Ghost of an Empire (Sentinel Series Book 3)

by Richard Flunker

  “And any of all of this isn’t?” Ragula chuckled, “Might as well throw it all on us. What does he know?”

  Deespa continued.

  “While the techs drained Stargazer of all of his data, they forgot that he was, after all, a digital being. They prevented him from closing up to them, but they forgot to stop him from gathering everything he could from the network they had him hooked into. While he was being siphoned, he ran data the opposite way, and caught up on everything he could about his captors. He pushed through the highest levels of data security and took as much of it as he could in. It wouldn’t be till a few weeks back, at the same we had our own discovery in the vaults, that he made the correlation.

  More than just a correlation, it was a revelation that our reporter here, were he not completely under the effects of medication, would want to know.

  This being, ‘ancient one’, as Stargazer calls it, is not a Sentinel. For that matter, it is not an AI either, at least not in the common understanding. There were no records Stargazer could find about its origins or where it came from, but what it does know is that it was discovered on Coran by early Dominion settlers, shortly after the formation of the empire. More importantly, our AI friend in the other room put some very interesting pieces of information together and came with a haunting conclusion: the being on Coran was responsible for the first machine war. As it is doing now, it corrupted the AI, who themselves then expanded the war.

  How this being was ‘defeated’, if it even was, he could not find. But it was, for it was put into some kind of stasis. It was thus as we, I, found it. The reason this being is alive and attacking us was because of my foolishness. At that instant, while it discovered where it was, it launched a signal that spread out through a certain distance in space. We are very aware of what this signal did.

  Somehow, this being discovered records of the Dominion’s attempts to create this star bomb, and had been trying to lift the destroyer from the ground and bring it back to Coran. Stargazer, somehow immune to its digital charms, was holding it back with some kind of counter signal of its own, the very signal we traced.

  It seems that my foolishness has no bounds, for it was my very action of coming here that disturbed Stargazer’s protection over the weapon. When we unplugged him, the destroyer fell under the control of the being.

  It has been my actions that have put us on this course and it must be my actions that remedy us from this threat.”

  Even Hosha looked on in disbelief.

  “I can’t believe it,” he slurred.

  “This ‘star bomb’, as you say. It’s on its way to this being?” Ragula asked.

  She nodded.

  “So it gets the bomb and uses it?”

  “It has to build it first. Remember, there was no technology for it at the time. There certainly could be now. Stargazer seems to think so,” Deespa replied.

  “Am I the only one not looking at the obvious?” Fangix started. “This being. If it is not manmade, then, it must be, alien?”

  “We can’t presume anything yet. Only what we know for sure. It is not an AI, but it has the same capabilities, although at an incredibly immense scale,” Deespa instructed.

  Ogho puffed his cheeks and blew out a long breath.

  “So we have to blow up that ship, before this thing gets it. That’s what we’re getting at right?” he said.

  “With the amount of ships coming into orbit over Coran, and our attempts to protect the evacuating ships, our fleet, even the Harmoa, is going to be hard pressed to take her down. If we pour all we have into taking her, we might lose more lives, and if we don’t, then we,” the Queen stopped. It was the first time Fangix had ever seen doubt in her eyes. “Then I don’t know what will happen.”

  “Harmoa command has all this information?” Fangix asked.

  Deespa nodded. “I am confident they will come up with something. In the meantime, I believe we have to prepare for something radically different. We have to go back down to the temple and defeat that being, somehow.”

  Ogho smiled. “Now that is more my style.”

  “We will not be able to do this alone,” she said.

  “First Army will be ready if we need to.”

  “We will need them. I have been informed by Harmoa command that the old Dominion Aghuala fleet, the one that was missing, is coming to our aid. Along with them come the Fifth Legion.”

  “They will fight with us?” Ogho asked, at the same time doubtful yet excited.

  “They are willing to die for their home,” she said, quietly.

