He turned to Daro’h. “From now on, Dobro is yours.”
52
CHAIRMAN BASIL WENCESLAS
The Chairman was always upset when things didn’t go right, and that had happened a lot lately.
From his private control center, a grim and silent Basil listened to the screams and gunfire echoing through the monitors. Implanted microimagers in the silver berets’ armor went dead one after another. Engineering Specialist Swendsen flailed against the reactivated Soldier compies. Finally Sergeant Paxton’s imager—the last one—died to a whiteout of static.
Basil made a sound of disgust and looked around for someone to blame. “Swendsen announced that the repeater virus worked. All the compies were shut down. What happened?” He squeezed his hand into a fist and then forcibly relaxed his fingers.
“Dr. Swendsen may have spoken prematurely,” answered Eldred Cain from the seat beside him. The hairless deputy appeared paler than usual. His lips were twisted as if he were enduring a bad bout of indigestion. “I inspected their planned mode of attack, and it appeared sound.”
The Chairman’s jaws clenched so tightly that his muscles ached. “Link to the on-site command center. I want to watch what’s happening outside the factory. They’ve got to contain those compies before they break through the cordon.”
With nimble fingers, Cain accessed a different set of imagers. “Too late already, Mr. Chairman.”
Outside the manufacturing compound, compies had torn away the door barricades, while squads of silver berets drove them back with heavy-projectile launchers. Smashed and shattered robot bodies piled up, but more compies climbed up and over the pile of debris. Shouts rattled back and forth on the command comm lines. “Breach in the southwest wing! They’ve knocked half the damn wall down, and they’re coming out by the hundreds.”
“Then shoot them by the hundreds!”
“We’ve got to pull troops from the north end. That’s just the warehouse side. We’re safe there—”
“Shit, here they come!”
Cain said quietly, provocatively, “Good thing King Peter reacted swiftly and decisively as soon as he received the report. Otherwise, we never would have contained them at all. They’d have taken us completely unprepared.”
Basil breathed through flared nostrils. “I’ll deal with the King’s intractability when this crisis is over.”
Cain’s expression was unreadable, his voice flat. “I was pointing out the King’s foresight, sir, not his failings.”
After glaring at his deputy, Basil rested his elbows on the table, pressing his face close to the image. The screens showed armored vehicles pulling up to surround the factory. Compies came out of any hole in the shattered barricades.
Breathless and alarmed, Sarein rushed into the control chamber. “Basil, Mr. Chairman—what’s happening? Can I be of assistance?”
“In a word, no.” He spared her only a brief glance, then turned his attention back to the screens. “Unless you can magically double the number of people I have on the ground?”
Her expression hardened, and she was obviously hurt by his comment. “I was just coming to offer my support, Basil.”
He had no time for her right now. “Then please do it silently.”
When he’d okayed the initial response orders, Basil had been convinced that five hundred silver berets would be sufficient to stop any incursion. Now he thought about bringing in more Palace District security forces as well as the royal guards. But he saw that reinforcements could never get there in time. The silver berets were overextended, and the lines were clearly crumbling.
Cain looked at the Chairman, his scalp furrowed with concern. “We can’t hold the outflux. We don’t have sufficient weaponry or personnel in position.”
Basil nodded. “It’s time for a vaporization strike. We have to cauterize this wound before it gets worse.”
The deputy’s fingers were already flying as he opened channels to the ground-based EDF troops and Palace District security. “You realize the repercussions, Mr. Chairman? Calling in a strike in the middle of the Palace District? I would advise against it.”
“On the edge of the Palace District. If those rogue compies get out into the general populace, the bloodbath will be unimaginable. They’ll murder tens of thousands. At the moment they’re all in one place. I’m calling the strike now.”
“Then please allow me to contact the secondary commander and warn the silver berets to withdraw—”
“Absolutely not. The silver berets are the only thing hindering the spread of the Soldier compies. If they back off for even a moment, the robots will hemorrhage out of every access point in the factory. The men will remain at their posts until the end. They knew what they were doing when they signed up. Silver berets will not let us down.”
