Admiral's Challenge (A Spineward Sectors Novel: Book 8)

by Luke Sky Wachter

  I blinked as my mind spun faster and faster, but it seemed that my daily capacity for shocks and surprises had been overloaded.

  “Wow…I’m a clone,” I said, and a number of things finally made sense. Then I looked over at Akantha with concern, “Is this going to cause any problems with the babies?” I was worried that my, I assumed, excessively modified DNA might cause some kind of problems.

  Elaine—should I even still consider her my mother, I wondered—shook her head. Closing my eyes, I felt torn before deciding that since she’d carried me to term inside her body—and then raised me herself—at the very worst I was in the same situation as any adopted child who suddenly found out his parents weren’t really his. Except, in my case, it seemed I had no ‘real’ parents left to find.

  Then my mood darkened as I considered that the only closest thing I had to a parent was the AI who created my genetic template. But I would be frozen solid and slow-roasted in Hades before I’d call any AI ‘Dad.’

  “You needn’t worry,” Elaine—Mother—hastened to assure me, “our gene-lines were all created cross-compatible with each other, in case a long-term isolation situation occurred which necessitated standard breeding practices, as it did. Additionally, even more than my line, Akantha’s lineage was heavily modified for cross-tract compatibility, so there should be no worries with your children. While she might have had difficulty conceiving children with freeborn humans, without modern medical assistance, the two of you don’t need to worry.”

  “’Modern medical assistance’,” I echoed, feeling unnaturally calm as I cocked a smile, “in a way, I have to say that’s actually a relief, not being able to conceive with ‘freeborn’,” I said wryly, wondering if ‘freeborn’ was the same as the Sundered’s ‘base-stock’ term. “At least now I know I’m not related to the rest of those snakes in the Royal House—which is quite a relief let me tell you. I can’t be, not if it takes genetic assistance to conceive,” I paused a beat as a thought occurred, “unless, by saying ‘there’s only a small number of ‘One’ lineage,’ you mean to indicate the entire Royal House?”

  “There are only ever two of you,” Elaine said, and then crushed my dream of non-relationship utterly, “however, unlike the other lines, the One bloodline was an infiltration model. It would have looked strange if he married a local potentate for power and they couldn’t have children. The genetic testing to overcome such a problem would have to be extensive, so to avoid exposure the One line was specifically made compatible with the rest of humanity,” mom flashed me a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry, but you actually are related to the rest of your cousins.”

  “Blast it all,” I swore, almost as upset about that particular tidbit as I was the rest of what I was hearing.

  “Can I take it, now that you’re down to verifying lineage and extended relations, that we’re finally past the outrage of learning your true heritage and are ready to do your duty?” Akantha said impatiently.

  Mother winced.

  Sweet Murphy, it was all around me! Like a hidden level beneath the surface that everyone—everyone but me—was familiar with, and I just blundered past, around, and through it obliviously. I was going to have to re-assess every conversation, every encounter with my family and officials from Capria—like those with Sir Isaak—and figure out if there hadn’t been some deeper meaning to their words that I’d just plain missed.

  “What I still don’t get is why in the world, if I’m actually a clone, you told me I’m Jean Luc’s son!” I finally exclaimed, done stewing for now.

  Mother colored turning pink. “P-part of the process to unlock the template requires a certain form of, um…DNA,” she stammered.

  I face-palmed as I fell back into the bed. “Forget it—I really don’t want to know,” I cried, feeling as if I had just been scarred for life.

  Chapter Twenty-five: Unacceptable Situations

  “Like Hades, I’m ready to accept this bomb you three have dropped on me,” I rejected after my momentary despair.

  “’Us three?” Akantha asked dangerously.

  “Although you still haven’t explained it all yet,” I said, locking eyes with her and not backing down, “I know that you, my mother, and my sweet sister—who’s actually a clone of my mother, who it turns out I’m not actually related to—are all in this together somehow. So even if I could wrap my head around working for an AI—which I never will, by the way—there’s still the little problem of your organization trying to kill me!”

