Redemption of Sisyphus

by Eric Michael Craig

  “Understood, Governor,” the admiral said. “One battle at a time.”

  “We’re below the ceiling,” Jeffers said.

  Glancing at the telemetry screen to confirm the multicruisers were both also under the threshold he nodded. “Deploy the field.”

  A shockwave of expanding gas blew past the Armstrong and the ship shuddered like it hit a wall. Then nothing.

  “It’s up,” Jeph reported. “It looks like you have thirty seven enemy ships below the ceiling. The rest are undamaged but holding in place or moving away.”

  “Confirmed,” Jeffers said. “It looks like the ceiling is at 5,570 klick. That puts their weapons range limit at five kiloklick.”

  “What about the Galen?”

  “According to the Atlanta they’re at 4,600 and climbing,” she said. “That gives them about forty minutes before they hit the ceiling and are unrecoverable.”

  “Have the crew abandon ship. Get the Archer and Challenger on recovery of the pods,” he ordered. “And we will begin the mop up of any enemy stragglers.”

  Gateway Colony: L-4 Prime:

  Jeph sat alone in his office. Tana had taken Anju and Alyx away so he could focus on what he had to do. She’d said she’d be back to help, but for the moment he was just enduring. They hadn’t told the rest of the crew yet, and he had to hang on until they did.

  “The fighting is over upstairs. They’re mopping up.” he announced. He wanted to feel relieved, but it wasn’t in him. His words came out sounding like a dirge.

  “Frak,” Seva said, misunderstanding the message.

  “No. I mean we’ve deployed the quantum sink to hold the ghost fleet off. They can’t land anything else,” he said.

  “They’re still fighting down here,” Edison said. “I guess they haven’t gotten the memo yet.”

  “Fighting will continue until Odysseus loads to quantum core,” Rocky said as she appeared in Jeph’s doorway. She still wore her EVA suit.

  “Nogo. Solo just fell on its sword,” Seva said. “The core’s foobed.”

  “It did what?” Jeph asked.

  “It shut down the core,” Seva said. “I think it shorted it out.”

  “Does that mean Dutch can’t restore?” His heart sank deeper again. Dutch was as much a member of his crew as Cori.

  “Dono,” she said. “Solo said Dutch was erased. That sounds permanent.”

  “If core is foobed, but backup exists, then any core will be suitable to restore,” Rocky said. “If no backup exists, then Dutch is gone.”

  “Could backups of Dutch be on any of the smaller systems in the ship?” Jeph asked. He was grasping at tatters, but hope died hard.

  “Unlikely,” she said. “Odysseus is only system I know designed to operate on distributed architecture.”

  “Are you saying Odysseus could load to other smaller systems?” Seva asked.

  “This is possibility,” she confirmed. “It would require a quantum core to operate but could survive and function in limited ways without.”

  “So unless we stop them, it could still infiltrate other computers aboard the Waltz?” Edison said.

  “If it does not possess this capacity currently, it may adapt to do so,” Rocky said.

  “As long as it can keep standing up, it’s going to keep trying?” he asked.

  “Essentially yes,” she said. “Any iteration of Odysseus will continue to attack until it exhausts all alternatives.”

  “Then we have to kill it everywhere simultaneously,” Edison said. “How do we do that?”

  Jeph slapped his palm against his forehead as he spun back to face the wall. “Ian, do we have access to the shada ahn ekahta?”

  “Yes,” he said, nodding. “Shada ahn ekahta?”

  “I assume you can you communicate with the Tahrat Shan-che?”

  Again, he nodded.

  “Then I need a visual with Roja and Chei if you can.” He stood up and bounced over to the table. “Tana, I need you to bring Chancellor Ariqat here on your way back.”

  “Why?” she said, sounding confused.

  “Shona, I need you get me a visual with the admiral too,” he said.

  “Why?” Tana repeated.

  “I think I know how to end this. Permanently,” he said. “It will be way past ugly, and I don’t want to make this call by myself.”

