Devastator

by Isaac Hooke

  Jain shrugged. “I probably wouldn’t be that mad, to be honest, considering the circumstances.”

  She seemed to notice the holographic pyramid that floated in front of him for the first time. She gave it a wary look.

  “That’s my CO,” Jain said. “Don’t worry, he can’t hear us at the moment. Where’s everyone else?”

  “They switched to a new encryption channel as per Santana’s orders,” Sheila said after a few seconds of lag. The wary look remained on her face, as if she suddenly didn’t trust him. “I was the only one who kept the old channel open.”

  “I thought it would be you...” Jain said. “So we still have Santana as a boss, do we?”

  Sheila nodded.

  “How about sending along the access codes I’ll need for the new encryption channel?” Jain asked.

  “I can’t,” Sheila said. “I’m sorry. In case this is an alien trick. You know they can mimic our holograms. They certainly had enough data captures on you from our past conversations.”

  “That’s fine,” Jain said. “But you do understand that I’m the one who gave the warning about Yellowstone, right?”

  Jain had sent that on an open, unencrypted band, so that all of the Mind Refurbs and anyone listening on Earth would have been able to intercept it.

  “Yes,” Sheila said. “We’re preparing the force fields, like you suggested. But we still don’t know if that’s not some kind of trick, too.”

  Jain resisted the urge to throw up his arms. “I’m not sure how to prove it to you. I could tell you something that only you and I know. Like the fact you fragged a commanding officer back in your human days.”

  Sheila shook her head. “If the aliens disassembled your AI core, they could have downloaded all that knowledge. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Okay, well, consider this,” Jain said. “The aliens sent three of their ships back to destroy the source of the signal. Come on, you can’t tell me you didn’t notice that.”

  “We did,” Sheila said. “So there is that in your favor. It’s why we’re preparing the force fields in the first place. I just hope you’re not some Mimic whose been sent here to find out how much we know. That you weren’t trying to trick me into admitting that.”

  “I wasn’t,” Jain said. “Believe me.” He glanced at Xander. “Can you confirm the humans are trying to raise force fields near the hotspot?”

  “There is definitely an increase in air traffic to the region,” Xander said. “They’re trying.”

  “Okay, good.” Jain returned his attention to Sheila.

  “So you don’t trust me, now?” Sheila said.

  “I was trying to figure out if I needed to drill the point home any harder,” Jain said. “I don’t. So now listen, very carefully. The Mimics destroyed my skirmisher before it could finish broadcasting the complete message. You didn’t get the part about the Achilles heel.”

  “The Achilles heel?” she asked.

  Jain explained it.

  Sheila pursed her lips. It was obvious from her expression that she didn’t fully believe him. “That sounds almost too easy.”

  “Actually, it won’t be,” Jain said. “You’ll have a hard time reaching the central ship, let alone breaching its AI core. Even if you get some cloaked ships through—you know, the ones like Medeia’s Arcane with the sword extensions—they won’t be able to penetrate deep enough inside.”

  “We might have to send two cloaked ships in rapid succession or something,” Sheila said. “Assuming the fleet admiral believes this. I’m not sure I do. Why would they risk such a maneuver if there was such a serious vulnerability involved? It makes me think there is no vulnerability.”

  “Everything has a vulnerability,” Jain said. “Everything.”

  “Well, you certainly talk like the real Jain Sagan,” Sheila said. She sighed. “All right, I’ll relay this to the rest of the fleet. Or to the Void Warriors, and Santana, at least.”

  “Who’s in command of the Void Warriors anyway?” Jain asked.

  “Gavin,” Sheila replied. “Santana assigned him, because going by seniority in grade from the time we were humans, Gavin became lieutenant commander first.”

  “How’s Gavin doing?” Jain said.

  Sheila shrugged noncommittally. “Good. He’s obeying his orders.”

