The Piranha Solution: A Hard Science Fiction Technothriller (Ace of Space Book 1)

by John Triptych

  “I don’t recall seeing anybody else with him,” Joshua said. “But then again I only ventured into six compartments.”

  Stilicho opened the hatch, revealing a cylindrical corridor stretching thirty meters ahead of them. White fluorescent lights began turning on, illuminating the passage. Numerous piled crates lined the sides. Joshua moved along the floor of the tunnel, carefully picking its way along the assorted debris. The two of them followed just a few steps behind.

  Darian had taken her helmet off, but she retained her ear piece and throat microphone. “Joshua, it seems to me that if all the airlocks were sealed, then how did the other robots get out into the outside?”

  “I believe they were constructed at the engineering modules beside the landing pad, at the lowest level of the colony site,” Joshua said.

  Stilicho breathed a sigh of relief. “Well that’s good then! I figured those centaur robots won’t be able to crawl their way through that access corridor like we did. Heck, I don’t think the bigger spider bots would fit either.”

  “Stay on guard anyway,” Darian said. “Who knows what we might find in here.”

  “Of course,” Stilicho said. “I’m just saying that our chances are improving.”

  They passed by a number of side doors which led to storage rooms and offices. At the end of the corridor was a much larger hatch. As soon as Stilicho opened the door, the overhead lights automatically came on, revealing a semi-circular room with digital screens lining the walls. In the center of the room was a pair of plastic tables and four chairs. Several monitors instantly activated, though most of the words being displayed were in Cyrillic.

  Stilicho pushed his lower lip out. “Very similar to the nuke control room over at Eridu. Though I think the Russians still used the old water-cooled reactors, unlike ACE Corp’s molten salt reactor.”

  “Locate the sever uplink and upload Maia into the interface,” Darian said.

  “Yes, yes,” Stilicho said as he started looking around. “I’m not stupid you know.”

  Darian snorted. “Could have fooled me.”

  “If I could ask,” Joshua said. “Are you both just kidding around or is this some prelude to conflict?”

  Darian holstered her pistol and crossed her arms. “Both.”

  “Just remember that the biggest mystery of the universe involves trying to figure out what women want,” Stilicho said.

  “Shut up,” Darin said tersely.

  “Human behavior seems … so hard to understand,” Joshua said.

  “There really is no logic to it,” Maia said. “I’ve always made it a point to judge them by their actions rather than what they say.”

  “If you ever judge me the wrong way, I’ll have you wiped, Maia,” Stilicho said as he bent over, examining several nearby workstations. “Remember that.”

  “Oh I would never be disloyal to you, Stil,” Maia said. “My programming won’t allow it.”

  “I’d like to have my own MAIA if we ever get back to Earth,” Darian said. “She seems pretty useful. I’m surprised you guys haven’t started selling them already.”

  Stilicho continued his examinations of the consoles in the room. “Errol wants to do a lot of field testing before we start to sell them to the general public. Won’t be for a couple of years, at least.” He spotted what looked to be an interface port to the plant’s server. “Aha, here we go.” Stilicho placed a jack into the port.

  “Stand by. Accessing,” Maia said. “It seems that this power plant operated on a separate server in order to minimize potential accidents. The reactor was placed on automatic when the Russian contingent evacuated. It seems to have been kept functioning for a purpose.”

  “Yeah, to keep Silas alive, right?” Darian asked.

  “So it seems,” Maia said. “Life support continued to operate throughout the colony, but at a minimal level. Most of the power usage was indeed directed at the vehicle construction bay near the hangar by the landing pad. So it seems Joshua’s statement has been confirmed. What would you like to do?”

  “Shut everything down,” Stilicho said. “Find a way to disable all the power and make sure that it never comes back online.”

  “I could rapidly open and close all circuit breakers out of phase until they burn out,” Maia said. “I can also permanently disable all safety devices and open all valves to release the reactor’s water and oil tanks. That should cause it to overheat. A third possible way is to wipe the monitoring and regulatory software.”