  “Still,” Ragula interjected, “Not to be the downer here, but just within the past hour, our sensors have picked up so many AI ships inbound, hell, I think I saw some Solar and Alliance ships too. We’re not going to be just outnumbered, it’s going to be a deluge.”

  Deespa looked back into the tiny sensor and server room.

  “That’s where our new friend might have an idea to help us.”

  At his mention, everyone turned to look at the black cube sitting on the console.

  3127 – On board the Harmoa, Coran

  His face was a mixture of terror and bewilderment. After everything they had gone through in the past several hours, to now hear what the Queen wanted to do was a bit too much, even for the open minded advisor.

  “I don’t really know what to say to this my Queen. You could, you will, overrule me, of course, but how will the rest of the crew, and for that matter, the rest of your people react?” Clelin asked, stroking his beard nervously.

  The DGX had docked with the command ship just two hours previous, and the advisor had been relieved to see her returned. The news he presented her wasn’t as much. The destroyer had come into orbit with its entourage, and there linked up with nearly a thousand other small ships. Very few of them had any sort of attack capabilities, but it didn’t matter. They threw themselves into any incoming missiles, and when those ran out and Union ships moved in to engage at close range, they rammed those ships to a great degree of success. Twice the Harmoa had attempted to incinerate the rusted destroyer with its beam only to have a plethora of the remote controlled ships put themselves up for sacrifice. It was bad enough that there could have been people inside of those ships still. They couldn’t risk the Harmoa and move her in closer. Even a ship of her size would take an inordinate amount of damage from several hundred small ships ramming into her.

  And so they watched, dismayed, as the destroyer descended slowly through the atmosphere on the backs of a hundred other ship, including two tugs. The Queen’s mission had now been upgraded to a full on attack on the temple ruins, because the destroyer had settled there, just outside of the ever growing pit in the earth.

  As the Queen sat on her the Captain’s chair, by all means her throne on the Harmoa, the advisor, the Admiral, the Captain of the Harmoa, and several aides, stood by, reading her report and gasping at what she wanted to do.

  “You see it all there. Our ideas about AI, our fears, are completely wrong. Unbased. Our real enemy is down there, on the surface, throwing our own weapons at us,” she made her case.

  “I can see it my Queen. You know I can. Perhaps we can listen to this,” Clelin said, pointing at the black cube pictured on the main console, “device. But what you ask us to do, what you ask us to give into, it’s akin to surrendering to an enemy that has promised to execute you.”

  “You exaggerate my dear advisor.”

  “Perhaps, but only so that you may understand my meaning. How can we trust this being, this AI?” he asked.

  “Do you trust me?” she asked of him, but looking at everyone else.

  “How can you ask that of me? Of them?” Clelin responded with a heartfelt question.

  “I do not ask to insult, but only to prove a point,” she said. “If you trust me, trust my mind.”

  “I can trust you. I cannot trust that machine.”

  “If you trust me, you can trust him,” she said with authority.

  He ran hi
s hands through his beard a few times. “How can you be so sure?”

  She smiled meekly again. The young woman in her came out once again, and he saw it. It was that same spirit he had fallen for, the same ideas. The innovative, the revelation, she was all of it. And so she asked of him again.

  She stepped down from her chair and walked up to him. She took his hands and held them.

  “Dearest Clelin. You have never doubted, even when you didn’t understand. There will be a time for all mysteries great and small to be revealed to you. That is our pact. But that time has not come yet.”

  He laughed, quietly at first, then heartily. “You will lead us all into the light or into certain doom. But I will follow my Queen.”

  She touched the side of his face, then turned to the Captain.

  “I need to hear from you now, Captain,” she said.

  “You wish me to turn over the Harmoa to this AI. In functionality, I understand. What remains of us? Her crew? Will we be turned into passengers?” he asked.

  “You will find the AI to be much more of a crewmember than a master. A crewmember that will respect the Captain and obey his orders, but also execute them in fractions of a second.”