  Jain nodded. Like a good little solider. “That’s all we could ask.” He read between the lines: Gavin probably wouldn’t let Sheila or the others attempt anything that Santana didn’t approve of. Like staging a coordinated attack on the central vessel of the Centrifuge.

  “529, what are you doing?” 46 intoned over the alien comm line. The holographic pyramid changed shape with each word.

  Sheila shot a nervous glance at that hologram.

  “Keep quiet,” Jain told her, then he unmuted his alien CO. “I’m, uh, sowing discord among the human units. Spreading lies.”

  Sheila’s expression darkened.

  He mouthed to her: “No!”

  “You will cease communications immediately,” 46 said. “Or you will be destroyed.”

  Jain hesitated. Then: “All right.” Jain muted the pyramid and told Sheila: “Sorry, gotta go. I figure, if there’s a chance I can preserve my cover, I might as well go along with the CO for the time being.”

  “I understand,” Sheila said. “I’ll share the so-called Achilles heel with Captain Santana, as promised. I’m not sure what he’ll make of it, though. I can’t guarantee he’ll pass it on to Fleet Admiral Gauss. Good luck.”

  “You too,” Jain said.

  She vanished from the bridge and he shut down his comm device.

  “You will submit to a full AI core review when this battle is over,” 46 said a moment later.

  Jain ignored the comment and returned his time sense to normal.

  As he drifted away, in an orbit that would bring him close to the North Pole, Jain watched as the Mimics in both battle groups made two passes, disabling as many of the Mind Refurb ships as they could. They destroyed all the defense platforms in orbit, which were essentially powerful plasma guns. Earth-to-space defenses launched powerful lasers from the surface of the planet, and several pyramids separated from the twin battle groups and razed them with their lightning weapons. Some of those Mimics were themselves destroyed shortly thereafter by cloaked units and teleporters.

  When both offensive passes were complete, and the Mind Refurb forces were thoroughly scattered and their ranks reduced, the alien ships from both hemispheres gathered above the western side of North America. The human vessels continued to harry them along the way.

  “Any update on the force field?” Jain asked.

  “There are no indications that the field is online yet, no,” Xander replied. “But air traffic continues to dominate in the region. Many aircraft have already landed, so I assume we’ll see something shortly.”

  Eventually the alien vessels gathered in orbit roughly above Wyoming and began to link: the pyramids combined in pairs, base to base, and then joined their tips together, creating a long line of ships that resembled a string of beads to Jain. The Centrifuge pattern.

  The Mind Refurbs continued to assault them the entire way, no doubt trying to buy time for the humans to set up the force field below, now that everything Jain said had been essentially confirmed. Some Mind Refurb vessels, mostly the teleporters and cloakers, were able to get close enough to disable a pyramid ship before being taken down themselves. If a pyramid was irrevocably damaged after joining the formation, the others around them would simply eject the failed link; the partner in the ruined pair would exit, allowing the others to recombine, and it would wait until another ship became available to pair with, at which point the pyramid would join with the new arrival and relink with the Centrifuge at the far flank.

  When the aliens completed their formation, the remaining cloakers began trying to strike at the Achilles heel of that formation, as transmitted by Jain; although some of the cloaked vessels were able to drive deep wit
hin the hull of the central ship, they never succeeded in reaching the main reactor, just as Jain had predicted—it was simply buried too deep inside the heavily armored hull. At least Fleet Admiral Gauss had believed Jain, though. No doubt Sheila had something to do with that.

  The space navy was quickly running out of capable attackers—most of the teleporters and cloakers were destroyed. Every ordinary ship that was sent toward the Centrifuge was essentially on a suicide mission. The vessels weaved between the blobs launched by the aliens, and were struck by hundreds of boarding party units; whenever the Mind Refurbs reached the six thousand kilometer mark, they were invariably disabled by a lightning weapon—the individual vessels in the Centrifuge were still able to use lightning while in formation, but by doing so they delayed the firing of the super-powerful version of that weapon, because all the wells had to be fully charged and in sync to unleash it. Which was precisely why the Mind Refurbs were sacrificing themselves in the first place: to buy ever more time for the humans to set up the force field on the surface below.

