by Andrew Beery
Laws were put in place to control the technology but sadly once the genie was out of the bottle there was little to prevent the unscrupulous from “weaponizing” the knowledge. It was this gene-drive technology that Cat suspected they were now facing.
The renegade GCP starship Yorktown had managed to identify and destroy a series of missiles launched from High Ground Station One that were headed towards the surface of the current Hupenstanii home world. The station’s commander had insisted the devices were some type of genocidal weapon meant to wipe out the Hupenstanii people. The missiles appeared to be some type of reconfigured probes designed to carry a payload. Analysis of the probes indicated they contained a mechanism for dispersing an aerosolized form of a synthetic amino acid not found in nature.
Unfortunately, because the Yorktown was engaged in destroying the probes, as well as the concurrent open space rescue of Sergeant Stone and Specialist Nobel, Cat was forced to allow a high-speed shuttle fleeing the station to escape. The shuttle left the station at approximately the same time as the probes were launched.
Normally this would not have been a cause for concern because it was days to the nearest jump point but this particular shuttle apparently enjoyed the same jump technology as the Yorktown and was able to form an ad hoc jump point once it was well away from the planet’s gravity well. To make matter worse, it seemed the shuttle was carrying the four surviving Faragon replicants.
The existence of these replicants; the gene-drive experiments on the entire Hupenstanii population; the existence of a working ad hoc jump drive; as well as the apparent complicity of the GCP in the entire affair filled Cat with more questions then she cared to ponder. Who were the principle actors in this massive scheme? What were their ultimate goals? What other surprises where awaiting them?
Cat sat at the head of the conference table in the Yorktown’s ready room. Commander Ben First and Captain Kirkland sat on either side of her. Admiral Bud Faragon sat at the far end of the table. Commander JD Dickerson shared the middle of the table with two Hupenstanii – Elder Trifano and a biochemist named Doctor Triska’nar.
These last two had been invited when Cat had contacted the Hupenstanii home world with her suspicions. There were some initial trust issues but the fact that Cat and the Yorktown taskforce was currently at odds with the Galactic Coalition actually helped their cause with the Hupenstanii ruling council.
Elder Trifano leaned forward. His mottled feathery coat seemed especially ruffled. He was easily the oldest Hupenstanii Cat had ever seen.
“Analysis of the Aerosol weapon seems to indicate it would have been a harmless agent. An amino acid with a couple of extra thiol groups added.”
Cat nodded to the older man. “That matches our analysis as well. The operative words though are ‘would have been’.”
“Exactly,” the much younger Triska’nar added. “Unfortunately there has been an engineered genetic shift in the majority of our people. In a few more generations the mutation would have been in our entire population. Thanks to this seemingly harmless mutation the introduction of this amino acid into our biome would have had disastrous results.”
“In what way?” Cat asked.
“As in the death of every man woman and child on the planet,” JD answered. “That command code that… that whatever that thing was…” JD looked nervously at Admiral Faragon. “…that command code was taught to every member of our staff. If we were ever to believe we were going to lose control of the orbital, we were to enter that code and it would ensure the destruction of the Hupenstanii race.”
JD looked at the two Hupenstanii in the room with an almost apologetic expression on his face. “We were told that it was an option of last resort only to preserve the larger coalition with the GCP.”
“But how?” Admiral Faragon asked.
Triska’nar sat back as far as her nub tail would let her. “Our best thinking is that the amino acid activates a dormant gene. Tests show in females of our species the gene regulates a progesterone precursor. Essentially, our females would become sterile.”
“Why in to world would they want to sterilize the Hupenstanii population?” Ken asked.
“Perhaps to control the spread of the Hupenstanii contagion,” Ben suggested.
Triska’nar trilled briefly in negation. “There is no contagion. At least nothing that can’t be easily cured. We have evidence that what my people carry is artificial and easily eradicated.”
“Then why hasn’t it been?” JD asked. “Why have I spent the last ten years maintaining a meaningless blockade?”
“That is a question we would all like answered,” Elder Trifano hissed with uncharacteristic venom.
“At first I suspected it had to do with the Hupenstanii discovery of a way around hyperfield jump restrictions but now I’m suspecting there is something far more sinister in play,” Cat said. She looked at the two Hupenstanii in the room. “Imagine you controlled the very survival of an entire race. What might that race be willing to do in order to keep you from using it?”
Bud Faragon turned to face Cat. “You think that is what is going on here? Someone is attempting to enslave the Hupenstanii people?”
“No,” Cat shook her head. “No I suspect the Hupenstanii became a convenient test bed for developing a genocide gene. I think the real target is the entire GCP.”
Chapter 12: Earth Strike
WhimPy had Sparky install a communication array on the exterior of the Alpha platform. Unfortunately it was becoming more difficult to operate covertly on the ancient Uruk weapons platform. As the monstrous ship ventured closer to Sol more energy struck its surface. Collectors were slowly bringing more systems online. WhimPy estimated the Alpha AI would be able resume primary control of the platform shortly after the platform passed Earth’s orbital plane.
