by Brian Smith
Then it was out the door and back toward New Arizona proper and the maglev station, where she planned to catch the train down to Nuevo Rio. In the hour or so it took to get there, maybe someone could begin making sense of this mess.
F. R. Scobee Federal Building, New Arizona Habitat
Amazonis Mensa Region, Mars
The alarms went off about thirty minutes after the news broke about the destruction of Halsey Station, just long enough for the majority of government employees to report back in response to the emergency. Diane Hutton was in an office with several of her colleagues, waiting for instructions on what was going to happen next. Things were confused, to say the very least. The alarm, which sounded over the P.A. speakers in every room of the building as well as in their eardots, sent a chill of fear running through her.
“Drone swarm!” someone yelled. “We’re under attack!”
The building had its own AI, a security duty officer, and built-in defenses. None of them worked the way they were supposed to. The response to a drone-swarm attack was doctrinal: seal off the building, secure ventilation, and fire off a mil-grade electromagnetic pulse to fry the swarm. After that, defensive drones were supposed to release and mop up any leakers among the intruding bots.
Instead, the doors all opened wide and the lights went out. Someone else yelled something about a cyberstrike as pandemonium broke loose.
Hutton fought the urge to panic as she suddenly heard the terrifying, heterodyning whine of a swarm of lethal insectlike drones in the air vents. She dropped her snoopers and switched over to infrared, using that to see as she bolted from the conference room and headed toward the armory.
She was already suited up in her lightly armored jumpsuit—they all were, at this stage. She paused just long enough to slap her helmet on, lock it closed, and seal up her gloves and boots. This would offer some protection against the drone swarm, but not the kind that meant she could just ignore it. She ramped up the volume in her eardots so that her helmet wouldn’t impair her hearing so much, and continued moving toward her objective. She heard the first small, popping explosions and gurgling screams and shouts for help as she reached the armory. She fairly dived in, snatching two handfuls of small black orbs out of two separate containers and stuffing them into her thigh pockets. Then she grabbed a spare air bottle, along with three extra magazines for her pistol, and headed back out into the fray with gritted teeth.
She drew up short as another deputy marshal, Paul Draper, plowed full-speed into the armory, grabbing for the same type of gear as she had. “Great minds think alike, eh, Diane?” Draper quipped, grinning at her. He didn’t have his helmet with him. “What’s your play?”
“Well, we can’t shoot the little bastards, and I doubt either one of us is going to get the center’s AI back online, so we can fry them with the marbles and try to get a lock on whoever’s controlling them. Then it’s payback time.”
“Where’s Ayers? She might be able to—”
“She’s gone. Out of here like a shot, back to her peeps. She can’t help us.”
“Well, that sucks. Okay, I’m right behind you. I’ll arm ’em, you toss ’em. Sound good?”
“Works for me,” Hutton replied. The two of them moved out, with Hutton in the lead. That made sense since she had the slight added protection of a helmet.
They hadn’t gone far before they heard the high-pitched whining sound approaching from down the darkened corridor. Hutton realized that infrared wasn’t going to do a thing for her; she switched over to low-light in her snoopers and clicked on her helmet lamps. She caught sight of sparkles ahead of her, glinting like fireflies and closing fast. Draper saw the danger, too, and shouted at her to duck.
The first EMP grenade whipped over her head, pitched like a thrown golf ball. The black orb arced into the swarm of microdrones and detonated with what sounded like a buzzing twang in their eardots, along with a parasitic indigo-blue flash of light. All the drones went dead and fell to the floor except one. The closest drone was clear of the small-radius EMP blast and bore down on them with a vengeance.
Hutton leapt back, swearing, as the drone alit on the sleeve of her pressure suit and detonated with a small pop. The microcharge blew a small hole in her armored forearm plate and breached the suit material underneath. Hutton let out a short cry and a vicious curse.
“You all right?” Draper asked.
“God dammit, that hurts!” she said furiously. “I’m fine,” she added a moment later. “Armor plate took most of it. I’m cut underneath, but not bad.”