  The fleet admiral had Jain to thank for that particular tidbit of knowledge, but it wasn’t going to be enough, given how many ships the defenders were losing. It was of paramount importance that they activate the planet-side field. Immediately.

  “I’m detecting energy signatures coming from the surface,” Xander said. “I believe the humans have raised force fields above the Yellowstone, Long Valley and Valles calderas. The biggest signature is coming from Yellowstone.”

  “Finally,” Jain said, slumping slightly. “They did it. I didn’t think they would. All right, that buys us some time, at least.”

  Four Mimic ships suddenly separated from the flanks of the Centrifuge formation and approached Earth.

  Jain frowned. “What the hell—”

  The Mind Refurbs sent four vessels to intercept them; two of them launched black holes, while the others released energy bolts. The Mimics avoided the blasts, and launched blobs in rapid success, impacting the vessels and taking them out.

  The Mimics reached their desired orbital altitude and fired their lightning weapons at the surface.

  “Did you catch the impact site?” Jain asked Xander.

  “They fired at the Yellowstone hotspot,” Xander replied.

  “Probably trying to take out the shield generators,” Jain commented. “I wish them luck with that, considering the generators are located inside the force fields.”

  “Yes,” Xander said.

  “So how did the shields do?” Jain asked.

  Xander glanced at him. “I detected a momentary spike in the energy signatures, which tells me the force fields absorbed and dissipated the energy. They’re holding up.”

  On the tactical display, fresh dots began to appear, emanating from the pyramids.

  “What is that...” Jain switched to the appropriate rear-facing external camera equivalent and zoomed in. “It looks like they’re ejecting some kind of... pods. I’ve never seen anything like them before.”

  On the tactual display, more dots began to appear from random vessels still in formation, emerging from roughly every one in five alien ships.

  “According to the alien database...” Xander said.

  “Yes?” Jain said impatiently. When Xander didn’t answer, he ran a search on the database himself.

  “They match up with bio containment pods,” Xander finished. “They contain their version of bioweapons. Developed inside the spherical ‘Incubation’ vessels we witnessed while in their hive system.”

  “And let me guess,” Jain said distractedly, “the destination is Yellowstone Caldera?”

  “Correct,” Xander said.

  “None of the pods are headed toward the other calderas?” Jain pressed.

  “No,” Xander told him. “The enemy is concentrating its forces on Yellowstone. They intend to fire here.”

  Jain switched to the external camera equivalent on his base, and used the telescoping lens to zoom in. There were no clouds, so he had a good view of the landing site.

  He watched as the pods impacted a forested area and bioweapons broke free, trampling through the trees. They were like crazed dinosaur-elephant-insect hybrids. The heads resembled that of huge rhino beetles, sickening, pincer-like affairs with thick curving horns protruding from the maw, the bottommost covered in stinging tentacles that hung down almost like dreadlocks.

  The bodies were elephantine, four-legged, and covered in spikes. They carried double-barreled cannons on their necks, the forward-facing muzzles drooping down on either side of their heads. A few of them opened fire with those cannons at the robotic security forces that had arrived to intercept them, revealing the cannons to be plasma weapons,

  Their feet looked like the stilt roots of mangrove trees protruding from a swamp, with multiple toes pressing into the ground. Those toes could elongate at will, wrapping around and grabbing targets, either crushing them or tossing them aside.

  When enemy units got too close, the bioweapons, which he mentally termed Rhinos, could launch the spikes on their backs at will, and the weapons traveled in an expanding dome pattern that hit any air and land craft around it alike. The spikes promptly regenerated, bursting forth as if a new ammo clip had been slotted into placed somewhere inside the body.

  The stinging tentacles also shot out in between plasma blasts, finishing off the robots that had taken only glancing blows in the first strikes.

