Exodus: Machine War: Book 4: Retribution

by Doug Dandridge

  The nanites that were a part of all human systems had withstood the attack when the Machine plague had jumped to them. They had gone into overdrive as soon as they had recognized the infection, building up their numbers faster than possible for the less advanced Machines, overrunning them and wiping them out. It worked with the native life as well, as long as they were inoculated with enough nanites to start off with. Once they were infected, and the infection had spread to the entire biology of the being, it took a massive infusion of nanites to kill it. A normal inoculation wouldn’t provide enough of a base for the nanites to reproduce fast enough to kill the invasion. The statistics had shown that it would take trillions of tons of nanites to save every Klassekian on the world, and that went up by an order of magnitude when the rest of the biosphere was taken into account.

  “Okay. I’m going to get on the com with the president. It’s time.”

  The chief medical officer smiled for the first time in the conversation. “Yes, sir. It’s past time.”

  Wittmore didn’t take that as a criticism. There were a lot political and logistic ramifications to what they had proposed to do. Of course, the only other possibility was that the planet would become a lifeless wasteland, dust blowing across an endless desert, waves rolling across a dead sea. But the solution was going to have dire consequences for many of the nanite based industries that were taking off on the surface. It would also destroy all of the nanites that Imperials and Klassekians were already carrying. There was a reason they had waited, hoping to come up with some other solution. Because of that they had lost over fifty million Klassekians. Mostly from the Honish religion and their continent, though the disease had jumped the ocean, somehow, and was starting to spread to the Tsarzorian continent.

  Wittmore felt crushing guilt over that loss. Had he taken too long? It had taken the time it had taken to shield what they needed shielded, and to shut down and unplug everything else. What they were about to do would shut down a technic civilization for an extended time, maybe years, if not prepared properly, and that could lead to a death toll that made what had already happened pale to insignificance. But the assets were in place, and it was time to play hardball with the Machines.

  “General,” said President Rizzit Contena over the com.

  “Is everything ready at your end, Mr. President?”

  “Everything that can be unplugged is, General. Everything else is shielded as well as we can make it.”

  Wittmore nodded. Of course, every unshielded nanite on the planet was about to go down, permanently. They had enough in shielded containers for seven billion inoculations. And hopefully enough in shielded tanks to spray the areas of major infections. That entailed using several different types of nanites, since not every organism produced the sugars needed to power the little machines, and some had been constructed to use the sugar alcohols that some lifeforms used. It was complicated. Probably too complicated, but the only recourse they had if they wanted to save the planet.

  “Okay, I’m ordering the fleet assets to engage.”

  Wittmore sent the signal to a dozen warships in an orbit that surrounded the globe of the planet. Imperial battleships all, left in the system as its defense fleet, all reactors were ramped up, building up enormous energy that was shifted to the laser batteries of the vessels. Forty-eight laser rings fired their beams on a particular wavelength, one that found the atmosphere of the planet opaque to their energies. Masses of air exploded outward, molecules ripped apart, electrons separated from their orbits. And releasing a strong electromagnetic pulse, much as a nuclear weapon would, but many times stronger. The beams played over the atmosphere, moving, sending more pulses into the planet. The upper atmosphere went up by scores of degrees, something that would be all but unnoticeable down on the surface, and would cool into space within hours.

  The pulse spread across the surface of the planet, in most places simply dying. But where they hit materials capable of conducting the pulse they sent gigawatts of energy along the pathways. Millions of larger devices that had not been shielded went up with sparks of electricity, fragile circuits reduced to molten scrap. In most cases these were devices that were deemed obsolete to start with. In some cases not.

  The targets of the pulse, the quadrillions of nanites in the systems of creatures and structures throughout the planet also sparked, in their cases turning into puffs of vapor as they completely disintegrated. The pulse made no distinction between good and bad nanites. It was not capable of such. All the nanoscale machines, with a few exceptions, shielded by artificial, or in some cases, natural insulation, were destroyed.

  Wittmore felt nothing, though his internal modules, which were shielded, suddenly sent an alert to his brain that his nanite immune system was offline. He had decided to not seek shelter during the pulse. He had been assured that it would do nothing to living creatures, and had decided he would take his chances. The pulse ended, moments later all electricity was discharged, and things went back to normal. With a thought he released the nanites the internal modules had stored, and millions more entered his system. It would take days until they had built back up to the trillions his body employed, but he expected that would be time enough to fight any infection, natural or unnatural, that might come along.

  “Colonel Myers,” he asked over the advanced com system the Imperials were using on the planet, hardened against any kind of pulse. “What’s it look like?”

  “We’re scanning one of the patients now,” replied the colonel. “This female was near death, heavily infected. If she’s clear, then the rest should be as well.”

  Wittmore knew what the doctor was not saying. The woman would still be in very bad shape, not out of danger in any means, but with proper care capable of recovery. And they would be checking hundreds of thousands more patients before the plague was declared over. All would be inoculated, while the healthy population would also get infusions of nanites. And then would come the spraying of the machines all through the environment.

