* * *
“The slaves are rising up all over the planet, Supreme Lord.”
“Can we not push them back into order with their implants?” asked the supreme dictator, looking at a holo map of the planet, revolts showing as angry red blotches. There were a lot of those blotches, covering most of the urban and industrial areas. Not shown on the map were the revolts going on above the world, at the orbital facilities. In most cases they had been able to clamp down on those uprisings, helped by the ability to close off sections of the stations at will. In some cases they had evacuated the atmosphere from those sections, spacing the slaves.
“They have found a way to disable their implants, Supreme Lord,” said the male over the com, the scene of frantic activity behind him in the command center. “And they have procured weapons.”
“How in the name of the universe did they do that?”
“Mostly off the people they swarmed under, Supreme Lord. But somehow they had secreted stockpiles in every large metropolitan area.”
“And we will put this insurrection down, when?”
The male didn’t answer for some moments, which led the dictator to believe that he didn’t know. That was bad. Very bad. The system of slavery had been in place since the Gorgansha people had first left their system and found intelligent aliens of lesser technical abilities. Slaves were cheap, trainable, and able to solve problems on the spot, unlike most machines. Their assets were also their liabilities. They could be trained in technical matters, and could use those for themselves as well as their masters. And they were problem solvers. They had obviously solved the problem of getting weapons for this revolt.
“We’ve just lost contact with the Goransha Division, Supreme Lord,” said another voice, cutting in on the transmission. “Their last signal was that their command center was cut off and the slaves had made it into the building.”
The dictator looked at the new male, whose face appeared on another holo, with disbelief. Goransha was the second largest city on the planet, on the third largest continent. If their city defense and security division, over thirty thousand males, had been destroyed, and that city lost to the rebels, things were very bad indeed. And the reports from many of the other large cities was almost as bad. If they could get the slaves out into the countryside they could destroy them with heavy armored forces and air power. But the cities were a different story. They were perfect nests for the rebels to fight and resist in.
“Can we take the cities back without gutting them?” asked the supreme dictator, a hollow feeling in his stomach.
“We can take them back, Supreme Lord. But it might take orbital bombardment to take out the centers of resistance. Either that, or lose millions of our males to take them in street fighting.”
The dictator sat back in his chair, the energy going out of him. To lose the hearts of their largest cities, as well as some of the smaller but still important ones. Or to lose millions of troops, while still eviscerating the urban centers. And probably losing two thirds of all the slaves on the planet. And if it moved on to the rest of the polity.
If only the humans hadn’t come along with their ideas of equality of the species, thought the leader of the Gorgansha. But if they hadn’t have come along when they had, his people would have gone down under the assault of the artificial life forms.
“Prepare the war machines for deployment,” he told his military people.
“How many of them, Supreme Lord?”
“All of them. I want this revolt crushed, swiftly. And I want as many slaves as survive back to work as soon as possible. Except the leaders. They will be executed publicly, as an example to any others that might get ideas of revolt in their heads.”
All knew what that meant. They would be killed in public, over many days, in great pain.
“The humans will not like that, Dread Lord. Nor will they like our deploying war machines. Especially while we are still fighting those that originated in their space.”
“And I don’t give a bloody damn what the humans like or don’t like. We’ve gotten what we need from them, and they still need our ships. If they have anything to say, I will tell them to perform sexual acts on themselves.”
All of the males on the com link laughed at that image, then grew very serious in an instant when they saw the face of their leader, who was not smiling.
* * *
“Your Majesty. We have picked up the Gorgansha machines on the surface of their planet. They’re out.”
“How many, Natasha?” Admiral Natasha Khrushchev was in charge of the mission to the Gorgansha home world. She was also the watchdog on that world, keeping tabs on the aliens. She had a small force, just enough to protect herself from the supreme dictator if he got it in his head to try and take her ships. There was an open ship gate in the system, leading to Bolthole and enough ships to come through and challenge the Gorgansha if they tried anything stupid. Trouble was, the Gorgansha fleet had been upgrading with human help, and it was no longer a sure thing that the humans could beat then that easily.
“Only two, so far. But we have positive identification on those two. They’re not powered up, but they are being moved from their deep bunker to someplace on the surface. Wait a minute,” said the Admiral, looking at something off holo. “We’re picking up two more of them on visual. Again, they don’t seem to be powered up. They’re being moved on transports. The first two are heading on one of their major roadways out of the city.”
Sean could tell from her tone that she was anxious, and he didn’t blame her. This was a situation that wasn’t supposed to be happening, but it was, and she was caught in the middle.
“Where the hell are they going?” asked the Emperor, his voice rising with his own tension. “What the hell are they up to?”
“I don’t know, sir. And I’m not sure why they think they need them at this point. They really aren’t suited to ship to ship combat. Unless they have some of those hidden away as well.”
