It was just a minute later when they reached energy range, the battles had happened pretty close to simultaneously, as we’d set up. Which was why we missed the beginning and missile exchanges.
The ships tore into each other, but the enemy remaining was completely out-massed, and facing superior shields and energy weapons. Fifteen of the smaller warships completely lost their detached probe warship, but as I said they’d be back up to full size in just two weeks. The rest were damaged, but there was still plenty left to be reabsorbed when all was said and done.
I also noted a scout ship left one of the larger ships, probably the admiral’s ship, and headed away from the sun. My guess was they were off to report the infraction to the grays. I wondered if the Earth would participate, and to try to win a raffle for the territory after helping to commit genocide. I knew I wanted no part of something like that.
It put the picture of a swarm of locusts descending on a town in my mind, and I shivered.
I also wondered if we’d be getting some kind of alien receiver array, so we’d get those updates from the grays, and be able to place bets. It was a messed-up thought, but I could seriously see there being a reality show about it.
We headed back to L1 from Earth orbit, while our detached piece made its way back towing two alien ships. My ship would beat the fleet back to L1 by hours, so I wasn’t worried about them trying to stop me reading the alien ships.
Still, I felt nervous, even more anxiety than for the alien attack. If the U.S. chose to attack me at this point, I’d be taking human lives in self-defense, but that seemed a lot harder to me than defending Earth from alien conquerors. Whatever, we had plans, if they tried something. On the good side, they hadn’t cut me out of the network yet.
That worried me too, since it meant I had no idea what their plans may be. It was hard to counter something I couldn’t see coming…
The alien race that attacked us turned out the be the Sonex. I felt a lot less guilty about the possible future, the race had four of the fifty light year spheres of space in our galaxy. Which meant the bastards had performed genocide three times before, and they’d gotten away with it. They’d have done it a fourth time on Earth, if it hadn’t been for that scout ship, and my magic which opened all the technology for us.
If we’d have taken a normal path of evolution to the stars for a species, we’d have been wiped out. The galaxy was a better place without them in it.
The two ships had been interesting, but there was nothing useful about them to me. Sure, I’d never gotten a chance to learn how to build a nuclear missile before, but we already had anti-matter missiles. There was also the different and less efficient FTL drive, which had been interesting to learn about, but once again something we didn’t really need. Their impulse technology wasn’t all that different, but their inertial dampening had been less efficient, which was the reason they’d been limited to forty G instead of sixty G acceleration.
In short, the grays had the equal or better of everything the Sonex did, and by extension so did we. I suspected there’d be no more free lunches that way for our species, it would be people like my Diana that improved things from here on out. I’d just be able to incorporate that new knowledge into a product a lot faster than anyone else on Earth. Even that was debatable, given the facility of nanite construction, but I still held the edge of being able to control any tech I was near. Plus, for the moment, only the United States and I had that nanite construction edge.
I’d reabsorbed the mass that’d been left, and I spun out those thirty-two probe ships and sent them out as planned. It was worth setting back the rebuild another day or two. I wasn’t really expecting anymore alien conquerors to sneak around the sun on us, but it was better to be prepared.
Crap.
“I’ve just been cut off from the fleet.”
Cassie nodded, “We expected that.”
I nodded, “Should I let them keep an eye on us? They won’t see much, just our position and systems. If it comes to a confrontation, I can always turn it off.”
Cassie frowned, “I think that would be the wrong tack. You aren’t going to appease them by letting them see what we’re doing.”
That was a good point, I was just hoping they wouldn’t confront us and let things go. It wasn’t a likely scenario.
“Well, I did promise to return the ships I stole. What’s another day of rebuilding, and thirty more reactors?”
Cassie smirked, “You did.”
It took a little time, but I managed to form the original fifteen scouts, set them up to fly back to Earth, and ejected them from the hull. What took the most time was removing all the updated programming from the nanites, like the stealth shielding and additional weapons. I also got the thirty more reactors building.
Jayna asked, “How much trouble are we in?”
“The Earth fleet out-masses us by about three and half times. The small warships combined are an even trade, and it takes four of the giant warships to equal us and there’s ten of those. They also lost an equivalent amount of mass in the battle, so that’s a wash. Time is on our side, we’ll rebuild a lot faster than they will, but that gain will be transient. Especially if they start mass producing more ships.”
Diana said, “That’s very possible, we were bringing up mass production of reactors when I left. They can build five every twenty-four hours.”
I nodded, “That’s enough to start a build of the smaller version of the warship every day, or the largest one every three to four days. After three months’ time they could have one large warship finish building per three days. Doesn’t help them now, but obviously the power disparity will go up over time. That’s assuming they don’t copy the mass production setup five times.”
I shook my head, “I doubt they’ll wait though, and they already out-mass us. Our only advantage was the ship network, without that ace in the hole we may have to retreat. For the moment, their course will take them straight to Earth orbit, but that could just be a red herring to trick us and get within missile range.”
