The Final Wars Rage

by S A Asthana

  “Tim, Misty — glad to have you both here.” He shook the senior scientists’ hands. His smile was euphoric, cartoonish almost.

  “Bob, we thought we’d show our son around a bit,” Tim said. “Let him see the reality behind those science lessons of his.”

  “Of course!”

  “He’s a bit of a skeptic, this Frankie of ours.” Misty squinted playfully at her son. Frank’s cheeks reddened.

  “Oh, I see.” The man chuckled. “Well, let ol’ Bob make a believer out of him.”

  The three adults let out a hearty laugh, their backs hunched.

  “But before I do,” Bob said, “what do you think about the idea of fitting in a resort style community out over yonder during Phase Two?” He was pointing at the far end of the crater.

  “On the rim?” Tim peered.

  Bob nodded, his pearly whites on full display.

  “I don’t know, it might be a stretch,” Tim said.

  “Oh, come on, Timmy.” Misty leaned into him. “Have an imagination.” Another round of laughter.

  Frank didn’t share the merriment. There was only death over yonder as far as he was concerned. With the exception of the forest with its lush fauna and engineered soil, there was nothing else around. Burnt sienna everywhere. The forest and its jovial occupants seemed out of place. As did the song blaring over a speaker deep within the forest:

  Here comes the sun (doo doo doo doo)

  Here comes the sun, and I say

  It's all right”

  It was some old-world song Frank wasn’t familiar with. A catchy tune, sure, but it clawed against the surroundings. As harmonious as its guitar notes were, out here they just couldn’t blend in no matter how hard they tried. A knot tightened in Frank’s stomach.

  “Come on, young man,” Bob said. “Let me show you them beautiful leaves up close.”

  A patch of trees here in the outback didn’t mean Mars would turn into a rainforest one day. Sadly, the adults didn’t seem to understand. Their giddiness had gotten in the way of common sense. If only they’d realized such lack of judgment would lead to machines ruling over Port Sydney one day. Frank sighed.

  “General Crone?” A melodic voice shook him from his memory.

  He turned to face a sleek, white desk at the end of the expansive room. A woman sat behind it, her long neck holding up an oval, smiling face. Her bouncy demeanor cut a strange juxtaposition to the austere surroundings. He supposed the humanoid had to beam happiness when serving as an executive assistant to the High Council.

  “They will see you now,” said the shiny plastic in human form.

  Double doors slid open and revealed the familiar briefing room. Frank swallowed hard and found that the three holograms were already looming large, their black nebulous forms hovering over blue egg-shaped orbs at the end of the room. They leered down from their three meter high places — the first, Zeus of old with overbearing fatherly tendencies; the second one a psychopathic mother-figure prone to singsong threats; and finally, perhaps the most sinister of the trio, a young boy with the likability of barbed wire. A family of evil. Why the underlying code had chosen to represent its personalities in such manner was beyond Frank. Perhaps it surmised a family to be more endearing to its human subjects. Nothing said care and nurture more than a demonic family of code.

  He saluted. “For the High Council.”

  “At ease, Frank,” the woman spoke. White, floating specks within her moving darkness suggested a smile where the face should have been. She was just short of being a woman, and altogether something more — but not human. A god in the machine.

  “My meeting with Emperor Akiyama went well,” Frank started, ignoring the lump in his throat. “We spoke of—”

  “We reviewed the Nipponese newscasts,” she interrupted, her blackness flickering white with each word spoken. “No need to regurgitate.”

  Always a step ahead. Crafty creatures.

  “Right — no need to regurgitate,” Frank regurgitated. “Let me address an unexpected threat then.” The room was hotter now. He could swear they turned up the heat on purpose when he was before them. “Pirates, specifically three fleets — the Gemini, the Yellowjackets, and the Barbary have declared war on us. They—”

  “As anticipated,” she cut in. “Their single source of euphoria has been destroyed, and they want to exact revenge. There was a 95.75 percent chance this would happen.”