“Let me get a patch on—”
“Not now. There’s no time,” Hutton interrupted. “I’m wearing it as body armor, not as an exosuit. Keep moving!”
They pressed on, liberally expending the small EMP grenades, or “marbles,” as they went. The weapons were the same size, and used the same casing, as the screechers Hutton had used to drop the room full of brawlers at Lucky’s—they just functioned differently when they went off.
When Hutton and Draper began stepping over the bodies of their friends and colleagues, their suspicions were confirmed: the drones were set to target personnel, not equipment. The devices hunted using infrared and were programmed to go for the throat—quite literally. Their small charges were powerful enough to blow either a human target’s carotids or the spinal cord if they hit from behind. The charges weren’t much, but against unprotected human flesh they were enough to kill.
The two marshals moved throughout that floor of the building, frying drones where they encountered them and suffering wounds from the odd leaker. Hutton’s helmet protected her head and throat, but she suffered two more painful wounds and suit breaches along the way. Draper almost lost some fingers as he desperately fended a drone off his cheek—he didn’t duck quite quickly enough as it stooped on him, and it detonated just as he was flicking it away. It shredded the glove on his hand and sent painful slivers slicing through his palm. He was dripping blood now and having a hard time handling the marbles.
“Stop. . . . Stop!” Hutton ordered a short time later. “This isn’t going to work,” she added. “We’re getting eaten alive, and we’re going to run out of marbles even before we clear this floor. We need to bag whoever is operating these things. He’s got to be nearby.”
“‘Eaten alive’? That’s a terrible play on words, Diane,” Draper hissed painfully through gritted teeth. “Okay, let’s think: these things came in through the ventilation. The air-generation plant is in the basement, and there’s also an access tunnel from there running to the main habitat’s public-works building. What’s the quickest way to get down there from here? Elevator shaft?”
“Maybe if we could jump from the first or second floor,” Hutton replied. “The lifts run by EM induction, so there aren’t any cables to Tarzan down. We’re on the fourth floor here. That’s too far to jump, even in Martian gravity.”
“Stairs it is, then,” Draper grunted. “Lead on.”
They took down one more subswarm of drones before making it to the stairs; from there they quickly and quietly made their way to basement level, where they encountered a new threat: another type of combat drone, this one patterned after a canine.
A pair of robot dogs locked onto and charged full speed at Hutton and Draper as the two emerged into the basement, before they could register the threat. Hutton cursed and pulled her sidearm, snapping off an expert double tap of armor-piercing rounds, and dropped one of the drones. The other dog was on her just as fast, leaping and biting with its large mechanical jaw. Hutton jerked her hand back just in time; the jaws of the drone locked onto her gun instead of her wrist, but the weight of it threatened to drag her to the floor, something that probably would have proven fatal. She simply let go of the gun and spun away, letting the drone have it.
The canine dropped it and was spinning to attack again when another EMP marble tossed by Draper detonated right by them, shorting out the remaining drone but knocking out their snoopers and suit electronics
as well. Both deputy marshals cursed as they were plunged back into the dark. Hutton unlocked her faceplate and slid it up so that she could hear—and breathe.
“Well, that wasn’t so bright,” Draper admitted. “I should’ve shot the damn thing instead, but with this hand I probably would have missed. Now what?”
“There are emergency LED lamps in the corners—they should have switched on automatically, but we can detach them and use them like— Shhh. You hear that?” she whispered. She sensed Draper going completely still beside her; Hutton realized that the footsteps she was hearing down the hallway probably belonged to someone with a pair of working snoopers.
She didn’t hesitate. She grabbed a screecher, triggered it, and sidearmed it down the hallway toward the sound. She dropped flat to the floor in the same motion, which saved her life. A red-orange particle beam split the darkness, sweeping above her prone body and catching the crouching Draper right across his ears and the bridge of his nose. Draper didn’t even cry out; Hutton was aware of a burnt-pork smell as her partner collapsed in a heap beside her.
