by Tobias Roote
Mike called across to his XO, “Johann, get onto Beta Station and try and get them to release the AI for independent action, or we will lose all nineteen spheres.”
Mike looked at their course. If they were to put themselves on full thrusters and exit the path of the incoming enemy fleet, they would still be over a thousand miles inside the threat zone. They wouldn’t stand a chance as soon as the ships discovered their cloaked habitats.
As he watched the battle unfold, cameras kept him apprised of the progress the spheres were making towards the edge of the incoming fleet. That was when he noticed that Alpha Station was no longer where it should be. Had it disintegrated? Cloaked?
There were now only forty four minutes to contact and Mike thought there was no way of evading the swarm of ships headed towards them. The SCN fighters could be seen on their displays eating into sections of the red flashing groups, but the sheer density of the enemy fleet made it appear a futile exercise.
He looked over at Johann, who was looking grim. Something was up. He looked up at Mike just as the collision alert went off in the Hub and everyone went into over-drive.
Mike was about to call to the sensor operator for a full spectrum sweep, when the cameras showed the incoming swarm of Shadowships were being inexplicably blocked by an enormous mountain of rock which had materialised directly in their path. An asteroid, in fact.
Arty had relocated to place itself between the ARKs and the enemy.
The incoming comms clicked. “ARK1, Alpha Station has been released and can now operate freely. I can relocate your ARKs to safety, but not all at once. It will have to be one at a time. In which order do you wish to proceed?” the AI calmly requested.
Mike was confused, the Station was suddenly offering them help.
Johann turned to him, “Lang said, they were being over-run, Pennington would have no further use for Arty so Lang was releasing him from his restrictions. Then Lang went off-line. I can’t raise Beta Station at all now.” He was shaking his head. “The last thing he said was, good luck and bon voyage.”
Mike was relieved at the news, but could see Johann was upset. Schroeder wasn’t really a war-time commander, but he would be doing exceedingly well if they survived this.
He answered for Johann while he watched his friend gather himself. “Thank you, Alpha Station, I understand. Please take all ARKs in consecutive reverse order. ARK1 will proceed last” Mike said, looking at the signals from the ARKs he was monitoring.
As they watched, the station’s defences came on-line, flashes from the silos where the missiles were held causing a strobe effect in the shadows of the large asteroid. There were thousands of them being launched.
The comms clicked again with a new broadcast. “This is Flight Operations Control, we have incoming enemy fighters that are about to over-run our defences and proceed to Earth. All non-combatants should clear the area immediately. Flight Ops out.” It had been a general announcement, so not only the Station got the message, but all the escaping refugee ships were warned. It didn’t look good.
Mike looked at the medium range scanners and felt the blood drain to his bowels, the fear threatening to overcome his resolve and be plain for all to see. He needed to hold on, there were too many people counting on him to be calm and in control. He focused on the first objective and channelled everything else out of his mind. He had an exodus to protect. He thought furiously now about how to best proceed.
Damn! If they got past the station there were nineteen ARKs, each 2 kilometres wide that were going to be prime targets for their weapons fire. Mike thought quickly.
“Calling all ARKs, this is ARK1. Line up on our guide signal and navigate to within 2 kilometres of each other. You will be jumped by Alpha Station in reverse order. The command information that is on your screens is to be followed exactly. When you get to the other end of the jump point hold your position to avoid collision with the ARKs following you. Do not navigate away from your landing point.”
Mike could see now from the sharing of camera views on Alpha Station, that the AI was not only removing the ARKs, but also large passenger and freighter vessels, probably loaded with evacuees. It’s defences were piling on the pressure to the enemy, but even as he admired the fire-power built into the Station, it was taking a punishing retaliation from the Shadowships lasers. There were hundreds of thousands of people on there, mostly non-combatants. If their shields failed...
A call came in from SecD distracting Mike from the ongoing battle.
“Yes, Zack?” he said as he opened the channel.
