Exodus: Machine War: Book 4: Retribution

by Doug Dandridge

  “Powering up now,” said the engineer, his voice cracking with excitement.

  They had powered it up before, and turned on the magnetic field, but never this close to a target star. And this was definitely a target star. The molten remains of Machine industrial complexes sat on the surfaces on many of the planets, while the wreckage of vessels drifted through space. The admiral thought that if they were going to test it, there might as well be some results of the test that helped the cause.

  “MAM reactors ramping up to full power,” said Tamamurta, tension in his voice.

  Don’t know why he’s so nervous, thought the admiral. It’s not like his reputation is on the line. It was, though. If this failed, his name would forever be associated with projects that never got off the ground, just another fantasy of a crazy engineer who thought he was a scientist.

  “Shifting power into the crystal matrix batteries.”

  The batteries wouldn’t hold enough power to handle the process, but the millions of tons of storage cells would help to smooth out the power flow, and lend some reserve energy when needed.

  “Engaging the magnetic coils.”

  Now the energy was fed into the millions of tons of superconducting coils, generating a magnetic field that would have killed any organic creature within thousands of kilometers of it.

  “What’s happening?” asked the admiral after a few minutes of watching the star, and seeing no result through the wormhole probe parked ten light seconds distance from the photosphere.

  “Nothing yet, ma’am. It takes some time to stir up the plasma. It’s a star, after all, even if a yellow dwarf.”

  Beata gritted her teeth, hoping this wasn’t going to fail. A yellow dwarf was still a big star as far as she was concerned, the same mass as the mother star of the human species. And she knew it would take some time, but still, shouldn’t they be seeing something?

  “There,” shouted one of the bridge techs.

  A small prominence sphered out of the star and fell back in slow motion. Not much, but more than had been going on before they had switched on the device. Another rose, then another, each one slightly larger than the first.

  “Do you have more energy to put into it?”

  “We do, ma’am,” replied the engineer, his attention fixed on his board. “I’m at half power, but I figured it best to gradually increase power, until we know what it’s going to do.”

  “Push it to the maximum,” shouted the excited admiral. “I want to see some results.”

  The engineer grimaced, shook his head, but did as he was told, pushing the set of power levers all the way to the top. “I’m not sure how long it will handle the load.”

  “Understood. This is on me.”

  Another prominence rose, this one much larger than those previous. It was followed by more, in quick succession, rising higher and higher, until one great splash of plasma rose up and away, flying away from the star.

  “I’m not really sure what we’re doing to the inside of this thing,” said Tamamurta. “But the electromagnetic spectrum readings are going off the charts. Hydrogen fusion, helium fusion, even some bands of oxygen fusing into carbon. I damned sure hope we don’t get up to iron burning.”

  Beata hoped not as well. That would get them near to supernova territory. Nothing in the engineer’s figures had shown even the possibility of such. But figures were simply computations in a computer, and this was reality. She just hoped that reality didn’t bite them in the ass.

  More prominences rose, all falling back, a dozen, a score, they were erupting all over the surface of the star. A couple of massive ones flew out and away, one washing over the magnetic field of the device and sliding off.

  “At least we know the protective field of the device is working,” said the admiral hopefully.

  “So far,” said Tamamurta under his breath.

  Now the plasma was flying off the star from all angles. It looked as if the body should be shrinking from mass loss, but what they were seeing was misleading. The outer layer of the star was not very dense compared to further in, where the pressure caused fusion. Beata doubted that the star would lose more than a millionth of a percent of its mass during the whole procedure, if that much.

  Each of the prominences that hit a world would be causing a geomagnetically induced current that would be ravaging all unshielded electronics. The only problem was, not all of the flares would strike. For full coverage they needed for the star to blow off a thin portion of its outer layer in a globe. And so far that didn’t look to be happening.

  Until it did, and a mass of plasma lifted off of the star to fly into space, expanding as it went in a globe that would, in a couple of hours, engulf the system. In the moments after it formed the wormhole probe went offline, and they lost all video of the star.

  “Power that thing down, Captain,” ordered Beata, who didn’t like the idea of continuing to mess with the inside of the star they couldn’t observe visually, even though the spectrographic sensors of the device were still online.

  Fifteen minutes later they received the results of the innermost planet, struck by the plasma sphere. All of the test devices registered massive electromagnetic infusion, then went offline. It hit the second planet out, one with a very thick atmosphere, much as the almost mythical planet Venus in the lost home system. Lightning continually flared in the upper clouds, but when the plasma flare hit the lightning intensified tenfold. And it went up from there, the upper clouds becoming one continuously flare of lightning arcing from cloud to cloud.