The platform had been on a crash course with humanity’s homeworld but WhimPy had been able to nudge the ship’s course with the judicious use of maneuvering thrusters. It would now safely pass between the Earth and its massive moon. Still uncomfortably close for humanity… thus the need to bring the communications array online. It was absolutely imperative that the humans take no action to change the orbit of the weapons platform. Any system deployed against the platform would only supply Alpha with a harvestable energy source and exasperate WhimPy’s efforts to take complete control of the weapons platform.
As the final connections to the array were energized, WhimPy began to transmit a warning.
“People of Earth, the craft approaching your planet is under my marginal control. Do not direct any energy weapons at this vessel. To do so would compromise my ability to protect your planet. I am the Heshe AI known to you as WhimPy-101.”
The transmission was via standard frequency modulation radio packets. It was set to loop for several minutes. He would have preferred to use a quantum entangled FTL transmission but the damage to WhimPy’s systems meant he had no entangled pairs capable of interfacing with Earth systems.
WhimPy was engaged in a race… a race for ultimate control of the ancient weapons platform. As fast as his manufacturing systems could create construction nanites WhimPy churned them out. The newly created nanomachines were then deployed in a massive effort to locate and subsume critical systems within Alpha. This was how WhimPy had been able to utilize the maneuvering thrusters to tweak the ship’s course.
The problem in completely taking over the massive weapons platform was complicated by WhimPy’s own depleted state as well as the pure magnitude of the machine he was attempting to dominate. At his current rate of exploration it might be a full week before he was even able to locate the ancient machine’s AI core. Unfortunately, Alpha’s automatous repair systems were activing working to repair those systems that WhimPy subsumed.
The Alpha platform was just passing the orbit of Jupiter. This meant that the radio message WhimPy sent to the human’s home world would need a full 38 minutes to reach Earth based on the two planet’s current orbital alignments. The
question was… would the humans react to the threat to their home world before they received his warning?
If they tried to utilize some of the massive laser or proton beam weapons at their disposal to alter the course of the small moon-like object—they might very well exasperate the situation by giving the weapons platform the very thing it needed to resume it seek and destroy mission – raw energy.
Traveling at nearly one and a half percent the speed of light, Alpha was a little over a day and a half from reaching Earth. Given its size and the fact that an impact with Earth at that type of speed would literally shatter the planet, the humans might react hastily with the thought that the sooner they acted the better the likelihood of a favorable outcome. They would have no way of knowing that the object they were firing on was anything other than an unexplained object coming in at an unusually fast clip from the Kuiper belt.
WhimPy continued to usurp control from Alpha of every subsystem he encountered. He knew that if the massive ship’s AI came back online too soon it would prove nearly impossible to forestall the destruction of Earth.
Eighty two minutes after WhimPy broadcasted the message towards Earth he located the Alpha’s main AI core. Immediately he began the process of isolating the core from any potential power feeds. If the antiquated Uruk design matched older Heshe designs then there would be at least one backup core located distally. The most logical location for the backup core would be in a portion of the ship that had been ripped away during the Alpha’s earlier trip through the unstable Hyperfield conduit.
WhimPy’s external sensors suddenly detected a massive influx of energy. The handful of surviving energy harvesting nodes scattered about the surface of the Alpha platform had begun to accumulate at a much higher rate. Unfortunately both the communications array as well as the external sensors that WhimPy had deployed on the exterior of the weapons platform ceased operation at about the same time.
Based on vibrations detectable within the interior of the Alpha platform, WhimPy concluded that that humanity had ignored his plea for restraint and was in fact attacking the Uruk platform with missile-based fusion warheads. Since the GCP maintained a heavy military presence in the Sol system it was completely conceivable that the powers-that-be on Earth had responded to his warnings about the Alpha platform by signaling the closest warship to begin nudging the moon-sized craft into a different trajectory using atomic explosions on its surface.
The simple fact was… this action would have the opposite effect once the Alpha AI was re-energized and took control of the platform. As if in response to his fears, WhimPy detected dormant systems throughout the massive war machine slowly come alive.
Power nodes feeding the primary AI core began to energize. WhimPy continued to cut them as fast as he could. Unfortunately the Uruk were nothing if not believers in redundancy. It was this mindset that had made the Alpha-class war machines so difficult to defeat in eons past.
***
Alpha’s first awareness was a stream of telemetry data from various parts of his body. The pattern of the data flow was unusual. It was as if entire subsections of his body had been cut off and isolated. If he had been heavily damaged he might expect this aberrant data flow to be indicative of said damage. But in that case he would expect the damage to be across subsystems and to be spatially centered. Instead the damage seemed to be isolated to specific systems without regard to their physical location.
