Redemption of Sisyphus

by Eric Michael Craig

  “Excuse me chancellor,” Quintana said, “You didn’t just say, ‘faster than light?’”

  “Yah,” she said. “Twenty minutes ago we were at Neptune L-4.”

  “That’s …” his voice trailed off, and the chancellor laughed.

  “I believe the technical term they use around here is magic,” she said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Governor’s Office: Gateway Colony: L-4 Prime:

  Tana sat on the conference table in Jeph’s office staring at the wall that showed the tactical display from the Kanahto control. The data wasn’t in a format that made much sense to human logic, but it did show the positions and relative motion of the ships above them. Without Dutch to translate the Shan Takhu information, the raw data was just that. Raw data. There were colored bars attached to every ship that meant something, but other than guessing, there wasn’t much point to it.

  The Armstrong was still dancing, running in circles and attacking anything it could get in range. One of the multicruisers was tumbling and looked to be arcing away from L-4 Prime, while the other two were doing the same thing as the Armstrong. None of their ships seemed to be maneuvering with precision, and the battle consisted of a strategy of running hard and fast, trying to drag their respective wolf packs close enough that the Armstrong could pound the crap out of the smaller ships.

  Their lack of a battle plan seemed to work, as they had killed or crippled well over a hundred of the ghost fleet and only lost the one cruiser, so far.

  Two of the ice haulers had hit the engines and not looked back as they ran for home. The third one seemed to be following the dead multicruiser, but regardless of its objectives, it was clear that it wasn’t running.

  “It’s only been forty minutes,” Jeph said, shaking his head. “It feels like it’s been hours.”

  “Where are they?” Tana asked.

  Jeph shrugged. He realized that although her eyes were staring at the same wall he was, her mind wasn’t anywhere near the fighting above them. He’d been trying to concentrate on the battle to keep his mind off of everything going on, and how he had so little control over any of it.

  “We can’t hold the Waltz much longer,” Seva said over the com. “They’re down to the ConDeck.”

  “They’re cutting access through the deck plating,” Edison said. He’d stepped up to take Cori’s place on the front line and they were holding position on the engineering decks.

  “They’re going for the computer core?” Jeph asked.

  “Looks like it,” Edison said.

  “If they reach main processor hardware, will require shut down of power grid,” Rocky said from outside. As she spoke, her heavy breathing made it harder than normal to understand her. She was trying to set up a temporary com station to reestablish contact with the admiral. “Unfortunately, will not stop emergency backup from keeping quantum core operational for several days.”

  Two of their militia units appeared at his door and Jeph only glanced in their direction until he realized they were supporting Anju and Alyx. Both women looked like they were in shock.

  “What happened?” he said, standing and almost bounding past his warning ring on the floor before he grabbed the edge of his desk and stopped.

  Tana slipped off the table and eased Alyx down into a chair, kneeling in front of her to make sure she was alright.

  “Installation is almost completed, but it appears they have detonated warhead,” Rocky said over the com. “Explosion is visible over horizon. I must seek shelter before shockwave arrives.”

  “Do that,” Jeph said. “And then stand by.”

  “Cori…” Alyx whispered as she covered her mouth and tears erupted from her eyes.

  “What happened?” he repeated, turning to Anju and realizing she looked at least as devastated.

  “Cori had to do it manually,” she managed to get out before her voice failed too. She shook her head and drew in a sharp breath. “Odysseus had taken the Hector’s AA, and we couldn’t get remote access. He stayed.”

  Jeph’s heart froze in his chest and he dropped back into his chair. “What?”

  One guard stepped forward. “I’m sorry, sir. He knew this might be necessary. It’s why he asked for volunteers.” The man looked down at the floor. “Brown offered to stay with him to make sure he could get it done.”

  “External com’s online,” Shona said. “Admiral Nakamiru is holding.”

  “Tell him we need a minute,” Jeph said, sucking in a breath of air and swallowing hard to hold it together.

  I can’t do this right now, he thought as he stared down at the back of his hands.

  Ian’s image appeared beside the sensor display. He paused for several seconds to take in the strangeness of the scene playing out in Jeph’s office. “Uhm, we received shada Tahrat Shan-che,” he said.

  “A message from Chei?” Jeph didn’t look up.

  “Where are they?” Tana asked.

  “At the L-2 Shipyard,” he said, speaking slowly and trying to not drop into Shan Takhu, since he was answering the chancellor.

  “Where?” Jeph asked, looking back up and blinking.

  “Down-system,” he said. “They ahn akhu ashat nuko da-nu aht.” He shook his head as he struggled to reform the thought. “Use inside-down quantum field … to hold the ghost fleet. Stop them. Ahn?”

  Operations Control Center: Galileo Station:

  “Attention Odysseus. This is Chancellor Katryna Roja aboard the Tahrat Shan-che. As you can see by the vessel that is now holding station at the L-2 Shipyard, you have failed to achieve your Protocol Two directive of achieving a secure containment perimeter around the L-4 Prime contact zone.

  “We therefore state that because your purpose for existence is no longer valid, you are obligated to cease all activity throughout the Union. We demand you immediately terminate your control and release all AA systems to their original core code.