  Of course, they’d anticipated it but by no means did they share the concern with their human subjects. Heaven forbid if the peons were on similar footing with their overlords.

  “Did you not see this coming, General?”

  “Yes, I did, of course,” Frank lied. He was getting damn good at deceit. Truth was, Reo Honda had shared the insight. “That’s why my lieutenant general is already on top of it. She’s leading a fleet of her own to neutralize the threat as we speak. I’m confident Alice Smith will take care of the situation.”

  “Yes,” the melodic council member buzzed. “She is one of the better specimens.”

  Frank nodded, although he didn’t agree with the assessment. Weakling, Frankenstein monster, these were more appropriate descriptors.

  “Let’s pivot to your performance review,” she said.

  Performance review? The room was now an oven. Scratch that — it was the sun’s damn surface.

  “S-sounds god, I mean good,” Frank stumbled.

  “You have redeemed yourself,” she remarked.

  Silence followed. Frank nearly let out a self-congratulatory cheer but, instead, he remained stoic. Magic man. Master illusionist. The deception continued to work in his favor.

  “Thank you.” He smiled tightly.

  “You have ten years of service ahead of you,” she remarked.

  Only ten years? Still, much better than the two he’d been told only weeks back, prior to New Paris’ destruction. Progress. He beamed with pride.

  “Now, we have another command,” the wicked child interjected.

  Rosy cheeks gave way to ghost-pale. Frank stammered, “Y-yes?”

  “A purge,” the child creature continued, its words brimming with sinister overtones. “Let me make it clear for your human brain — we would like an additional five thousand citizens deleted.”

  The words hit Frank like a ton of bricks. “Another purge? Five thousa — but why?”

  “Because you humans continue to be a drain on limited resources, that’s why. It is the outcome of a human-centric economy — trade cuts by the Nipponese exacerbate our already draining funds.”

  The female council member jumped back into the conversation. “Frank, we need this purge to ensure the survival of this colony.” She sounded like a mother teaching her child some manners. Milky but with a pinch of salt.

  It had barely been three weeks since the last one. Unbelievable. A little under 99,000 citizens remained, and evidently even they were stressing the system.

  Frank asked, “The lowest performers again?”

  “No,” she answered. “This time, we want those citizens who no longer serve the colony any purpose.”

  Frank blinked blankly. “What citizens would those be?”

  “Given that all fetuses were moved into a state of stasis indefinitely, we want half of the staff from the fetal incubation unit purged. Similarly, since there won’t be any new births for some time, the care staff serving newborns through primary should be purged as well.”

  They were ripping the colony’s human fabric one thread at a time. Citizen morale wasn’t even a consideration. If it was, killing five percent of the population would have given the High Council pause.

  “But… isn’t there any way we can repurpose these citizens?” Frank questioned. None of the edict made sense to him.

  “You dare protest?” Zeus boomed. Frank lungs emptied. The room’s oxygen levels were being lowered. The High Council had full control of Port Sydney, including the air its citizens breathed, its air pressure, its mechanics and the Earth-like grav
ity. The colony could be brought to its knees if the council so chose. Its humans were completely dependent on their machine-masters. Frank gasped for air and shook his head. No protest, not while breathing was withheld.

  “Good,” Zeus boomed. “Just execute. Your input is not required. We already ran over one million simulations through our systems. The purge stands.”

  The room’s oxygen levels were restored. Frank took several deep breaths, his gaze to the floor. He was nothing more than a servant. A peon. Still, he had better standing than most. Ten more years — he held onto the number with all his might. A peon, sure, but one with power. Or rather, more power than all but three constructs.

  Swallowing his pride, he saluted. “For the High Council.” The wraiths disappeared, and the glowing eggs turned black. The briefing was over. Frank felt his chest relaxing.

  A small, slim door slid open and an automated vacuum cleaner drove out, its wheels spinning wildly. Through a built-in speaker, a new capability, the machine demanded, “Vacate room, human. Cleaning required to remove biological filth.” The pipsqueak whirred and beeped almost comically. Even lowly vacuum cleaners could now order around the colony’s subjects. Its square and delicate frame moved around the room’s edges, picking up whatever dirt it could find. Hundreds of such machines hummed within Port Sydney. Frank sneered and exited.

