Of Fire and Night (22 page)

53

GENERAL KURT LANYAN

O
nce 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 Under normal circumstances, the guillotine protocol would leave the ships completely helpless until he rescinded the order.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 of 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.”

His Juggernaut targeted the engines of more hijacked Mantas with a broad jazer spread, knocking at least seven offline. But that was all he could do.

Feeling angry, ashamed, and helpless as he ran away, Lanyan gripped the arms of his command chair and watched as the compy-controlled battleships continued seizing the Grid 0 fleet.

54

TASIA TAMBLYN

W
hen the Klikiss robot dragged EA out of the environment cell “for analysis,” Tasia shouted herself hoarse. She argued and threatened and pleaded, but the black robot ignored her, and the little Listener compy could not resist.

“I am sorry, Tasia Tamblyn.” Then EA was gone.

Robb held Tasia for a long time while she shuddered in fury and dismay. She had learned to always be tough, but here, bottled up with the other captives, she felt naked and barely capable of maintaining her façade. EA was one of the only threads connecting her to the outside.

“The Klikiss robots and the hydrogues—it’s like an alliance between Dr. Jekyll and Dr. Frankenstein,” she said, halfway between a sob and a snarl.

“No human imagination could come up with anything as evil as those robots.” Smith Keffa wrapped his horrifically scarred arms around his chest, hugging himself. “Monsters!”

Keffa was gaunt and haggard. During their endless, pointless waiting, he had told his story. He’d been a down-and-out Hansa merchant slipping from system to system, making just enough profit to put some fumes of stardrive fuel into his tanks. The Hansa paid little attention to runners like him, nor did they notice when people like Keffa disappeared. He certainly didn’t know how long he’d been in captivity.
Forever,
he said.

When he’d gone to rendezvous with a “business associate,” he’d found his partner’s ship dead in space. Then Klikiss robots had chased after him. Though Keffa tried to flee, his tanks were already drained and so his ship stalled. Klikiss robots dragged him off to the hydrogue experimentation chambers.

Fighting nausea, Keffa told of how the robots had sliced off patches of his skin with the tools in their articulated arms, cut deep into his muscles, taken samples of his marrow, apparently on the orders (or whims) of the drogues. He hated the black machines.

“Those monsters aren’t my favorite thing in the universe, either,” Tasia said, “but if they return my compy intact, maybe I won’t tear them to pieces.”

Robb tried to offer encouragement. “I don’t think they’ll hurt EA. We met another compy—called itself DD—apparently taken captive by the robots. They kept him intact, but we haven’t seen him in a long while.”

For an interminable time—a month? an hour?—she pressed her hands against the colored wall, trying to make out details through the murk of the dense atmosphere. Tasia kept watching, waiting, hoping. Finally she saw the great black shape leading her small compy through the Escher-esque streets.
EA!
They were returning to the preservation cells. Tasia moved from place to place, looking for a better view.

The black machine approached, then loomed on the other side of the membrane. The prisoners shrank away, but Tasia waited defiantly. The Klikiss robot pushed EA like a doll through the barrier, then followed. “Your compy is flawed. Her programming is damaged.”

Tasia stood her ground. “What did you do to her?”

“Humans have interfered with the base routines. We cannot free EA from the restrictions, nor can we restore her to a normal condition. This one is worth no more than a human. Therefore, we will treat EA as an inferior captive.”

Even though the Klikiss robot meant its announcement as an insult, Tasia heard it as good news. “She’s sure as hell welcome with us!”

The alien robot withdrew into the membrane until its large form was swallowed back into the hellish outside environment. Tasia came forward to put her hands on EA’s small, hard shoulders. “Did they harm you? Dissect you?”

“They analyzed me beyond any of my self-diagnostic routines. I believe their conclusions are correct. Something was done to change me from the Listener compy you remember. In the process, my memory was wiped.”

“It was an accident, EA. I read the report.” Tasia didn’t want to consider otherwise. She had always been stubborn, but now she found herself more rigid, clinging to the details of what she remembered as reality.

“I believe the Earth Defense Forces tampered with me before I was returned to you. Perhaps someone inadvertently triggered an automatic routine to erase my memories. Or perhaps it was intentional.”

Tasia’s indignation lashed out like a whip, striking many different targets. All Roamer compies contained fail-safe datawipes so that if any non-Roamer tried to interrogate them, all information about clan facilities and movements would be destroyed. Those precautions had been installed long before the Big Goose’s declaration of war against the Roamers.

Robb looked at the compy, his honey-brown eyes wide. “The EDF messed with EA? Are you sure?”

Tasia took several deep breaths to calm herself. Why was she so surprised? The Eddies had constantly treated her like dirt, regarded her with suspicion, stripped her of command responsibilities. Now she felt even more betrayed. “I should have found some other way to warn the Osquivel shipyards. Then I wouldn’t have lost you. Where was my Guiding Star?”

Robb looked surprised. “What shipyards at Osquivel? I didn’t see any—”

Shoulders sagging, Tasia explained how she had warned Del Kellum’s facility about the EDF battle group on its way. She had known the Eddies might turn their weaponry against the clans instead of the drogues; they had an annoying habit of chasing after the wrong enemy. Because of EA’s message, the Roamers had managed to hide their facilities in time.

But she had never guessed what it would cost her compy. In some ways, the Earth military was even worse than the Klikiss robots. At least the black alien machines didn’t claim to be trustworthy.

“EA was lost after delivering her message,” Tasia continued. “Someone must have intercepted her before she could find her way home. The bastards ruined her. Could have been General Lanyan, or some underling.” She stared into the compy’s optical sensors. “I’m sorry, EA. I’m so sorry.”