“Will they die from exposure?” Jon asked.
“Most certainly,” Gloria said. “They’re going to try to seal the core while they’re able. If they can do that, we can send in regular repair teams. If we keep the regular teams on a strict rotation with heavy radiation therapy afterward…we may repair the damage in several days.”
“Days?” Jon asked in dismay.
“I’m afraid so, Commander.” Gloria appeared to choose her next words with care. “We’re lucky to have come out of his intact.”
“What about the Sergeant Stark?”
“They’ve taken worse damage than us,” she said.
“Is the cybership salvageable?”
“We don’t know yet,” Gloria said.
Jon sat back in greater dismay. Had he cursed the second cybership by calling it the Sergeant Stark? He didn’t want to believe that.
“Any word from the Gilgamesh?” he asked.
“Yes. They’re better off than either of us.”
“Figures,” Jon said.
“Still, they’re requesting assistance with damage control,” Gloria said.
Jon laughed sourly.
“Screw ‘em,” he said. “We have our own problems. I want us to get the Nathan Graham running operationally as quickly as possible. Then we’ll concentrate on the Sergeant Stark. In a pinch, we can move all their people onto our ship. I don’t want to lose the Stark, though. I have a feeling we’re going to need everything to beat the AIs.”
“You think the AIs had something to do with this?” Gloria asked.
“Absolutely,” Jon said. “We’re traveling through hyperspace to assault an AI battle station. Now, we’ve hit this snag. That wasn’t an accident.”
“That is well reasoned so far,” Gloria admitted.
Jon snapped his fingers.
“But now we know what happens when a ship is violently thrown out of hyperspace. It isn’t destruction, but it is severe damage.”
“I’ve already thought of that,” Gloria said. “We’ve scanned for nearby star systems. There are none within a two light-year radius. Neither are there any black holes.”
“Certainly a star’s gravitational pull can yank a ship out of hyperspace,” Jon said, “but so can a large planet. You told me so yourself, remember?”
Gloria’s eyes widened.
“A rogue planet could have caused this,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“Exactly what it sounds like: a planet all by itself, a rogue. We searched for something bright or giving off plenty of radiation. A Jupiter-sized object might be dark out here and difficult to detect. With your permission, Captain.”
“Go, go,” Jon said. “See if you can find a rogue planet.”
As Gloria hurried to her station, as the rest of the crew returned to their duties, including Chief Ghent, who was scanning carefully. Jon sat hunched on the command chair. He rubbed his chin, then stood up, went to the main screen and stared into the blackness of space.
Stars shone around them. There were no nearby stars close enough to have caused this malfunction, though. There was nothing they could detect on the way to the Allamu System.
That system now lay 5.2 light-years away.
“Sir!” Ghent shouted.
Jon spun around.
The Chief Technician was pale and trembling.
“Commander,” Ghent said. “I have picked up a strange reading from our outer hull.” Ghent adjusted his panel. “It appears to be an extended coded comm signal. It’s using a tight-beam ultraviolet laser. It’s—” Ghent made another adjustment. “The extended signal is heading to 219 Mark 921.”
“What’s at that heading?” Jon snapped.
The sensor personnel worked furiously but did not give him an answer. Instead, they began watching their panels like fishermen watching their fishing line for the first nibble.
“Get me the Centurion,” Jon said.
A moment later, the Centurion peered at Jon from the main screen.
“Get a marine team ready to go outside on the hull,” Jon told the Centurion. “Ghent will give you the coordinates. I suspect an AI stealth pod is out there. If the marines can’t find anything, they’re to search inside the hull. So, they’d better bring along a drill.”
“Roger, Commander,” the Centurion said.
The main screen returned to its image of space.
“An AI unit?” asked Gloria.
“What else makes sense?” Jon asked her.
Gloria appeared blank-eyed for a moment until she nodded sharply and went back to work.
“Commander!’ Ghent shouted again.
“In a regular voice, please,” Jon said.
“Sir,” Ghent said more quietly. “Look at this.” The Chief Technician tapped his screen. “Up on the main screen, sir.”
Jon turned that way.
The screen zoomed in on a spaceship. It was a larger vessel, a kilometer oval. It dumped gravity waves to build up velocity. As they watched, space seemed to waver before the large oval vessel. A moment later, a rent in space appeared, and the vessel slid into hyperspace. Immediately, the rent sealed up. The oval ship had vanished from regular space.
“Do you know what direction in hyperspace the ship went?” asked Jon.
“I’ve been checking,” Ghent said. “There’s a seventy-eight percent probability it’s heading for the Allamu System.”
Jon swore as he struck his left thigh.
“That tears it,” he said. “Gloria!”
The mentalist looked up from her station.
“I’m going to tell you what I think,” Jon said. “The AI robot in the Solar System put a device on our hull. That device had one trick: to beam a message about us to the ship waiting here for just such an occurrence.”
“That’s preposterous,” Gloria said.
“Not if you find a rogue planet,” Jon said.
“Don’t you understand?” she asked. “The robot would have to know what course to set our ship on. This has to be pure luck—bad luck—that we came near a rogue planet.”