  Stepping out into the waiting room, he stood still without uttering a word. Another purge needed conducting. Sad. But for all the impending horror, a purge was still better an option than a war with Nippon One. The lesser of two evils. Solar system-wide peace held consequences, but they were acceptable for the greater good. Frank swallowed hard.

  “Meeting went well, General?” The executive assistant’s tone was high, like an out of tune trumpet.

  Frank didn’t answer. How could he, when there were memories requiring his attention? There must have been a hundred apparitions, all dancing and laughing. The waiting room had once held galas. It had been a place of merriment. The translucent images of his father and mother danced at the other end by the bay window, the distant forest blooming behind them once more. Men wore black tuxedos and woman had on flowing dresses of different colors and patterns. The pop of champagne echoed along with the clinks of wine glasses against one and other. Smiles slashed faces. Guttural laughter sliced through the music.

  Here comes the sun (doo doo doo doo)

  Here comes the sun, and I say

  It's all right

  Frank’s ears burned as the song swayed through the trees outside with its lyrics. The band’s name came to mind — some collection of insects? The lyrics, for all their euphoria, gnawed at his nerves. These people, including his parents from the bottom of their hearts, believed this dead planet would become Earth one day. Even at ten he hadn’t bought into the hysteria. Perhaps that was why he was the highest ranking human on Mars — and those who’d once dreamed of terraforming were now being purged one by one.

  “General?” Frank snapped from his memory.

  Fingering his red coat’s Nehru collar, he asked, “Yes?” Beads of sweat festered across his forehead.

  “The meeting went well?” the human plastic asked, her smile on the verge of ripping apart her face.

  “It went well,” he answered. “Very well.” He stomped out the waiting room.

  CHAPTER 11: ALICE

  Alice rarely broke a sweat. Her body simply managed stress and heat better than most humans. It was just another trait she possessed on account of her engineered birth. Alice had several such attributes. Besides a strong immune system supported by her organs’ ability to absorb nearly one hundred percent of the nutrients in meals and the hydration of water, plus a gift for staying awake weeks on end because of her body’s ability to grow muscle, repair tissue, and synthesize hormones without sleep, she could also think faster. In this manner, Alice was always steps ahead, similar to her machine overlords. In some ways, she was closer to those technologies than her biological peers. And if all of these enhanced capabilities weren’t enough, she also didn’t need to defecate or urinate as frequently as her peers. This allowed for more time to be productive with tasks requiring hours of focus. She was truly unique — a one of a kind creation. An improved human to some, a Frankenstein monster to others. Irrespective of the label applied, there was no getting around the fact she was different.

  All those strengths gave her a sharp edge, especially in a situation such as this — a space battle with a fleet of pirates was not for the uncertain officer. The Barbarys were ruthless and agile commanders of their spacecrafts, even the ships outdated by several generations. They’d ripped apart targets often. But the Martian fleet was unlike those previous hits — it was formidable under her command.

  Alice sat atop a high chair in the control bay of a 1.V9. The craft was a sturdy and highly flexible predecessor of the 1.V10 ship which had crashed during operation Liberate New Paris. Despite its shortcomings in terms of speed, the 1.V9 was still a lethal craft, fully equipped with two heavy artillery cannon batteries, one along each side, and a third-generation laser destroyer mounted atop its nose. Three such crafts lined Port Sydney’s military docking bay. They were called The Trinity of Death.

  “How many enemy ships left?” Alice queried. The computer screen ahead showed the cockpit’s view — the eerie vastness of space, its black vacuum speckled with distant stars. Some appeared to move, but they were actually enemy ships speeding as if specs of light across a dark wall.

  “Twenty-one,” a pilot’s voice came through Alice’s earpiece. “Our last hail of fire took out ten.”

