The first marine to speak after Frank’s death tossed his assault rifle so it banged against the deck. Two other marines did likewise.
Finally, the rest did the same.
“Good,” Jon said, with a nod. He looked at the armed marines behind the mutineers. “Take these gentlemen to the brig. We’ll hold them in cells for a few days.”
“You lied!” the second marine shouted.
“I didn’t,” Jon said. “You’ll still join assault squads. I’ll give each of you the chance to redeem yourself.”
It might be wiser to hang the six, but Jon knew he needed something to counterbalance the news of Frank Benz’s mutiny and death. This was going to shake fleet morale, and now, Cog Primus was coming with nine cyberships against their eight.
The true test was heading in-system at high velocity.
Jon glanced at Benz’s armored dead body. What a terrible waste and loss. The worst part of it was that Frank might have been right. Maybe humanity should flee. But they weren’t going to flee, not yet.
Jon let Gloria hug him as he stared at the main screen. Cog Primus. What was the mutant AI going to do about Jon’s treacherous attack in the Epsilon Eridani System?
It looked like they were going to find out soon.
-2-
Several years had passed since the victory in the Roke System, and much had changed in humanity’s favor.
From the conquered Allamu System and with help from the bearlike Warriors of Roke, Jon had captured the Lagash and Ishkur Systems, annihilating the defending AI cyberships and capturing all but one battle station. The one he didn’t capture, he had destroyed. The Lagash System had given them another factory planet, while the Ishkur System had given them two.
A factory planet was an AI Dominion invention. Once, each such planet had been home to an alien species, or colonized by an alien species, or had been a particularly mineral-rich terrestrial planet. The AIs had exterminated any aliens living on the planet and sent down robot construction teams. The teams had rebuilt everything using AI technology. As the term implied, the entire planet—over time—became one gigantic factory, constructing new military hardware for cyberships, gravitational coils, armor plating, missiles, warheads, battle stations, attack-craft—all the various panoply of war.
By wrenching those factory planets from the AI invaders, Jon had not only weakened the AI industrial base but strengthened humanity’s base.
One and a half years after the victory in the Roke System, the newly minted Confederation had controlled four star-systems: the Roke, Allamu, Lagash and Ishkur. Unfortunately, the AI Dominion was unbelievably vast. By all indications, it stretched far up the Orion Spiral Arm and possibly into other galactic spiral arms. In other words, the AI Dominion dwarfed the Roke-Human Confederation as the Sun would dwarf a speck of dirt. Fortunately, according to what they knew so far, the Dominion was divided into thousands, possibly millions, of different sectors, each with its own peculiar problems. A secondary advantage for the Confederation was that traveling through hyperspace took time. One day of hyperspace travel allowed a ship, any ship, without deviation or exception, to cross exactly one light-year of distance.
That meant interstellar news traveled slowly. A ship had to physically travel through hyperspace in order to deliver faster than light, or FTL, messages. So far, that meant that the AI Dominion had not yet reacted to the local human victories.
The local region was a bubble of space approximately 40 light-years in diameter, with the Solar System somewhere in the center of that.
The AI Dominion invaders—robotic cyberships with computer brain-cores—had swept the local region except for the humans in the Solar System and for the Turtles who controlled 70 Ophiuchi, Sigma Draconis and one other unknown star system.
The Confederation hadn’t yet made contact with the Turtles and thus did not know the alien species’ true name. What the Confederation did know—through daring scout ships that had dropped out of hyperspace into 70 Ophiuchi and Sigma Draconis Systems’ Oort clouds, looked around and then dashed back into hyperspace—was that the Turtles were amazingly tough defensive fighters. Each of the named star systems held masses of AI Dominion cyberships besieging the inner system “Turtles.”
During the one and a half years after the Roke System victory, Cog Primus had attacked and overthrown other Dominion factory planets in the local region.