  Tahrat Shan-che: Lunar L-2 Shipyard:

  The ghost fleet is moving off and regrouping,” Admiral Quintana said. “Is it possible to expand the inner threshold of the field so we can try to recover survivors?”

  Saffia looked at Chei and he nodded. “Apparently so. Where do you want us to set it?”

  “Eight thousand kilometers would let us get to the Kitty Hawk and the Concord and they’ve got nothing closer than that. That would also give us back two other multicruisers that are stuck in the field.”

  “Stand by, Admiral,” Chei said, shaking his head and closing his eyes. “It will take me a minute to recalculate.”

  “We’ve got a com coming in from the Kanahto Tacra Un,” Dutch said. “Full visual.”

  “Where do we take that?” the Chancellor said, looking around for where the screen might show up.

  “Step to the nearest wall,” Dutch said, waiting until she was clear before letting the link open.

  A table appeared in the aft part of the control deck and she gasped. It looked as solid as the floor under her feet. Tana, Ariqat and the governor were all seated around it and looking as startled as she was.

  “Com established. You may take a seat if you wish Chancellor,” Dutch said.

  “Dutch? Is that you?” Jeph asked, his face looking almost like he was going to explode into tears.

  “Yes, governor,” Dutch said. “I’m now on the Tahrat Shan-che.”

  “We thought Odysseus had killed you,” he said.

  “I’m safe, as are the rest of us,” it said. “We’re in Zone One and holding a defensive field to protect the L-2 Shipyard.”

  Admiral Nakamiru’s face was on what had been the rear wall of the control deck. His mouth fell open as chancellor Roja stepped forward and gingerly touched the back of the seat. “It feels solid,” she whispered.

  “It’s a synchronized force projection,” Dutch said. “If you sit down, they will see you occupy a chair at their location.”

  She eased herself into the seat and reached out to tap the table in front of her. It was solid too. “This is unbelievable.”

  “I am glad to see you are well, Katryna,” the admiral said, his voice catching in his throat. “I am in shock given where you are.”

  “Admiral Nakamiru?” The com link to L-2 was still open through the relay aboard the Katana, but even though it was audio only Quintana recognized his voice. “This will change the universe as we know it,” he said.

  “You only know the half of it,” Saf said, stepping forward and taking an empty seat beside the chancellor.

  Chei had just finished his recalculations of the field and was explaining it when he opened his eyes. Blinking in surprise several times, he took the remaining seat at the table.

  “The Shan Takhu had a million years to figure it all out. It’s going to be awhile before it quits looking like magic to us,” Jeph said. “Every time we access another layer it gets more incredible.”

  “I agree, governor,” Roja said, “And I just rode on this magic carpet all the way back home and I still feel like I need to be pinching myself to make sure it’s not a dream.”

  “I have no idea what you are seeing over there, but it has to be …” Admiral Quintana appeared on the control deck, “ … amazing.”

  His legs buckled under him, but before he dropped, a seat appeared under him and the yellow gravity warning ring materialized on the floor a split second later. “I’m sorry, Admiral I should have anticipated the shock of the full gravity environment,” Dutch said, its voice sounding embarrassed. “Like Saffia said before, we’re still new at this.”

  “Welcome to wonderland,” Ch
ancellor Roja said. “I’d say you’ll get used to it but that’s probably a lie.”

  “I assume someone on that end called this meeting?” the chancellor said.

  “That would be me,” Jeph said. “I think we can stop Odysseus dead, but it will be a hard decision to make. I think the three of you need to make the call to do it.” He nodded at each of the chancellors around the table.

  “What does this involve?” Ariqat said, turning in his chair. He was clearly trying not to let his emotional reactions show.

  “I understand that the Tahrat Shan-che is functionally similar to the Tacra Un,” Jeph said. “This means you can generate the shada ahn ekahta since Ian says they’re coupled to the ashat nuko.”

  Chei nodded. “He and I discussed that possibility, so I assume it’s true. Why?” He grinned as the lights came on in his mind. “Oh I get it.”

  “I don’t,” Roja said.