  “She’s clear, sir. Not a nanoscale machine visible in her body.”

  “Then get to work, Colonel. You have quite the task ahead of you.” He terminated the com and connected back to the leader of the Klassekians.

  “It looks like we got them, Mr. President. You can tell your people to start booting up what they need. And we will have people at the presidential palace as soon as possible to give you your nanite injection.”

  “So, are you saying it’s over, General?” asked the being, concern on his face.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, sir. We’ve stopped this attack, and I doubt a new nanite plague will have any effect once we get the counters in everything they can attack. But whether or not it will stop them from doing something else? I hate to say it, sir, but I just don’t know. All we can do is stay vigilant and be prepared for something else to pop up. Which means your intelligence and law enforcement people need to keep an eye out for anything unusual. And I mean anything.”

  Wittmore couldn’t think what form the next threat might take, but he was sure there was still a Machine presence on the planet, and the AIs deployed would not stop until they were destroyed, or the planet was rendered lifeless. He was determined that the first outcome would be the one that occurred.

  * * *

  “We have people in the opposition demanding that we pull our fleet out of the Bolthole region, your Majesty,” said Countess Haruko Kawasaki, the prime minister of the realm. “They say that the dilution of effort on the main front will hurt us in the long run.”

  “How many?” asked Sean, rubbing his temples. He knew why they were thinking the way they were. People were calling for an offensive against the Cacas, a preemptive strike that would keep them out of Imperial space. In many ways he agreed with them, but the fleet was just not ready. If they struck prematurely they risked taking severe losses that would obviate any other offensive action in the near term, which would put the initiative in the hands of the large aliens for the foresee
able future. Soon they would have the ships they needed to take the fight to the enemy. Soon, but not yet.

  “The coalition numbers about three hundred lords, more or less,” said the prime minister, a frown on her face. “And they’re lobbying hard to gain more traction.”

  So, a quarter of the voting nobles, thought the Emperor. Not a majority by any means. And the Lords themselves were not the only voting body in Parliament, and he doubted the opposition had as many adherents in the Commons and Scholars.

  “I think we can work around that many lords,” he finally said. “But I need you and Baron Hausser Schmidt to keep reiterating in the Lords that these bastards are our responsibility. We released them on the Universe, and we need to make sure that they don’t spread.”

  “And though some of those lords might agree with you, I think they are more concerned with the here and now, and their own living spaces,” said the small woman who currently ranked first among the peers, even if she only held the civil rank of countess. Every duke, archduke and prince of the realm held greater prestige in the peerage, but as prime minister she was their governmental superior.

  “Dammit, Haruko, I will not allow these things to continue to prey on the life of the Galaxy. Our ancestors created them, then lost control of them.”

  “Our ancestors,” said the countess, shaking her head. “That’s who is responsible for the murder machines. Our ancestors. Not us. We cannot be held responsible for what people generations removed did. Don’t you see that, your Majesty? We have to deal with the threat in front of us.”

  “And what do we say to all of the intelligent species they are about to wipe from existence? What about these Gorgansha? Do we just abandon another space faring species and let them be destroyed?”

  “From what I have heard, the Gorgansha are not really the kind of people I would like to meet. And that one day they might become an enemy of our people.”

  Sean glared at the woman for a moment, considering the action of relieving her of her duties as prime minister. He was angry enough to do so, but he stopped himself before he did something he regretted. She had served him well as a true and loyal ally, and replacing her would not be easy.

  “Look, Countess. While I lead the human species I will not stand for letting our past mistakes to run loose on the galaxy. We will continue to fight these things where we find them. We will destroy them, once and for all. And if the Lords don’t like it, they can stick it.”

  “And if they won’t appropriate the funds for a continued expedition out to the frontier?” asked the countess.

  Sean stared at her once again. He didn’t think she was personally threatening him. She was just throwing out the possibility of what the Lords, who controlled the purse strings, might do.

  “Then I will personally take a fleet out to Bolthole and fight the Machines by myself. And don’t think that we don’t already have enough manufacturing resources out there to take care of our needs. The question the Lords will have to ask themselves is, do they want to explain to the people what the Emperor is doing out on the frontier while they cut off his support.”

  “I, don’t think they will like that at all, your Majesty,” said the countess, a smile on her face. “I know that they really don’t like your wartime powers, but I for one find it refreshing that you can put them in their place.” The countess stood up and bowed, then headed for the door, stopping just before she got there. “Just don’t push too hard, your Majesty. These are proud people, with a lot of power. No, not more than yours, but still considerable. And the war eventually has to end.”

  Who says, thought Sean, sitting in his chair for a moment, getting a breather before his next meeting. From projections he had seen of the Ca’cadasan Empire and their warmaking potential, it could go on for a century or longer. And there was no telling if he, or anyone else currently in the government, would still be in office by that time. Or alive.