Analysis of this pattern of failure suggested an intelligent intervention. Alpha began to query his army of repair droids. It seemed a large number were either offline or damaged and unable to respond. A handful were busy about their tasks but in response to activity queries they only responded with a looped copy of their previous day’s status record. Alpha added these drones to his ever increasing list of items to be dealt with as soon as he had the situation stabilized.
Most alarming for the newly reawaken AI was a brief analysis of the nature of the subsystems he had lost control over. Of the ten thousand two hundred and fifty three weapons systems still reported in his data archive as operational, only about four thousand were still under his control. Even more alarming was the fact that he currently had no navigational systems under his control.
He instructed several of his repair drones to immediately begin installing secondary control feeds to his vectoring thrusters.
***
Commodore Decker of the Earth Defense League swore under his breath. The bridge of his Defiance-class GCP starship was a clone of virtually every other ship in his taskforce. The design had not changed significantly in over two hundred years. Sometimes he thought that was the problem with the GCP in general and the EDL specifically. They had stagnated to the point that they could not handle anything beyond the routine.
Long-standing and established standard operating procedures dictated the response to Near Earth Object threats. NEOs were to be intercepted as soon as possible using hyperfield thrusters. If the threat was deemed imminent, say an object that looked to be a planetoid rock twice the size of Phobos and traveling at almost 1.5 percent the speed of light, -- then extraordinary measures were often dictated. These included the use of nuclear weapons.
Nowhere in the SOP was there a discussion of said NEO warning of dire consequences should the existing SOP be followed. An entity of unknown origin was broadcasting a warning… claiming that this massive object was in fact a derelict spaceship and that it would not impact Earth as it passed by.
The commodore argued that any response should be delayed until the nature of the warning could be evaluated. He had even offered to lead an away team to explore the derelict. Sadly, armchair quarterbacks in orbit around Earth overruled him and he was ordered to fire immediately – as per SOP.
Reluctantly he instructed the nearest ships in his taskforce to open fire as soon as they got in range. As the first nuclear barrage struck the massive planetoid, he knew immediately that the warnings had been very real. The thought that he had just woken up a sleeping bear raced through his head.
As each missile detonated the nuclear flash that should have flared brightly seem to flicker and draw back into itself. It appeared for all the world that the explosions were being sucked into holes that dotted across the surface of the so-called derelict.
The tumbling motion that the massive object had when they first encountered it slowly dissipated. Moments later a series of massive energy beams lashed out and enveloped the lead ship. Its shields held for a fraction of a second and then they were snuffed out like a candle in a thunder storm. The ship itself glowed brighter than the sun and then it was simply gone. No explosion. No debris field. Nothing.
The intense energy beams lashed out at a second ship. Its fate was no different than that of the first ship. One moment it was there… the next it was gone.
“ALL STOP!” Commodore Decker yelled. “Full power to the Shields! Reverse course. Helm… get us out of here!”
The three remaining ships in the Commodore’s taskforce broke off and reversed course as per their orders. The planetoid’s energy weapons continued to strike at them as they fled. Fortunately the greater distance between the remaining ships and the planetoid meant their shields were marginally more effective.
When the beams lashed out at the closest of his remaining ships, its shields lasted a full ten seconds before they crumbled. This time the crew was able to eject in a handful of escape pods. Decker watched helplessly and the aggressors beam weapons retargeted each of the smaller pods. The crews never stood a chance.
“Comms… transmit a copy of our logs and a real-time data feed to Orbital One. They need to know what they will be facing,” Decker barked.
“Transmitting now Sir,” Lieutenant Hamilton answered crisply.
Decker turned in his command chair. “Helm reprioritize and redirect shield energy to main thrusters. We need speed more than we need shields. Their weapons seem to be range-limited. Let’s put as much distance between us and that thing as we can. Try to vector us o
ut of the plane of the ecliptic. ”
***
WhimPy-101 watched the battle take place from his hidden base in the cargo bay. He was powerless to prevent the destruction of the GCP ships. What he could do was to shut down cooling systems on the proton beam generators. The result was the weapons burned out after each use. With several thousand guns still under its control, however, the Alpha platform was armed to the teeth. WhimPy’s actions had little effect on the ultimate outcome.
WhimPy continued to work to isolate the Alpha AI core. This was a daunting task. While WhimPy was the more powerful AI… and had access to far superior technology…, the simple fact was the Alpha platform was huge. For every circuit and system WhimPy subsumed the Alpha had twenty more.
The situation was made more desperate as the Alpha platform had finally determined that there was a second, as yet unknown, player (in the form of the WhimPy AI) operating within its walls. WhimPy’s Sparky unit was cornered in a service corridor and disabled by worker units under the control of the Alpha AI. Fortunately, WhimPy was now able to produce a virtually unlimited supply of construction nanites. While WhimPy felt a certain sense of remorse at the loss of the slave unit, the unit was certainly was no longer critical to his operation.