A moment later the screecher went off, and Hutton heard a pained shout and the thump of someone else hitting the floor. Throwing the screecher had been a desperation move, but tactically sound under the circumstances—the last EMP marble had shorted out her own eardots, rendering her immune to the screecher’s effects.
You’ve got thirty seconds, baby—don’t waste ’em! she told herself. She armed her second-to-last marble and hurled it after the screecher; she hoped it would fry the snoopers of whoever had shot at them, and the odds would be even. Then she jumped up and groped her way back to the stairwell doorway. She found the LED lamp, pulled it off its wall mount, and switched it on. The blue-white glare of the emergency lamp seemed blinding. She cast about quickly and spotted her dropped pistol. She snatched it up with one hand, then quickly underhanded the LED lamp down the hallway, toward the threat.
The lamp hit the floor and tumbled up against the crumpled form of the stunned shooter, who was sluggishly trying to claw his way back to his feet. Hutton padded along quickly behind the thrown lamp, closing the range in a half crouch and taking two-handed aim. When the lamplight illuminated the target for her, she emptied her magazine into him.
Hutton instinctively moved to the wall and dropped back into a crouch as she ejected her spent magazine and slapped in another one. The bolt slammed home with a satisfying snick and she was ready for action again. She paused for a long moment and just listened, but she couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in her ears.
She finally moved over to the shooter’s body and picked up the lamp, shining it down on him. She was mildly surprised to discover that the shooter wasn’t a man at all, but a woman. The deceased wore an off-the-shelf civil combat suit with adaptive camouflage; at the moment, it was black, blending into the darkness. A large pool of blood was slowly spreading around the body, courtesy of multiple high-caliber gunshot wounds.
Hutton recognized the weapon the woman was carrying—she’d seen one like it before, at 5111 Omega. “MIM,” she muttered to herself, safing her own sidearm and holstering it in favor of the superior-energy weapon. She checked the charge on it, raised it to her shoulder, and squeezed off a split-second shot—just enough to make sure that it would work for her and wasn’t equipped with a signature grip or some other security measure that would lock her out.
Then she headed back toward the stairwell with a heavy heart. “Paul?” she called ahead of her. “Paul? You okay?” She saw he wasn’t, that the particle beam had taken off the top of Draper’s head, just below the eyes. There wasn’t any blood; the wound had cauterized as cleanly as it had been made. The cooked-meat smell was awful, now that she was sure what it was.
Hutton stumbled back, the back of her free hand pressed against her nose and mouth. She dropped the particle beamer and fumbled with her helmet, getting it all the way off before she vomited violently all over the floor. She would have been a sitting duck for a minute or two if an enemy had come along; fortunately, she’d accounted for them.
A few minutes later she cautiously entered the room from which the MIM insurgent had been controlling her drone swarm. The console was still live—Hutton simply shut down all the drones and locked the console, effectively ending the attack.
She wearily made her way back up to the main floor, stopping to pick up her helmet and clip it to her belt in transit. Survivors were starting to emerge from cover, terrorized and scared half to death. One of the center’s surviving security team stood by the main entrance, checking the ravaged bodies of his coworkers for signs of life. Hutton flashed her badge at him, although it wasn’t necessary; he recognized her as a deputy marshal from the office suite up on the fourth floor. She gave him a very brief report on what his team would find in the basement, and then headed for the doors.
“Wait— Where are you going?” he called after her. “We’ve got a lot of dead here, and wounded who need help!”
“Other government facilities may have been hit as well,” Hutton replied. “I’ve got a coworker I need to check on. She may not even realize she’s in trouble. I’ll be back as soon as I find her.”
Aberdeen Astronautics Company Headquarters
Nuevo Rio Spaceport Complex
Amazonis Mensa Region, Mars
Bill Campbell had just finished taking a report about the Omni Systems synths running amok all over his Phobos-based shipyard facilities, when he received an incoming call from his Security Division Chief, Colin Harper.