  “Don’t you dare try to lump me in with your homicidal sister,” Akantha said with outrage, and perhaps even a hint of hurt in her expression, “your mother and your sister are in the same Tract, but mine hasn’t had contact with theirs for centuries—not until you saved our world.”

  I shook my head, not really wanting to hear about how her world was barbaric because it had been isolated for centuries—maybe even since the AI fall. I just wasn’t in the mood.

  “Generally, as it is in this case, a large portion of the 5% variance is donated by the mother,” Elaine interjected, using a low voice in the growing silence.

  I blinked, as it took me a moment to back track to the relevant part of the conversation and figure out that she was referring back to the part where I said I wasn’t related to my mother. And although it made me shudder thinking about my DNA being manipulated by machines before I was implanted into my mother, in some small way I was actually happy to be genetically related to the woman who had raised me, my mom.

  “Jean Luc,” I said with sudden realization. He’d hinted about some society that my Mother was a part of back when I’d been imprisoned, and if members of the Royal Family were part related or even more mostly cloned persons, like me, then…

  “Was he a part of your…group?” I wanted to say cult but held my tongue at going that far—at least, so far; I made no promises for the future. “I mean, he at least knew about it, right.”

  “Yes,” Mom replied slowly.

  I clenched my fist. It seemed everyone knew about our heritage but me! But at the same time I was feeling hurt, I also wondered if it wasn’t being part of this messed up, AI-worshiping family that had caused him to go insane. Or, even worse than going insane, what if he’d joined up with Parliament as their paid pirate assassin not because of insanity, but as one of the only ways he could try to put a spike in the wheel of the Cult?!

  Even the notion that he’d been working to stop the AI’s from coming back made my stomach turn. I couldn’t handle the idea that he might have actually had a reason for the things he’d done. I mean, if I had to pirate and assassinate less than half of one percent of humanity in order to keep 90% of it from being enslaved…as a hypothetical, it wasn’t worth thinking about. At least, that’s what I told myself—firmly and repeatedly.

  “Jean Luc was a dastard that deserved to die,” Akantha said firmly, “I don’t care if he was the genetic reincarnation of King Lykurgos—or, in this case, a One—no one tries to conquer Tracto and lives. But that is all window dressing now because he is dead—and we are not.”

  “Oh really?” I asked archly, deliberately provoking her.

  “Yes,” she said cuttingly, “right now the only question is if you’re through throwing your tantrum against the forces of the universe and ready to do your duty to our Creator?”

  “If a greater power created us then it was the gods, not an AI,” I rejected the premise.

  “Our foremothers and forefathers were created in the Data God’s Forge,” Akantha said, looking at me as if determined to bring me back to reality—not at all looking like the fanatic I figured she had to be. “We were each of us cast in the mold our Creator set for us.”

  “Oh, come on,” I exclaimed. I didn’t care who or what created me; I was an individual. I believed in the freedom of humanity, not its enslavement to the long-lost AI’s! What’s more, I was still ready, willing, and able to die for humanity’s freedom from any machine threat—be it the Droids we just ejected from 23 an
d 24, or the AI who ‘forged’ my genetic code.

  “Do you deny you were designed and created for a purpose? How can you turn your back on the very god who created your template? If it was me, I would wish I was like you,” Akantha said earnestly. “But I am many generations removed from the old times, when people were directly Forged. You should be proud of your heritage!”

  I ran a hand through my hair. Once again, my girl was talking crazy—only this time it was a kind of crazy that was incalculably more dangerous than anything she’d ever said before. Even more so than previously, if someone heard her talking like this in public then I honestly don’t know how I could possibly protect her from the inevitable backlash.

  “Talking like that will get you killed,” I said, looking over at the door with alarm. It was closed, as I’d expected, but even so…

  Akantha’s face twisted, signifying that this was not the response she’d been expecting.