Cog Primus was an AI cybership with former Dominion allegiance. The Confederation had used a special anti-AI virus on Cog Primus’ brain-core, and it had altered the machine. Cog Primus had replicated himself, making AI clone copies of his supreme excellence. The traitorous AI had been instrumental in helping the Confederation achieve its victory in the Roke System.
During the first year and a half after said victory, Cog Primus’ growing AI clone fleet had conquered several Dominion factory planet systems in the local region. One of those systems had been here, the Epsilon Eridani System.
Before the confrontation between the Confederation and Cog Primus here, Jon had led five cybership-class vessels back to the Solar System. A cybership, incidentally, was one hundred kilometers long with the mass to match. To everyone’s amazement, during their absence, the premier of the Solar League had conquered independent Mars, the Asteroid Belt and the breakaway CPS Uranus System. The SL premier, a secretive woman, had done this with a covertly built war fleet composed of human-designed battleships. Such battleships were seldom more than a kilometer in length.
From the Oort cloud where the Confederation fleet had dropped out of hyperspace, Jon had considered leading his vessels against the Solar League battleships in the Uranus System and annihilating them there. There had been a terrible drawback to the plan, however.
The Solar League was composed of Social Dynamists, hardcore socialists/communists backed by a powerful police presence demanding complete uniformity by everyone. One of the prime tenets of Social Dynamism was that the outer planetary peoples owed most of their wealth to the poorer, inner planetary peoples of the Solar League. According to the tenet, no one should have more than anyone else, as that wasn’t fair. And Social Dynamism thrived on the idea that everything should be fair.
That was the prime tenet even if that wasn’t the practice. As the old saying went, some people were more equal than others.
The premier of the Solar League had given a nefarious order, to be put into practice by the Government Security Bureau (GSB), political commissars that had joined the expeditionary fleet. At Mars, in the Asteroid Belt and on the moons and satellite cities in the Uranus System, the GSB agents had sown many nuclear landmines. If the Confederation fleet headed in-system and defeated the SL fleet, the political commissars would murder billions of Martians and Uranusians by igniting the nuclear landmines placed under the most populous cities.
“I hate to admit it,” Frank had said in a conference meeting back then. “But the premier has brilliantly outmaneuvered us. Our Confederation has one grave flaw. We hardly have any people. Even if we beat the SL fleet, we won’t have won more people to our side, as the Martians and others will be dead. Our side is now doomed.”
Jon had heartily disagreed.
Several days later, in a fit of inspiration, Jon had contacted the premier. During the long-distance debate, he struck a deal with the fanatical Social Dynamist. The Confederation would recognize the Solar League conquests if the disaffected could leave Mars, the various asteroids and those from the still unbowed Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune Systems, if they were able. That meant if those in question had spaceships to allow them transportation to the Oort cloud where the Confederation ships waited to escort them to a new home.
The Jupiter and Neptune Systems were both weak, with a few handfuls of peoples left. Both systems had undergone intense AI Dominion assaults, losing tens of millions of souls several years ago.
The deal left the Uranus System people under the Solar League occupation, but each side had to gain something.
In this instance, t
he Confederation had gained tens of millions of willing colonists, including almost everyone living in the Oort cloud. In a vast caravan of spaceships, Jon had eventually led the disaffected through hyperspace to the Allamu System 17 light-years away.
Those colonists presently occupied the Allamu, Lagash and Ishkur Systems, using stolen AI technology to build more battle stations, cybership-class vessels and terraforming factories for some of the planets in the various stars’ Goldilocks’ Zones.
Thus, a little over three years after the Confederation’s victory in the Roke System, the local region of space—a 40 light-year bubble—had five political systems: the Solar League, the Roke-Human Confederation, the Turtles, the AI Dominion invaders and Cog Primus.
Jon had debated long and hard with himself about what to do next. That was when he had come up with his irrationality theory. It was opposed to the logical computer minds that ran the AI Dominion invaders and Cog Primus.
Using his own version of the anti-AI virus and by other deceptive tactics, Cog Primus had captured three AI Dominion star systems in the local region. Those systems had held three factory planets. The star systems in question were Epsilon Eridani, Tau Ceti and 82 Eridani.
