The destroyers’ two hundred meter length made them look tiny when compared to the fourteen mile wide diameter of the Ring. The amount of work and engineering that had to go into one astounded Jevins. It was humanity’s work at its finest.
Yet, today it would be in peril. The last unit of the Collar Project was released, igniting its own ion thrusters and pushing it towards the central non-rotating Hub of the ring. It would move under its own power to behind the Hub itself, using it as a shield.
A channel request from Captain Eru popped up in front of Jevins’ view. He pushed it off to the corner, opening it up as he did so. “Yes, Captain?”
“Sir, am I seeing a Collar Project unit moving towards the Ring?” Captain Eru asked warily.
“Yes, yes it is.”
“Are you sure with this sir? That thing going off would kill not only all of us and Jillian at this range but it would destroy the whole Ring.”
“That was my intention.”
“Sir?”
“If Jillian gets past us, she won’t get out of here to mass produce more of her machines.”
“But you are using the Ring as a hostage.”
“A necessary evil. She cannot be allowed to prematurely destroy the unit.”
“Sir, if any of this gets leaked out it would be a publicity nightmare. The civilians here already don’t trust us. This will just make everything worse.”
“You got something better?”
Captain Eru paused, not knowing what more to say. “No…”
“I appreciate your concerns, but I went through the same train of thought. This was all I could think up on the spot.”
“Yes sir,” Captain Eru said and closed the channel.
Yes, Admiral Jevins thought, a necessary evil. I am holding the entire Ring hostage as a last resort. You think I wanted to do this Captain, Jevins felt himself thinking, but I could not think of anything else. Admiral Jevins moved his view towards where the Collar Project unit was now moving behind the Hub. It was like a dead man’s switch. If they went, so did Jillian. The Ring was just a barrier so Jillian couldn’t destroy it.
Toggling the crystal computer he set a green sphere around his ships again, showing his maximum kinetic weapons range while setting a red sphere a bit smaller showing his weapons range for his lasers. The weapons envelops were larger than they were before, the computer now better able to track the projectiles using their sensors and the fact that they weren’t moving. Jillian was still five more minutes from being in range of his kinetics system, the Metal Storm. His ships were currently at a standstill, relatively. Even though Jillian was slowing down, having his ships just sitting there was giving her a stationary target.
Jevins couldn’t just keep his destroyers in place or even set them along a predictable track. He would have to make them move but give them enough freedom for the Captains to make course adjustments to avoid anything Jillian throws at them, even though her ship never fired a shot itself in the previous engagement. He expected to have more of those laser equipped small fighters to be launched.
As soon as Jillian came into range he had a solution placed into the computer to have both of their kinetics rounds hit her at the same time. Admiral Jevins watched through the virtual world provided by the destroyers’ sensors as the slugs hit the cold plasma shield surrounding her ship. The plasma was pushed away, the rounds themselves vaporized by the impact, showing for a brief instant the bare hull of her shield that was filled with dozens upon dozens of those little bumps. The plasma shield reformed around the hull.
“Again,” Jevins said to himself, alone in the Immersion Field. He began to move the ships in a circular pattern around each other going up and down from the orbital plane. He kept them going slow, so they could make adjustments a bit easier when those little sphere shaped fighters came. Watching as the weapons envelope shrank slightly, he waited for Jillian to come back into range. She was now a little over twenty minutes from reaching Ring Three.
As soon as she entered weapons range again, he fired each of the destroyer’s main rail guns sequentially. The rounds hit the same spot, not at the same time but one right after the other. But to the human eye it seemed as if they hit at the exact same time. However, Jevins watched as both of his plans failed. The plasma shield was less dispersed than it was when both rounds struck at the same time.
Admiral Jevins watched in despair as Jillian’s ship continued to move forward, braking slightly. How could he destroy her craft? He rotated his view so he saw the Ring. He did not want to kill civilians. Not again.
Thinking back, he refused to call Captain Eru. What good would it do? The Captain wouldn’t be able to think of anything he couldn’t think of right now. His mind swam around, thinking of past events. He found his thoughts bringing up his discussion with Al Chipman and then Officer Brut’s discussion with him shortly after. The light bulb in Admiral Jevins mind clicked on. In sudden realization, he hoped his new idea was something that would stop Jillian. If it was, Officer Brut was getting a staff position.
Chapter 17
Most historians focused more on the Global Collapse than they did with the Unification Reformation. The end of World War III started a deep post-war recession. Following the example of President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States of America during the First Great Depression, the Earth Commonwealth started several capital infrastructure projects. The two most notable projects were the Stalks and the Vacuum Tube Mass Transit system. The surface of the Earth was ravaged and dead. Some humans have been living in Arcologies for a while before the Global Collapse, but after World War III it was the only place that was hospitable. Between the two governments that formed the Earth Commonwealth, they started a mass transit system between each other’s Arcologies in the form of magnetic levitating trains traveling through vacuum tubes. This reduced friction and dramatically increased speed introduced an economically feasible way of transporting large quantities of goods, mainly food at first, over long distances. The Stalks were being constructed at the same time. Meant to dramatically reduce the cost of transporting goods, such as food grown in orbital hydroponics facilities, from near earth space and the surface, they also increased the amount of land area humanity had. The Stalks and the Vacuum Tube Mass Transit system were built and designed to work as a single system. This infrastructure system allowed humanity to not only survive but also to prosper and spread to occupy the solar system. Just like what happened in the 1930’s the human race rose from the post war depression with a system to support growth for years to come. The technological growth afterwards led to a third notable construction project, the THEL Shield.
