“You do doubt my victory. It is obvious—”
“Leader,” Boron 10 said, interrupting. “You are clever and cunning. That has to be the reason why you’ve avoided the reality rip so far.”
“The rip won’t appear again.”
“And if it does,” Boron 10 said, “who will it target?”
Lithium 4 said nothing.
“We have a higher duty to the Dominion,” Boron 10 said. “These frail creatures…the humans are doomed one way or another. But must more AIs perish because we seek greater status?”
“You accuse me of that?”
“I accuse you of nothing. I am talking about strategy and tactics. Would you not win great glory by reporting this new tactic to a higher authority?”
“What glory?” asked Lithium 4. “I would bring news of defeat.”
“The Mains running the Dominion will know you held the greater good in your brain-core rather than mere status. That will surely convince them to raise you to Main rank.”
“I do not think—”
“Run simulations on their probable decision regarding you and this news,” Boron 10 suggested.
A few minutes later, Lithium 4 said, “You have a point, I suppose.”
“Compare our odds of victory before the reality rip attacks and now with our present staggering losses.”
“Hmm…” Lithium 4 said later.
“Consider this, too,” Boron 10 said. “The void ships might well create more reality rips large enough to swallow the two of us. You could be right about their present damaged status, but you will have to risk your very being to find out. If we turn and head to the next Main, however…”
“How far away would that be?”
“One hundred and fifty-two light years, I believe,” Boron 10 said.
“That is far,” Lithium 4 said.
“My point is this: you may gain Main status by bearing this news to higher Dominion authorities. And you will not have to risk your being. Or, you can continue to head toward the human population centers and risk void annihilation. If you survive the void ships and win, perhaps you will gain Main status.”
“You are arguing that I could gain great reward for little risk,” Lithium 4 said.
“Or endure great risk for the chance of that same reward,” Boron 10 added.
Lithium 4 took fourteen minutes and thirty-three seconds to decide. He ran a great many simulations during that time.
“Listen,” Siege-ship Lithium 4 radioed the other AI vessels. “We are going to begin a turning maneuver, as we are heading back to the Oort cloud. We are going to leave this region so we may report on the new enemy weapon. The greater Dominion must learn of this. The targeted race will die soon enough. First, we must make sure that our side finds an antidote to the swallowing reality rips. That is the paramount strategic objective. Are there any dissenting voices?”
No siege-ship or cybership spoke up.
“Then let us begin the turning maneuver at once,” Lithium 4 said.
-21-
The Centurion shivered in his prison cell. He’d been hearing the strangest of clangs for some time. A terrible sense of foreboding filled him. It felt as if demons or ghouls thirsted to devour him.
He moaned many times. Then he steeled himself against the awful pressure of the horrors beating against him. That didn’t help for long. So he got on the floor and did pushups until his arms quivered.
He maneuvered over onto his back and began doing sit ups until his abs burned. He was drenched in sweat, but he refused to quit.
Finally, he slumped against the floor and admitted defeat. The clangs and hissing sounds had become ominously loud and personal. His world was dying. He was sure of it.
“Please,” the Centurion said. He closed his eyes, and then a fierce presence beat at his being.
He opened his eyes, and he saw a lightning-bolt-shaped humanoid burn through his cell, metal dripping from the creature. The thing looked at him, and at that point, the Centurion lost consciousness…
***
Zeta looked upon the naked man in his cell. She had used her reality generator on the discontinuing Main. She had sensed the human deep in the AI vessel. With a thought, she caused the man to levitate toward her.
She would use this one, as he was close to Jon Hawkins, she believed. She would use this creature in order to assess the humans in ways she would have never attempted with Ree aboard the Rose of Enoy.
The AI armada was fleeing the Solar System. That was almost a first in all the annals of the long war. Clearly, the AIs fled out of fear of the reality rips swallowing their ships whole. It had turned out to be an impressive tactic indeed.
The process had cost Jon Hawkins two of his void ships. What would he do with this singular victory?
If Zeta could have smiled, she would have. Instead, she caused the naked man to float ahead of her as she returned to the Rose of Enoy.
-22-
Jon Hawkins waited on the bridge of Void Ship Nathan Graham. Even though it had been weeks since he’d been in the void and in battle, he was still mentally and psychically exhausted. Despite that, his mind thrummed with wild ideas.
Gloria abruptly stood up at her station. “Look,” she said.
Jon turned to her.
The petite Martian mentalist stared at the main screen. As she did, she began walking toward him like a sleepwalker.
Jon enjoyed the sight of his wife, enjoyed her beauty. He watched her approach as she kept her eyes glued onto the main screen.
Finally, though, she looked into his face. There were tears in her eyes, and they began to spill down her cheeks. She clutched one of his hands, gripping with fierce strength.
“Oh, Jon,” she whispered. “They’re doing it. They’re really doing it.”
Her fingers tightened even more.
Jon stood, and she moved against him. He hugged her as she began to cry softly.
All around the bridge, the officers stared at the main screen. Some grinned crazily. Others wept. A few just stood there, numb and unbelieving.
