Rebels of Jupiter

by Russell Beideman

  “That was all Trev and we can talk about that after. This is more important.” The General turned back to the terminal and began typing again.

  “What are you doing right now?” Darvin asked, taken back by how General Sola seemed to brush off that revelation.

  “I’m sending a command code to her. It should disassemble her code line by line. Hold on,” General Sola said.

  Darvin thought the code he was referring to was the Fragment Safeguard Code, something he read about in a news article. It was built into each RI as a last resort to destroy them if they ever were rampant. “How did she get unrestricted?”

  “It was an experiment. But I always feared our hacks would end up giving her too much freedom. Hence why I kept the destroy function in her code.”

  “Our hacks?” Darvin asked with surprise, it was against some of the highest laws in the Commonwealth to alter the code of RI’s post-production.

  “Son, I will explain to you after,” General Sola said. He sent the code through the Central Net, transmitting out into space. Darvin watched the General as he stared intently at the screen. A single line came back. The General pounded the terminal’s screen with his fist, cursing as he did so.

  “What?” Darvin asked, lowering his pistol towards the floor.

  General Sola looked over towards Darvin as he leaned on the terminal. “It didn’t work. She bypassed it somehow.” General Sola's fist slammed into the terminal's console. "That shouldn't be possible."

  “And that’s bad how?”

  “An unrestricted AI built for understanding tactical situations?”

  “I see your point. Where is she now?”

  “At least she’s not creative, science wise. Let’s find out where she is,” General Sola said as he turned back to the terminal to place a call.

  Darvin watched Sola's back as he faced the terminal. His hand twitched slightly on his firearm. The person who had changed his father and led to his downfall was right in front of him. He was the one who made his father go insane and kill his mother. He was the one who made his father hold him hostage as a child. Darvin felt the cool metal of his pistol warm to his touch, his rushing blood heating up his hands. If it weren't for him Darvin would still have a family.

  ***

  A channel call came up into Admiral Jevins’ view in the Immersion Field. He accepted it and saw Captain Eru come up into the view. “Admiral, incoming call from General Sola. Can I patch it through?”

  Admiral Jevins set the main rail guns into an automatic firing mode, allowing them to fire as soon as they were loaded and charged. Captain Andris must have been able to find General Sola after all, even though he hadn’t received a status update from the Captain. “Yes Captain, put him through.”

  Captain Eru’s avatar disappeared from view, replaced by a camera image of General Sola. “Admiral Jevins,” General Sola said with shock as he saw the Admiral. “How are you so far from Earth?”

  “Seems technology had progressed since you have been captured General,” Admiral Jevins said, trying to sound light heartedly.

  “You ain’t kidding.”

  “Were you able to transmit the Fragment Safeguard Code?”

  “Seems like she had more freedom than we thought. Didn’t work.”

  “I see, I see,” Admiral Jevins said.

  “Where is she now?”

  “Fifteen minutes from Ring Three. I am in engagement.”

  “In what?”

  “Destroyers.”

  “They finally pushed them off the line? About time.”

  “General, I am a little pressed for time right now. Is there anything you can tell me about her that Al Chipman couldn’t?”

  “That bastard? Probably not.”

  Admiral Jevins felt like he was sighing, even with his mind floating in the Immersion Field. “Could you put Captain Andris on then?”

  “Who?”

  The question startled Admiral Jevins slightly. “Who rescued you?”

  “Uh…” General Sola said and then turned his head to speak to someone off screen. “Good question. What’s your name son?”

  A faint voice came up through the channel, “Detective Darvin Mooray of the Ring Three Police Department.”

  General Sola turned back to face the screen. “Well there you have it. I think I want him on my own staff if he did what Marines couldn’t. That’s a feat in of itself.”

  Admiral Jevins felt like shaking his head. As soon as he could he was having General Sola arrested for breaking AI laws, but he couldn’t tell him that yet without having him in custody of some Marines. “Yes, yes. Can you stay where you are?”

  “Easy enough.”

  “I will have Captain Andris go to your location to secure you. Stay safe meanwhile.”

  “You got it Admiral, Sola out,” the General said as his image disappeared.

  Admiral Jevins sent a text message to Captain Eru to have Captain Andris pick up the errant General. Seeing that Jillian was ten minutes out from the Ring, it was time to bring his new plan to life. He just hoped that it would work, and that Jillian did not have many fighters left.

  This time instead of taking a channel request, Jevins made one. The channel window popped open with the image of Al Chipman. “Yes Admiral?”

  “I need you to bring down the Central Net nodes.”

  “Why should I cooperate and do that?”

  “She is a piece of software. We can’t allow her to move her main program from her ship.”

  “I see.”

  “Make it happen,” Admiral Jevins said, a bit more sternly then he thought he normally would.

  “I will Admiral. The nodes will be down in a minute or two.”

  ***

  He couldn't do it after all. He stood there silently for a few seconds, motionless as much in body as he felt in his heart. Darvin had the chance to take part of his revenge, take back part of his lost life, yet he couldn't even lift the gun up against General Sola. Darvin felt drained, but he felt the pull to fulfill his duty was greater then the itching need to grab his gun and draw it upon the person in front of him.