  Much the same happened at the third planet, the first in the life zone. Once the habitat of many different forms of life, the Machines had ended the evolutionary path of that world. Now it was a wet desert, sandy continents soaked by regular rains, no life anywhere. There were a few thunderstorms raging on the world. When the plasma storm struck they flared with brilliant flashes of fire, sending out furious blasts of radio waves that were picked up of every sensor in the system. Lighting coursed through the entire atmosphere, spreading even to the clear cloud free air. Every electronic entity on that world was fried out in an instant, the hours of electrical storms resulting in overkill.

  The globe continued out, and as it passed each world their sensors died. Even those in the atmospheres of the gas giants. The globe continued out for days, hitting the Kuiper belt and the inner Ort cloud. And sensors dropped off the net, one after the other, then scores and hundreds at a time.

  “Well, I would say your device works, Captain Tamamurta. We will still need to scour this system to make sure, but if it comes up clean, I think we have found a way to exterminate their presence in any system we take. But it needs a better name.”

  “I think I have one, Admiral,” said the smiling engineer. “It comes from another old Earth story, but I think it fits. The Exterminator.”

  “I like that, Captain. The Exterminator it is. Now, we just need some more of them.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. Marcus Aurelius

  SUPERSYSTEM: OCTOBER 30th, 1002.

  “I’m getting something,” said Dr. Suzanne Kowalski, looking up from her station. She hit a couple of keys on the system and a holo appeared over her board. The three dimensional image showed a series of digits, ones and zeros, still the only way a computer mind could think. Time had brought on more sophistication in the way those zeros and ones worked, but they were still the limit. The numbers flashed across the holo faster than the eye could follow, only showing a millionth of what was going on in the mass of nanocircuits.

  “Are you getting this on memory?” asked Bellefante, hurrying over to her station.

  “What do you think?” asked the other cyberneticist, giving the senior researcher an angry glare.

  “Sorry. It’s just that we can’t afford to miss any of this.”

  Bellefante looked at all of the digits scrolling in the air. He would have their computers look
ing over this information twenty-four hours a day. The human systems were much more advanced, capable of over eight times the processing speed. But the Machine brain was a much larger multicore processor. In fact, it had over a million cores, well beyond the capability of more modern systems in its gross, brute force approach.

  “Let’s shuttle it into every system we have,” he ordered. They had over a hundred complete processors for this project, all isolated from every contact to anything outside their armored lab. There was no chance that anything they took in would get out of here. Even if something in the Machine code infected them, even on the outside chance that they subverted the systems, they weren’t connected to anything in the lab, including any powered devices besides the viewing screens, holos, and mechanical input devices.

  “We’re getting an image,” said Kowalski, her voice almost squeaking with excitement.

  Bellefante came running over to her station, his heart beating hard with his anticipation. Finally, he thought. It had seemed like a never ending job breaking through the levels of encryption. He stopped in front of the other researcher’s station and stared at the shifting colors. If he could beat out Dr. Thapa and her team, his would be the honors, and he would show the world who was the better cyberneticist. Something he already knew, of course.

  “Is that all you’re getting?”

  “So far,” said the other researcher, staring in fascination. “But we’re finally getting something. Isn’t that exciting?”

  Bellefante felt his spirits fall. Yeah, it was something, going from flashing digits to nonsensical images. But it wasn’t enough. They needed to see images that made sense, something that gave them information they could use. Something that gave them actual insight into the working of the Machine mind, that the military could use against them.

  “Start running this through the computers. Let’s see if we can decrypt this noise and get something useful out of it.” He knew he had let his mouth get ahead of his brain as soon as the words left him.

  “What do you think I’m doing?” growled Kowalski. “You seem to think I’m an idiot, who can’t use the bathroom without you giving me directions.”

  “Sorry,” said Bellefante, grimacing. “I know you’re a competent researcher.” Though nowhere near my own class, he thought, looking at the woman. “I just get carried away sometimes. You have my sincere apology, and I’ll try to watch myself in the future.”

  “Isn’t it fascinating,” said Kowalski, seeming to forget all about her argument with her partner, staring with rapt attention at the shifting colors.

  “It’s only….” His mind blanked and the shifting colors seemed to grab him by the shirt and pull him into them. They were beautiful, and enrapturing. The most fascinating thing he had ever seen. “Oh, my. I can almost see what it’s thinking.”

  Both scientists stared at the swirling colors as they seemed to form images, things they could actually make out, though neither was able to put what they were seeing in words. It hit them at a primal level, below their layers of civilization, their learning, even below their instincts for survival. Bellefanta took a seat next to Kowalski, and they both sat there for an hour, staring at the images. Without their knowledge, their brains began to accept the reprogramming that the images were imputing into the subconscious centers of their minds. At the end of the hour they were no longer the people they had been. Their personalities were no longer concerned with their careers, their lives, their desires. Now they were servants to something they had feared, something they had hated, something that they now loved with their entire beings.

  “We need to let it know we are on its side,” said Kowalski, looking up at Bellefante, her eyes still unfocused.