-The History of the Earth Commonwealth
The air ducts moving through the water treatment plant were easier to navigate than Darvin thought they were going to be. It was a straight ride down, which was the hardest part, and a straight line to the offices. Wary of sensors in the ventilation system, Darvin saw none. Why would there be? Darvin thought. Why would they think someone would sneak in through this way?
Popping the duct’s cover at the hallway, Darvin crept out with his pistol out in front of him. There was no one in the hallway, thankfully since the cover had made a small amount of sound in the quiet corridor, and there were no cameras. Feeling a bit of despair that there was no one here after all, he trudged on to explore the section.
The corridor he was in had ten rooms, five on each side, and a physical interface terminal on one side built into the wall. One of the doors was open about three doors down. The rest were closed, no light shining through their windows. He pressed against the wall as he edged closer to the door, trying to not make any sounds. Having his pistol out in front of him, he stopped right in front of the open door.
There was some light coming out, making Darvin believe someone was inside using it. There could always be the possibility that someone just left the lights on and there was no one inside. But Darvin was erring on the side of caution. He swung himself out in front of the
door, his pistol in front of him.
Hot steel slammed down into his wrists, knocking his hands off the gun. Darvin’s pistol dropped to the ground, bouncing off of Darvin’s knee and landing inside the room. A blonde haired man shoved the thin metal pole further forward, slipping it under Darvin’s armpit. Before Darvin could react, the man stepped forward and flung Darvin over his shoulder using the metal poker as leverage.
Flying into the room Darvin tried to land and roll but failed, instead slamming into the wall on the other side. Getting his head up quick Darvin saw the blonde man running at him. On his knees Darvin did the only thing he could think of. He pushed off the wall and speared into the man, using his own body weight as a weapon as if he was in a Grav game.
They both fell to the ground, Darvin on top of the man but the blonde man still had the metal pole. As Darvin tried to bring his left fist up to pound it into the guy below him, the man shoved the pole through Darvin’s shoulder. The pole went straight through Darvin’s body, the force of the piercing also shoving Darvin off of the man. Darvin hit the wall in almost the same spot as he did before.
Getting up groggily, Darvin saw that his pistol was right next to his foot. Grabbing it with his good right hand he forced it up in front of him as fast as he could. It was then that Darvin noticed that the man wasn’t the only one in the room with him. The man had another man in front of him. This second man was blindfolded, handcuffed, his clothes tattered and his body showing signs of torture. The blonde man held the second man in front of him as a shield, but the blonde man had a cylinder with a weird colored liquid inside of it against the second man’s neck. Judging by the clothing on the second man, it was obvious who he was. It was the General he was searching for.
“Don’t move,” the blonde man said after Darvin had gotten to his feet, the pistol still out in front of him and aimed directly at him.
“Who are you?” Darvin asked, the most obvious question that came to his mind. Straight and to the point at least, he thought.
“Really?” the blonde man asked with surprise. “Do you really think I would tell you who I am?”
“I figured it was worth a shot,” Darvin said with a smirk.
“An idiot tried to sneak up on me,” the blonde man said softly to him, almost chuckling as he said it.
The blonde man took a step back towards the door, still holding the General as he did so. Darvin took a step forward as he did so. The blonde man stopped where he was. “Didn’t I tell you not to move?” he asked.
“Do you really think I would follow what you say?” Darvin responded.
“I would have thought so if you recognize what I got against his neck,” the blonde man said. “After all, aren’t you here for him?”
“What’s against his neck?”
“A Disassembler,” the blonde man said as if he was talking in a plain and simple conversation. Darvin could hear the General cursing slightly under his breath, but remained mostly silent.
“Those aren’t supposed to exist anymore.”
“Do you really believe in everything the government tells you?”
He has a point, Darvin conceded. “Move and I will shoot.”
“You need this guy, or at least I assume so. Why else would you have come into here during a time like this? Besides, he will be injected if you try anything.” The blonde man narrowed his eyes as he looked at Darvin. “Silver eyes?”
“What about them?” Darvin asked with a bit of anger creeping into his voice.
The blonde man laughed. “Nothing, just a failed experiment of the past. You remember that, right General?”
“That was all of your deception, Trev,” the General said. “Not mine.”
“Oh?” the blonde man called Trev by the General said and laughed. “If I remember correctly it was your hacking code that did it.”
“You pulled the trigger in the end. You could have stopped it with the other part of the code you stole from me.”