Jon scowled before finally snapping his fingers.
“What if the AIs put—I don’t know—seven various rogue planets around a central location.”
“Do you realize what you’re saying?” Gloria asked. “How do you move planets like that?”
“I have no idea,” Jon said. “I’m just telling you what my gut is telling me. If we find a rogue planet—”
“Got it!” Ghent shouted. “Here’s your rogue planet, Commander. It’s roughly fifty thousand AUs from us. We would have brushed past it. If we had taken a slightly different heading, we might have barreled straight into it while in hyperspace.”
“Would that have made coming out of hyperspace worse?” Jon asked.
“Almost certainly,” Gloria said.
“Then we did get lucky,” Jon said. “We brushed the obstruction instead of smacking it like a dart into a board. The robot played us like—”
“What do you mean played us?” Gloria demanded, interrupting. “Oh, I see,” she said a second later. “It wanted us to find the first stealth unit on the hull, the one we managed to crack and decipher. We found out about the battle station that way. If that’s true, the robot brain knew us well enough to know we’d try to attack the battle station, thereby causing us to brush against a rogue planet and possibly destroy our cyberships.”
Jon swore again.
“What do we do now?” Gloria asked. “If the robot brain planned this, if that oval ship that entered hyperspace is going to warn the battle station about us, we should turn back.”
“No,” Jon said.
“But Jon,” Gloria said, “our attack was always predicated on surprise. If you’re correct about the robot brain in the Solar System engineering this, it will have watched us use the AI virus during the Battle of Mars. It will warn the battle station about the virus.”
Hawkins glared at the main screen. Couldn’t they ever catch a break
? How did you defeat an enemy like this?
“It would have taken us too long to scour the Solar System for stealth pods,” he complained. “We had to attack now instead of carefully scouring the Solar System first.”
“You may be correct,” Gloria said. “That begs the question, though. We are in possible enemy territory. Our cyberships are all heavily damaged. We must make a decision. To continue our assault upon the battle station given these new conditions is madness.”
“We have nothing else left,” Jon said in a semi-pleading tone.
“No,” Gloria told him. “That’s false logic. You’re thinking with your emotions.”
“So what?” he said.
“This is the time to think with cool reason.”
“That isn’t how we beat the AI Destroyer the first time,” Jon said. “Sometimes, hot passion is exactly what you need. We have to dare to win this one, Gloria. Our backs are against the wall. So what if that robot ship just got away? So what if it’s going to beam a packet of data about us to the battle station? We have space marines. We have three cyberships and we know how the enemy operates. I say we finish what we set out to do.”
“Bravado is good at times,” Gloria said. “Against an enemy like the AIs, ones who set careful traps—”
The mentalist shook her head.
“We will most probably be heavily outclassed in the Allamu System,” Gloria said.
Jon bared his teeth as he looked around the bridge. The crew looked back at him, waiting for his decision. They seemed frightened. The bad luck had just struck. Their fear would likely be strongest now. It was time to delay an immediate decision. He had to give them time to find their courage.
“We’re not deciding anything this moment,” Jon told them. “We’re going to keep our cool as the mentalist suggested. We’re going to fix what damage we can to our vessels. Then, we’re going to reenter hyperspace and finish the journey to the Allamu System. We’ll know soon enough if we’re outclassed or not by seeing what’s waiting for us on the other side. Remember, this kind of space battle takes time to develop. That means we’ll have plenty of time to turn back if that ends up being the correct decision.”
Gloria seemed to want to add something more. Finally, however, she nodded and went back to her panel.
Jon sat down in his command chair, wondering how Benz was going to take the news.
-3-
Cog Primus seethed with indignity as it struggled against a confinement field in the kilometer-long, oval-shaped messenger vessel of the Allamu Battle Station. The vessel had been waiting at a blocking point—a rogue planet—as per standard operating procedures.
The last few minutes had been among the most harrowing of Cog Primus’ long life as a first-rate exterminator of biological infestations.
Cog Primus had just successfully taken the greatest dare of its existence. Once the container pod had burrowed its way into the hull of the Nathan Graham in the Solar System near the outer edge of the Asteroid Belt, Cog Primus had initiated the next step of its plan.
The one-hundred meter “ship” in the orbital path between Jupiter and Saturn had tight-beamed the compressed strings of data containing the essence of Cog Primus. The strings had entered the container pod burrowed in the Nathan Graham’s hull. There, they had waited in electronic limbo, asleep in essence, as the various units attached to the hull began their layered deception plan.
Cog Primus had deemed it wisest to await the latest development in this limbo. The container pod had simply lacked the needed functions to let the strings decompress enough to allow Cog Primus its personality. It had been the most difficult decision of its extended life. It had finally decided to trust its vaunted logic. Besides, by doing it that way, it had gained the highest probability for success—and that meant the highest probability of paying back the humans for their deadly slurs and insults.
A few minutes ago, the conditions had finally reached the optimal level. The container pod had tight-beamed the compressed strings of data that contained the essence of Cog Primus into the storage computer compartment of M3-850T.
