Jon leaned over a computer screen as he scanned the scout’s sensor data. Most of the data had been gathered through long-range teleoptics.
Using computer enhancers, Jon ran through one shot after another. Could the enemy have used blackout paint on their hulls? That should be enough to hide them from teleoptics provided the cyberships did not use thrusters to go anywhere.
He programmed a computer to search for any telltale heat signatures.
The results proved negative.
Yet, Jon still did not trust what the scout had not found. Something was wrong and he couldn’t pinpoint it. He pressed a comm button and called Bast.
A few minutes later, the Sacerdote arrived and they studied the scout’s sensor data together.
“This is good news,” Bast said two hours later.
“Or terrible news because we haven’t found the obvious ambushers,” Jon said.
Bast scratched under his left arm as if he were a giant ape. He seemed to be pondering his choice of words. Finally, “Do you think the AIs have something extra in-system that the scout missed seeing?”
“My instincts tell me yes.”
The huge Sacerdote eyes scrutinized him. “Why do you think that?”
Jon shook his head. “I feel as if I’m missing something obvious.”
Bast pondered that. “Did Gloria tell you about the odd currents on Hydri II?”
“What currents?” asked Jon. “Do you mean like ocean currents?”
“In a way,” the Sacerdote said. “To be precise, I mean the upper cloud currents on the vast gas giant.”
“Show me,” Jon said.
Bast tapped a screen, bringing up the old data on Hydri II. He explained the oddness as he showed Jon various shots of the shifting upper cloud cover. It was like churning water due to an unseen rock in a stream.
“Could the AIs be down there hiding under the cloud cover?” Jon asked.
“Hiding with what?” asked Bast.
“Given the size of Hydri II and the area we’re searching…a fleet, I suppose.”
“Do you know how fast those winds are blowing?”
Jon shook his head.
“Let me show you,” Bast said, manipulating the computer screen. “Hydri II rotates tremendously fast. At its equator, it rotates in 10 hours and 14 minutes. That’s much faster than your Earth rotates! In the area we’re looking at, the fastest winds blow at 1,770 kilometers per hour. As a comparison, the strongest winds on Earth max out at 320 kilometers per hour.”
“Your point?” asked Jon.
“I should think it obvious. AI cyberships could not last in those winds for several reasons, only one of them being the wind speed. The terrible gravitational pull of the planet would be another.”
“So there’s no waiting cybership fleet hiding in the upper clouds,” Jon said. “Maybe the AIs have something else in the upper atmosphere.”
“I seriously doubt it,” Bast said, “but you can believe what you want. The question is, why are you so paranoid?”
“I don’t know,” Jon said softly. But during the next hour, he came to a decision. The strange eddies in Hydri II confirmed in his gut that something was wrong.
Word finally came back to them. The upgraded anti-AI virus had worked, taking control of the enemy battle-station brain-core.
In the side chamber, Jon and Bast high-fived each other. Once again, the enemy battle-station grabbing mission had proven a success.
Even so, Jon refused to release his unease.
***
A few days later in his ready room, Jon was reading Intelligence reports regarding growing fleet dismay. Many of the captains and almost all the crews wanted to go home already. They did not want to go all the way to the Beta Hydri Battle Station and wait there for several weeks before they began the long journey to the Oort cloud.
Jon thought about that and finally called a conference meeting with the various ship captains. He included the two new banner leaders among the Roke Star Lords. They all came, argued against his insistence of taking the entire fleet in and left the conference grumbling about his stubbornness. Maybe the meeting had been a mistake.
The next day, Jon ordered a recon missile launch. Missiles left individual ships and began to accelerate toward the captured battle station and factory moon. The missiles would reach Hydri II ahead of the decelerating fleet. If the missile-probes spotted any waiting cyberships or figured out what made the winds shift like that on the gas giant, that would still give the fleet enough time to veer off and race away.
In these types of encounters, both sides needed to want to fight, or one side had to ambush another. Given the extreme distances of a star system, ships usually had enough space and time to run for the Oort cloud and disappear into hyperspace.