“You asked me to look into Ms Alcott for you, Mike,” the voice was stressed.
“Yes, but it’s not a good time right now, Zack,” Mike brushed his friend off.
“I know, bad news never comes at a good time, does it? You are gonna want to hear this though.”
“Is it really important, we’re under extreme pressure to move the ARKs to safety, Zack?”
“Yes, Alcott’s name isn’t Alcott. We tracked her as soon as the Alpha Station was released by Beta Station, a whole pile of messages had been held back as non-priority and came in a massive influx. One of them was from SecD on the Station. Alcott’s real name is Ferris.”
“What? You mean, as in – “
“Yes, as in Fortress, THAT Ferris, but Mike that’s not the bad news, the woman is missing, and she was last heard of proceeding to the lower corridors. There are missing pieces of kit from the lock-up and Curator reports her progressing towards the generator section. That was thirty minutes ago. She’s not responding to calls and Curator thinks there might have been some tampering of one of the rooms security doors.”
“Dammit Zack, which one?”
“The shields.”
“Get your men down there and find her, Zack. I don’t have time to do anything from here. We may not even be here beyond the next few minutes if she manages to take out the shield generators,” Mike ordered.
Activating the general comms unit he issued orders. “Emergency procedures - Prepare for vacuum and collision.” Mike shouted to the officers and was satisfied when he saw all personnel activate the emergency protocols. As the klaxons sounded, he wondered how long they had. To distract himself he called over to Johann, now organising the orderly jumping of the ARKs from his station in conjunction with the AI, Arty.
“How many to go, Johann?”
“Four, then it’s us.”
Crap, Mike thought. If the shields went down before they jumped and the enemy ships found them, a cloak wasn’t going to help much. If a Shadowship flew into them at the speeds those things fly, the result would probably take out half the habitat and there would be little they could do to protect themselves. He considered jumping the queue, but they were all running out of time. Who should be saved, the decision was made. He let it stand.
Belling called him. “You might want to hear this, captain. It’s coming through on the EAC.” He fed the signal from the Emergency Audio Channel through to Patterson’s station.
The voice was familiar. “ARK1, this ARK4, come in please.”
“What the – ?” he shouted across to Johann who was busy, but listening. “It’s Pinner - Bloody hell, it’s Pinner - he’s alive!”
“Pinner... ARK4, this is ARK1 where are you?”
“We are approximately fifteen minutes behind you. We've only just regained control of our systems....... a long story.... ...the exit protocol...”
“ARK4, your signal is breaking up. Try and make it to our current location and Alpha Station will jump you out. We can’t wait for you, good luck - see you on the other side,” Mike sent hoping they would get the message. He had no time to deal with that right now. They might not be here in five minutes. ARK4 will have to take their chances along with the rest of us, he thought. Bloody hell! What had been going on with Rob’s ARK, he wondered.
He called across to the comms tech. “Belling. Keep communicating with them. Obtain as much information as you can and pass the exodu
s instructions along. Keep talking to them until we ‘jump’.”
“Aye sir,” Belling responded.
“Zack, what news do you have for me?” Patterson responded to the light flashing on his console.
“She’s holed up in the generator room, Mike. She wants to talk to you.”
“Oh Christ... NOW? What the fuck is that woman on?” Mike bridled, infuriated at the woman’s gall. He couldn’t manage this as well.
“Hang on, I will pipe through what she’s saying... “
“......you tell that mother-fucker, that he killed my father, and he’s gonna pay. This will be HIS tomb, the same way he made the Fortress my father’s tomb – “
Mike interrupted her, “Ms Alcott, you need to stand down and let security in there. We don’t have much time.”
“You bastard, you didn’t give my father any time either you spineless coward. Why didn’t you protect him?” she shouted, the emotion in her voice making it sound raw.