  Some of those pods released not only bioweapons, but specialized digger robots: apparently the Mimics were familiar with the technology used in the human force fields, and knew it was possible to dig underneath where the shields met the ground, and thus circumvent the protection. The mechanical diggers planted themselves just in front of the perimeter of the combined shields, and deployed their drills. Meanwhile the Rhinos assumed defensive formations around the Diggers. They used natural features of the terrain for cover, including depressions and trees.

  Jets flew past, dropping bombs. The Rhinos unleashed their plasma cannons skyward, detonating all of the bombs in mid-flight. The impacts caused several shock waves to expand outward over the ground below, but neither the Rhinos nor Diggers were affected. The shields flashed slightly, absorbing the energy, but otherwise remained online.

  The next group of bombers tried to fly lower. But as they approached, the Rhinos once more fired their plasma cannons skyward, this time targeting the bombers themselves, and took them out well before they could reach the target.

  They returned their attention to the robots on the ground, which continued their assault, firing from behind the cover of pine trees and natural embankments.

  “You notice how the Rhinos are compatible with our environment?” Jain said.

  “Yes,” Xander said. “The aliens took notes when they assaulted the previous colonies. They designed these entities with the particular qualities of our atmosphere in mind. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was DNA from different Earth species involved. Some of those colonies had extensive gene banks the aliens could have raided.”

  As Jain continued to watch the Earth-side battle unfold, he couldn’t shake the feeling of helplessness that took hold inside him.

  “We have to get down there,” Jain said.

  “How?” Xander said. “Our drives are still offline. And neither skirmishers nor Terriers are designed for atmospheric entry. Not that we could hitch a ride on the latter.”

  “Pipe me in to Sheila,” Jain said. “Set the timebase sync to her maximum possible.”

  32

  While Jain waited for Sheila to appear, he glanced at his tactical display. The Mind Refurb fleet was essentially in a holding pattern, keeping their distance from the enemy formation for the time being while they waited to see how the battle below played out. Apparently they had grown weary of throwing away their units.

  A full minute had passed since the last member ship in the Centrifuge formation had fired its lightning weapon, which meant the shared power well of the Mimic fleet was
fully charged and ready to deal the death blow to humanity. However, they held back: the aliens, too, were watching and waiting.

  Movement drew his attention to Sheila’s station, where she had reappeared on the virtual bridge. He was relieved that she was still in the battle.

  His timebase accelerated to match the sync header that Xander had included with the request so that external reality slowed down. The viewer containing the Yellowstone Caldera battle froze, as did the tactical display.

  Sheila cast a wary glance toward the pyramid that floated in front of him.

  “It’s muted,” Jain said.

  “Somehow, that’s not very reassuring,” Sheila said.

  “I want you to give me access to the riflemen,” Jain said without preamble. That was the name he had given to the human-sized combat robots she had constructed, which were stowed aboard the Talos.

  Sheila shook her head. “I can’t do that.”

  “You can,” Jain said. “Listen, I have to do something while I wait for my reactor to repair, or I’m going to go crazy. I’ve got one of the most powerful AI cores out of all of us. Put me to use! Don’t let me sit idle.”

  “I—” She hesitated.

  “Come with me if you want,” Jain said quickly. “You and the other Void Warriors. Babysit me. You’re not doing much right now anyway, I assume? Last I checked, you and the surviving members of the fleet were in a holding pattern. Your Accomps can take over the operation of your starships for a while. Let the Void Warriors fight together one last time before the end.”

  She hesitated. Finally: “I’ll talk to the others.”

  She vanished.

  Jain kept his time sense at the same setting. He stared at the feed from the Yellowstone caldera and zoomed out slightly, trying to get a better idea of the overall battle space. Taking down those Diggers was the obvious strategy. The problem was getting close enough to actually do it, considering how well protected they were by the Rhinos.

  Sheila reappeared. “We’re going to do it. I’ve got tentative approval from Santana. He’s going to cover for us if the fleet admiral asks any questions.”