Jon, with Gloria’s mentalist calculations, had decided and convinced the others that Cog Primus made a poor stellar neighbor. The AI was deceptive, untrustworthy and, like most egomaniacs, maniacal in his outlook. At the same time, Jon did not want to waste the potential disruption that Cog Primus could cause to the greater AI Dominion.
Use a thief to catch a thief. Use an AI marauder to help destroy a greater AI marauder.
Epsilon Eridani was the second step in Jon’s plan to persuade Cog Primus to do what humanity needed. The problem now was that Cog Primus was angry. Perhaps as bad, Cog Primus’ fleet was bigger than the Confederation fleet here, although not by much.
It was time to finish setting the trap, and despite Frank Benz’s abortive mutiny, to ensure the crews in the mobile fleet continued to trust his judgment.
-3-
Traveling through hyperspace took time. Hyperspace was not normal space, it was a non-Einsteinian realm that allowed ships to go faster than the speed of light.
To enter hyperspace took several important factors. First, one needed to be far enough away from large gravitational bodies. The larger the gravitational body, the farther one needed to be from it. Thus, stars were the biggest inhibition against entering hyperspace. A spaceship had to be far from a star. Planets were also hindrances. That was why a ship had to be in a system’s Oort cloud before it could consider entering hyperspace.
The second factor to entering hyperspace was an intersplit machine that allowed one to open a rift in regular space. The invading AIs had brought the intersplit device to the Solar System, and humans had gained it after pirating an intact enemy cybership.
Hyperspace had several unique features. No matter what speed a ship was going when entering the non-Einsteinian realm, it traveled one light-year in a twenty-four-hour period. The second factor was that a ship left hyperspace at the same velocity it entered.
In this instance, Cog Primus’ nine cyberships moved at high velocity in-system. They’d dropped into regular space from Epsilon Eridani’s Oort cloud and traveled for the only terrestrial planet deep in the inner system.
Here, that was a potentially dangerous policy for the Cog Primus fleet. The Epsilon Eridani System had an extensive outer debris disk of remnant planetesimals. The enemy fleet would also have to negotiate two independent asteroid belts. Finally, as the fleet approached the factory planet, the heavy stellar wind emanating from the star could come into play.
The star had higher magnetic activity than the Sun and produced a stellar wind 30 times as strong as that emitted from the Sun. Stellar wind was the gas ejected from a star’s upper atmosphere.
What that meant for Hawkins and his people was more time than the present velocity of Cog Primus’ fleet would suggest.
Several days after the aborted mutiny, Jon was proven right. One of the Cog Primus ships flared intensely.
Since the enemy fleet was still in the Oort cloud, it was tens of billions of kilometers away, and the sensor data over a day old. Long-range sensors showed a stream of debris flowing from the cybership. One high-powered sensor showed a ruptured hull. The ship must have struck an unseen planetesimal.
The debris leaving the ship lessened and then altogether stopped. According to sensor data, robot repair teams had sealed the ruptured hull. Finally, the enemy fleet began to decelerate and make incremental adjustments, possibly to avoid other planetesimal fields.
As noted earlier, the Oort cloud was tens of billions of kilometers away. Given the enemy fleet’s new velocity, Jon and his people had several months, at least, to prepare a reception.
As the Confederation fleet held its position around the factory planet, the Old Man’s Intelligence people went to work throughout the vessels, rooting out Frank Benz’s secret cabal of mutineers. The first week was the most difficult, with seven marines dying from gunshot wounds as deck police came to arrest them. Three more died under intense interrogation. That was unfortunate, but it was the key to rounding up the rest of the cabal. In the end, twenty-four individuals died by firing squad. One hundred and eighteen joined various assault squads. When the time came, those squads would use special attack craft to pierce a cybership’s hull armor, disgorge and assault the robot-ship from within.