“Calling in a strike within the Palace District, and targeting your own troops?” Cain’s blue eyes were full of angry questions, his fingers hesitating on the keypad. Nearby, though she remained silent, Sarein appeared distraught.
“We’ll issue the order in the King’s name.” Basil glanced at his status screen; the fast carriers bearing two vaporization bombs were on their way. Estimated time of deployment was twenty minutes.
Basil sighed at the deputy’s obvious hesitancy. Sarein looked ready to blurt something, so he cut them both off sharply. “This is a difficult decision, Mr. Cain. A Chairman’s decision.” Sadly, his own deputy did not understand the burdens a real Chairman was forced to bear. Cain was intelligent, cooperative, competent . . . yet he had no backbone, overthinking every decision. Perhaps this man was another bad choice—like intractable (and now comatose) Prince Daniel. Like King Peter himself.
The compy factory was in flames. Several walls had collapsed; black, oily smoke poured from gaping holes in the expansive roof. On the ground, Soldier compies marched through the torn barricades, pushing back the commandos. The fighters gathered for a last stand, but their lines had begun to break as many of them ran out of ammunition and charge packs.
Overhead, two fast carriers streaked in. Any surviving silver berets who looked up and saw the bombers understood their fate. The rest kept firing their weapons to the very end.
When the strike came in, the flash of disintegrating heat and light rippled outward in an expanding ring. Vaporization warheads were carefully calibrated, with an adjustable devastation radius accurate to within a meter. The blast erased a small part of the Palace District, obliterating the factory, all the Soldier compies, and every one of the silver berets who stood in the way. . . .
It took more than an hour for the boiling column of dust, smoke, and steam to dissipate, leaving behind a huge, glassy crater that was perfectly circular and perfectly sterile.
Basil showed no reaction, though his emotions roiled: grief for the loss of life (naturally), frustration over the failure, and the maddening sense that he was losing control. But he had to celebrate the victory, while he could still remember how to do so.
“Well, that takes care of the compy problem,” he said. “Here, at least.”
53
GENERAL KURT LANYAN
Once they’d retaken the Goliath, the rest of the operation should have been a piece of cake, but Lanyan was wary of underestimating the Soldier compies again. Underestimating the damned clankers—in fact, not considering them a threat at all!—had gotten the EDF into this mess.
As his trainee technicians finished reassembling the command station so he could input the release code, Lanyan’s teams continued sweeper operations to root out compies on deck after deck. Before long, the flagship would be clean.
The General tasked his now-eager recruits to do an inventory of the frozen Grid 0 vessels. Under normal circumstances, the guillotine protocol would leave the ships completely helpless until he rescinded the order. But he’d seen how much progress the compies had made in eviscerating the Goliath’s computer by the time he had retaken the bridge. No doubt the military robots were doing the same aboard the rest o
f the paralyzed vessels. Even if the compies had to rip out and replace every system, they would get some of the ships functional again before long. Compies were distressingly effective workers.
“Divide up the teams,” Lanyan said. “Concentrate on the capital ships, the Mantas and Thunderheads. I want at least four of them back under our control within the hour.” It would take two more hours for his anticipated reinforcements to arrive from other EDF bases. In the meantime, he’d have to send smaller teams to each captive ship and order his people to work double time. That would increase his risk of losing personnel, but he was even less enchanted with the thought of letting so many fully armed battleships slip through his fingers.
It would take years for the shipyards to rebuild all those capital vessels, and the EDF needed every asset right now. Especially if the treacherous compies had already seized other grid battle groups . . . How much of the fleet was left?
Better to destroy the assets, however, than let them fall into enemy hands. As a fail-safe plan, Lanyan issued worst-case instructions. “Get a targeting lock on as many Grid 0 ships as possible. If they make a move to escape, or attack, be ready to open fire. Take out only the engines if you can, or blow up the whole damned ship if you can’t.”