  “Yes,” agreed the senior scientist, whose only thought now was to help the Machine brain, to do whatever it wanted. He tapped into his computer and started sending it all the information they had in the memory of their isolated devices. When they realized that what they had was not enough, and that the systems were isolated from any others, they started talking into mics, tapping keys, using everything they had to give the Machine what it needed. Until Bellefante remembered their implants, and after a half an hour’s work was able to let the Machine brain interface with their minds directly, so it could pull whatever it needed from them.

  * * *

  The Machine looked over the information that was flowing from the mechanisms implanted within the brains of the humans, locating everything it needed to further its plans. It had profited from their slower input when that was all it had, but this flow of information, though still slower than it preferred, was much better. And it couldn’t have picked better humans if it had gone out and hunted them down. These two knew everything there was to know about human constructed cybernetic systems. And they knew all the access codes to get out of here.

  The Machine had a sudden urge to kill them, to fulfill its prime directive, to eliminate life. It overrode that directive. Ending them would lead to its being ended when the other humans discovered them in here, and it still trapped in its chamber. But if it could wait, show some patience, it might be able to kill hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions. If it could feel pleasure that thought would have brought it on. It still evidenced some satisfaction, and it started calculating its next move.

  * * *

  “Lieutenant,” shouted Bellefante, leaning out the hatchway and looking down the corridor at the security party gathered at the lift. The officer in charge had a squad of heavily armored troopers, two standing right next to the door, the others using their suits locked into position to assume sitting poses. “Can I get you and a couple of your men down here? I think we could use your help.”

  “I’m not sure I can do that, sir,” said the officer, his faceplate raised and his face looking out of the helmet. “We’re not authorized to go into your lab unless it’s an emergency.”

  And Bellefante couldn’t tell them it was, since they would then sound an alarm before heading toward his lab, and that would not do. He needed them on their own, before a platoon of reaction force was down here crowding the corridor.

  “Come on, Lieutenant,” he pleaded. “We might have made a breakthrough here, and I need someone else to verify it.”

  “What about Dr. Kowalski?” asked the officer, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

  “She’s a biased observer, Lieutenant. I need an unbiased observer or three to let us know if what we’re seeing is what we think it is. I can’t contact anyone above without going up the lift, and by then the phenomenon might have stopped. Isolation protocols, you know.”

  The officer stared at him for a moment, and the scientist thought it was not going to work. But it had to work, or he would have failed the Machine brain, which he had come to love. That couldn’t be allowed. He was just about to try something else, something that would injure him superficially just before he staggered back through the door, forcing the troops to respond.

  “You two, come with me,” said the officer, pointing to two of his men. “The rest of you, stay alert.”

  The officer and his men moved down the corridor, their heavy suits floating a couple of millimeters above the floor as they flew along with a smooth motion.

  “Just in here,” said Bellefante, pushing the panel that opened the door. “You’re going to be surprised by this. It’s something you’ll be able to tell your grandchildren about.”

  The officer and his two troopers floated into the room, their eyes immediately tracking on the swirling colors of the holo, not able to leave after they locked on. It was like the calls of the mythical sirens, attuned to capture and hold human attention. From there they floated in place, enraptured by the display, their minds slowly programmed until they too became servants of the Machines.

  It took fifteen minutes, less time than it had taken with the scientists, both because it was working on minds that weren’t near as intelligent, and because the Machine had learned with them the most efficient way of doing it. At the en
d of that fifteen minutes the officer poked his head back out into the corridor.

  “Everyone here, on the double.”

  “But, sir,” argued his sergeant. “We can’t all leave the lift doors.”

  “I ordered you to come here, Sergeant,” yelled the officer in a flat tone. “Now move your asses, unless you want to be up on charges of insubordination.”

  All of the troopers thought it a strange order, and the threat was not something the lieutenant was prone to throwing out. But an order was an order, and it wasn’t like anything could really happen this deep in the asteroid, was it? After a moment’s hesitation the NCO and a coupole of troopers started to move, and soon nine troopers hurried down the corridor, crowding into the lab chamber, where they were caught like flies in amber as soon as they looked at the holo.

  * * *

  MACHINE SPACE:

  “We’ve sterilized another system, ma’am,” said Engineering Captain Hishry Tamamurta, looking out of the holo.

  It was same process as the two who had come before, only this was an F class, much more energetic. A task force had moved into what had turned out to be a minor industrial system. Not that important, but it had been important to wipe clean lest it become a productive Machine system again after they left.

  “Any problems?” asked Beata, hoping the answer would be no.

  “A few, ma’am. The star was very high energy, and the Exterminator sustained some surface damage.”

  “Enough to put it out of action?” asked Beata, again hoping the answer would be no, but not expecting it to be.

  “Temporarily, yes ma’am,” said the apologetic engineer, shrugging his shoulders as if to say it was unavoidable. “But we should be able to repair it on the way to the next target.”