  * * *

  “We’re still not sure how to do this, Admiral,” reported Fleet Engineer Captain Hishry Tamamurta. “I mean, it’s possible in theory, but I don’t know how to translate theory into practice.”

  “You know that Wittmore just cleansed an entire planet of Machine nanites with an electromagnetic pulse, don’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am. But that kind of pulse cannot be transmitted through a vacuum. Now, we think it might someday be possible to cause stellar flare events that do the same thing, but we just don’t control the energy generating resources to set them in motion.”

  “Unacceptable,” growled Beata, glaring at the officer. “You and your people are not earning your pay. I expect results.”

  “We’ll keep trying, ma’am, but don’t hold your breath.” Beata could read the words that weren’t there. She could damned well hold her breath is she wanted to, but it wouldn’t do any good, and might remove her from the backs of the engineers, permanently.

  Beata had researched the problem after it came to her that strong EMP might destroy Machine nanites. She had found reference to the Carrington Event on Earth, a geomagnetically induced current caused by powerful solar flares, strong enough to crash all high tech on the planet. Fortunately for Earth, that had occurred in 1859, well before the invention of sophisticated electronics, or the world might have been plunged into a dark age. It had later been estimated that the event had occurred on most of the close in bodies in the solar system, if not those further out. If they could duplicate that with a star around which a Machine industrial node orbited, after they had destroyed all of the larger machines, they could be assured that the system was scoured clean. The problem was, though stars often flared, and more rarely sent out megaflares, there seemed to be no way to generate them from the outside.

  “What if we drop a huge antimatter bomb into the star?” she asked, trying to come up with something the engineers could jump on.

  “Afraid not, Admiral. All it would do is blow plasma out of the star, but not with the effects of a flare. At least not what you are looking for. And a bomb sufficiently large to cause any other kind of effect would eat up all the antimatter production of a heavily industrialized system for a year.”

  That was a nonstarter. Currently, the four vital strategic resources of the empire were negative matter, supermetals, wormholes and antimatter. All were in sufficient but not excessive supply at the moment, though most of the industrial concerns would have liked to have more of each. And the empire was not about to allot antimatter, the most efficient energy storage source possible, in planetary system loads to set off flares in multiple stars, something that might or might not have any effect.

  “Keep working on it, Captain. Until further notice, this is the only project you are to work on. The only thing you are to think of, from the time you wake up until the time you go to sleep. Hell, I want you to dream about it. Understood?”

  “Understood?” said the captain, a frown on his face.

  She could tell that he was thinking she had gone off the deep end. That was okay with her. There were no regulations about thinking about a superior officer in a certain way, as long as those thoughts weren’t voiced.

  “I’ll keep track of your progress,” she told the engineer, cutting the com before he could reply. She hated to put pressure on him like this, but she needed something developed to take care of the problem, and if it caused some of her officers’ anxiety, that was not her primary concern.

  * * *

  SEPTEMBER 27TH, 1002.

  “That was the last one, my Lord,” said the chief of staff.

  Soranka Goran blinked his eyes in acknowledgement, watching as the last artificial life form ship disappeared from the plot.

  “Plot a course for the next target,” he ordered. His orders were to keep hitting the machines as fast as possible, whittling them down, only fighting when the odds were in his favor. This had been the first real test of his force, taking on a Machine force in a minor system that was almost three quarters the size of his own. The fight had been very s
uccessful. He had lost a couple of ships, with maybe a score more damaged. But the system was free of Machines. At least the larger variety, according to the humans.

  “Time to next system, six days,” said the navigation officer.

  “Send the signal out to all ships and engage.” The system might not be totally cleansed, but they had taken this industrial node out, all they could do at this time. It would have to do, until the humans came up with something that cleansed them quickly and easily.

  * * *

  “We might have a solution, Admiral,” said Captain Hishry Tamamurta over the com. “It’s a long shot, and the source material is suspect, but I think it might work.”

  “And what is this suspect source material, Captain?” asked Beata, her curiosity piqued.

  “It comes from an old science fiction series on old Earth, written when humanity was first learning how to travel space.”

  “A, science fiction series?” asked the incredulous Bednarczyk. “And just what the hell would they know then that would help us now?”

  “In a word, Admiral. Well actually two. Bussard ramjets.”

  “What in the hell is a ramjet?” asked the admiral, sending a query through the ship’s computer system at the same time and getting the information back before the engineer could speak.

  It was an interesting idea, using a magnetic field projected in front of a ship to draw in hydrogen from space. The author had written a whole series of stories using the tech, and many of the uses were imaginative, to say the least.

  Unfortunately, the idea had never taken off. It had turned out that hydrogen was not dense enough in space to fuel a ship, and the invention of subspace drive had pushed every other possible interstellar tech to the side. But she still didn’t see what that had to do with causing flares in stars. And she asked the engineer as much.