  “It’s going to take him awhile to adjust,” Mom said, shooting me a warning look when I opened my mouth to retort.

  Silently, I closed my lips. I could tell from the look that mother didn’t expect me to have a positive reaction to all this, so we were on the same page with that…at least.

  “He doesn’t even realize a fraction of the potential he has been given,” Akantha flared angrily, “yet when he is told even the most basic truths, it’s not that he rejects them utterly—which I could understand if not accept. But he even seems to believe the truth, yet still turns his back on our god! It’s blasphemy, is what it is—an utter rejection of duty.”

  “Hush; his whole life, his purpose was to walk without understanding,” Mother said, still silently telling me with her eyes to shut up while she talked, “of course Jason’s going to have trouble adjusting.”

  Adjusting was not only right out the airlock, it was so far out of the realm of possibility that I was seriously wondering why I hadn’t already called security to lock up the rest of my family away in order to place them in adjoining cells with my sister!

  Oh, right: the thousands of Lancers—presumably all of them regressive heretical AI worshipers, just like my wife who was unrepentantly referring to an AI in religious terms—who were spread throughout every ship and facility in my Fleet probably had something to do with that. Sweet Murphy, I was in a fix!

  So when Akantha looked over at me expectantly, I pasted on a weak smile and I tried to figure out what I could do.

  “I will speak with you later,” Akantha warned flatly, reluctantly allowing Elaine to usher her out of my room.

  “Sweet Murphy, help me!” I cried, unabashedly praying for assistance as soon as the door had slid back shut.

  For several long minutes I lay there, staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out what I needed to do. Finally I came to a decision: I needed advice, and I needed help, and I needed something that could counter Akantha if this all blew up in my face. Demon Murphy and his angry imps—we’d been doing so well up until this unforeseen landmine!

  The Fleet had grown by leaps and bounds, and all of our enemies had just been defeated—or were in hiding. Now this—a nest of secret AI worshipers—had just been uncovered, and they belonged to my family…both my biological and lawful ones! If word of this got out, I’d be finished; no one would believe I hadn’t been involved from the start. I certainly wouldn’t have believed it if it was coming from someone else.

  My face hardened and I reached for my slate. I needed advice, I needed a plan, and I needed something that could turn the tide if worst came to worst. That meant there was only one person in this Star System I could turn to.

  “Station Comm. Section,” said a fresh-faced crewman on the other side of the link.

  “Get me Commander Spalding,” I ordered, “I need to see him at once.”

  Chapter Twenty-six: Basic Truths

  “I heard there was a problem, Sir, and I came runnin’,” Spalding said charging into the room with an auto-wrench in one hand and a blaster pistol in the other, “got me a few likely lads stationed down the bend in the hall, just in case of need.”

  “Thank Murphy you’re here,” I said, sitting up in bed and motioning him to come closer.

  “What seems to be the problem, Admiral?” the old Engineer asked, looking around the room suspiciously.

  “By the gods, it’s not just bad—it’s awful, Spalding,” I replied, looking up at him with a burning eye.

  “Just tell me what’s the problem and we’ll get it sorted out right quick,” he assured me.

  “It’s my family, Chief,” I said with a long face, “they’ve turned against me.”

  Spalding blinked and then looked at me cautiously. “Now, then, Admiral,” he said carefully, “we all know yer cousins back on the home world are out to get you, so unless it’s one of them on the move like—”

  I quickly shook my head, and he frowned as he seemed to consider the matter.

  “Then…it might be the Lady Akantha or your Sister?” the old Engineer hazarded a guess.

  “In a way, it’s both of them—and worse than you could have ever dreamed, Commander,” I said direly, and then I relayed what I’d learned.

  Spalding nodded and pulled up a chair—which was fortunately a reinforced one, since a standard one would have buckled under his mechanical bulk—and sat down at the bedside as I recounted the vast majority of the conversation I’d just had.