  “All of the above,” Stilicho said.

  “One moment,” Maia said. Almost immediately a number of alarms were tripped, indicating that the reactor was in crisis. Loud, blaring noises began to sound. The screens began to blink as the warning signs began to flash intermittently. In less than a minute, even the monitor screens began to shut down, and the alarms soon quieted.

  Darian looked around. “That was it?”

  Without warning, the room began to shudder slightly as they all heard a muffled explosion. The overhead lights quickly switched into a blinking reddish glow. A woman’s voice calmly said something in Russian over the intercoms.

  Stilicho looked up. “What did she say?”

  “It was an automated voice message saying that the main power has been deactivated,” Maia said. “The entire colony is now on emergency solar power.”

  “All of the sweeper bots were cannibalized to make the combat models,” Joshua said. “Because Silas needed the parts.”

  “That means most of the solar panels would be caked with dust, severely degrading their efficiency since there hasn’t been any maintenance done,” Maia said. “The emergency batteries won’t last very long.”

  Darian nodded. “Nice bit of sabotage there, Maia. Now all we have to do is—”

  Her words were interrupted when another voice came booming onto the intercom speakers. It was a man’s, and it carried a low, rasping tone. “Who dares to venture into the domain of Ares, the god of war? What sort of infidel dares to defile my sacred home?”

  By reflex, Stilicho picked up the crowbar that he had left lying on one of the tables. “Silas Balsamic, I presume.”

  “Would you like me to patch into his frequency so you may communicate with him?” Maia said.

  Stilicho shook his head. “No way. I don’t want to listen to that lunatic’s rants.”

  Silas’s words continued to reverberate through the intercom. “You dare to challenge me? This is my abode. I have absolute power here. I have already killed many humans, and now you shall all die as well.”

  Darian placed a hand over her ear piece so she could hear a reply. “Maia, are you still detecting an AI control signal?”

  “Yes. It’s gotten weaker in strength, but it is still being issued,” Maia said.

  “How long till it gets shut down due to lack of power?” Darian asked.

  “Not sure,” Maia said. “It completely depends on what batteries are available to its server. As I don’t have an accurate count, I cannot say for certain.”

  Stilicho pursed his lips. “How about an estimate then?”

  “It wouldn’t be reliable but it could take months before the all the batteries in this colony goes to minimal charge,” Maia said.

  Darian grimaced. “We don’t have time. We have to take it out. Maia, how do we disable the main server?”

  “Scanning. It seems that his carrier wave signals are operating from a central server unit,” Maia said. “I would need to be have physical access to this server from any terminal and my suite needs to be uploaded into it.”

  “Any idea as to where this server is?” Stilicho said.

  “I remember meeting Silas in a large room with an upraised stage,” Joshua said. “There was machinery all around and he seemed to have been working in that one place for years, building robots similar to myself. It had a high domed ceiling.”

  Stilicho took out the interface plug from the power plant port and placed it in his belt pouch. “Maia, any ideas?”

/>   “One moment,” Maia said. “It seems that the only possible area that is close to what Joshua describes would be the central assembly dome, a place where all the colonists would come together, similar to an auditorium on Earth.”

  “I believe I know where that is,” Joshua said. “Please follow me.”

  Darian drew her pistol again.

  They had made it into another access tunnel. Maia had recommended that they wear their helmets in case Silas attempted to use atmospheric decompression or poison the colony life support system, and they complied. Joshua led them through the maintenance passageway until they were just underneath the central assembly dome.

  “The ladder leads up to the main commons,” Joshua said before reverting back to bipedal mode and climbing the rungs. Darian followed and Stilicho brought up the rear. Joshua’s tentacle curled around the levers and pulled them open before it pushed the hatch out. The spider bot extended its two forward limbs, and pulled itself out and into the dome’s interior. The moment Darian poked her head out from the maintenance hatch and looked up, she gasped.