Mike didn’t know what to say. He had been on the lower levels when the SI forces broke through. He had nothing to do with Ferris’ protection. The woman was as mad as her father. He responded to keep her talking. He knew the SecD would be trying to get to her. “I had nothing to do with your father’s death, he chose his own exit. He was dying anyway from the metal poisoning - Ms Alcott you must let the security team in there.”
Zack came through. “We’re not going to make it, she just pressed – “ then there was nothing in his ear except static.
“Sir, the shields....” the ensign called out from the Hub.
“Yes, I’m on it,” Mike answered.
“We’ve lost cloak as well as shields, sir,” the ensign called, panic sounding in his voice.
As he watched on the hologram, the shields collapsed around the sphere exposing the habitat to vacuum, immediately followed by the cloak dropping from a power spike - how did that happen? It shouldn’t even be on the same circuit.
Mike realised that Alcott must have previously sabotaged the circuits jumpers so they wouldn’t flip on a sudden surge. Now, they were totally exposed and defenceless. Any personnel above ground would be immediately exposed to vacuum and probably swept off the station.
“Holy shit,” Mike swore.
“Johann?” he shouted over the din of the alarms.
Johann put up two fingers indicating the ARKs still to be jumped, then turned his attention back to his console relaying commands between Alpha Station and the remaining spheres. The pressure was actually keeping Johann from losing it, which was, perversely, a good thing. They needed his skills right now.
Mike shouted out for someone to kill the klaxons. The sudden silence was deafening.
The hubbub returned as the bridge crew resumed talking into their headsets, trying to assess damage reports while keeping control of the conditions in the public sector. All buildings had automatically sunk into the surface of the sphere as part of the safety protocols. The navigational information that Mike needed was being skewed by what Johann was doing in an effort to prepare them for transfer, so he couldn’t get a proper overview of their situation.
For a few seconds there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. Everyone was doing their job. He adjusted one of the cameras, twiddling the settings trying to get a view ahead of them to where Alpha Station was hanging in space.
What he got instead, was an image of three Shadowships heading directly for the ARK. Their lasers opened up causing his screen to temporarily overload from the brightness. Then there was a dim rumble as the weapons destroyed the unprotected land and surface buildings. There would be considerable damage, but with luck it wouldn’t affect the populated interior which was now buried deep in the heart of the ARK’s bedrock. The Watchtower would be gone almost immediately, he thought, but it was expendable.
As the view continued to track the incoming ships, the cameras automatically adjusted focus, pulling back to keep the action in the frame, Mike saw an SCN Reaver ship swoop in and engage the enemy. Its sudden arrival, cutting into the nearest Shadowship, caused the other two to momentarily halt their attack on the ARK while turning to deal with the unexpected interruption.
With the communications still not completely sorted out, Mike couldn’t talk to the pilot, but he was sure that Curator would be keeping a channel open to the Reaver’s AI.
A second Shadowship went down, but in the exchange the Reaver took fire from the remaining ship. The SCN vessel’s engine core caught a glancing blow of brutal laser damage. As it turned for a final attack on the last ship, Mike could see that it wouldn’t survive the encounter. It was limping badly, but still managed to line up on the now evading ship. Those Reavers were amazingly fast with the combined AI and human pilots. The cocoons that housed them were capable of dampening dramatic gravity changes on tight turns and acceleration. Mike knew from his son that there just weren’t enough of them out there to make a difference in the battle.
Deeply frustrated at the sphere’s lack of defence capability, he could only look on as the small SCN ship’s missiles took out the last Shadowship. Now crippled and unable to manoeuvre away from its fate, the Reaver approached the ARK, which was racing through space toward it, neither able to avoid the inevitable collision that was to follow. As debris from the alien ships smashed into the surface, the pilot of the Reaver coaxed the small ship’s final trajectory into more of a glide as it crashed landed onto the ARKs surface.
The external camera view, under Mike’s deft finger control, switched to the surface as the wreckage ploughed through the fast freezing fields and hedges that had, up until a short time ago, been teeming with food crops and wild-life. The frozen dust from disintegrating bio-matter flew off in a cloud obscuring much of the view for moments.