Jayna asked, “Isn’t that a bit paranoid?”
I shrugged, “Why else remove me from the network just then, if not to pass along orders on how to deal with us. Sure, they could have just done it because the danger passed, and they don’t need us anymore, but do you want to gamble our lives on it, and the lives of the men on half those ships?”
Cassie asked, “You want to run.”
I sighed, “In two weeks we’ll be in much better shape. But no, I think I have another plan, and it plays to my strengths. I’d been focused on the problem, not the solution. If death comes, it’ll be on their heads.”
I fed my magic to the ship, built a hundred very small devices, and spun off one more probe ship.
I told them my plans, Diana’s eyes widened, and Cassie snickered. My sister just shook her head and smirked.
Chapter Seventeen
From the relative position of the space station, Earth’s fleet was hovering about eighty thousand kilometers above Earth, right over the North pole actually. It occurred to me they’d taken that position just in case this turned into a shooting war, it’d be bad to have Earth right behind them. Despite the distance to L1, they were on the edge of effective energy range of the space station, which was about one light second.
Cassie said, “We’re being hailed.”
“Answer it.”
A hologram of who I presumed to be Admiral Graves came up over the command table, a little higher than the holographic display of the tactical situation around Earth.
“There was no need to call and thank me Admiral. I was very pleased you took my advice, and there was no loss of life in your fleet.”
Jayna giggled, and she slapped a hand over her mouth.
It took all my will not to crack a smile, at the look on the admiral’s face.
The admiral said, “Listen son, you know that’s not why I’m calling. Enough is enough, you need to turn yourself in.”
“For what admiral? For defending myself against a general who sought to assassinate a civilian, the man responsible for handing the United States advanced alien technology. All because of what I might do? Capacity doesn’t always equal intent admiral, only to the paranoid. Are you paranoid? If it hadn’t been for me, the earth would be burning right now Admiral, without my space station and actions that fleet of five thousand would have burned the world, on their way past to ambush your fleet from behind. Let me tell you how this can go. We can co-exist.
“I officially reject my citizenship, I’ll never set foot on United States territory again. I’ll stay in space, vacation in the Caribbean, and run my space station. I’ll even agree not to sell FTL ships with weapons to other countries, so they don’t accidentally get us killed by the insane races in this galaxy. Do your allies know what my country did, and what I did?”
The admiral snorted, “You can’t fight the government.”
I smiled, “Admiral. That’s true for any citizen, except perhaps me. I don’t have the armaments of a citizen admiral, I have the military power that exceeds the majority of countries on the planet, combined. Going by tonnage, second only to the United States. We’re confident given the truth, most of the world would be on our side. The United States is a great country, but there are dark corners Admiral, and I’m not going to surrender just to be murdered, or put in a dark hole until I die, merely for choosing to live. Hell, you bastards kidnapped my sister, like some bank robber, goon, or mafia, to control me. Yet it’s legal to coerce a citizen with kidnap victims, because you’re the government? Not this time, this time you’ll be held accountable.”
He was turning red on the screen.
I said, “It’s up to you admiral. I submit you’ve been given illegal orders, you should refuse them. Especially because I will hold you accountable if you don’t.”
Graves growled, “How the hell are they illegal?”
I snorted, “Because I’m just a citizen general, remember? Don’t you read your constitution, the military can’t be brought to bear on the citizenry. If you fire on me, or try to take me down, America is pretty much declaring me a country of my own. Country Astraeus. I’d suggest you turn this matter over to the FBI, they can come try and arrest me. Unless of course you mean to say you agree with killing citizens, and generals with no oversight in their black operations have every right to kill Americans if they want?”
Graves said, “You’re a terrorist, and a combatant. That changes the rules.”
I snorted, “Yup, terrorists are always saving the planet, and preserving lives in the military. I’m not even going to dignify that with a serious response. Oh, one more thing Admiral, just in case you forgot, I’m rather good at technology. Our conversation is being streamed to Facebook, YouTube, and several other venues, including the press. I may have also sent all the audio-visual records of my dealings with the government, the fight up here to protect Earth, and all that. Lastly, I know it was Admiral Davis, NSA director Adams, and General Mortenson behind the orders. They will be held accountable for those illegal orders if you follow through on them. Men like that who hide behind power usually get to murder innocent civilians, not this time.”
The admiral growled, “Was that a threat?”
“No admiral, a promise. I will defend myself, and I won’t do so by harming the good men and women merely following corrupt orders. Everyone has the right to self-defense, and they are the architects of these murderous orders. I imagine the president might be upset, because I will take other steps to preserve my life as well. I obviously can’t trust you.”
The admiral shook his head, “You’re deluded, son. I’d hoped we could handle this peacefully, if only because of the deeds you named earlier. But we can’t have a loose cannon up here in space. Clever words, and even a lot of truth I grant you, doesn’t change that fact. Last chance, surrender peacefully.”