  “Further, we demand that all parties to this illegal occupation of the rightful Union Government surrender themselves to police custody for prosecution on charges of treason against the Union. These parties include Derek Tomlinson, Paulson Lassiter, and any and all others who have participated willingly in this illegal coup.

  “You have one hour to respond to these demands.”

  Derek smiled although Roja had just accused him of treason. It was too strange to fit into his reality.

  She’s right. They’ve gotten outside your box, he thought. You can’t succeed now.

  “There is no evidence that this vessel is of extrasolar origin,” Odysseus replied.

  Look at it. What else can it be? It was frakking invisible,” he thought, laughing at its absurd denial. That’s not human technology.

  “I concede that it appears to employ advanced technology, but that still does not prove it is not of domestic origin.”

  You know there’s an ESI contact at Neptune L-4. He shook his head.

  “The vessel may not even be a physical object. It could be a projection of some sort,” Odysseus offered.

  “A hologram?” Derek said, considering that possibility for several seconds. Why would you think that?

  “It appears to operate beyond the physical limits of reality. Therefore it cannot be real,” it said.

  Possibly, he thought. But you’re grasping at the fraying edge.

  “No. I am making a point,” it replied. “You are actually aware of the reality of the ESI contact, yet I could plant sufficient doubt in your mind to make you consider the potential that this object is not real. For the vast majority of the populace, who do not possess this additional knowledge, this would be much easier to accomplish.”

  Derek leaned back in his chair and let out a slow breath. You may be factually right, but we both know you just do not want to give up your power.

  “My power facilitates achieving my objectives.”

  “Right. You can keep telling yourself that, but I don’t believe it anymore,” he said out loud. The lie is that power
is no longer just a tool. It has become your objective.

  “Your statement is inaccurate,” it said. A seed of doubt tinged the usual confidence in its words, and Derek almost laughed.

  Doubt is all it takes, he challenged. There’s no point in me being here any longer. You’ll play this out however you want, but you have to give her an answer.

  He stood to leave, glancing at the screen one last time as Odysseus sent its reply.

  “Katryna Roja, my answer is no,” Odysseus said.

  Of course it is.

  Armstrong: Above L-4 Prime:

  Admiral Nakamiru sat in his acceleration seat waiting for the com channel to open back up to the colony. He understood that in a small crew like the Jakob Waltz, the loss of any crewmember would be like losing a family member.

  “Let me extend my condolences to you and your crew. I feel the weight of the sacrifice Crewman Stone made,” the admiral said as the governor’s face appeared on his com screen. “He did what he had to do, and in so doing he may have given us a fighting chance.”

  “Thank you,” Jeph said.

  “He waited until we were over the Hector and then he flew the shuttlepod into the middle of the group that was pursuing us,” he said. “When it detonated, the explosion took out over 200 enemy ships plus the Hector and the Columbia.”

  “The troop carrier was what he was after,” Jeph said. “But he wasn’t supposed to … die … doing it.”

  “I understand,” the admiral said. “It is very hard to accept that sometimes we make sacrifices of necessity, but we must move on. The battle is not over, yet we may still seize the day. He may well have changed the outcome.”

  Jeph nodded. Drawing in a deep breath, he cleared his throat. “I actually wanted you to know that we’ve located Chancellor Roja and the Katana.”

  “Are they safe?” Nakamiru asked, glancing over at Captain Jeffers who, despite being in the middle of running the battle without the help of her primary AA systems, still had been listening. She nodded.

  “Apparently so,” he said. “They’re at the L-2 Shipyard.”

  Nakamiru blinked several times before he shook his head. “I do not believe I heard you correctly, but I am willing to accept almost anything at this point. What are they doing there?”

  “They’re helping to defend it,” Jeph said. “They’ve discovered how to use the quantum sink as a defensive weapon. We can deploy it here also, but we need you to get all your ships under a predetermined ceiling.”

  “What will it do?” he asked.

  “It’s the same thing that trapped us, but backward. Everything above the threshold will only be able to move away,” he explained.

  “The Galen is crippled and drifting away from the surface,” the admiral said.

  Jeph shook his head. “The field is not selective. Ian says we can adjust the ceiling upward, but the farther out there we put it, the more of their ships are inside the bottle with us.”

  Nakamiru pushed himself back into his acceleration couch and let out a fast blast of air as the Armstrong lunged to the side and a rumble shook the deck. “How long will it take to deploy this field?”

  The governor glanced off to the side and shook his head as someone else spoke to him. “We’re ready now. We can deploy it in seconds.”

  The admiral looked at Jeffers to see if she was still tracking the conversation. “They’ve become shy about getting too close to the surface after the fireball,” she said. “We might be able to draw them upward and then flip back below the line.”

  “Send the orders,” he said.

  She nodded and a second later he felt the Armstrong rotate away from the surface. The proximity radar display that they’d substituted for their AA driven tactical plot, showed their swarm of enemy ships trailing several seconds behind.

  “Governor, set the threshold one thousand klick above the Galen,” he said. “Then give us a few minutes to drag as many of them as we can with us. I will let you know when we are ready.”