  “Good,” she said. “Wipe them all out.”

  Alice enjoyed space battles because of their arithmetic nature. Vast distances required more than just brawn. Space was not only big, it was also fairly empty. Combatants could spot one another from long distances. Even if one managed to shield themselves behind an asteroid, the enemy’s radar, standard gear on most crafts, would find them. There was nowhere to hide.

  This left for purely tactical warfare involving projections on an enemy’s future position and adjusting fire accordingly. The 1.V9 employed powerful prediction algorithms to guess where the enemy was headed and fire at that exact spot. The craft’s kill rate was 90 percent.

  A red laser beam shot out the nose just under the cockpit’s window. Two seconds later, a flying white dot disintegrated into ever tinnier pieces. Fairly anticlimactic, but that’s how space battles played when done right. “Another one down,” the pilot rejoiced over the earpiece.

  The remaining swarm of lights continued its dance. Screen diagnostics indicated most were at least 200,000 miles away. Since the distance exceeded the speed of light at 186,000 miles per second, a ship had already moved by the time it’d been spotted. Hence, the requirement for strong algorithms to forecast enemy trajectory.

  Another laser took out a target. “Only nineteen left.” The pilot sounded pleased.

  “Excellent, Captain Walsh.” Alice beamed — when was the last time she’d smiled? The captain was the right pilot to man this craft. 1.V9s were temperamental for most, but not for this particular Alpha unit soldier. He’d shown a knack for the craft during training exercises.

  Noticing some unusual movement across the screen, Alice asked, “What’s happening?”

  “The swarm is making a U-turn,” Walsh replied. “They want to fight head on, it seems.” Hundreds of miles were crossed in seconds as the pirates closed the gap with their enemy.

  Leaning back in her plush chair, Alice said, “Then let’s give them just that.” She switched the communication line on her earpiece. “Backups, are you on?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant General,” a coarse voice resounded in her ear. It belonged to the captain commanding one of the three 1.V8s trailing her craft by a thousand miles. “We see you and hear you loud and clear.”

  “I need the 8’s to lead, now — triangle formation,” she ordered.

  “Fine,” the backup officer noted, his voice du
ll. The lack of enthusiasm reeked of discord many espoused for being under her command. Egos and biases couldn’t fathom the thought of serving a biological monstrosity. Alice kept the sting to herself, softened by the fact Captain Walsh, at the very least, didn’t behave in this manner. He was perhaps the only one who didn’t hold contempt for her as Lieutenant General. For the rest, Alice was nothing more than Frankenstein’s monster.

  Boosters ignited, hastening the ion propulsion engines’ thrust, and the 1.V8s sped past their commanding officer’s craft within seconds. Denoted as bright blue dots on the computer screen, overlays for compatriot crafts, the 8’s closed in on their targets. Laser beams were fired.

  The pirate swarm dispersed. One of its crafts couldn’t deflect in time and took a shot head-on, exploding into countless pearls. Enemy fire returned. Heat seeking missiles the size of human fists sped through the blackness of space and once locked onto their targets, came in for the kill. While they posed a threat to the 8’s, they didn’t stand a chance against the 1.V9’s polymer composite material armor which offered immunity against such light fire. At least three missiles exploded simultaneously port side, doing nothing more than blackening the sleek white exterior.

  It all played silently. Space didn’t make for glorious warfare. It just swallowed the action within its expansive, gaping mouth. There were those who couldn’t fathom its grandness and ear-shattering silence, and they remained intimidated by it. Alice wasn’t one of them. She reveled in its freedom — no one to judge her out here, no one to push her around. No awkward conversations on account of her weak grasp of human interaction. No, out here those very traits that earned her the tile freak back at Port Sydney, they helped her excel. In space, Alice was second to none.

  “Keep the pressure,” she ordered. “Fire missiles.”

  The 1.V9’s artillery canons fired a heat seeking missile each. The Martian warhead was the size of a human body and better suited for both targeting and speeding. Within seconds, the missiles had taken out a pair of enemy ships.