Mike knew the AI would do everything in its power to keep the pilot alive and land as close as possible for rescue. He thought briefly of his son, and decided to act. Whoever the pilot was, he deserved a chance, and they might be lucky and get him or her out before the internal atmosphere failed.
“Get a shuttle out to that pilot. They may still be alive. See if you can bring them inside before the ship dies, or the environmental system fails,” he ordered. The ship’s cocooned cockpit, in the event of the ship being destroyed, would protect the occupant from the vacuum of space until rescued. It wasn’t foolproof, but the SCN had plenty of ships, but too few pilots. It kept a lot of pilots alive and put them straight back into the fight as soon as they were rescued.
The ensign he had tasked, Garrick, he thought his name was, rushed off to organise the SAR shuttle. Mike put it from his mind. He had some major problems to resolve and time was running out. Their jump was imminent and there were more ships heading their way. He could hear the impacts of missiles and lasers, the rumble of impacts becoming a continuous vibration through his feet.
“Johann?” Mike called hoping for good information on their exit from here.
“We’re up in forty seconds, Mike, it’s going to be close.”
Mike turned after acknowledging Johann’s update and caught one of the young ensigns panicking. He looked at her. “What’s the problem, Naith?”
She caught herself, there were tears of worry and frustration in her eyes threatening to spill over. “Sir, all of our systems are failing. That sabotage must have been really bad. We have life support, but the back-up systems refuse to come on-line. We suspect they’ve been been knocked out of the grid. We’re trying to reset them now.”
“Do your best, ensign. If everyone else is doing theirs - it will be enough,” he said encouragingly, putting a brief reassuring hand on her shoulder as he moved about the Hub, checking the remaining bridge crew as he went.
There were sounds coming from the surface, the habitat was taking a pounding from enemy ships. They needed to jump soon, or there wouldn’t be any point.
Garrick called out across the room. “Captain, the pilot’s alive, but they cannot extract him so, they’re dragging the wreckage in throug
h the main airlock.”
“As fast as you can, lad - we’re running out of time. Keep me posted and advise them to attempt to preserve the ship’s AI. The pilot and AI are usually bonded,” Mike replied, a grim smile the only show of approval he could pull up at their dire plight.
Then, the lights went out all over. As the CCC’s own ‘last resort’ back-up generator kicked in, exclusively for the CCC and the AI system, Mike ordered all non-essential hands to prepare the ARK for hull breach. There was a good chance the main doors would take a direct hit and that would force all the inner airlocks to activate making travel around the ARK difficult. Their survival now looked unlikely.
He knew if they ever managed to get out from this battleground and review their situation, that the only course of action would be to evacuate. There would be capacity enough in the remaining ARKs to ensure that their people could be absorbed. It would still mean nearly a thousand refugees per habitat. Thank goodness they programmed such possibilities into their survival scenarios.
Just as Mike was beginning to think it wasn’t going to happen, the room shimmered briefly and the cameras went black as they lost the contacts they had focused on. Finally, he thought - they had ‘jumped’.
***
ARK 4 - Hobson’s Choice
XeraC was brooding. He had time - an eternity, he decided. The solution would present itself, but only if he was prepared to stop making stupid mistakes and spend more time thinking through the ramifications of his and others actions. He realised that he needed to get a grip on the threat out there with Sedal and the Command Centre. He had lost his physical link with the world around him, that put him at a severe disadvantage for the future. Recognising all of this in a few milliseconds, he set himself to calculating his options.
He needed to understand more. He was thinking like a human and needed to think more like an artificial intelligence. He had lost ground because he was too focused. Now, regrettably, his ability to see what was occurring around him was hindered by that infernal AIs newly found abilities to inject code into his protocols, corrupting the systems that made up his network. As a result, he had been attacked simultaneously on all sides and lost most of the advantage he’d had.