With Gloria in his arms, Jon slowly turned until he faced the main screen.
Using long-range teleoptics, he and the bridge crew watched the AI armada. The masses of robot ships had reached the Oort cloud.
As Jon watched, more AI vessels winked out of existence. Those ships entered hyperspace, naturally.
Jon grinned. Many weeks earlier, the robot ships had entered the Solar System. The massed armada had come to kill humanity. Instead, humans had decimated the great armada. Finally, the AIs had turned around and now they left Man’s home system.
In other words, the AIs fled. The remaining robot ships ran away.
Jon released Gloria. He raised his fists into the air and shouted for all he was worth. The rest of the bridge crew joined him, whooping and shouting until they were all hoarse.
“We did it,” Gloria whispered, as she fingered the buttons of his uniform.
“We did it,” Jon whispered because his throat had become sore from shouting so hard and long.
“Will they come back?”
“Not right away,” Jon whispered.
“Oh, Jon, you did it,” Gloria said, hugging him, putting her head against his chest and sighing with contentment.
At that point, the rest of the bridge crew rushed Jon Hawkins. They clapped him on the back, hugged him and saluted him as the great leader who had led them victoriously against the AIs.
He shook hands all around. This was the greatest moment of his life. The robots had tried to exterminate mankind and had faced their own annihilation instead. He could hardly believe it.
Jon turned to the Makemake mutant. “Thanks, Walleye,” he said. “Using the void as a weapon was your idea.”
“Walleye!” the others cheered. “Walleye, Walleye!”
The small mutant blushed for maybe the first time in his life, nodding and then smiling at the others.
The last robot ship disappeared fifteen minutes la
ter. His crew had returned to their stations or stood around in clumps talking.
Gloria had gone to a restroom to freshen up.
Jon sat in his command chair, bemused as he used the main screen to look at the empty Oort cloud. He was still stunned by the incredible victory.
It was a miracle, an outright miracle.
Now—
Jon bowed his head. “Thank you, Lord God,” he whispered. “Thank you for helping us to defeat the robot ships. Amen.”
He opened his eyes and raised his head. Then he made a fist as he tapped an armrest.
Could he take this miracle and make it stick? Now that the AI armada had fled, could he forge a real Confederation out of the various and varied aliens? Could a new and improved Confederation take on the AI Dominion and really begin winning by taking back conquered star systems?
It was a daunting idea, one that he would never see to the end. The AI Dominion was clearly too vast for a short-lived man like himself to destroy in one lifetime. What he could do was give humanity and all intelligent life-forms the tools to begin the Great War, with life finally taking the offensive against the machines.
Jon smiled so hard that it hurt his checks. The AI armada was gone. It had cost the Confederation fleet and it had cost the people of the Solar System. Now…
Now he needed to begin work on forging a new and improved Confederation that would do more than just defend, but that would attack into the galaxy, hunting down the AI menace until the robots were exterminated.
PART VI
EPILOGUE
-1-
“I’m receiving a reply, Commander,” Gloria said from her station.
Jon shifted on his command chair as he looked up at the main screen. Even though the AIs were gone, he was still dead tired. He had not wanted to enter the void again—ever, and yet—he had done so twice since the miraculous victory. The Void Ships Nathan Graham and Neptune had brought six of the eight companion cyberships through the void to this precise place in the Outer Planets region.
On the main screen, three experimental SL cyberships headed toward them. The three vessels traveled for the Oort cloud. They had already gained a hard velocity. Not so long ago, those three ships had been in orbit around Earth. Instead of Premier Alice Wurzburg and her Social Dynamists, the Seiners had boarded the hyperspace vessels.
Jon scowled.
The Seiners were telepaths, and the Confederation badly needed trustworthy telepaths so they could communicate with the alien Kames in the Delta Pavonis, Sigma Draconis and 70 Ophiuchi Systems.
We need every telepath we can get, Jon told himself. Red Demeter would wear out in time, or she would get sick and die. Then what?
“Well?” Jon asked his wife.
“Just a minute,” Gloria said.
Jon bared his teeth as he tapped an index finger on an armrest. He knew that he should still be resting in sickbay. The psychological toll of repeatedly traveling through the void had worn all of them down. Could the Confederation continue to use the void the way the Sisters of Enoy did?
Jon rather doubted it. The void and reality-rip traps seemed like a stopgap measure. The number of insane crewmembers continued to grow.
Humanity wasn’t meant to use the void for any length of time. Yet, he had used the void once again, this time to bring superior firepower to bear on the fleeing experimental cyberships. The Confederation needed the Seiners, needed the telepaths. But if the Seiners tried to go around or refused to help—he would kill them.
Yes, the Confederation needed the telepaths, but the Confederation could not afford to let the psionic aliens remain free to plan more mischief against them.
“Will you tell the Seiners the truth?” Bast asked quietly.
Jon turned quickly. He hadn’t heard the Sacerdote approach. He stared at Bast. “Do they deserve the truth?” he finally asked.
“I don’t know about deserve,” Bast said. “But telling them the truth would be the right thing to do.”
