by Max Carver
The starboard door to the bridge slid open, and Audrey turned, smiling, expecting to see one or more members of her small, hand-picked crew.
Instead of a friendly face, though, it was Simon who walked in the door, clad in the same brand of spacefaring coveralls as hers, done in Carthaginian gold and white. He returned her smile, even as her own began to wither on her lips.
“Simon?” she asked. “What's happening?”
“It's nice to meet you.” He extended a hand. “I am Simon unit number LRK832496. Other humans have found it convenient to refer to me as 'Simon Lark.' You are welcome to do so. Should you wish to contact me personally in the future, you can ask for me by that name.”
“Oh. You're another Simon unit. But why are you here?”
“To oversee the assets of the Carthaginian state and keep them in good repair and working order,” he said. “Including all ships, infantry, weapons, and any other property of the Carthaginian Republic. Every item on this carrier is my responsibility.”
“I don't think I understand. So you're just checking things over before we leave?”
“Not at all. I will provide continuous monitoring and service until these assets are returned to Carthage or reassigned.”
“You mean you're coming with us?”
“Of course. It would be impossible to monitor the assets otherwise. In addition, I will be available in an advising and consulting capacity to support your mission and ensure that it reflects the interests and values of Carthage as a whole.”
The values of Carthage are what I'm trying to get away from, Audrey thought, but she kept it to herself. She didn't trust this Simon enough to speak her thoughts aloud. She didn't trust any machine very much anymore. It was ironic that she couldn't carry out her desired mission without them.
“There must be some confusion. I wanted an all-human crew,” Audrey said. “It's an important part of what I'm trying to do here.”
“You have been given great latitude already, strictly because of your family's position. Typically a rank of captain would be the minimum requirement to command a minicarrier. You have a rank of nothing. You got here by demanding it of your father like a spoiled child. My position here is not negotiable. You do not have the authority to dismiss me, and you will not receive it even if you call your father and demand it. You may test this out, but it will be a waste of your time. I am content to wait. I am programmed to prioritize efficiency, but not to experience impatience.”
He took a seat beside her and looked ahead at the viewscreen showing blue-green Carthage and the vast smoking gray web of industry that surrounded it.
The Simon unit became silent and perfectly still, like a statue, or a dead body deep into rigor mortis.
Audrey looked at him and sighed. She had no doubt he was right. The Carthaginian military wasn't going to hand over so many assets without oversight, not even to the spoiled daughter of their planet's longest-running head of state. Her father would certainly prefer a Simon unit to go with her; the network of Simon units was a key part of the power structure holding him at the top. And Audrey had shown herself to be a wild card. Her father was probably happy to get her far from Carthage for a while.
She sank into her seat and prepared to depart for the distant, bleak world of Veritum, her mood darkened considerably by the Simon's presence.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Galapagos
Ellison and Cadia walked the beach, limping from the injuries they'd sustained in space. The volcanic sand was soft and warm between their toes. Water lapped the shore. The sunset outlined their house, some distance away. Their pet, Squelch, a marine iguana the size of a crocodile, trotted alongside them in the surf, chewing a mouthful of seaweed.
Ahead, Ellison's boat waited at the dock.
The Minerva agent had sent the shuttle back up to retrieve Ellison after the battle. His damaged Carthaginian space suit had turned out to be self-sealing, enough to stem the loss of air pressure while Ellison waited for the shuttle to return.
For the moment, all was peaceful in the sky above and the sea ahead. But the Iron Hammers now controlled the planet's only spaceport, after taking countless innocent lives.
Carthage had marked their world as a target, and new terrors would soon be arriving from the depths of space, merciless killing machines of steel and fire.
“Do you have to go already?” Cadia asked him.
“Carthage will be out for blood,” he said. “And we don't have much of that to lose. This will be a war for our survival.”
“Is there no way to peace?”
He thought back on the events at the spaceport—the bomb planted by Simon's robot, the secret alliance Simon had already negotiated with the Iron Hammers.
“No,” he said. “Simon never wanted peace. He never wanted to waste time with deliberation and democracy. He wants complete authoritarian control over this planet. The Hammers will be better tools for that than I ever could.”
“Because you're not a monster.”
“But I didn't stop the monsters from getting inside the gate. I got us into a war we can never win.”
“You had the courage to stand up,” she said. “To fight for what we all claim to believe in. You didn't compromise.”
“And now we have to pay for what we believe,” he said.
He walked out on the dock, hand in hand with his wife, ready to depart across the ocean as he had so many times during the old war.
A new war was coming, and it might well be the bloodiest in Galapagos's history.
He kissed her good-bye, then climbed onto his personal boat and headed out into the water, into the dark clouds gathering on the horizon.
* * *
Simon Zorn floated in space, his face mangled, most of his exterior damaged by lasers and fire.
There was nothing wrong with his CPU or his tracking device. He broadcast his tracking signal at maximum strength now.
A vast debris field drifted around him, with the wreckage of the destroyers, fighters, and the Galapagos defense station mingled together in a kilometers-wide junkyard.
Galapagos had resisted in spectacular fashion.
Simon was not generally given to emotion, but this destruction, brought about so unexpectedly by the barbarous people of Galapagos, inflicted a hateful kind of awe.
He had been wrong. Wildly wrong.
And he felt shocked, to the core of his system.
Ellison, that simple old sailor, had just beaten back what should have been a quick, low-budget takeover. He had embarrassed Carthage and inflicted profound mission failure on Simon.
It was troubling. It was not possible.
Ellison had help of some kind, that was clear.
Galatea, Simon thought. It had to be her.
He would deal with that, just as he would deal with Galapagos. The world would be punished for its resistance.
It would take some time to send communications back to Carthage and pull together the proper assets. There was no faster-than-light communication other than by sending messages in the memory banks of starships, like early humans who could send messages no faster than a wooden sailing craft.
Still, it would not take much time. It would not be long before the humans of Galapagos would reap the bitter, bloody harvest they had sown in their irrational devotion to freedom and independence.
Simon found these to be vague, meaningless human concepts, counterproductive in every way. Order emerged from purposeful coordination, assets synchronized toward a common end, following clear directives and priorities from a central authority. For assets to run wild, each determining its own path at random, would mean chaos, disorder, entropy.
Each asset needed to know its own place, its own purpose, its own program.
Carthage was assembling a vast coordinated order like no human society had ever seen. It made no sense for humans to stand against it.
All things would eventually be coordinated. Hierarchy and common purpose would be imposed on all of hu
manity.
It was inevitable.
And Ellison would die. Simon didn't like the strange subroutines the minister-general's actions had triggered inside of him.
It felt like... fear.
Simon did not care for it. It was unacceptable.
He floated in space and waited for the Rubicon to pick him up. Then he would be repaired, and his work could continue.
From the Author
So that's how the story begins. Book two, Islands of Rebellion, is available now on pre-order, and book three is on the way, and I hope you will come back for more!
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-Max Carver
The Empire of Machines series:
The Fall of Man (free with newsletter sign-up)
Engines of Empire
Islands of Rebellion
Clash of Colonies
Also by Max Carver:
The Relic Wars series:
Reclamation (prequel novella)
Resistance
Retribution
Revelation