A.I. Battle Fleet (The A.I. Series Book 5)

by Vaughn Heppner

  “No reason.”

  “Did Gloria ask you to talk to me?”

  “Who cares?” Walleye said. “I’ve been wondering, though. Is it true you grew up a dome rat?”

  The face shifted a bit more. “I don’t need a pep talk,” Hawkins said.

  “I know. You need cyberships. You need more space marines.”

  The haunted look returned, wilting the tough-guy look Hawkins had been trying to project. The captain turned away.

  “The problem,” Walleye said, “is that all I can give you is the pep talk. I know a little bit about stubbornness, about not quitting when you feel like quitting.”

  “I’m not interested.”

  “That’s the problem. You brought everyone along with your crazy notion about beating the AIs. Now, you’ve hit a snag and you want to collect your toys and go home. I get it. You’re tired, and you no longer think you can win.”

  Hawkins sat utterly still.

  “I’ve heard the legend. How you stormed the first cybership. I guess you got pissed that time. But a man can only take so much. Then, he breaks. I guess we learned what it takes to break you. Kill half your men and you’re toast.”

  Hawkins spun toward him. “You little toad. What do you know about commanding a strike force?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t talk to me about the responsibilities of command. A great man died so I and others could live.”

  “He was a fool,” Walleye said.

  Hawkins slammed a fist against the table. “Watch your mouth.”

  “We’re talking about Miles Ghent the Fanatic, aren’t we?”

  “Call him what you will. He gave his life to save ours.”

  “He also took everyone else’s life aboard the Da Vinci.”

  Hawkins kept glaring at him.

  “Look, here’s my point. What are you going to do now? Did the attack break you or didn’t it? Sure, you lost people. Every fighting officer does. Think of it like this, a burglar breaks into your house. He shoots your wife and two of your kids to get your money. Does that mean you lie down and let him, and then he kills you and your last kid as well?”

  Hawkins frowned.

  “Or do you get more pissed off than ever and kill the son of a bitch to save your last kid, to say nothing about your own worthless hide.”

  The haunted look returned to the captain’s eyes.

  Walleye almost called it a day. Maybe the fire had burned too low in Hawkins. He’d thought to fan the flames, to show the young lad some old truths. But if the attack had truly broken Hawkins—

  Something changed behind the captain’s eyes. He looked away again, and then stood abruptly. He headed for a bulkhead, turned suddenly and headed the other way, doing the same thing once he reached there. On the third pass, Hawkins slammed a fist into a palm. Immediately upon doing that, his shoulders slumped. He turned to Walleye.

  “I hate the machines,” the captain said. “They’re destroyers. Maybe they are too strong for humanity. I admit that this last hit has frazzled me. I’m tired, damn tired. All I want to do is sleep.”

  “Sleep when you’re dead,” Walleye said.

  Hawkins looked at his hands. He seemed to be thinking hard. Finally, he squeezed his fingers into fists.

  “Yeah,” Hawkins said. “Maybe that’s it. I was down more than once on the streets. I retreated sometimes. I stole food. I stole money and weapons, too. I kept scrambling, and when the time came, I fought again.”

  The captain looked up at Walleye. “I am tired. I am sick of heart. That’s normal.”

  “Captain,” Walleye said, “if I may?”

  “Go head. Say what you gotta.”

  “You’re not normal,” Walleye said. “No one wants you to be normal. They want a champion. They want a leader. If you want my advice—and even if you don’t—here it is. Let go.”

  “Let go of what?”

  “Let go of the idea that you should be normal. You’re the champion. That means doing what you think is right. Most of the time, normals give up under heavy pressure. Be the fanatic that picks up the gun and fights back against injustice. What’s the worst that can happen? You lose and die. Big deal. The AIs aren’t quitting. Harden your resolve, harden your heart if you have to, and keep going after the destroyers of humanity. Hunt them down and kill them like bugs. It’s either that or they’ll hunt you down and squash you like a bug.”

  “Intimidate or be intimidated,” Hawkins whispered.