“Ah, good memories,” Trev said. “Besides you employed me to do that little part anyways.” He looked back over to Darvin. “You weren’t related to that old man were you?”
Darvin’s eyes were wide with shock as he had watched the exchange. It was all making sense right now. That was why they changed the design of the Biocomps and gave everyone free upgrades, to prevent the hacking of people’s minds. My father’s mind was hacked, Darvin thought. It wasn’t him in control after all. A lone tear rolled down Darvin’s cheek.
But, Darvin thought, that also meant he was looking at his father’s killer right in front of him. No wonder it was covered up, Darvin thought. It was a government project that had gone ballistic and got people killed. Who would want that released? Especially if that someone was in command of the region military wise. Give the people something free and they will forget. Give them something else to think about.
It wasn’t my father inside after all when it happened. He didn’t kill my mother. It was someone else in control.
Trev, meanwhile, saw the tear coming from Darvin’s eye. “Must have been,” he said.
Darvin trained his pistol on Trev, his Exovision bringing a bulls-eye target over Trev’s face. He was looking at his father’s killer right now. He was looking at the person who gave him a life of nothingness, a life with an uncle who never knew how to parent.
Darvin saw his pistol shake slightly, his target in his Exovision wavering slightly. Trev saw it too.
“Getting a bit nervous?” Trev said as he took another step back towards the door. When Darvin didn’t make a move and just stood there, his hands slightly shaking, Trev took another.
“Don’t move,” Darvin shouted as loud as he could, another tear rolling down his face as he did so.
I need to pull the trigger, Darvin thought. This was the moment he wanted his whole life, to get the person that killed his family, to find out what really happened under the surface of the printed words on that paper that described that event. His thoughts pushed back towards his ruined car for a single instant. He imagined that photo of his father. He imagined it slightly burnt around the edges. He saw it curling up in smoke as it was lit on fire.
He’s here right in front of me, slowly moving away from me every second I stand here, Darvin thought. Why can’t I pull the trigger? Why can’t I end it? He felt another tear roll down his face. The image of Trev’s body hitting the floor, blooding spraying out all around, was flowing through his head. The image of that body hitting the ground, just like how his father’s did so long ago.
“Stop,” Darvin shouted as loud as he could again, as Trev made it to in front of the doorway. But Darvin's voice sounded feeble. His aim started to shake slightly as Darvin felt himself getting trapped in Trev's words. He tried to push down as much as he could, tried to steady his hand.
“You aren’t going to sho-” Trev tried to say but Darvin, panicking, pulled the trigger, his pistol pushing out the thermite round and towards his target.
Darvin watched, almost as if the world was running in slow motion, as his bullet flew towards Trev. He watched the round hit the frame of the door, his aim off at the time of his panicked pull of the trigger. Sparks flew and molten metal sprayed over Trev’s face. Darvin ran towards him.
Trev flinched, falling backward as the General sank down to the floor, pushing himself away from the Disassembler canister. But the canister fell back with Trev, still in his hands, having failed to activate it. Trev rolled to the side and ran down the hallway. Darvin, already trying to run out of the room to catch up to Trev, tripped over the falling General and flew out into the hallway, banging into the wall on the other side.
Darvin, still lying on the ground, brought his pistol up and looked down the hallway. But no one was there. I have failed, Darvin thought slowly. I failed to get him after all this time.
Slowly getting up, Darvin heard a foot step off to his side. One of those responsible for Darvin's past had escaped, but another one was still with him. He swung the pistol towards the
sound, just to see the General had gotten to his feet and was trying to walk out of the room. “Don’t move,” Darvin shouted, his voice now a little coarse.
“Now boy, just put that gun down,” General Sola said as calmly as he could.
“Why am I trying to find you? Why do they want you back?” Darvin asked in quick succession.
“Because I know how to stop her.”
“Her?”
“Jillian.”
“Who is she?”
“By now, I suspect a rogue unrestricted AI.”
Darvin eyes went wide again. “AI’s can’t be unrestricted.”
“Son, I don’t have time to explain. I need to get to that terminal behind you.”
“Use your Biocomp’s link.”
“It’s disabled.”
Darvin stared at the General. It was as if everything he knew was impossible was possible after all. “That’s impossible.”
“No it’s not. I’ll explain that later. Let me get to that terminal son,” General Sola said as he moved towards Darvin and the terminal.
Darvin moved out of the way, but kept enough distance for him to shoot the General if he needed to. He watched as the General brought up an old style command prompt and started typing into the terminal. “What are you doing?”
“Honestly it is not something I think you should know,” the General replied and continued typing.
“For the man who has a gun to your head I think you should answer a few questions.”
“Alright,” the General said and looked over towards Darvin. “A message just confirmed to me that Jillian has gone rogue. I assumed she would but I couldn’t know while I was being held hostage in that room without a link to the Central Net. And please remember that I was a hostage.”
“Hostage, yes,” Darvin said, his mind still swimming and reeling from the facts he had just learned. “But let me remind you that I just learned you were involved with the death of my father.”
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