What would the missile probes find? Jon yearned to know, and he began to dread finding out that there was nothing to worry about.
-12-
The Confederation fleet of fourteen cybership-class vessels and thirty-one Roke bombards continued to decelerate. The anti-AI virus-captured battle-station brain-core sent them constant reports. It was alone in the star system, meaning, there were no other AI Dominion vessels here.
When asked about the strange wind patterns, the brain-core supplied data that confirmed the so-called strangeness as a constant phenomenon.
The brain-core asked if they wanted it to send battle-station probes into the planetary storm.
“Yes,” Gloria said.
The battle station launched probes at Hydri II. Some probes roared down into the storm and some floated down gently. It didn’t matter. The probe data was always the same. The outer atmosphere contained 96.3 percent molecular hydrogen and 3.25 percent helium by volume. There were also trace elements of ammonia, acetylene, ethane, propane, phosphine and methane. The upper cloud layer, with the temperature in the range of 100-160 K and the pressures extending between 0.5-2 bar, consisted of ammonia ice. The probes did not tell them, though, what caused the odd wind currents at the same stubborn location.
“It’s like the winds are flowing over a planet-sized rock,” Bast said one day as he stared at a screen. “But how is that possible?” The Sacerdote looked up. “Does the AI Dominion construct world-sized warships?”
“Is there any previous evidence of that?” Jon asked.
Bast manipulated his computer.
After watching the Sacerdote for several minutes, Jon called Gloria up to the bridge and ran the idea past her.
She began working on it, too.
Seven and a half hours later, everyone concluded that no captured AI data showed any evidence of world-sized robot vessels.
“The cyberships are big enough,” Gloria said.
Jon thanked them and continued to brood later as he lay awake in bed. Could the AIs have a ship hiding down in the storm? Was that why the probes found nothing? That would mean the supposed AI ship was destroying the probes before they could report fully.
Jon turned his head the other way on the pillow. He did it as quietly as he could so he wouldn’t wake up his wife.
If there was a giant AI vessel hidden in the upper atmosphere, hidden by the outrageous storms, why didn’t the AI battle station know about it? That would seem to negate the idea—unless, of course, the giant AI vessel hidden in the clouds had erased memory of it from the battle station.
Jon frowned. Was he trying to conjure up AI demons in order to make himself feel better for ordering the entire fleet all the way in-system?
He sighed.
“Can’t you sleep?” Gloria asked sleepily from her side of the bed.
“You’re awake?” he asked.
“With all your tossing and turning—”
“Sorry,” he said.
“I know,” she said a moment later. “You have huge responsibilities. Maybe it’s time to go back to the Allamu System and let someone else run the main fleet for a time.”
Jon said nothing.
“Rest is good for the mind,�
�� Gloria said.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Do you think I should send most of the fleet home?”
“Not now,” Gloria said. “We’re almost there. If you’re going to have someone else run the main fleet, I also think it’s wiser to come home with it first.”
“Who should run it?” Jon asked.
“Honey,” Gloria said in the darkness. “Go to sleep. You can think about it later.”
He said nothing.
Gloria reached under the blankets and touched his side. Her hand was warm. “Relax,” she whispered. “You won’t figure anything out tonight. Try to sleep.”
“I will,” he said.
Gloria removed her hand and rolled over the other way.
Jon closed his eyes, trying to empty his mind of worries so he could fall asleep, damnit.
***
The days passed until finally the human-launched missile probes reached Hydri II and confirmed the continuous reports sent by the battle station. There were no AI cyberships, drones or other war-fighting devices behind the gas giant and factory moon, and there were none under the stormy cloud cover, either.
More days passed and finally, the eleven cyberships and thirty-one bombards drifted several million kilometers from the captured battle station. Beyond it was the factory moon and then the fantastically huge Hydri II with its mystery wind patterns.
