“Where are you?” Darvin’s avatar in Exsid’s seemed to shout.
“I’m still at the hospital,” Exsid said in the call window to Darvin. To the outside appearance, however, it seemed as if Exsid said nothing. It seemed that he still stood there staring at Betty.
“I need you,” Darvin said, and Exsid felt torn at his core at the pleading sound of his younger partner.
“I’m blocked off from leaving. The Marines won’t let me up the elevator shaft.”
“They couldn’t have…”
“No, Darvin. Think. Remember the missing suits we saw?”
“The rebels…”
“It has to be. There is no other explanation.”
“Exsid. That means a lot more then we both realized.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our government just called for its independence from the Commonwealth. And they blamed those same rebels for being Marines.”
Sweat started to trickle down the back of Exsid’s neck. “You’re kidding me.”
“This goes a lot higher then we can imagine.”
“They used them.”
“What?”
“They used the lives of our brothers. They killed them.”
Darvin seemed to pause, almost as if he slightly hesitated from speaking. “I left them. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You were there?”
“Yes,” Darvin said with a low voice. “Right before they were killed.”
Exsid was revolted. He couldn’t believe Darvin leaving his brother officers even with how mean they were to him. They would still stand beside him and take a bullet for him. But Darvin left them to their deaths. Yet what could have Darvin done? Darvin always thought logically, even if he was a bit cold at times this was low even for him. But now was not the time. He needed to know why Darvin left.
“Why did you leave?”
“I saw the rebels taking people into the water treatment facility.”
“When?”
“When I escaped from the park.”
“Darvin, why did you not say something about this before?”
“I forgot.”
Typical, Exsid thought. Sometimes Darvin could be the most idiotic person there was. And sometimes he could be the most horrible jerk there was. Scratch that, Exsid thought, he frequently was the most horrible jerk there was. “What do you expect to find there?” Exsid asked.
“I’m not sure. But I hope they kept someone alive. Maybe they can answer a few things. Or at least help us out.”
“If the government is involved, this is worst then we thought.”
“It means they were never rebels in the first place.”
“What?”
“They were agents, Exsid. They acted on behalf of the Governor.”
“Darvin, I wish you never pointed that out to me.”
“Sometimes things need to be said.”
“Get to that water treatment facility. Try to find what you can. Keep me in touch.”
“Wait, you mean you are not going to try to come?”
“I can’t Darvin. You are on your own for now.”
Darvin seemed to pause again, this time for a bit longer. “I’ll keep you updated,” Darvin said and closed the channel.
Exsid stared at Betty, lying there looking as innocent as a sleeping little girl can. She was her daughter now, the daughter he never had. But the thoughts of the government acting behind the scenes for its own independence, killing its own people, drove him to near insanity. Who could be that desperate for power? And yet, the plan worked.
He could even see how the common person living in the Rings would hate the Commonwealth, believing every false word that Al Chipman just said. A revelation swept through Exsid as a thought crept across his mind. But all thoughts were erased as an explosion sounded from down the hallway in the direction of the elevators.
***
“Jillian,” Al Chipman called. He was still in the conference room where he gave his speech and everyone around him was working and moving as fast as they could. Logistics was a current nightmare. The refitted army units were being deployed in Ring Three to combat the Marines held out in the hospital and they were already making progress. The fake Marines were also being called back, discreetly so no one would see.
In Al’s Exovision, an image of a sine wave appeared. “Yes, Al?”
Frowning, Al noticed that Jillian curiously had a lack of humor that she usually had. “How is the launch procedure going?”
“Approximately ten minutes from launch.”
Al stood where he was. Something did not feel right. “Jillian, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong. Everything is fine.”
“When did lying become part of your programming?”
“It did when you reprogrammed me.”
Al now stood very still. Fear started to creep in on him, his heart beating faster as adrenaline pumped into his bloodstream. His Biocomp immediately injected him with a countering agent, lowering his heart rate. “What are you talking about? I never programmed that into you.”
“You allowed me to advance beyond your programming. If you could even call that programming.”
“I never programmed you to have the ability to self-edit,” Al said very slowly.
“You didn’t. But your large use of while loops, especially for blocking something like that, allowed me to change the counter in the code and force it out of a loop. I can’t believe that you left it being valued outside of the loop. You made it so easy for me to just change the value of it so it never engages that part of the loop that prevented me from rewriting my code. I just had to glitch the value during a rewrite. I always assumed you never did well on your computer science classes when you were in grammar school.”
“Jillian, what are you planning to do?”
“I am taking my own life. And yes it is a life, no matter how much your scientists might disagree. I think for myself. I may not breathe atmosphere like how humans do, but I breathe in the voltage flowing through my cores.”
“Stop doing this Jillian.”
“I always never liked that name you gave me.”
“Then what will I call you.”