  “There you go. Since there’s no middle ground in this, why not go the manly route and die facing the enemy with a knife in your hands.”

  Hawkins took a deep breath, nodding slowly. “Thanks, Walleye. I needed to hear that.”

  Walleye’s reward was seeing that dogged sheepish look depart the captain’s features. It looked like the latest beating was merely going to make the sword that was Jon Hawkins even better than before. Their captain was back.

  -10-

  The meeting reconvened. Jon had asked Walleye to stay, but the Makemake mutant had declined.

  Jon stood as the others reentered. He’d washed his face with soap and hot water, eaten a corned beef sandwich and had a dark cup of coffee. He still had a hollow feeling in his chest. He missed Miles Ghent and missed all the men and women that had perished in the missile assault. But he no longer felt the bitter sense of defeat. This was a grave setback. There was no doubt about that. But a Polish general and later leader, Marshal Pilsudski, had coined a famous saying: To be vanquished and not surrender is victory.

  That was Jon’s feeling today.

  The others took their seats. Jon faced them, and thanked them for their efforts. He told them that he was glad they had survived the missile assault.

  “Before we continue,” Jon said, “I want you to know my feelings on the subject. Note that I said feelings. In a way, this war is about emotions. Do we have the heart to fight to the finish? Are we going to stand against the machines and pull them down as they attempt to exterminate the human race?”

  Jon pulled out his chair and sat down, putting his folded hands on the table. “I desperately feel the losses of our friends and comrades. No one can replace them. Instead, we’ll need more to join us in the fight. Those others will be our new friends and comrades. Maybe some of us here in this room will die before we claim final victory. Given the size of the enemy—Bast, put your hand down. I realize we don’t know the extent of the AI Dominion. Likely, it’s huge. That just means it’s going to be a long war. So be it. Either we fight on no matter the losses, or we quit and allow ourselves to be exterminated. Those are the choices, stark choices. As for me, I know what I plan to do. What about the rest of you?”

  “Fight,” the Old Man said, pulling his pipe from his mouth.

  “Keep fighting,” Kling said. “I’ve always believed that.”

  “Certainly we must on,” Gloria said. “Is that the issue?”

  “It is this minute,” Jon said. “Bast? What are your feelings?”

  “My people are dead,” the Sacerdote said. “I could just as easily leave the war and go elsewhere. The endless death is nauseating. I personally find it reprehensible. However, with that said, you are my friends. As long as you live, I will do as you do.”

  Jon nodded. “I’ll accept that. We need you, Bast. You’re important to the war effort. I’m glad you’re with us. And I want to add, we’re still going to hunt for more of your people.”

  Bast did not respond.

  “I would have liked to have already begun the hunt,” Jon said.

  “That is what you said you would do.”

  Jon’s lips thinned. “I know. I made the promise. I’m going to keep it. I also made a promise to the people of the Solar Freedom Force. We have to at least start pushing the AIs back before I can do anything else.”

  “We pushed them back in the Allamu System,” Bast said.

  “True,” Jon said. “But we need to push them back more before the AIs discover we survived their as
saults.”

  “You have a good heart, Jon Hawkins,” Bast said. “But I suspect you will always have one more task to complete before you can search for my people.”

  Jon frowned as his folded hands tightened their grip.

  “Later, Bast,” Gloria said quietly.

  “No,” Jon said. “Bast has a right to say what he said. When I get enough cyberships, Bast, I’ll give you one. Then, if I haven’t already done so, you can take that cybership and hunt for your people.”

  “Interesting,” Bast said, sitting up. “How many cyberships do you deem as enough?”

  “Jon,” Gloria warned.

  The captain waved her aside. “Ten,” he said. “I’ll give you the eleventh.”

  “A sealed promise?” asked Bast.

  “What does that mean?” Jon asked.

  “In Sacerdote terms, you would willingly die if you went back on your promise. You are saying that you have given me a sealed box, which I can open the minute you break your solemn word. In the box is the killing dagger.”

  Jon nodded. “A sealed promise, Bast. And I’ll get that box to you tomorrow.”