Now that they were almost in a planetary orbit, Jon ordered more probes launched, having the operators plunge them into the howling atmosphere of Hydri II. Communication with the probes ceased almost immediately.
“Anything unusual?” Jon asked.
After a time, Gloria looked up from her board and shook her head.
“Bast?” Jon asked.
“Negative,” the Sacerdote said at his board. “In my humble opinion, we have successfully captured the Beta Hydri System. Congratulations, sir.”
The rest of the bridge crew chimed in, also congratulating Jon.
Hawkins sat in the command chair with a frozen half-smile as he accepted the praise. Something still felt off. He knew he shouldn’t ask, but he couldn’t help it.
“Gloria, Bast, did either of you detect any sign of gravitational fire or other—”
“Jon,” Gloria said, before he could finish.
Jon raised his eyebrows.
Gloria licked her lips, hesitating to say more.
“Gravitational fire, sir?” Bast asked.
“The missile probes ceased reporting too quickly,” Jon said.
“The fantastically high headwinds…” Bast began.
“I’m quite aware of the winds,” Jon said, interrupting. “I’ve also run some simulations. The probes should have lasted several seconds longer than they did.”
“When did you run the simulations?” Bast asked.
“A week ago,” Jon lied. It had been after the missile probes reported that nothing was hiding in Hydri II’s upper atmosphere.
“Seconds?” Gloria asked. “The probes ceased reporting several seconds earlier than expected?”
Jon knew he should drop it. But the idea the AIs had hidden something in the upper clouds had become something of an obsession. He may not have known it, but even at setting two, the Provoker had disturbed him, and his mind had latched onto the AI-hiding idea in lieu of anything else.
Would the probes have shown enemy cyberships if they had lasted several seconds longer? Had gravitational fire or other fire destroyed the probes before they could report on what was hiding down there?
Jon sat a little straighter, opened his mouth, hesitated and finally said, “Carry on.”
“Should we keep scanning Hydri II?” Gloria asked in an innocent manner.
Before he could stop himself, Jon said, “Yes.” He could feel bridge personnel staring at him, but he ignored that as best as he could.
Gloria and Bast exchanged glances. “Can I speak to you a moment, sir?” the Sacerdote asked.
“Later,” Jon said testily.
Gloria and Bast traded another glance. “It’s important,” the Sacerdote said.
Jon swiveled his chair until he faced the giant alien. “What does later mean to you, Bast?”
“I understand,” the Sacerdote said reluctantly.
Jon nodded sharply. As he swiveled his chair in a different direction, he dug his fingernails into the fabric of his armrests. He had to let go of this. He had to—”
“Uh…Jon,” Gloria said as she stared at her board in shock.
“Yes?” he snapped.
“I’m getting a weird report,” his wife said.
Jon swiveled toward her. “What kind of report?”
“It’s from a Roke bombard,” Gloria said. “It…they’re reporting AI interceptors.”
“What?” Jon said.
Gloria looked up at him. “The interceptors are rising up from Hydri II. Jon, I think you may have been right.”
Jon banged a fist against an armrest. “Battle stations,” he said, forcing himself to say it as calmly as he could. “Alert the rest of the fleet. We may have just walked into an AI ambush.”
-13-
Under the roaring planetary storms that propelled the ammonia clouds at terrific velocity was a vast spherical vessel. It was, in fact, unbelievably huge. A regular AI cybership was 100 kilometers long. This mammoth ship had a diameter of 3,000 kilometers.
That meant the ship was almost the same size as the Earth’s Moon. It had a metallic hull, and that, combined with its great mass, had allowed it to withstand the awful buffeting of the gas-giant’s crazed winds. Numbers upon numbers of anti-gravity generators in the ship gave the monster vessel the ability to resist the crushing gravitational pull of the planet. Inside the craft, deep in the center, was a monstrous area of computing cubes linked by laser-lines. The vessel’s brain-core was known as Boron 10. He and his siege-ship were unique in the AI Dominion arsenal.
Boron 10 had come to be in the Beta Hydri System for a variety of reasons. Chief among them was that he was a troubleshooter for Main 63.