  The dome must have measured around fifty meters up to its highest point, with a radius almost three times its height. The partly transparent geodesic lines around its half circle were a framework of triangles and rectangles, with laminated acrylic glass forming the panels to seal it. The Russians had erected this done within the confines of the massive lava tube, as a crowning testament to their engineering achievements. It was supposed to have been unveiled at the colony’s tenth anniversary, before the economic turmoil back on Earth had forced its closure. But what made the whole scene even more incredible were the modifications that its new master had made.

  When Stilicho climbed out of the maintenance access, he was greeted by a landscape of throbbing, sparkling wires and twisted pieces of metal all around him. At the center of the dome was what looked to be a gigantic tree made of silicon and carbon fibers, its tallest branches growing vertically, like silvery crystal stalactites, reaching all the way up to the top of the dome. It seemed like he was standing in the middle of a strange Garden of Eden, but with flora made of silicates and steel all around him.

  For a long minute Darian said nothing. She was utterly dumbfounded by the sheer spectacle of it all. When she finally did utter some words, her voice was barely a whisper. “What is this place?”

  “Hell if I know,” Stilicho said. “Maia, can you locate where the damned server is?”

  “You’re looking at it,” Maia said.

  Stilicho threw his hands up. “What? All I can see is some weird, giant metallic tree up ahead of me.”

  “It seems to act as a giant antenna that’s continuing to send signals to the orbital satellites above the planet,” Maia said. “I believe that most of the wiring that’s on the floor is being used as power cables for it.”

  Stilicho crouched down and held the crowbar close to one particularly thick power link and prepared to strike at it. An electric spark leapt out of the cord and traveled from the crowbar and up into his arm. Luckily his suit was insulated but the mild electric shock nearly made him drop the lever. “Ow, it’s got some sort of static discharge!”

  “Be careful,” Darian said. “I could shoot all the wires but I’ll be out of ammo before long.”

  “Dammit,” Stilicho said. “Maia, can you locate an upload terminal anywhere?”

  Joshua reverted back to quadruped mode and started crawling forward. “I believe you will find one along one of the branches of that tree.”

  Stilicho sighed. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “I don’t really understand the concept of humor yet,” Joshua said. “And at the same time, I don’t want you to misconstrue everything I say so no, I am not joking with you.”

  Darian bounded ahead, right behind Joshua. “Let’s get going then.”

  Stilicho followed. “Oh, for chrissakes.”

  Just as Joshua had gotten close to the base of the metal tree, the ground around them started to shake. The spider bot increased its pace and reached the roots of the structure in less than a minute, which seemed to have been embedded into the flooring of the dome. The moment Joshua started to climb up along the foot of the trunk, something huge emerged from underneath the metallic roots. It had a cylindrical, wormlike body and it was two meters thick, while its overall length seemed to be dozens of times longer. Its massive head had glowing eyes due to its infrared lenses, with dinosaur-like jaws enclosing a mouth of serrated steel teeth.

  Darian let out a warning as she stopped in her tracks and aimed. She immediately began firing at the monster’s face, but her bullets just bounced off its fused metal head. The robotic giant snake pounced on Joshua, clamping its steel jaws around the helpless spider bot. Even with their helmets both Stilicho and Darian heard the sounds of crushing metal as Joshua screamed once on the carrier wave before becoming silent. The snake bot waved its head in the air in a side to side motion, pieces of the spider bot falling from its mouth, before it finally let go of the metallic wreck and sent it flying across the dome.

  “Joshua, no!” Darian said as she fired a few more aimed shots at the snake bot’s head, the bullets failing to have any noticeable effect. The snake seemed to stare at them for a few seconds, before it began slithering towards their position.

  Stilicho turned to his left side and ran. “Move, Darian!”

  Darian was rooted to the spot where she was standing in, the shock over Joshua’s demise still fresh in her mind. The giant metal snake reared its head up until it stood more than eight meters above her, before it looked down and snapped at her head. Darian was able to recover her wits at the last minute as she tumbled sideways, the low gravity giving her an extra boost as she seemed to fly out of the way. The serpent missed as it smashed its snout into the floor, cracking the foundations. Without warning, the creature paused for several seconds while the power outflows to the tree were rerouted after it had inadvertently damaged the wiring.