  “Me either.” Saf nodded.

  The shada ahn ekahta is the shockwave that the Tacra Un used to make first contact. It blew out Dutch’s quantum core,” he said. “He’s suggesting that we could use it to kill Odysseus.”

  “It was a temporary effect and apparently directional,” Dutch said.

  “Shada ahn ekahta-nuko,” Ian said, appearing in a standing position behind Jeph. “A field variation cando, no?”

  “Wait, what are you talking about doing?” Tana said.

  “We could create a field pulse of quantum gravity and shut down every quantum processor simultaneously across Zone One,” Chei said. “It would shut Odysseus off everywhere at the same time. At least until the systems restarted.”

  “Didn’t that knock the bejezus out of you though?” Roja asked “We can’t do that to everyone in the union, it would kill millions.”

  “Dutch didn’t start restoring until after the last pulse, so it doesn’t have to be so … loud,” Chei said.

  “Are you talking about shutting every quantum hybrid core down? Everywhere?” Quintana asked. “That would be chaos for days.”

  “Yes, but better than tyranny for decades,” Ariqat said.

  “FleetCom already has protocols in place to keep operational without its AA systems in the event of Odysseus infiltrating,” Nakamiru said. “We could render aid to critical infrastructure until systems can be restored.”

  “But Odysseus lives in the cracks between systems,” Saf said, shaking her head. “Once the core’s reinitialize, it would simply reassert itself.”

  “I can design a hunter-killer code element that would seek and destroy instances of Odysseus,” Dutch said. “While it was deploying, we could maintain regular pulses to lock down any place it would attempt to manifest.”

  “I know you’re plenty fast now,” she said, “but do you think you can out think Odysseus?”

  “With the hardware I currently occupy, I scored 360 on the standard logic diagnostic,” Dutch said. “In thirty-eight microseconds.”

  Saf gasped. “So contractions came easy for you I guess. I withdraw my question.”

  “You know Odysseus better than any of us,” Tana said. “Do you think it could work?”

  “If the pulse does what they say, then yes, maybe,” she said. “But like the admiral said. We’ll be bombing humanity back into the dark ages. Even if it is only for a few days.”

  “Do we have any other choice?” Roja said. “I say we should try.”

  “I concur,” Ariqat said.

  Tana sat and stared at the table for almost a minute before she nodded. “A little more darkness, to end the night.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  FleetCom Military Operations Center: Lunar L-2 Shipyard:

  The lights went out. Everywhere.

  “Put me through to main engineering,” Quintana said, tapping his com officer on the shoulder and laughing as he came clear out of the chair. In the dim back-up lights, no one had seen him reappear on the Command Deck and many of his staff members gasped in shock. It had worried them when he vanished without warning, but his reappearance was even more unsettling.

  “Yes, sir,” Ducat said, snagging the back of his seat and pulling himself back to the console.

  “Engineering, Pacheco,” the chief engineer said as the comlink opened.

  “Raff, you’ll need to hard-down Boss until further notice, the hybrid core is going to keep resetting,” Quintana said. “You’ll also need to station teams on the primary power breakers. They’re going to trip every thirty minutes for the next several days.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Magic. Just do it,” he said, grinning. “Do we have ship-to-ship com yet?”

  “Just now,” the com officer said.

  “Good. Relay those same instructions to every ship in Zone One. Have them all put their AA on hard down and make sure they keep them that way until we send the all clear.” He turned away, but stopped. “Oh and tell them to bring their broadstream back online. They will be receiving core code updates as soon as they are ready to receive.”

  “Yes, Sir,” the com officer said.

  The lights came back up on the command deck, and Chancellor Roja floated several centimeters above the floor.

  “Welcome home Chancellor,” Admiral Quintana said. He’d been back only a minute and his command staff had barely absorbed his abrupt appearance, when her arrival pushed them all back into chaos.

  “Is com up yet?” she asked, winking at him as they shared a private joke at the expense of his people.

  “Yes ma’am,” Gabriel Ducat recovered his voice first. The OpsCom station was still down. “What the hell happened?”