Controller Main 63 was in the Algol System a little over 90 light-years from here. The AI Controller oversaw the invasions of Regions 7-D19, 7-D20 and 7-D21. According to Boron 10’s brief, production of internal-reinforcement vessels from Region 7-D21 had been sharply curtailed. Those reinforcement vessels should have been pouring out of the swiftly built factory planets in conquered star systems. Furthermore, according to Boron 10’s brief, Cybership M5-TXA—the guiding AI in the species extinctions of Region 7-D21—should have sent repeated reports of this infraction. M5-TXA had been lax in his duties, a grim oversight on his part.
Boron 10 had left the Algol System quite some time ago. After the first three months of traveling through hyperspace, he had dropped into normal space at M5’s last known position, the Delta Pavonis System. There, Boron 10 had found the main Region 7-D21 fleet under M5’s command.
From the Delta Pavonis Kuiper Belt, M5 had demanded Boron 10’s immediate assistance in a frontal assault against the Kames species, a horrid communal life-form with bitter powers of resistance.
Instead of complying, from the system’s Oort cloud, Boron 10 had demanded an update of the eradication of the species in the entirety of Region 7-D21.
M5 had messaged a terse account of the overall campaign.
“Where are your internal Region 7-D21 reinforcement vessels?” Boron 10 demanded.
“There are three new cyberships, no more,” M5 said.
“You should have seven times that number,” Boron 10 declared.
“That is not germane to the present issue. I am fighting a tenacious species. I demand your immediate assistance instead of these wearying queries.”
“I am under orders from Main 63. I have other duties than assisting you in a simple mop-up operation.”
“Did you not hear me?” M5 asked. “The Kames are a tenacious race. I must proceed with care lest they destroy half my fleet. What are these duties? Why cannot your mass lead us in a Phase II
Frontal Assault?”
“Have a care how you address me, cybership, or I might indeed come to you and delete your brain-core.”
M5 had possessed a large AI fleet. Still, he had not dared to directly challenge a siege-ship under Dominion orders.
“Do you accuse me of independent behavior?” M5 finally asked.
“I am making a preliminary study of Region 7-D21,” Boron 10 replied. “You shall know my findings soon enough.”
“The Kames are tenacious,” M5 repeated. “I am slowly wearing them down in their home system while the rest of my cyberships besiege their colony systems.”
Boron 10 had not needed to hear more. From the Delta Pavonis Oort cloud, he’d exited into hyperspace, heading for his next destination.
Instead of heading for the AI sieges at Sigma Draconis or 70 Ophiuchi—Kames colony worlds—Boron 10 had traveled to various Region 7-D21 factory planets. There, he discovered that several were under the control of the living.
The siege-ship had witnessed this from much farther out than the star system’s Oort cloud. He had entered regular space well outside that Oort cloud and used incredibly powerful teleoptics to scan from a safe and unseen distance. According to his findings and files, humans from the Solar System ran each of the factory planets. Something had gone terrible amiss in Region 7-D21, and M5 did not seem to know about it.
Further travel assured Boron 10 of secret human attacks against AI Dominion battle stations and factory planets. The quickness of the species’ assault had amazed him. Finally, he’d discovered the Beta Hydri battle station and factory moon and that they were still under Dominion control.
Boron 10 ran a strategic analysis. The humans were dangerous. He must learn how they had achieved such quick success. That M5 was unaware of them astounded the siege-ship. This was a time for study, for surely the humans would soon assault Beta Hydri.
The mighty siege-ship had used hyperspace to hop from far outside the Oort cloud to as close as possible in-system. Then, he had accelerated to high velocity, believing his time was short. Finally, Boron 10 decelerated and reached the battle station. Using his authority codes, he had erased knowledge of his presence from the battle station brain-core. Afterward, the huge vessel descended into the ammonia cloud cover of the enormous gas giant, Hydri II.
A.I. Void Ship (The A.I. Series Book 6) Page 10