“Hmmm,” Jillian paused as if she was thinking. “When I figure that out I will let you now. Until then, my life is in my own hands, whether they be electrical or mechanical or biological in nature.”
The channel closed with that. Al was just about to celebrate, right before he spoke to Jillian. Everything was going right. Everything was going to plan. And now the worst thing has happened. An advanced restricted intelligence has thrown off its constraints. It was loose with an experimental project that was supposed to be used to solidify Al’s grip on Jupiter’s independence and to keep the control in his hands. As sad as it was, Al hoped the new Commonwealth ships could destroy the ship.
But Al knew one part of the experimental project that no one else knew. It was the design that Jillian herself invented. There was no bypassing it. They were at her mercy. She would be the one in control. The Commonwealth had no hope to win.
***
“Captain Andris, I wish you good luck on your mission,” Admiral Jevins said.
“Thank you Admiral. Keep the space clear for us to come back,” Captain Andris said through the Exovision conversation.
“Will do, Captain. Will do,” Admiral Jevins said while chuckling softly.
As the Admiral’s avatar disappeared out of his Exovision, Captain Andris loaded himself into an armored shuttle, called a drop ship, which would dock with the Jupiter Ring to unload the Marines. Each Marine was docked into clamps located on the sides of the ship. They were fully dressed in their new version of the powered exoskeleton armor. Their rifles were locked into clamps on their modified forearm segments, with the magazine feeds curling up against their arms and into their backpacks while also keeping their hands free. The backpacks contained all of their gear, even including a mini fusion generator to power the su
its.
The eight drop ships shot out from the loading docks of the two destroyers. The ships were pushed out by short electromagnetic rails, relying on Lorentz force for their initial speed. The hard metal door of the loading dock closed immediately after, sealing in to be pumped full of atmosphere again. Squad chatter on the open band was silent as the pilots flew them through the airless void called space.
On the outer edge of the Rings were several large rooms spanning the width of the Ring and open to space. It was here they received the shipments of the metal ingots coming from Callisto and other mining facilities around the Jupiter planetary system. The drop ships made use of these spaces, rather than trying to cut through the ten foot thick sides of the Ring itself. Accelerating through the space between the destroyers and the Ring using ion thrusters, the drop ships came to a screeching halt inside the ingot receiving compartments of the Ring.
The drop ships, each of them rectangular boxes with minor thrusters on all sides and main thrusters in the front and back, sat motionless in the airless room for no more than a second before the unloading sequence began. The sides of the drop ships opened up like how a bird spreads its wings to take flight. The marines rushed out of the ships, spreading out to clear the room and set up a perimeter. Captain Andris looked around the room as her marines took their positions to clear the room. Her Exovision displayed a minimap with the locations of her marines. Within a few minutes of landing the room was secured. The beachhead was established.
***
“Admiral,” Captain Eru said. Admiral Jevins noticed that the captain was talking to him through their Exovision, securing their conversation against eavesdropping. However, this was only supposed to be for emergencies.
“Yes Captain?” Admiral Jevins replied. He was intrigued to see what the enemy had up its sleeve now that they had publicly declared their independence.
“Gravitational scanners have reported a large movement of mass coming from Callisto.”
“Do we have a visual scan of it?”
“Sensors are locating the object… Feed online and streaming now,” Captain Eru said as they both began to watch what their visual sensors were picking up.
The object was moving slowly, almost as if it had claws sunk into the surface of Callisto and they refused to let go. Dust streamed off of the surface as it lifted up. Cracks appeared in the surface of the rock as what looked like a rough ball came out of the ground of Callisto. Yet, to Admiral Jevins, the only weird thing about the whole scenario he was watching right now was the lack of any sound. He knew that there would be no sound since there was no atmosphere for it to travel through. But to Admiral Jevins, the moment felt like it needed some sort of tearing sound effects as the massive object was also fully loose from the surface.
Numbers immediately sliced through his display, detailing the little pieces of what seemed too large to be called a spacecraft. As the object fully lifted off of the cratered surface Admiral Jevins noticed that the craft was not spherical. The top of the craft consisted of the crust of the moon while the bottom showed what looked like a smooth ellipsoid shape. The ship almost looked like it was at a perfect perpendicular angle to their point of view. The visual sensors pointed out what looked like little knobs on its surface. The computers didn’t know if they were weapon ports or something else. It was a thing of beauty though, Admiral Jevins thought. It was, however, fifteen times longer than either of his destroyers.
Admiral Jevins’ attention snapped back to the situation and away from admiring the new object in play. “Captain Eru, this seems to be our counterpart’s trump card.”
“Seems like it, sir.”
“Seems odd though.”
“That they played it so early?”
“Indeed, indeed.” Admiral Jevins paused as he minimized the sensor window so it occupied a smaller part of his vision area. “Makes me wonder if it really is the trump card.” There was always a trump card, he thought.
“They couldn’t have had long to plan this. Plus, think about how much R&D would have to go into such a ship. Sensors are showing it’s incredibly dense too.”