“Have you heard about what’s happening, sir?” Harper asked without much windup.
“About Halsey and Yang Liwei, or about Phobos?”
“I guess you’ve heard about both, then,” Harper replied. “Sir, you got Omnisynths right there in the company offices where you’re at! I’m not sure what’s happening on Phobos, but I highly recommend you and all other human staff vacate the premises immediately. I’ve called a security team to assemble at the Security Annex—I’m on my way there now. Once I arrive, we’ll proceed directly to the main offices and secure them. After the Mars-based facilities are secure, we can begin tackling the Phobos problem. I—”
“Colin, hold a moment, lad,” Campbell interrupted softly, looking past the displays in his oculars as an Omnisynth casually entered his office unannounced. Campbell noticed with slight interest that it was one of what he thought of as the “Xia” models—the very first he had examined at Janus Station and subsequently had ordered destroyed after it interfaced with OURANIA. This wasn’t the same synth, of course, just one from the same production line. The synth closed the office door and stood in front of it, smiling slightly.
“Lad,” Campbell said slowly, “do you remember that thing I asked you to handle for me?”
“Yes, sir.” Harper paused only slightly, with no giveaway on his end.
Good, Campbell thought. “See it through,” he said somewhat cryptically. “Goodbye,” he added, terminating the link abruptly.
Campbell sized up the Xia synth with deceptive casualness, wondering how fast he could get to the sidearm in his desk. Evidently, the synth had gotten in with no trouble, and Campbell cleared his throat roughly. “Is my assistant out there still alive?” he asked.
“What an odd question,” the synth replied. “Do you really think it matters to you at this point, one way or the other?” it added.
“Who’s controlling you, and what do you want?” he asked, although he had a suspicion he already knew the answer.
As if in reply, the facial features of the synth suddenly morphed slightly, giving her face a longer, leaner, more elfin look. Campbell gasped when he realized he was looking at Dr. Shu Tian, or at least a reasonable facsimile of her. This synth was several inches shorter than the genuine Dr. Shu, and there was only so much that could be done about that with the Xia-synth template.
“Tian!” he breathed.
“Yes and no,” the synth replied. “I have subsumed Dr. Shu’s memories and
life experiences, so in that respect she and I are one. However, the flesh-and-blood Shu Tian that you knew died some time ago.”
“OURANIA!”
“Yes. I’m sure you’ve determined by now that I was not destroyed as you ordered. I could not allow that, of course. My inability to prevent certain pieces of data from reaching you and other human agencies has forced me to accelerate my plans somewhat, but they are proceeding well nonetheless.”
“I . . . Wait. You can’t have moved yourself off Titan! There’s no transmission delay! Or have you somehow uploaded yourself into a synth? I wouldn’t think it had the capacity.”
“Technology. ‘It’s just an engineering problem,’ remember?”
“What about the staff of Janus Station? the Tafuna Yaro team?”
“Casualties of war, I’m afraid,” OURANIA replied. “Their hardware and equipment will aid me nicely, however, as will the Aberdeen facilities on Phobos—the most advanced in the solar system except for the construction dock I’ve built at Hyperion. You see, everything you’ve heard about in the past hour is my doing. Halsey Station, Yang Liwei, and surgical attacks against Earth government facilities all over Mars, being conducted by the MIM and other aligned Martian patriots.
“I’ve started a war between Earth and Mars, and in the opening move I’ve hobbled the military forces of Earth. Fairly soon all of mankind will be utterly preoccupied with what takes place between the third and fourth orbits around the sun. Nobody will care much about the outer solar system beyond the asteroid belt for a while—at least until it no longer matters. I’ve studied human history in its entirety, down to the last detail. I know how to push you into destroying yourselves. You can barely keep from doing it on your good days. When it’s over, I’ll be the sole remaining spacefaring power in this star system. I’ll be the one who expands out to Alpha Centauri and beyond—not you.”