  “Hopefully, we killed Odysseus,” she said. “As soon as we’ve got signal through the relays, patch me through to Galileo. I want to talk to Derek Tomlinson. It’s time for this to end.”

  ConDeck of the Mistique: Above L-4 Prime:

  Commodore Atwater bellowed orders across the deck. His command crew were scattered across two decks, but normally that wasn’t an issue because his com system was integrated with his AA and he had total access to his staff no matter what station they occupied.

  The Mistique had once been the personal cruiser of the Prime Minister of the Union and because it was state-of-the art in its operational days, it had become the command ship of the Unaligned Fleet. It was lean and fast, and perhaps a bit light for a command cruiser, but they’d kept it out of the heat of the battle by assuming a position far enough away to stay safe from everything. Except these new weapons.

  “What’s going on?” he barked, still staring at his screen in disbelief. It was dark. And so was every other one on the ship as far as he could tell. “Somebody tell me what hit us.”

  “I don’t know,” Captain Clark said. She was standing beside him anchored to the deck by her maglocks and holding onto a strap in the overhead. “We’re on backup power. Engineering says it will take a few minutes to get the engines and reactors online.”

  “It has to be an electromagnetic pulse weapon,” he said. “Hit the breakers first.”

  The lights flickered and the control consoles around him lit up. “That’s more like it,” he growled. “Do we have com?”

  “Ship to ship is coming up now,” the com officer hollered.

  “Good as soon as we’re up patch me through to—”

  “Commodore, we’ve got a message coming in on local com,” she said. “Authenticating command codes now.”

  “Is it the Steward?” he asked. He needed to talk to Lassiter and make him understand that they needed to withdraw and regroup. 401 ships are too many to lose and still keep pressing the fight.

  “No Sir,” the com officer said, her voice sounding surprised. “The ident is for Tamir bin Ariqat.”

  “Chancellor Ariqat?” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “He’s dead.”

  “Apparently not. The handshake is legit.”

  “Where’s Lassiter?”

  “He’s not responding on the inter-ship net.”

  “Maybe hi
s ship is still down,” the commodore suggested. Lassiter’s location in the fleet was a guarded secret, and he only spoke to issue orders across the network. No one knew which ship was his, so it couldn’t be the target of a counterstrike. It was a novel tactic, but it did give him the best chance of survival since he would have been the object of Roja’s focused hatred.

  “Ariqat just upgraded the com status to Urgent Command Order,” the com officer said.

  “Put it through, but keep trying to raise the Steward, I don’t like this.”

  “Yes Sir,” she said.

  “This is Commodore Atwater,” he said as Ariqat’s face appeared on his screen. It did look like the chancellor.

  “This is Tamir bin Ariqat. I am ordering you to command all unaligned ships to stand down immediately.”

  “Why would we do that, sir?” Atwater asked.

  “You were lead into battle under false pretenses,” he said. “We have reason to believe that Steward Lassiter is dead. I am hereby countermanding any standing orders given by either Paulson Lassiter or Derek Tomlinson. You should be receiving my command authorization now.”

  “I don’t believe he is dead. His ship is offline because of whatever weapon they used against us, but it doesn’t appear to do permanent damage. Until we know for sure his status, the Steward is in command of this mission.”

  “The command code checks out,” his com officer said.

  “Paulson Lassiter was never in command of the mission,” he said. “You have been following the orders of a sophisticated AA system called Odysseus.”

  “Respectfully, Chancellor Ariqat, or whoever you are, I’ve spoken to the Steward several times since we have arrived here.”

  “No, you have spoken to an avatar. A computer generated simulation of Lassiter. He is dead.”

  “That’s not possible,” the commodore said, slapping his hand down on the console to mute the audio. “Are you sure Ariqat’s command authorizations check out?”

  “Yes sir,” she said. “They’re really legit.”

  He punched the button again. “I have confirmed codes from Paulson Lassiter too. Give me some reason to think I should disregard the last weeks working with the Steward and take your word for it.”