Tactical interns and sensor trainees mapped out the paralyzed vessels. Fresh from their drills, the recruits approached the problem as an exercise and submitted meticulous plans for the General’s review. Lanyan liked all the details. He was really putting the kleebs through their paces.
What the hell did the Soldier compies have against the Hansa? What sort of vendetta? He remembered that young girl Orli Covitz who insisted that Klikiss robots and Soldier compies had wiped out the defenseless colony on Corribus. At the time, her story had seemed impossible, but he no longer doubted the kid.
A message came over the Goliath’s intercom. “Deck 7 is cleared, sir.”
“Excellent. Have you found any survivors?”
“None whatsoever.”
“I didn’t expect to. What’s the inventory of destroyed compies so far?”
“Four more decks to survey, sir. Approximately forty Soldier compies are unaccounted for, but we don’t know exactly how many were blown out the launching bay in the decompression.”
“Be conservative, and be very thorough.”
Ensign Childress’s team had removed the human bodies and wrecked compies from the bridge. The constant chatter of technicians was a low drone, but he sensed the excitement as they replaced the covers on the main operational nodes. Hunched together, the techs ran diagnostic routines. Multicolored lights winked on across the vital bridge stations, including the command chair.
“General, we’re pleased to present you with this Juggernaut.” One of the techs grinned. “All systems restored, major hull breaches repaired. Ready to take it out for a spin, sir?”
Lanyan sighed with relief. “Engines? Shields? Weapons?”
“Much of it’s jury-rigged, but we’re confident this ship will do what you need her to do.”
Lanyan settled into the command chair. Now things were looking up. He received updates from two commando teams in the process of recapturing a pair of Manta cruisers. A third team was encountering fierce resistance and hadn’t made it beyond the entry chamber of the nearest Thunderhead.
At last, one team reported taking the bridge of a hijacked Manta. “Everything’s mangled over here, sir. We can hold the high ground and start clearing out compies, but we need some help, maybe even replacement modules, before we can get this ship moving again.”
“All in good time,” Lanyan said. “Now that we’ve got control, we’ll save the tedious part for phase two.”
A woman at the Goliath’s sensor station looked up in surprise. “General, detecting a large group of blips. Inbound ships, I believe.”
“Our reinforcements from the Moon base got here early. I didn’t expect them for another hour or two.”
“No, sir—these ships are coming from outside the solar system.”
“Outside? Everyone alert! Have they identified themselves?”
“They’re broadcasting a standard EDF transponder signal, a recognizable IFF pattern.” Each ship in the Earth Defense Forces was equipped with an “identify friend/foe” signal that would peg them as the good guys in a space brawl and presumably prevent them from being shot at by their own comrades.
“Let’s be cautiously optimistic. Maybe somebody else got away. Can you determine who it is?”
The sensor technician’s brow furrowed with concentration. “Analyzing the signatures now. A Juggernaut . . . at least ten Mantas, two Thunderheads, numerous support ships.” Then she brightened. “I think it’s part of the Grid 3 battle group, sir. I have an image coming from Admiral Wu-Lin.”
Lanyan nodded to himself. Wu-Lin was a competent, hard-edged, yet quiet man who never hesitated. He always preferred to make swift decisions and face the consequences if they turned out to be wrong rather than falter and lose an opportunity. “Put him on. About time we had some good news.”
The image of a lean, steel-haired Asian man stared straight ahead into the screen. His voice sounded very clipped and formal. “This is the commander of the Grid 3 battle group. Our Soldier compies turned on us and attacked my crewmen, but we responded swiftly. We lost quite a few ships, but as you can see we prevented a complete takeover.”
“Excellent work, Admiral!” Since no green priest had been assigned to Wu-Lin’s ships, the Grid 3 commander would not yet be aware of the scope of the insurrection.