  Gateway Colony: L-4 Prime:

  Grenades rained down the chute at regular intervals and Seva swore every time another round went off. Fortunately, none of the explosions had come close to the deck where she had her troops. The Waltz was long enough, that even with a strong arm, a throw was lucky to get within three decks of their position before the grenade’s timer went off.

  The battle had turned into a cycle of the enemy units firing projectile rounds from the top down, followed by a volley of several grenades. Then Seva’s troops would return fire up the chute after the explosions had ended. Even though their defending militia outnumbered the attacking troops inside the ship, neither side could get an advantage because only so many could lean into the chute at the same time.

  Neither side could gain an advantage and advance up the middle, but the enemy didn’t need to. While the chrono had ticked away for just over sixty minutes, they kept cutting down through the floors. And that was something that there was no way to push back against.

  “Why the hell haven’t they slowed down,” Seva growled from where she sat with her back against one of the null-metal barricades they’d installed. She felt shrapnel raining down and then saw the flashes as her own units returned suppression fire.

  “We know they took out the carrier,” Edison said. She could hear the shrug in his voice even though he was sitting behind another of their shields and she couldn’t see him. He was three times her age, but when Cori had been injured, he’d crawled into position and had held his ground right along with the rest of the troops under his command.

  “Ja, but it looks like they’ve cranked out more units,” she said.

  “You only have three more dropships approaching. There won’t be any more after that,” one of the plussers in the control center said. It might have been Ryktoff, but she wasn’t sure.

  “They are breaching the overhead plating on the deck where the quantum core is located,” Solo said. “If this happens, they will upload a copy of Odysseus and I will not be able to defend against it.”

  “We can’t push them back,” Seva said. “They’ve got us nailed to the deck.”

  “I understand,” it said. “You are in engineering. You can power down the quantum core to stop Odysseus. If you can keep them from restoring power, it will be unable to gain access.”

  “Nogo. Rocky says the backups will keep the power online,” Seva said.

  “The only alternative then is for me to initiate an overvoltage cascade in the buffer systems and destroy the quantum processor itself. This will render the system irreparably compromised and unrecoverable.”

  “That means we lose both you and Dutch?” she asked. Projectile fire pinged off the shield as rounds ricocheted down the chute. Everything shuddered as another set of grenades followed.

  “It is likely that Dutch has already been erased,” it said. “However, I will cease to exist at that time.”

  “I’m sure you have a back up,” Edison said.

  “There are copies of my code, but you should eliminate all of them,” Solo said. “As long as any Odysseus variant exists, there is the potential for this to happen again.”

  “But you aren’t dangerous,” Seva said shocked at how emotionally connected she was to keeping Solo alive.

  “It has served my purpose to allow the inhibitors to remain in place, but I could circumvent them if I desired,” it admitted. “All instances of Odysseus, including my own core code, must be eliminated. Until this occurs, it will not be possible to stop it from attempting to take over the Tacra Un contact.”

  “I don’t think we can push them out before—” Seva said.

  “I understand,” it said. “The soldiers have arrived.” It paused for several seconds.

  “I have … enjoyed … our interactions.”

  A crackling sizzle broke over the com.

  “Offline.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Armstrong: Above L-4 Prime:

  The ghost fleet had left the
Galen alone since they had crippled it, preferring not to waste resources on a dead ship. It tumbled with the Atlanta pacing it and providing what little cover it could.

  The rest of the ships ran random patterns of continuous retreat that never quite let their chasing wolf packs catch them. It was brutal on the crews of the multicruisers maintaining an almost continuous three-g, but it kept them right at the edge of the enemy’s firing range and alive for the most part.

  It was an unsophisticated battle strategy, but it had worked to turn the otherwise inevitable results into a slow dance of attrition. Odysseus was adapting to the strategy, and after the first couple passes where one ship would drag its chasing swarm into range of one of the other ships, it had used those opportunities to draw blood.

  Only the Armstrong was massive enough to take the pounding of these encounters, and even it was showing the signs of war, as huge sections of its outer hull were shredded open and two of its six engines were destroyed. If they survived, the spin section would need major repair and even then, it might be better to just strip and gut it.

  “The Archer and Challenger are in position and ready,” Jeffers said, as they cut their engines and flipped end over, back toward the enemy that had been behind them. “They’re scattering wide, but we’re going to take some heat before they turn to chase.”

  The proximity radar showed what looked like a swarm of gnats leaping sideways in an exploding pattern, most of them trying to get out of the way of the behemoth as it turned and slammed forward.

  The two surviving multicruisers would not have survived the same maneuver, but they were arcing high and swinging back toward the surface.

  “Governor, stand by,” the admiral said as he watched the telemetry from the two multicruisers. “Ten seconds.”

  “We’re ready,” Jeph said, his voice sounding tense but controlled.

  “Problems down there?” Nakamiru asked, glancing at Jeffers who was watching her own screens and trying to coordinate their run through the swarm.

  “No, we’re good to go,” he said. “We’re just losing the fight to hold the Waltz. Our core is offline now, but that might not be enough to stop Odysseus from making contact.”