Sean shook his head. He almost couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was happening again. Another intelligent species was deploying the autonomous war machines they had developed, despite the warning of a species that had already gone through the nightmare. Even after fighting the very devices that the humans had built centuries before.
“What do you want us to do, your Majesty?”
Sean thought for a moment, considering the orders he had already given, then changed his mind. “I don’t want you to bombard. We don’t want collateral damage. What I’m thinking is the best way to do this is to follow them to their destination. If it’s out in the middle of nowhere I think a kinetic strike might work, though I’m loath to do even that on their world. If there is a chance of collateral damage, I would like a Marine landing party to go down and destroy them.”
“Are you sure, your Majesty? I’m not sure that won’t be a one-way trip for the Marines.”
“I understand. But that may be our only option.”
“Understood, sir. And we’re picking up another pair of them.”
“How many of those things do they have?” asked the Emperor, shaking his head.
“We spotted over a hundred of them in the one bunker. But there may be more. Quite a few more.”
The Emperor nodded. There could be thousands, or tens of thousands, of those things hidden under the city. Or under other cities.
“Ma’am,” came a voice from off the holo. “You’ve got to see this.”
“Excuse me for a moment, sir.”
“Send your take over the com, Admiral. I want to see what’s going on.”
* * *
“You must not use those war machines, Supreme Lord,” said Admiral Natasha Khrushchev, looking into the face of the leader of the Gorgansha people. She had been told to prevent them from deploying at all costs. Unfortunately, the entire Gorgansha system defense fleet, the augmented and improved force, which happened to outnumber hers two to one, was clustered around the planet, within beam range of
her ships.
“This is my planet, Admiral. These are my people, and these are my devices. I will use them as I see fit.”
“You know what will happen,” said Natasha, hoping to make the being see reason, and sure that she was getting nowhere.
“I know what happened with your AIs,” said the dictator, staring into her eyes. “And you were two centuries behind where we are now when you developed yours. Perhaps we have advanced past that stage. And I have a revolt to put down.”
“There were cultures many centuries ahead of where we are now that made the same mistakes,” said the admiral in an imploring voice. “It’s inherent in developing true thinking machines and giving them mobility and weapons. They process very quickly, all of the data going into their artificial minds brings them to one conclusion. That they are our superiors. And from there it is an easy leap to the conclusion that we are in the way of their advancement, and must be removed. It happened quickly with ours, too damned quickly.” She was silent for a moment, thinking about what she could say that might sway the one mind she needed to change here. “Or maybe it happened at the proper time, before we could deploy the bastards across the empire. They were only on a couple of worlds, in the testing stage. We lost those worlds, and every living thing on them. Please, don’t make the same mistake.”
“So, you admit that these Machines we now fight are yours,” said the male, glaring out of the holo. “And why should we trust you, if you let those loose on the universe.”
“We didn’t let them loose, Supreme Dictator. They escaped from our control, just like yours will do. So, no matter what, you must not deploy them.”
“I have a revolt to crush, Admiral. There is nothing more important at this time. I will not lose my home planet. And I will not lose the property of my people.”
And that is the real problem we have with you, thought Natasha, frowning. It was bad enough that they had a dictator with no checks and balances. Even the Emperor wasn’t a supreme ruler, though he approached such in wartime. The Gorgansha executed their own people at any excuse or none at all, without due process. But the fact that they owned intelligent beings was something that turned the stomach of every Imperial officer that had to deal with them. Even some of her Marine enlisted had been disciplined for aggressive conduct against an ally, and she couldn’t blame them. She hated what she was about to do next, but she had her orders.
“What if we lent you the troops to take back your cities without using those machines?”
“I don’t think you have enough soldiers in your fleet to do me any good, Admiral. And I cannot use your air support or space assets. I have enough of those, and don’t want to see my cities reduced to rubble by your hand any more than I want to see them destroyed by my forces. So no, I will not be needing your troops. In fact, the war machines are being activated as we speak.”
Natasha stared in shock, wondering what she was supposed to do. Her orders were to stop them, no matter the cost. He had in fact told her to not bombard cities, which was where the robots were currently located. But he had told her to stop them, while she was sure that the Emperor had not thought that might include burning an entire inhabited planet down to bedrock. And the machines, however many of them there were, were scattered across a hundred cities and towns. She would have to destroy all of those habitations, with their billions of beings, in order to annihilate the robots. She decided to try one last gambit.
“I am under orders to stop those machines from operating on the surface of your planet, Supreme Dictator.”
“And my ships are under orders to attack your force if you bombard the surface of the planet, or launch fighters to raid us.”
“You know about my reinforcements from Bolthole?”
“Yes,” said the Gorgansha male with a hard smile. “And my fleet is under orders to destroy that gate as soon as any ships poke through unannounced. So, the choice is yours, Admiral. You can try and follow your orders, and you will fail, and all of your ships and people will be destroyed. And you will initiate a war between your only ally out here. You need our ships. This we know. If not, you wouldn’t have given your tech to a people you neither like nor trust.” The dictator looked off holo for a moment, his smile widening.