As Wu-Lin continued, his expression did not change. He seemed more wooden than Lanyan remembered. “I returned to Earth at top speed.”
Finally, things were changing for the better. “Admiral, the uprising is widespread. Before the compies could steal the Grid 0 battle group, we paralyzed their engines and are now in the process of retaking the ships.” Lanyan looked at his bridge crew and smiled. “With your help, we might finish this cleanup sooner than I’d hoped. We would welcome your assistance.”
On screen, the image of Wu-Lin did not change. The communications officer said, “General, I’m receiving no response from him.”
Lanyan scratched his head. The Juggernaut drifted silently closer. “If he had as much of a firefight as we did, maybe his bridge is damaged. Can he even receive transmissions?”
“That’s not it, sir. Admiral Wu-Lin, please acknowledge.”
The Grid 3 ships closed in. Lanyan frowned. “Put everyone on increased alert status!”
“Sir, I think—”
Wu-Lin’s Juggernaut opened fire on three of the cavalry gunships from the Mars base. The Grid 3 battleship vaporized the smaller vessels in a single shot.
“Full defenses, dammit!” Lanyan slammed his fist down on the command chair, dislodging one of the precariously rewired control panels. Next, the Grid 3 Mantas began shooting at the mostly empty cavalry vessels. “Send a message back to Earth right away: Soldier compies now control the Grid 3 battle group. Admiral Wu-Lin is presumed dead. Damned simulation!”
He spun to the weapons station, yelling at the frantic-looking techs. “You better not be bullshitting about my weapons! Power up jazers and explosive projectile cannons. Load the railgun launchers!” Among the stalled Grid 0 vessels, the Goliath had the advantage of surprise, but only for a moment. “Unload everything we’ve got into those oncoming ships.”
The guillotine code specific to the Grid 3 battle group was locked away in high security back at the Mars base. Wu-Lin would have had it, but Lanyan could not access the command string swiftly enough. The Goliath was his only immediate recourse. He felt a thrum as the Juggernaut’s weapons fired; each beam and each hardened projectile flew in a fan-shaped pattern toward the approaching traitor vessels.
Two jazer beams ripped open the belly of Wu-Lin’s Juggernaut, like gutting a big fish. The battleship’s atmosphere vented. A debris of compies as well as human bodies spilled out. Still the marauding Juggernaut came on, followed by
a group of Mantas and Thunderheads. All of them opened fire, specifically picking off Lanyan’s cavalry ships.
The General swore, but maintained his focus, his perspective. He knew what he had to do. “Commence the exit strategy now. Cripple as many of these Grid 0 ships as possible and blow up everything else. If we let them get away, the compies will use those assets against us.”
A flurry of weapons sparked a cascade of explosions on the frozen Grid 0 ships. “Sound the evacuation order! Any teams that can get back aboard in ten minutes are going home with us.” Most of Lanyan’s greenhorn sweeper teams were stuck aboard the compy-infested Mantas and Thunderheads, and they would never make it to their pursuit vessels in time.
“General, we can’t just leave them—”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Wu-Lin’s ships outgun our little rescue party by ten to one! Take your best shots, then turn tail and get us out of here.”
With an admirably swift response, the trainee pilots hit their preselected targets, destroying the engines of the paralyzed Grid 0 vessels. Several smaller cavalry craft turned about, taking potshots at the compy-controlled vessels. Lanyan had never thought he’d want to see damage inflicted upon EDF vessels.
The robot-commandeered battleships swept in, no longer bothering to broadcast Wu-Lin’s image. The Grid 3 Juggernaut now concentrated its barrage against the Goliath. The understaffed battleship shuddered under the blows, but the hull armor held. For now.
“We can’t stand against these enemies with just one Juggernaut and a few second-rate ships.” In fact, there was little enough chance he would escape at all. He needed to get the Goliath back to Earth. Maybe he could scrape together a larger assault force and return before the compies finished repairing the ships. “Lock down and prepare for acceleration.”
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