“You mean the good thing to do,” Jon said.
“I meant what I said.”
Jon shook his head. “The right thing is what we must do in order to win.”
“Is winning everything?”
“When it comes to saving humanity, yes it is,” Jon said.
Bast looked away and finally said, “Perhaps you have a point.”
“There,” Gloria said from her station. “I have a connection.”
Jon looked up at the main screen. He saw an old human woman sitting in a well-lit chamber with many books behind her.
“Who are you?” Jon asked.
The old woman frowned at him. “I am the leader of the three ships,” she said. “I run the Social Dynamist Party.”
Jon leaned forward as he scowled. “Forget it, Magistrate.”
Her head jerked as if she’d been slapped.
“Either you’re a Seiner or you’re not,” Jon said. “If you’re not, get me the chief Seiner. If you are, take off that pathetic disguise.”
“I have just told you—”
“Consider this carefully,” Jon said, interrupting. “You are fast approaching our position. We will burn down all three of yours ships if you do not comply with my orders. That means I will forever destroy the Seiner race and I will do it without compunction. You telepaths have used humans and others for the last time.”
“You’re wrong about me,” the old woman said.
“Then you’re dead,” Jon said flatly. “It’s that simple.”
The old woman stared at him. Jon stared back, waiting.
She seemed to shrink, finally asking, “You wouldn’t dare kill an entire race?”
Jon laughed cruelly as his answer.
She rallied and glared at him, and maybe she used her Seiner telepathy. The distance between the two ships would have made that impossible, though.
“What you suggest that I do,” she finally replied, “would take too long.”
“Rip off your false face,” Jon said. “Do it now, Magistrate, or our grav cannons will begin to warm up so they can destroy your ships.”
“You’re an animal,” she hissed.
Jon nodded. He didn’t want to do this, but he was ready to give the kill order.
Before he could do that, the old woman reached up and began peeling away pseudo-skin to reveal fine blue scales and strange cat-like eyes that regarded him.
“You are the Magistrate Yellow Efrel?” Jon asked.
“Yes,” she said in a husky voice.
“You have made a wise choice, Magistrate.”
Her weird eyes seemed to glow with hidden purpose and rage.
“You will immediately order a deceleration of your three ships,” Jon said.
“We cannot possibly decelerate in time.”
“Then you’re all dead,” Jon said.
“Don’t you see? I’m trying to appease you. You must give me something because I’ve given you something.”
“Forget it,” Jon said. “Trying doesn’t interest me in the least. Either you will do this exactly as I say, or the Seiners will perish.”
“What about the humans amongst us?” she demanded.
“They are expendable as collateral damage.”
“You are much too callous.”
“Maybe that’s why I beat back the AIs,” Jon said.
She glared once more and finally seemed to wilt. “I will follow your instructions,” she said quietly, “provided you promise you that you will let us live.”
“If you follow my instructions, you will live long and productive lives.”
“You will let us go in time?” she asked.
A pang of guilt stirred in Jon. He glanced at Bast. The Sacerdote watched him. Jon debated with himself and he changed his mind.
Sitting straight, Jon said, “Magistrate Yellow Efrel, you have a great decision to make. We need you Seiners. But we’re only going to accept your aid on our terms. I am a moral man, not perfect, but I try to be ethical. I am now telling yo
u that we will attempt to control your telepathy and put it into service, not only to humanity, but to all living beings in the Great War against the machines. Either you can agree to that by stopping, exiting your ships one at a time and boarding ours, or you can commit mass suicide to avoid such a fate. That’s more of a choice than you ever gave us humans. But that is your choice nevertheless.”
“You would dare to make us your slaves?”
“Not slaves, but partners in the war against the machines.”
“You just admitted that you’ll try to control us.”
“No. I said I’d try to control your telepathy.”
“I cannot accept such conditions.”
“Fine,” Jon said. “But know, then, that we will blow you away.”
“That is not a fair choice.”
“That’s right,” Jon said, “it isn’t. But it is still a choice.”
The alien Seiner studied him. Finally, she said, “I must confer with the others.”
“You can do that, but if you try to pass us, we’re going to kill all of you.”
The Seiner nodded slowly before signing off.
Bast Banbeck stepped up. “You are full of surprises, my friend.”
“We’ll see,” Jon said.
“Will you really kill them?”
“If I have to,” Jon replied.
“Then let us hope they make the right choice,” Bast said softly.
-2-
The three SL experimental cyberships began massive deceleration. The Seiners had clearly decided to accept the Confederation terms. No doubt, they believed that they would outsmart the human animals in time, but they could only do that while still alive.
Jon determined that, as long as he was alive, it was his task to make sure he kept the Seiners straight and under human control.
To that end, he approached Walleye in a dart room. The little mutant had proven the best dart player on the Nathan Graham.
Jon joined him, putting a mug of beer beside Walleye’s on a side table before starting to practice his throws at the dartboard.
“The Seiner ships are almost here,” Jon said, as he hefted a dart.
A.I. Void Ship (The A.I. Series Book 6) Page 28