wasn't a natural phenomenon or even remotely related to Draconia industrial production. We created it.

  "This is just the Fleet Science document. There's lots more, Jameson. They've been sitting on this secret for nearly fifty years now, too."

  Jameson sat back, overcome with shock. "It's a WMD," he breathed. "It's a damn weapon of mass destruction."

  "A deeply classified one at that. Something they cooked up in their spare time, perfecting it until they had the right strategy to use it with."

  All those years Jameson had trained in cybernetics, preparing for a threat he thought was a natural occurrence. Something on the far edges of the galaxy that they would have to beware as they waged war upon Draconia. All those training session, learning how to fight it; learning that encountering it was probably certain death for either side.

  Having been crippled by it himself.

  "It was their kingpin," Jameson mused aloud. "Peacemaker, Memorial…they were never enough. That was just to get boots on the ground. H1—Helios-One—whatever the hell it is: that was going to be what crippled Draconia."

  "It gets better. Gibraltar was going to fry every world in their wake with the stuff, turning it into a psychological weapon. Draconia would have little choice but to surrender. Unlike our Strategic Cannon array, this was something they couldn't defend against. Millions would die without a single shot being fired."

  "Genocide," Jameson whispered.

  This flew right in the face of every doctrine Jameson had ever learned as a proud Gibraltarian Fleet Officer and soldier. Even now, without his citizenship, there were times alone at night where he would play the national anthem and still feel pride well up inside.

  But the men and women at the top of the Republic had planned an atrocious war that would see the deaths of millions to subdue Draconia and reunite all old star systems once more. He couldn't begin to fathom whether this was a road taken with good intentions, or conceived with the most malicious of goals.

  Either way, he was beginning to see what had fueled Axus's rage to send him back in time in the first place.

  "This really screws up our plans," Jameson groaned. "We can't let Axus lead Draconia to slaughter so many innocent Gibraltarians…but we can't let Gibraltar do the same."

  "Ah ha!"

  Jameson sat up, startled. "What now?"

  "Got him! Got him! Axus is still on Andorra. And I was right about Fleet Security, too. He's been getting into the system through a corrupted MATHISON. Somehow he found out what Fleet Security had done and exploited that weakness."

  Jameson growled. "Well this is nice and all, but where the hell is he?!"r />
  "Give me a sec…damn. I can't root the corrupt MATHISON. It's too well integrated in-system. But we'll worry about that later. Its command prompts are coming from this address."