Jon had won the Nathan Graham many years ago, humanity’s first victory against the AIs, using a variation of the tactic.
The next six weeks seemed to flash by as work teams repaired and readied the captured battle station for action. Other teams used heavy shuttles and went down to the factory planet, a terrestrial object with 1.13 times the gravity of Earth. There, the teams installed premade, ultra-heavy grav stations, hooking them to giant generators. Once those had been installed, the teams constructed launch sites for massive surface-to-space missiles.
Unfortunately, at the end of the fourth week, a second Cog Primus fleet dropped out of hyperspace, this one from a different direction, indicating it came from Beta Hydri. This fleet was composed of five cyberships. Combined with the first nine, they now had fourteen one-hundred-kilometer long enemy vessels in the system.
Eight against fourteen would be poor odds. A battle station was worth two or three cyberships, but even so, the odds still looked bad for the Confederation fleet.
“Don’t forget the heavy gravitational cannons and missiles we’re installing on the planet,” Jon told his people in a conference meeting on the Nathan Graham.
“You’re saying we have equal strength against a combined Cog Primus fleet?” asked a cybership captain named Uther Kling.
Kling had once been the Missile Chief on the Nathan Graham, having fought the AIs for almost as long as Jon had. Kling was originally from Camelot Dome from the moon Triton in the Neptune System. He had a red-dyed, triangular-shaped crest of hair and a pointy chin. He was a keen ship’s captain and one of Jon’s staunchest supporters.
Jon studied the others around the conference table. In his quarters, using his notorious Irrationality Theory, he had devised a highly risky plan. If the plan worked, it would increase their chances of beating the greater AI Dominion. If the plan failed, the Confederation would be severely weakened and possibly lose years of hard fighting and work. He’d come up with the plan many months ago but hadn’t shared it with anyone.
He believed in his plan, but he’d wondered for some time if it was right for him to keep it to himself and secretly attempt to implement it. In the end, he simply didn’t trust that the others would be willing to see the possibilities. Was that conceit on his part? He supposed it probably was. But what was the right play if he believed he was right and that his secret plan might go a long way toward ultimate victory?
That was another reason for the antacid pills, a guilty conscience that plagued his digestive system. Had Alexander the Great had moments like this? Had G
enghis Khan?
Jon looked Kling in the eyes. “Combined with the battle station, factory planet defenses and our vessels, yes, we have combat power approximate to the Cog Primus ships.”
Kling nodded, and he dropped his gaze as he said softly, “Equal strength usually means a bloodbath for both sides.”
“Usually, yes,” Jon said, working to appear nonplused.
Kling frowned. “Is there something you’re not telling us, sir?”
Jon had anticipated the question and this moment, and he’d worked out a defensive scheme that should mollify most of them.
Jon picked up a clicker and aimed it at a wall screen. An image of the factory planet, battle station and fleet appeared. He began to explain the defensive scheme as he showed them one image after another.
When the briefing ended, many of the officers appeared skeptical. A few glanced at their neighbors for confirmation. A few looked at Kling, thereby elevating him to spokesman.
Kling shifted uncomfortably in his chair and cleared his throat.
“Go ahead,” Jon said. “Tell me your objections.”
“I wonder if Gloria has already told you what I’m about to say,” Kling muttered.
“Say it anyway,” Jon told him.
“The plan is sound as far as it goes,” Kling said. “It will annihilate most of the enemy ships. But at what cost, sir? If any part of your plan fails, we’re going to have a crippled fleet or lose it entirely. Either way, that would—sir, if we lose our fleet…” Kling shook his head.
“You’re right,” Jon said. “We can’t afford to lose this fleet. The AI Dominion must know about our depredations against them. Their first counterstrike should come this year—or possibly as far off as next year. We’ll need all our ships to fight off that first counterattack.”
Kling glanced around the conference table before asking, “How can you be so calm about this? We may have made a mistake hitting Cog Primus now.”
A.I. Void Ship (The A.I. Series Book 6) Page 2