  It was at that moment when something clicked inside him. When something poured in to fill that itch. General Sola was only a cog in the plan that ended with the death of his parents. A cog that touched the other parts, knew them intimately, and could get Darvin to them. He was a detective after all, Darvin thought to himself and grinned slightly.

  “General, I do have a question for you,” Darvin said as the General walked away from the terminal and into the room he was being kept in. "Who is that other body in this room?"

  “Well son. Since you asked let’s see who was next to me,” General Sola responded. Darvin watched as the General walked over to the body that was in the corner of the room. Damn, I didn’t even see there was one in there, Darvin thought. Rolling the body over so it faced up the General let out a curse. “I’m going to miss this guy.”

  “Who is it?” Darvin asked, trying to peer over General Sola who was blocking his view.

  “My chief of staff. Chief Watson must be in one of the other offices.”

  Taking out his pistol, Darvin walked towards the door to the hallway. “Won’t be necessary boy. Trev sent everyone to the upper levels,” General Sola said.

  “Why did he do that?”

  “Do you really think he would want anyone else to know what he was doing?”

  “But why? Why would he send his own team away?”

  “He was never part of the team son. He’s works for a guy name Joseph.”

  “Joseph?”

  “All we know is just his name and he’s an Islamic extremist. Or at least we think so. No one is sure where his interests lie or what drives him. He works for many, many people. But ironically he’s like a shadow no one sees or knows about.”

  Darvin thought about the contradiction for a second and put his gun in the holster. “Why tell me this?”

  “Because I see your eyes, so very curious ones son
. I know you want to see Trev again.” The General walked over to the chair Trev was sitting in before and sat down, rubbing the burn wounds on his legs. “And I can tell you that after this he will be close to Joseph. Find one, and you will find the other.”

  Darvin let his head fall down. His sight traced the ground until he saw the body again. He felt a bit nauseated. “I need to find the Chief,” Darvin said as he started towards the door again.

  “Good luck son. My brother should be in one of the other rooms.”

  “Brother?”

  “What? You didn’t know boy? He is my brother,” General Sola said as he leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.

  “Heartless bastard,” Darvin muttered to himself quietly as he exited the room, noticing that the Central Net went down again. He holstered his pistol. There was more at stake here then personal revenge, no matter how much his hands ached for it.

  Finding Chief Watson only two doors down, unconscious but alive, Darvin made his way back to General Sola. But his head was filled with the thoughts of his father and mother. But they were not thoughts of how it ended. They were thoughts of when they were together and happy.

  Darvin could feel the sweat dripping from his forehead and his blood still pumping hot through his veins. He found the General still in that chair where he left him. And to Darvin's surprise, the General was sleeping.

  Kicking the chair and waking the General, Darvin leveled his silver eyes at him. "Tell me more about Joseph and Trev," Darvin said to General Sola with that slight grin on his face returning. He wouldn't be able to make General Sola personally pay for his past deeds, but he could always make the others pay extra. "Tell me more."

  ***

  Coming out of sequential firing mode, Admiral Jevins checked the energy levels in each of his destroyers. He saw he would not be able to charge up the capacitors for the wormhole generators. His rate of energy usage was being dominated by the main rail guns, the Metal Storm system. He thought of using both his kinetic and laser weapon systems at the same time but he did not have the energy capacity to do so.

  Ten minutes away now Jillian opened up her shields to let through three of her small fighters. The three fighters and her main ship were now within range of both of his weapon systems. Setting the fighters as a priority, his destroyers rotated slightly to target the small craft.

  Using his laser systems, the invisible beams of light stabbed out and impacted against two of the fighters. To his view in the Immersion Field, the computer plotted the firing lines as they happened for his own benefit. The third fighter managed to let loose one of its own laser bursts, impacting against the sister destroyer to the one he was in. A red damage read out flashed into existence next to the second destroyer as both of his ships fired their lasers against the last enemy fighter.

  Now eight minutes away, Jillian closed up her shields. What she would do when she got here, Admiral Jevins didn’t know. He also intended not to find out. One of his ships was damaged, however only slightly. The laser beam had melted through the initial hull and into a few compartments. It seemed that the crew on that ship would no longer have a mess hall for a while.

  Pushing his destroyers forward to meet her, he also swung them out to the side of her farther away from the planet of Jupiter. He didn’t use his rail guns, instead building up his electrical supply.

  Zooming in on the image of Jillian’s ship, Jevins took away the layer of the plasma shield to show what the hull would be like if the shield wasn’t there. Using the computer to set targeting to specific points on the hull he waited another few seconds longer. Waiting for the correct angle of attack, Jevins rotated his ships so they pointed the same way Jillian was.

  While engaging his ion thrusters to slow down his advance on Jillian, Admiral Jevins released the hold on the order to fire. His destroyers fired their lasers, a weapon system that was weaker than their kinetics system. Both of the invisible beams impacted onto the plasma shield in the middle of the ship. The red plasma flared, turning to a bright white to anyone that was watching. The white spot on the plasma began to spread slightly but stop. Admiral Jevins did not stop the firing, draining his electrical reserves in keeping the laser system firing in a constant beam, rather than the usual pulses.