  Silas’s voice echoed along the speakers that were situated up by the ceiling. “Welcome to the inner sanctum of Ares. This is where mortals meet their doom!”

  Stilicho noticed the life support control panel at the other side of the great dome. He ran towards it. “Maia, could you hack into that terminal?”

  “The systems in this place are completely shielded,” Maia said. “I would need a physical interface to take control of any of their command suites.”

  Darian sensed it too as she got up. It was clear that the gigantic metal tree was the key to everything, yet it was vulnerable to power fluctuations. She needed to give Stilicho some time. Darian started to run at the opposite direction, and she began to wave at the serpent the moment it regained its senses. “Over here! I’m over here!”

  “I can detect a multitude of carrier wave frequencies emanating from the branches of that tree,” Maia said. “It seems to be the focal point of Silas Balsamic’s power.”

  “No, really?” Darian said as she made a short, slow motion jump over a boulder made of silicates.

  The snake seemed a bit wary this time, as it did not want to lose radio contact with its controller. It slithered quickly after Darian, its massive cylindrical body quickly overtook her, and she had to jump up into the air as it tried to coil around her legs in a death grip. Darian made a flying leap that extended almost two meters into the air in a desperate attempt to get away, but the serpent drew its head up and bit her in the back, completely crushing her life support pack. Darian screamed as the creature held her aloft and started thrashing about. As the robotic snake began to draw her into its serrated maw, Darian unfastened the straps from her backpack and was soon dangling below the creature’s chin, her helmet pulled along by the air hose. She grabbed the back of her helmet and quickly disengaged the air hose as she fell back onto the ground. The creature titled its head to the side and discarded the chewed up life support pack before it lowered its head once more, making another attempt to chomp at her. Darian was able to roll away at
the last second, her right leg pulled back just less than half a meter from the serpent’s maw.

  Stilicho had made it to the life support panel. It was a free standing console embedded along the circular wall. Ignoring the blinking readouts on the monitor screen, he crouched down and started opening every available panel, hoping to find an access port where he could plug in the interface module. Checking the wiring underneath the keyboard, he noticed an access port from the side. Stilicho quickly took out an interface stick, and plugged it in.

  “One moment, accessing,” Maia said. “Life support systems in the dome are currently configured at ten percent oxygen, ninety percent nitrogen.”

  It seemed that Silas himself sensed something was wrong. “Stop, you infidels! Do not violate my inner sanctum any further!”

  Darian shrieked as she made a backwards crawl in between two human-sized boulders. The snake used its mouth to lift and throw one of the boulders aside and was ready to finish her off when it suddenly reared its head back up into the air. The creature had apparently received new commands as it turned away and began slithering rapidly towards Stilicho.

  “Do an emergency vent,” Stilicho said tersely. “Then do what you can to overload all the power sources in this place.”

  The glass covering the domed ceiling seemed to shake for a bit, as the atmosphere inside the place rapidly dissipated. The gargantuan tree seemed to glow brighter before its electrical luminescence started to wane. The snake had covered the ground between them quickly, but it paused again, as if it heard its master’s screaming.

  “Stop this at once!” Silas said. “You will die for this!”

  “You’re just like a comic book villain, Silas,” Stilicho said, “all mouth and no brains.”

  “Stil, get behind the venting grill to your right,” Maia said.

  Stilicho ran over to a protruding ventilation shaft and dived underneath it, just as the giant metal snake lunged at him. The creature stopped at the last minute, its head a mere two meters away from the hunched form of Stilicho as its sensors indicated there was an obstacle ahead. Without warning, a spray of flame retardant foam emanated from a remote controlled extinguisher port and dusted the sensor package just above the snake bot’s mouth. The serpent thrashed its head about, trying to dislodge the chemicals, but without any limbs, most of its sensors had been rendered blind, and there was nothing it could do to remove the blockage.