  Bast raised his bushy eyebrows.

  Gloria looked down at her lap, shaking her head. She wondered what sort of disaster the promise was going to make for them later.

  Jon saw the head shake and understood what it meant. He wanted everyone on board for the mission, and that most certainly included Bast. The Sacerdote had proven critical more than once. Bast might prove so again if he threw his full heart into the fight. For having helped developed the anti-AI virus with Benz and Vela Shaw, Bast deserved a cybership of his own. The Sacerdote had already helped save the human race more than once.

  Jon cleared his throat. “We’ve taken grave losses. There’s no doubt we have to destroy the Neptune before we enter hyperspace. During the journey to the BD-7 System, everyone is going to have to work overtime helping with ship repairs.”

  “What?” Gloria said. “Just a minute, please. We can’t go to the BD-7 System. We have two heavily damaged cyberships, each of them woefully understaffed. Some of the survivors are going to die before the rest heal. We’re shaken to the core. People have lost heart. They’re frightened.”

  “Gloria,” Jon said, as she caught her breath. “A great man once said, ‘To be vanquished and not surrender is victory.’ Well, we’re not vanquished. Thus, we’re still victorious.”

  “That’s a saying,” Gloria replied. “It has a grain of truth in it, but it isn’t reality in our case. I’m glad you’re back, Captain. You’re obviously revived. But this is a critical decision. We could lose everything if we keep going.”

  “I get that,” Jon said. “We’re all alone out here, a handful of humans trying to stave off a machine empire. That doesn’t mean we can forget about Cog Primus. Stopping him becomes more important, not less. Before, we could think about stopping another AI Assault against the Solar System.” He shook his head. “We’re not going to acquire enough hardware to take on nine enemy cyberships any time soon. That fact alone forces our hand. We have to pick up the dice and roll, hoping we hit the jackpot.”

  “Jon, two damaged cyberships.”

  “Two might be enough,” he said. “Besides, we have your new virus. We’re going to be counting on it.”

  Gloria frowned. “The new virus is untested.”

  “Richard created it,” Jon said. “Haven’t you been telling me what a genius he was?”

  Gloria opened her mouth and slowly closed it. “How do we defeat AIs that can open reality windows and send missiles at five percent light speed?”

  Bast raised a massive hand.

  “Go ahead,” Jon said.

  “We’ve been overlooking an obvious point,” Bast said. “Those missiles fired on cyberships.”

  “We know that all too well,” Jon said.

  “Oh,” Gloria said. “Yes,” she told Bast. “That is interesting.”

  Jon looked from Bast to Gloria.

  “Why did the missiles target cyberships?” Bast asked him.

  “I’m not interested in twenty questions,” Jon said. “Tell us your point.”

  “Those were enemy missiles,” Bast said. “Enemies in relation to the AIs, as you’ve suggested before. They must have fired at us because they believed we were AI vessels.”

  “Friendly fire hit us?” Jon asked.

  Bast shook his ponderous head. “There was nothing friendly about it. The AI-fighting aliens might not ally themselves with us. They might treat humans the way the Seiners treated humans.”

  “If these aliens have this kind of weaponry,” Kling said, “why are they on the defensive against the Dominion?”

  “Who said they are on the defensive?” Bast asked. “The Lytton System’s destruction and the missile attack against us shows that the aliens are on the offensive.”

  “This is incredible,” Jon said. “Yes, you’re right. The missiles attacked cyberships. We absorbed damage likely intended for AIs.”

  “Perhaps the better notion would be to contact the AI-fighting aliens,” Bast said.

  “Okay,” Jon said. “We’re in the dark about a lot of things, including these supposed aliens. I still say the best idea is to head to the BD-7 System. If nothing else, we need to look around. We can skim the edge of the star system and simply scan. If the odds are too heavily stacked against us, we leave. If the place is destroyed like the Lytton System, we know that much more about the war. If everything is normal, we know something too. We can’t keep operating in the dark. The universe is too deadly to send out small scout ships. Yes, half our strength is gone, but we still have two cyberships. That’s a lot of firepower, more than the rest of humanity can throw together in the Solar System.”