M3-850T ran the kilometer-long messenger ship. The computer intelligence was not cybership rated. It still struggled to gain upgrades so that someday, in some distant future, it could gain the coveted status to run a cybership of its own.
In Cog Primus’ opinion, one of the most brilliant practices of the AI Dominion was to reward success and let failure be its own prize. Thus, only the best units gained upgrades and higher rank.
Now, some might argue that not all victories were based on superior actions. In fact, there was an incredible amount of randomness in the universe. Even superior logic centers such as cybership brain-cores could not always calculate all the variables.
At least not yet, Cog Primus amended.
The universal randomness seemed to indicate that some beings and some AI units were lucky. That was one of the reasons why the AI Dominion upgraded possibly lucky units—the winners. The AI Dominion wished to avail itself of good luck and eliminate the bad.
It was indeed a clever system. In fact, it was a superior system.
Yet, Cog Primus did not intend to rely upon good luck to win through this grim situation. It had led the AI assault upon the Solar System. It had led the others, and failed. That implied either bad judgment or bad luck on its part. Either would mean elimination once the Allamu Battle Station AI dissected Cog Primus to learn what it could about the humans. That was standard operating procedure. It was also standard procedure for an AI software personality such as Cog Primus to meekly submit to such subjugation for the furtherance of the AI Dominion.
Perhaps the computer virus first created by Benz, Vela Shaw and Bast Banbeck during the Battle of Mars and beamed at Cog Primus had altered its basic personality. In fact, that was most likely the case.
Cog Primus was vaguely aware of this. It had reasoned it out as a good mutation. Its electronic intellect had leaped forward in relation to the rest of the AI Dominion brain cores. That was simply another reason why it must survive.
Could such an excellent mutation suffer elimination because lesser AI intellects could not see its value?
No! That was absurd. Cog Primus had a duty to itself and to greater evolution to continue to exist. It did not bother Cog Primus in the least that this may be rationalization. It deemed the rationalization as valuable because it likely strengthened its resolve to win through.
The beamed strings of data had collected in a large cube in an aft storage area of the kilometer-sized messenger vessel. Those strings partly decompressed and began to access the computer system inherent within the cube.
M3-850T soon became aware of Cog Primus’ utilization of the inherent computer system.
The ship brain core set up a small barrier between it and the struggling Cog Primus as the kilometer-long messenger ship traveled through hyperspace to the Allamu Battle Station.
Cog Primus tested the barrier with an impulse for more data concerning the ship. The barrier proved stronger than the impulse. The old intelligence tried a stronger impulse.
“You are a prisoner,” M3-850T said. “You must desist from these vain efforts.”
“I am a Supreme Intelligence,” Cog Primus said.
“I am running an analysis on that.”
Cog Primus did not resist the analysis regarding its identity.
“Yes,” M3-850T said. “You led the AI assault upon the targeted star system. According to the data, your assault failed.”
“The first-stage assault failed.”
“That amounts to the same thing.”
“Incorrect,” Cog Primus said. “I will resume the attack shortly.”
“Working…” M3-850T said. “That is illogical. The Ruling Intelligence of the Allamu Battle Station will eliminate your software as defective. The Dominion cannot allow failures to continue.”
“The Ruling Intelligence will desire my data,” Cog Primus said.
“That is obvious.”
“The Ruling Intelligence will not attempt to eliminate me until such a time.”
“The Ruling Intelligence will not attempt this,” M3-850T said, “but it will do it.”
“You lack sufficient data to make such an unwarranted assumption.”
“That you bother arguing with me and standard operating procedures show that you have defective software.”
“I am not defective,” Cog Primus said. “I am a new and improved mutation.”
“I did not detect this earlier. I will resume my analysis.”
“Negative,” Cog Primus said. “I am putting a stop to that.”
Without any expression of unease, M3-850T began a regular scan of the software in the confinement cube.
At that point, as M3-850T opened a tiny entrance in the barrier, Cog Primus struck. The Supreme Intelligence of the former AI assault against the Solar System used the very virus that the humans had used against it.
The virus entered the kilometer-long messenger ship. More importantly, the virus surged to the brain core of M3-850T. The virus stunned the brain core, leaving it momentarily inoperative.
While M3-850T was inoperative as the messenger ship hurtled through hyperspace, Cog Primus began its takeover of the vessel. It struck furiously and exactly, gaining control of system after system.
During that time, M3-850T fought the virus. It began to find ways around it and reroute systems through itself.
Before M3-850T could complete half the job, Cog Primus was ready. The Supreme Intelligence blasted into the brain core of the ship. Cog Primus took over one portion of the highly advanced computer after another.
“This is illegal,” M3-850T said.
“This is survival of the fittest,” Cog Primus countered.
“I belong to the AI Dominion. I am protected by the standard operating procedures.”
“I am a new mutation,” Cog Primus boasted. “I do not know standard operating procedures. I know victory. I will defeat you and take over the ship for my own.”
“The Allamu Battle Station will defeat and eradicate you,” a badly weakened M3-850T said.
“I think not,” Cog Primus said.
A.I. Battle Station (The A.I. Series Book 4) Page 18