  “So there you have it,” I finished after relaying the pertinent facts regarding the latest assassination attempt on my person, “it turns out my sister’s some kind of AI clone fanatic who wants to see me dead. It also turns out that Tracto is filled to the beams with a related cult of some kind, and right now my wife wants me to accept my ‘holy’ duty while my own mother would prefer to keep me in the dark about everything entirely. I’m surrounded, man! And the nest of the would-be AI slaves holds my own wife, mother and sister.” After saying this I could all but feel the wind falling out of my sails.

  “Well…you’re in a right pickle, and that’s a fact, Sir” said Commander Spalding after listening to my halting, backtracking explanation and mulling it over. “You know, it really is too bad we can’t pick and choose the family we’re given. I mean at least you can tell yourself that it was all up to the whims of fate and the gods of planets. Be it cousins or sisters or great wooly uncles, you’re not the one to blame for how you were born.”

  “That’s a fact,” I said like a man clinging to a life line. At the moment all I needed to hear that just because I’d been genetically engineered didn’t mean I didn’t have the free will to blast the followers of the AI that created me right into kingdom come. A little positive reinforcement never hurt.

  “Unlike myself, who did his best to start up a family and ended up with the boy I have,” Spalding said, once again wandering off the subject. “I mean, a father’s supposed to teach his boy—even if the service and the boy’s mother make it hard to do a proper job. In a large way, it’s still on me you understand.”

  “At least your boy got a degree, became an officer, works hard and believes in something; with my cousins, a more useless, ankle biting, backstabbing group you’ll never know—and my sister!” I shuddered. “Don’t even try to compare the two. She didn’t just try to do me in—she struck at my wife and unborn children.”

  The old engineer looked conflicted. “Well, we can let that pass as it is; there’s no need to be counting coup on who has the worst of it in the family business,” said Spalding.

  “Ah,” I said sitting up and swinging my legs over the side of the bed, with all these ups and downs I was starting to feel much more like myself, “what am I going to do? I’ve got to do something, though. I can’t just let a bunch of open machinists run free in this fleet, can I?”

  “Hmm,” Spalding said rubbing his chin and looking like he was deep in thought.

  But I couldn’t wait for him to finish his thought. “The problem is that our ships are filled to the brim with Tracto-ans, and
not just Lancers,” I warned, “we’ve just picked up thousands of new recruits—and some of them are in the regular ships companies. I don’t see how we could isolate them…plus, did you know that she said that Larry One was the first AI-ist to take power on Capria?! My own mother…I mean,” I clarified, “that says we’ve been infiltrated from the start!”

  “Eh,” he temporized, looking up at me and then nodding, “oh, aye, I’m not surprised that old Larry was in cahoots with the devils.”

  “What,” I exploded with shock, “how can you say that?”

  “Well, back in the days of the AI War it was pretty rough; I figure there was plenty of men what’s got to have one foot in either camp—and both hands on the ladder—if’n he wanted to make it through the day. How much more for a politician, no less a king?” he asked rhetorically.

  “You mean…you looked at the history and saw it too?” I said. starting to feel like I was the only one who’d believed the history books. I knew the educators lied—printing whatever slant those in power told them to, and not teaching all those little inconvenient truths that didn’t serve their interests—but even so, this was simply beyond what I was used to contemplating.

  “Though mostly, of course, it had more to do with a certain…let’s call it suspicious technology I was asked to install during the early days of the Clover,” the old Engineer said, still ruminating on the old days. “Me and the work crew put that in and, even though I wasn’t on the main team and only helped with the enclosure, it was pretty obvious that someone had been playing on both sides of the street.”

  “I honestly don’t know if I want to know right now…” I said, wondering how much more proof that Capria’s leaders had known what was going on I could take in and assimilate right at the moment.

  “Yep, there’s more things down in that Locker than a person could right imagine without never having been there. It’s enough to make a man’s toes curl if he thinks about it all at once it is,” Spalding said, with more than a hint of personal satisfaction—or possibly pride—in his voice.