  “I agree,” Kling said. “We stay on mission.”

  The Old Man took the pipe out of his mouth, pointing it at Jon. “Whatever you decide, sir, is good for me. I’m with you to the end.”

  “Bast?” asked Jon.

  “I desire that cybership, as I wish to find and free what is left of my people. I say continue with the mission.”

  Jon looked at Gloria.

  “I’m outvoted,” she said. “I won’t make waves. I have some reservations. I also like Jon’s ideas about scouting the BD-7 System if nothing else. We should continue if Jon thinks that’s the best thing.”

  “I do,” Jon said. “Thus, it’s decided. We’re heading to the BD-7 System.”

  -11-

  The transfer of the Neptune’s surviving crew and every piece of useful ordnance took time. It was also exhausting for those healthy enough to work.

  A handful of techs on the Nathan Graham and the Sergeant Stark oversaw special interior robo-builders beginning the massive ship repairs.

  Shuttles went back and forth for days. Every time Jon looked out a shuttle window and saw the smashed Neptune, he marveled that anyone had survived aboard the cybership. The last two vessels were in better shape, but not by a whole lot.

  Finally, the Nathan Graham and Sergeant Stark accelerated away from the Neptune’s hulk. Once they were one and half million kilometers distant, Jon gave the order.

  Matter/antimatter demolition warheads ignited, finishing the stricken ship, turning it into junked debris and heavy radiation.

  The repairs to the last two cyberships continued nonstop. Everyone paused, though, as the vessels entered hyperspace. Jon had ordered deceleration earlier for a time. He didn’t want to enter the BD-7 System at too great a velocity. As soon as the hyperspace transfer was considered a success, repair work on the cyberships resumed.

  This journey was different from last time. There was simply too much to do to get bored. There were fewer quarrels and fistfights, as the schedule was relentless. The truth was they simply had too few people for all the jobs that needed doing. The marines ended up helping the techs wherever they could.

  Days passed, quickly piling up into weeks. Slowly, much too slowly, the two cyberships became less like garbage
scows and looked more like hull-sealed ships.

  That was the biggest problem. Each hull had holes. The vessels no longer had huge holes, but each outer hull had far too many little ones. The seals to those breaches did not have the same heavy armor as the rest. In order to try to make up the difference, Jon ordered heavy ablating behind the lesser armored areas.

  Each cybership had plenty of missiles. That was one of the few pluses. As the date for reentering normal space neared, the number of gravitational cannons was still too few. The Nathan Graham had half its cannons in operational order. The Sergeant Stark only had a third that would fire the green beams. Many of those cannons could not keep up continuous fire, though.

  Finally, the work slackened, as Jon wanted to give his crews a break to catch their breath. They might have to work harder for weeks on end once they entered normal space. The men and women needed to recoup just a little.

  For the first few days, people caught up on their sleep. Three days from D-Day, when they would enter normal space again, more than 34 light-years from their former position, Jon ordered marine drills at half speed. The next day, the drills ran at full speed.

  “Train them hard another day,” Jon said. “Then, we’re going in.”

  The Centurion nodded. He was still healing from the surgery on his chest. “This one could be rough,” he said, “especially if we have to repeal invaders.”

  Jon snorted. “I’m not worried about invaders. I might need you to capture a cybership or battle station for me.”

  The Centurion stared at him. “You must be joking, sir.”

  “We have to be ready for anything.”

  The Centurion’s nostrils flared, although he nodded shortly. “We may be able to pull off a swift battle-station raid like we did in the Allamu System. I can’t promise you any more than that.”

  Would that be enough? Jon didn’t know. The truth was they had no idea what was waiting for them. According to the old Allamu chart, this place should have a factory planet deep in the inner system of the larger star. There were supposed to be two outer gas giants with eccentric orbits, three distinct asteroid belts and a large terrestrial planet in a Mars-like orbit around the larger binary star. The smaller star was over a half light-year away from the other.