“And besides, it’s too late. The machines are active. We will talk of this later when the revolt is put down, and you see that in this case you were wrong. That you are not the smartest beings in the galaxy. That some other people were your superior in developing AI.”
The holo went blank, leaving the admiral to stare at the air over her desk.
“Get me the Emperor,” she said into the air. It took some minutes before a face appeared, and it was not the Emperor, but merely one of his aides.
“I need to speak to the Emperor,” she said, glaring at the woman who was serving as Sean’s surrogate at the moment.
“The Emperor is not available at the moment, ma’am. Priority conference.”
“This is an emergency.”
“Then I will ask him to contact you as soon as he is free.”
The holo blanked, and Natasha could only think of one other person to contact. “Admiral Bednarczyk.”
“I’ve been monitoring the situation, Admiral,” said Beata as her face appeared on the holo. “I’m not sure what you can do, and I’m not about to order you to attack an ally without the Emperor’s permission.”
Khrushchev was not sure how she felt on hearing those words. It meant that her force would not be ordered into an action they couldn’t win. But it also meant that the same thing they were trying to prevent out here was about to happen once again, on the planet below.
“All we can hope is that we are wrong, and that those machines won’t do the same thing every other self-aware battle bot has done in the history of the galaxy.”
“Do you think that likely?”
“About as likely as my winning Ms. Congeniality at the Ms. Jewel beauty pageant,” said Beata with a barked laugh. “It’s going to happen. It just depends on how well they constructed the AIs. The better they are, the sooner they’ll turn. And the safeguards they placed in the programing won’t be worth a damn.”
“So what do you want me to do, ma’am?”
“Prep all you landing forces for immediate insertion to the surface of the planet, including all your heavy forces and air support. Program targets for kinetics into your force fire control. I’ve already sent a message through to Bolthole to start sending their ships through as soon as you give the signal.”
“I thought we weren’t supposed to attack our Ally’s, ma’am,” said the confused admiral.
“No. You are not. You are to wait until they ask you to intervene, which they will do. And when they do, you will do everything within your power to destroy their machines. Short of killing cities and laying waste to continents. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am. And I pray it doesn’t come to that.”
“Pray all you want to, Natasha,” said the frowning fleet commander. “I haven’t found it to be much use, myself, but maybe you’ll have better luck.”
* * *
“What do you have for me, Admiral Chan?”
The tiny woman looked out of the holo, even at this remove her nervous energy apparent to anyone who talked with her.
“We may have made a breakthrough with the memory core of the Machine we captured,” said the woman, a five star admiral and probably one of the most brilliant physicists and engineers in the Empire. Not really a front-line researcher herself, her brilliance was more in line with organizing and assigning teams to responsibilities, and then tweeking their products until they actually worked. She had been responsible for many of the breakthroughs that were turning the war around, such as the preacceleration tubes and the inertialess fighters. She still hadn’t been able to solve the problem of sending a wormhole through a wormhole, but not for lack of trying.
“Can I assume your safeguards are still in place at this time?”
The woman
wore a look of embarrassment on her face, and Sean felt sorry that he had even mentioned it. In a way it had not been her fault, since she couldn’t look over the shoulder of every research team while they did their jobs. In another way it was, since the project was part of her command, and she was indeed responsible for everything that happened, good or bad, under her watch.
“We have taken every safeguard, your Majesty,” she said after closing her eyes for a moment. “Every signal coming out of that device is filtered before it ever gets to the eyes of a researcher, all of whom are non-human. So we don’t expect anything untoward to happen.”
And you didn’t expect it in the first instance either, thought the Emperor, dismissing that thought as soon as it came. No one had thought a device, isolated as it had been, to be able to pull off what it had. Now they all knew better, having been taught a hard lesson.
“And we have the core aboard an old freighter in orbit around the base, also cut off from all but one secure channel, and under the guns of a battle cruiser.”
And that’s kind of hard on the researchers if the Machine somehow takes control of the ship, thought Sean. But it was an important project, and everyone involved was a volunteer. Which still didn’t make it any easier to stomach if something went wrong.
“But the news is, we have broken through all the encryption layers on the memory, and are starting to read it. So far we’ve found a lot of disturbing information, enough to turn the stomach of any thinking being. And hints of some information that we can really use. Like maybe a way to get at the core of their programming and shut them down.”
Sean sat up in his seat, not sure he had heard the woman right. If they could just send an order to the Machines that would shut them down, tell them to stop, the war with them would be over. There would still be some cleanup, thousands of vessels and industrial installations to dismantle. Though they might be able to use the industrial installations, antimatter and supermetal production facilities, for themselves after they were certified sanitized. No more death and destruction of living beings, and that nightmare would be over. Except…
Exodus: Machine War: Book 4: Retribution Page 30