“By your definition, deluded terrorist? None of my actions have been threatening. If anything, the United States has profited by this partnership, and could’ve continued to do so indefinitely.”
The admiral made a motion with his hand.
I heard, “Sir, weapons are offline, they won’t respond.”
I turned off the shield cloak, and revealed a little ship sitting in their midst. The ship I was actually on. I’d been talking to the admiral through a quantum link to the space station, then over typical airwaves to his ship. I’d also been adding those little devices I’d made to all the ships, I’d just had to be personally close enough to them to shut down a few shield emitters and suppress alarms.
In essence, the entire fleet were now sub-ships of my command center, and I could override anything they could do locally. The plan had occurred to me when stating the problem, I couldn’t control their ships anymore. So, the best way to handle that was to regain control, direct control instead of through a network. A small ship, a distraction, a cloaked field, and a little time.
What had Cassie said? Technology was my bitch.
“Checkmate, admiral. You’ll be happy to know I’ve upgraded your ships, to minimize deaths. It was an oversight I’m sure, but there was no technology for abandoning ship, nor life pods. You should also know I’ve declared space a no United States zone. I can’t trust you, so you can’t be up here. Goodbye admiral, I’m afraid only your men get to enjoy the benefits of the new tech.”
Several missile sized pods launched from all the ships toward Earth, save seven, those crewed by other countries. The nanites of course, had surrounded the crews in a new design life pod, and launched them from the ship. Much like a missile, it had a limited power life with supercapacitors, but it was more than enough power to last for days. It was only the constant six hundred gravities of accel that drained the large supercapacitors quickly in normal missiles. Not that they needed days, as the anti-gravity kicked in and lowered them safely down to the planet’s surface. I’d sent them all to Thule air base, since we were over the Arctic circle.
As for Admiral Graves, I’d ejected him into space too, just without the pod.
Of course, I wasn’t done. With the ships being mine, I had another path to the command center and all their alien tech resources. All their fighter shuttles took off to rendezvous with the fleet, and they’d land on one of my new shiny warships.
Finally finished stealing all their stuff, the black boxes on the ground turned to dust, as I forced the nanites to decouple. Of course, the entanglement was still there, but good luck to them getting a display out of a pile of nanite dust.
It wasn’t a permanent solution, the United States still had access to all the knowledge, and they were building reactors. Eventually, maybe in a few years, they’d figure out how to build the nanites too, without another ship to jumpstart that building process via energy to matter creation. Then they might be a threat to me again, but not for a long while, and I’d be watching.
Still, I hadn’t been lying. The president was going to pissed when those jackasses reported to him, he hadn’t been involved in the orders to kill me.
Speaking of which, I wasn’t quite done.
Davis, Adams, and Mortenson all had cell phones, and I had ships with deadly weapons. I targeted their positions with a pinpoint strike, a beam just an inch wide, from space. There was some collateral damage, as the beam lanced through the buildings they were in, but no other humans were harmed. Just a few new airholes in some buildings.
Promise kept.
Cassie said, “What now?”
I smiled, “The other countries haven’t tried to kill me, yet. I don’t want to live in a vacuum alone any more than you do, so hopefully they’ll see things our way. You should call the other seven ships, have them contact their governments. We have seventy-two small warships, and three more giant warships for rent.”
Diana giggled.
As for us, I set course for the station, which was where we belonged…
Afterword:
I hope you enjoyed this story, if you did
please leave a review. Reviews are the lifeblood of independent authors, and I would greatly appreciate any constructive feedback or opinions.
This was the first book of the Technomancer series. I tried not to leave any cliffhangers, but obviously there’s a lot of places this story can go, and several threads have yet to be resolved.
About the Author: If you have any comments or suggestions you can send me an email at [email protected] If you like my work, or even if you don’t, please consider leaving a review of this book. I can also be found at https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7456808.D_L_Harrison
Other books by D. L. Harrison:
http://www.amazon.com/author/dlharrison
The Formerly Dark Mage, by D. L. Harrison – This stand-alone fantasy book follows the life of Silvia and takes place in a world unique and separate to our own.
Silvia is a dark mage. Unfortunately, she finds herself about to be sacrificed. Someone must have told her evil master about her plans to kill him and take over. After that, things just seem to go downhill. She has no choice but to escape the kingdom of Zual, something that to her knowledge has never been done before. She will need to deal with many issues she never had to face before.
Among those issues, the white mages, and her conscience.
The Rise of a Dark Mage - This stand-alone fantasy book follows the life of Cassandra, it takes place in the same world as The Formerly Dark Mage, but happens three hundred years later, long after Silvia is gone and some shocking changes have taken place in the world.
Cassandra is a dark mage in the kingdom of Zual, she’s also a mage prodigy.
She hates both her kingdom, and her master. She wants him dead, not to take his place, but so she can leave and explore the world. Her ambition will drive her to rediscover the secrets of the strongest of magic.
Tech Mage: Technomancer: Book One Page 16