  “That’s a tall order,” the Captain whistled.

  “This is unlike any war you have trained for. It is time for us to see who our enemy really is, and time to find allies we certainly didn’t expect.”

  The Captain nodded, then saluted.

  “Very well. I have yet to see any reason to doubt you. I will order the engineers to bring the device online,” he said.

  “You will find him to be much more than just a device,” she said. “Admiral Pengus? Do we have any word on the Algheus fleet?”

  “Optics just picked up their signature on the solar edge. They have started their sling into the core systems.”

  “How long?” she asked.

  “Seventeen hours.”

  “Very well. They have the Mass Driver with them?” she asked again.

  “It appears so.”

  “And our position here in orbit?”

  The Admiral walked her over to his console. “As long as we don’t drift directly over the temple ruins, we are safe. The vast majority of whatever ships they, or it, control, have descended onto the surface. We are, sadly, no match for the planetary batteries.”

  “At least not until the mass driver arrives.” Deespa pointed at another section of the planetary map, spinning the globe around until she found what she was looking for.

  “What about the First?”

  “We have dispatched seven pods. It was all we could afford without breaking down the protection of the fleeing civilians,” the Admiral informed her.

  “And what about the civilians?”

  “My Queen. Many try, but, we are talking an evacuation on a level that has never been attempted before. Most simply refuse to leave.”

  “You understand what we are facing if they can bring that weapon online?” the Queen spat angrily.

  “Of course, my Queen, it’s not information we have willingly given out, and even if we could. Who would believe us? It’s hard for these people to leave their homes, their world. They simply do not understand the type of war we are facing.”

  “At times, I don’t think we do either,” the Queen pointed out, calming down again.

  “I agree.”

  “Very well Admiral. Prepare two drop ships. I will be going down below to join the First pods. Inform me the moment that mass driver is in orbit. Our survival relies on that.”

  The Admiral saluted, then marched off.

  3127 – Border of Jonian Province and Lake Irah, Coran

  “What do we have First Tennant?”

  Ogho spun around, setting his hand held optics down to greet the familiar voice.

  “My Queen,” he replied.

  For a day now, Ogho and his pod had been following up the coast of the lake, hitting on the caravan of vehicles treading north.

  “Look there,” he said, handing the optics over to Deespa. “That is the interchange for highways two and seventeen, along with the Royal autoway. It is less than a mile from harbor access at the lake and tube access as well. We just got here a few hours ago, but the Royal air force has been dropping bombs on it now for a few days. We’ve essentially destroyed it, but as you can see, the machines have just taken to avoiding it entirely.”

  She looked down the eyepiece and onto the large plainfield ahead of her. They sat nestled on the ridge of several hills that overlooked the floodplains of the Irah River. The lake itself was the largest on Coran and a major shipping area. The Irah River flowed into it at the bottom right corner of the lake, providing water access to several hundred miles inland. The natural occurring floods also yielded reasonably fertile farmlands along the river and lake, right up the hills that rose up about thirty miles from the shore. It was a veritable crossroads.

  What was once a large concrete complex of roads twisting and turning in and over each other to connect the multiple highways here was now a twisted ruin. Bridges were knocked down and only columns remained of overpasses while roads were bombed and cratered. But as Deespa looked through, she saw the machines didn’t care. Instead, they had moved the rubble into makeshift bridges and fords over the river, and the stream of ant-like vehicles continued to move forward, always northbound.

  She zoomed in closer and made out humanoid forms among the vehicles.

  “Mechs?” she asked.

  “Only a few military ones. Most of them are loaders and construction drones. Its gruesome to think that there might be bodies inside many of them,” Ogho informed.

  “The bombing hasn’t worked?”

  “It was going well, as you can see, but,” Ogho said, taking out a second pair of optics, “train your eyes back up seventeen degrees north.”