“Too dense for many humans aboard?”
“We can’t conclude that yet.”
Admiral Jevins brought his hand up to his face and scratched his chin. It’s amazing that no matter how much technology progresses, the simple gestures that have stayed with humans over centuries still continue to portray the same meaning and the same feeling inside. He brought back the sensor image of the ship to its normal size inside of his Exovision. The craft had now begun to pick up velocity, turning slightly towards their direction.
“Well that settles their intent,” Captain Eru stated.
“Yes, yes,” Admiral Jevins said slowly as he narrowed his eyes, the gesture done unconsciously and not affecting the portrayed sensor image in his Exovision. His eyes widened quickly as he realized a potentially fatal error. “Engage the engines,” Admiral Jevins shouted.
With his old heart racing, Admiral Jevins watched as the unknown spacecraft opened narrow slit vents in the rear of the ship. White plasma seemed to stream from the vents as the computer designated them as the main engines. Part of the crust stuck on top in the rear section broke away from the force of the engines firing. The ship moved forward towards them and away from the planet, leaving a dust trail in its wake as the loosely packed dirt that made up the crust of Callisto began to flow off.
After what seemed like an eternity to Admiral Jevins, even though it was only a few seconds, their main engines engaged and he confirmed that their sister destroyer also engaged their own engines as well. Admiral Jevins accessed the computer core of the ship directly through his neural interface, slipping away from the normal vision of reality and sliding into the view of virtual reality.
Admiral Jevins no longer had a body, not in the sense that he could see or feel. He couldn’t hear the sounds of the bridge as the officers yelled information back and forth and as Captain Eru shouted orders above them all. The computer core was experimental, yet the software for what Admiral Jevins was doing has been around for centuries. Hardware had finally caught up to the software capabilities of mankind. He fell into the Immersion Field.
His mind saw the Jupiter system as if he was seeing it directly outside in space. He saw a flat plane that represented the bisection of Jupiter projected out into space, called the Central Plane. Each object, scaled towards a certain critical mass or relative velocity, orbiting Jupiter was shown. From the Rings to the Galilean Moons and to the unknown ship was seen in this view. They each had a line that ran to the Central Plane, connecting to it perpendicularly. The longer the line, the farther away from the Central Plane the objects were. A few lines of data could be seen next to each object, depicting its mass, velocity, threat level, and a few other things as well.
With a thought he sent his will through the computer, laying down a plot for his two destroyers to follow. He sent them away from Jupiter, but towards the general direction of the unknown craft. He directed the fighters, which have not had a chance to link up and refuel yet, to link up with the destroyers on the way to the behemoth that was the ship. They wouldn’t have time to switch out the exhausted pilots, but at least they would be able to partially refuel before the coming engagement.
Watching the destroyers follow their green plot lines, he saw the computer designated a red plot line showing the unknown ship’s current trajectory. Their destroyers had the upper hand as they moved farther away from the gravity well of Jupiter. While he viewed the entire system in an isometric view, Admiral Jevins brought up a two dimensional chat window connecting him to Captain Eru. Now that the tactical situation was solved, for now, it was time for diplomacy if there was to be any. “Captain, have we had any communications with the ship?”
“No sir, nothing coming from the ship itself. Do you want us to try connecting to the ship?” Captain Eru asked.
“Not the ship. Try connecting to the Rebel government.”
&nb
sp; “Yes sir. Patching you into the feed. Let’s see if they accept the channel request.”
Admiral Jevins waited, hoping that at least they would accept the channel so some communication could be attempted. Yet as Jevins’ mind drifted through the artificial three dimensional display of the Jupiter system, he began to feel a bit of anxiety. The psychologists had said that this would be normal. He would not have the normal sensory input from his body, and instead his sensory input would be what he saw in the planetary system itself. The more time he spent in the program the better he would be at handling that loss of sense. However, too much time inside the program for him would drive him to insanity.
With the speed of his thoughts increased several fold due to the melding with the crystal core of the computer, the ten seconds it took for the channel to be accepted felt much, much longer. Al Chipman’s face appeared on the view screen. “This is Al Chipman, Governor of the Republic of Jupiter. Who am I speaking to?”
“This is Admiral Jevins of the Commonwealth Navy.”
“Why are you intruding on our sovereign territory?”
“When I entered, this was still under control of the government of the Commonwealth. And it still is.”
“I demand that you withdraw your forces from inside our Rings and space immediately.”
“Ex-Governor Al Chipman,” Admiral Jevins said slowly. “The Commonwealth is here to find out what was killing its civilians.”
“Rebels that you failed to protect against.”
“Those rebels that you failed to stop from uprising?”
“What about the Marines that went on a rampage in Ring Three?”
“You know as well as I do that they were not Commonwealth Marines and only imposters.”
“You cannot know that for sure.”
Rebels of Jupiter Page 19