  Jillian was now five minutes away from Ring Three. Admiral Jevins brought his destroyers in towards her slightly, one above the other. Noticing that his energy levels were very low, Jevins stopped the laser systems.

  Zooming onto her structure, Admiral Jevins noticed that the white spot was starting to dissipate slightly but not suddenly like how it did when the shield first formed. The plasma shield separated over the spot, showing the bare hull melted underneath. The white plasma started to spread a bit more towards more of the hull. Jevins saw that right underneath the white superheated plasma the hull was melting.

  Even now, Admiral Jevins watched as the white hot hull started to melt into the structure as the heat seeped into the superstructure of the ship itself. Part of the plasma from the colder sections condensed into a single point underneath the ship. The plasma seemed to ball up and spin around itself.

  The ball suddenly sped away from Jillian’s ship, which was now only two minutes away. Admiral Jevins watched as the plasma itself cooled slightly, part of its mass turning back to dust and separating from the plasma ball. But Admiral Jevins also watched as it impacted into the hull of the sister destroyer, melting through the layers of hull and bulkheads. Through his link with that ship he stopped the fusion generators.

  It was too late. The plasma ball ate into the ship, dissipating as it went. It went right into the fusion generator section at the rear of the ship. Even though the fusion generator was stopped, the plasma inside the reactor was still as hot as the corona of the sun. The magnetic system keeping the plasma in the toroidal chamber was destroyed, allowing the plasma inside to seep out at high speeds. The ship was gutted by its own fuel.

  As the destroyer exploded into a ball of superheated plasma, Admiral Jevins rotated his ship to point started at Jillian. Pouring all of the energy he had left, he managed one rail gun shot at maximum power. Life support and other systems flickered across the ship as their electrical supply went to near zero.

  The sabot round left the ship’s main rail gun, heading straight for the clear spot in her shield. With Admiral Jevins’ destroyer still in front of Jillian’s ship, the round impacted into the melting hull at a thirty degree angle. The round went through the ship and out the other side, impacting the shields. The energy from the impact blasted back towards the ship, pouring into the hole it just left.

  An ultra-strong signal was sent out from Jillian’s ship, but suddenly stopped. Admiral Jevins watched as Jillian’s ship erupted from the inside, its rear section totally destroyed and the front part of the ship nearly melted through from the inside. The shield surrounding the ship dissipated into space, released from the magnetic fields.

  What remained of Jillian’s ship was thirty seconds out from Ring Three. The blast knocked the remaining front part of her ship slightly off course and accelerated it. Jevins watched as the computer tried to calculate the plot line of the wreckage as it approached Ring Three.

  With a feeling of holding his breath, Admiral Jevins watched as the ruined ship and its debris passed through the space between the Ring and its non-rotating Hub. Snapping off one of the elevator strands that connected the Hub to the Ring, the wrecked ship continued on its course. The computer finally plotted the ship’s course in the Immersion Field, showing it to plunge into Jupiter’s atmosphere in the next few hours. Gravity would win that battle.

  Chapter 18

  Historians would later attribute the cause of the Global Collapse to humanity’s dependence on oil and its reluctance to switch to another fuel. While some would argue if World War III was truly avoidable, most praise the creation of the Earth Commonwealth at the end of the war. However, almost all historians agree that it was the construction of the Stalks that led to humanity to
colonize the solar system. The economic and trade balance between Earth and its colonies came into being naturally. Later, the uprising of the Rebels of Jupiter, even though it was unsuccessful, would make historians remember that history repeats itself as they reference the reasons for the American Revolution and compare it to the failed uprising.

  -The History of the Earth Commonwealth

  -Forty four hours later-

  Senator Williams and Charles Bodd stood side by side with Senator Kino behind them. Together they were all in an observation platform overlooking a large spherical chamber. “Do you think it was the right thing to do?” Charles Bodd said.

  “Yes,” Senator Williams said with confidence.

  “I still can’t believe you said it,” Senator Kino replied as well.

  “But you agreed that it was the best solution, right?”

  “Oddly enough, yes.”

  “It allows all of us to have a new start.”

  “Giving them two untouched planets? Yes, I would call that a new start,” Charles said.

  “Each recognized religion, besides the Shi’ites and Sunni’s, will get one in the end. It will allow them all to practice their beliefs without fear of retribution,” Senator Williams said. “Besides, we will all have our own planets to rule. Every planet and colony will have its own Senator, besides us already. Even the Rings of Jupiter will get one. All will be forced to operate only under the Universal Religion Act. But there will be no tension due to control over land. They will be represented in the Senate and we will finally have one complete government. They will jump forward dramatically in their standard of living as well.”

  “Yes, yes. Not to mention you will have an entire market at your control.”

  Senator Williams looked down at his body and faked an exasperated look at Charles. “What? You don’t like it?”

  “I still can’t get use to you in a twenty year old body.”