  The Queen followed the tracker on the optics and saw the ship floating hundreds of feet off the shore.

  “Is that the Vinicius?” she asked, unsure as she had never actually seen the ship.

  “It appears to be so.” The Vinicius was a small class drone carrier, a support ship that carried nearly two hundred fighter and escort drones. If there was ever a ship for the AI to control, it was that one. “Barely didn’t recognize it myself either with it sitting in the water like a boat.”

  Deespa thought back. “I don’t recall the name coming up on ships that made it onto Coran.”

  “No, me neither,” Ogho agreed. “But we’ve confirmed it’s her. Not a good sign is it?”

  “No. If she is down there, what other ships have we missed? Wasn’t the Vinicius last deployed on Vega with the local contingent there?” she asked.

  “I am not sure, my Queen. But she wasn’t on Coran, that I know. What worries me a bit is the fact that her sisters, Vengicus and Varias are also not accounted for. Those three ships might not look like much, but they pack a punch for what they can do.”

  Deespa looked back down at the water. It was a truly unremarkable ship. Maybe five hundred feet long, it was large and somewhat round. Its class of ships was nicknamed the hedgehogs, and shaped accordingly. It was, for the most part, a glorified drone hauler, but it was its insides that set it apart. Based highly on stolen Alliance technology, it was a state of the art drone controller. It was also able to have a skeleton crew of seven men, something unheard of for a ship that size. What was most fearsome was its swarm tactics against incoming bombers and escort vessels. It was also able to endure significant damage due to its armor and hedgehog design.

  “We can’t make any bombing runs anymore without suffering nearly eighty percent casualties. From the fact that despite the bombing, the machines are still moving forward, most of the runs were called off.”

  “What about your progress?” Deespa asked.

  Ogho stepped back and ducked behind the ridge; the Queen followed him. The soldier knelt down and projected a small map on the ground.

  “My pods linked up here with Union forces Alpha 3 and
Inca 7,” he pointed at a small town two hundred miles south. “While Alpha 3 pushed up along highway seventeen, my pod and Inca 7 flanked the highway all the way to the mountain pass here. We bombed the ridge here and caused a serious rockslide, more than enough to make the pass, well, unpassable.”

  “And the result?” the Queen asked.

  “In all honesty? Debatable.” Ogho was not enthused. “Ground command calls it a success, my Queen, I am not so sure. Alpha 3 was able to push a lot of vehicles north, where they bottlenecked at the pass. Sure, it was a turkey shoot. We left behind a huge heap of destroyed vehicles. But that’s just it. We blew up thousands of haulers. Trucks, tractors, tube trailers. Scouting runs to the highway heading south showed that they had already rerouted all other vehicles off other roads. I’ll gladly blow up vehicles all day long, buts that’s all it is. Trucks. Inanimate trucks controlled remotely.”

  Ogho stood up.

  “You saw out there. We can bomb them as much as we can, but that thing is going to just keep moving all those machines north in any way possible.”

  “You are right.” Deespa followed him back to the ridge. “Let us not forget that we must continue to give hope to the men and woman that fight down here. Our mission might be critical, but theirs is no less important. You say you only destroyed trucks, but to those men in Alpha and Inca, it was a victory, and there are not too many of those these days.”

  “Yes,” Ogho said, lowering his head. “My Queen. You are wise as always.”

  “Wise enough to know I need your men ready. When do we move out?” she asked.

  “We have scouted several highways up along the Kihna valley, but once north of Teghra province, we need to take highway twenty west towards the lake. It’s either that or trek north through smaller roads up through the mountains. It’s much safer that way, but it will take a lot longer.”

  “We don’t have that much time,” she pointed out.

  “No. But if we take highway twenty back over to the Royal autoway, scouts say drone coverage by the lake is bad. We’re not going to slip by unnoticed. I have two ATVs rigged for anti-air, but I don’t know if that will be enough,” Ogho explained.