Rumors of Salvation (System States Rebellion Book 3) (9 page)

Day
144/2554

Excalibur

Drake
reread for the third time the report from the commander of the freighter that
had just returned from a covert recon mission to Vril. The information was
still the same as the other two times. Someone claiming to be Cate Foster’s
husband, Bret Murphy, had left a message for him on Vril. Come to Midgard and
join the combined Federation/SSU resistance against the Empire that was now
under the direct control of a rogue computer. How was he supposed to evaluate
the credibility of that message? The only confirmed part was the existence of
the Empire. His wife, Lorelei Remington-Drake, had assured him that the Empire
did indeed exist. And while the idea of an alliance between what was left of
the Federation and alleged survivors of Murphy’s covert operation on Midgard
seemed damned unlikely, it wasn’t impossible. It was the idea that Trojan’s
Majestic computer had achieved some kind of sentience and now was enslaving
humans that was hard to swallow. He looked up as Lorelei entered his ‘office’.
The colony on Excalibur was constructing buildings like mad, and Drake’s office
was still a temporary affair. The new Admin building was half finished, and
he’d been assured that it would be finished before winter. He handed her the
data tablet containing the message from Midgard.

“Here,
read this and tell me what you think of it,” he told her. He could tell that
she too read it more than once before handing it back.

“So
Cate died for nothing.” Drake’s expression looked puzzled and she elaborated.
“She told me she thought Murphy was dead, and she wanted to join with his
spirit by blowing herself up and taking the man she thought was responsible for
his death with her into the afterlife.”

“That’s
only true IF that really is Bret Murphy and not someone claiming to be him.
What do you think of Majestic going rogue and enslaving humans?”

“Well,
considering that we’re now very close to completing our own Majestic computer,
it’s an interesting possibility.”

“My
thoughts exactly,” said Murphy. “I know our Majestic isn’t up to full capacity
yet, but it’s capable of answering questions, right?”

Lorelei
nodded. “The tech boys claim that it’s already more capable than the Phase II
Oracle we had on Sparta.”

“Good.
So let’s ask it if there’s a technological way to control individual humans.”

They
had the machine’s answer 24 hours later: detailed schematics of a device to be
implanted at the back of the neck, with tiny filaments inserted into specific
areas of the human brain. The computer even provided precise instructions on
how to perform the surgery.

Murphy
shook his head as he dropped the blueprints on his desk. “I suppose that if
Trojan’s Majestic had been upgraded, it’s not inconceivable that it might have
come up with the same design on its own. I somehow doubt that Trojan would have
considered asking for something like this, given what you told me about the
fanaticism of his elite troops.”

Lorelei
nodded. “Trojan wouldn’t need technology like this. He used good old-fashioned
brainwashing techniques. Now that I’ve seen this, I’m inclined to give that
message the benefit of the doubt. You met Bret Murphy a few times on Sparta.
Does that message sound like something he might leave on Vril?”

Drake
shrugged. “The tone of the message sounds like Bret all right, but if someone
is trying to trap us, they could very well have Bret as a prisoner and have
studied his way of thinking and speaking. However, I agree that we have to take
the possibility of a rogue Majestic in control of the Empire seriously.”

“So
you’re going to send a ship to Midgard?” asked Lorelei.

Drake
smiled mischievously. “Not exactly. I’m going to TAKE a ship to Midgard.”

He
expected her to object loudly and with passion. Instead, she nodded calmly and
said, “Let me guess. You don’t trust anyone else to assess the situation
properly and take the appropriate action, right?”

“Not
quite. If this message is legit, it’ll save a lot of time if I take along the
technical data and information for our new detection and ECM systems. We don’t
have the resources to exploit those breakthroughs effectively, but if Murphy
does, then getting these breakthroughs to him quickly could make all the
difference. On the other hand, if this really is a trap, and if the Empire’s
behind it, then letting them get their hands on it would be a complete
disaster. The price of guessing wrong is just too high to be put on the
shoulders of a subordinate. This is the kind of decision that only the guy at
the top can make, and unfortunately that’s me.”

“I
understand. I’ll let you go, but only if I go along. I’m not letting you out of
my sight again, Roland Drake!”

Drake
sighed. The two of them had lost so many years being apart, and he hated the
idea of being separated again for months, but she just wasn’t thinking clearly.
“If you come with me, who’s going to look after the colony and keep everybody
in line?”

Lorelei
opened her mouth to speak but then changed her mind. Drake nodded. There had
been grumbling when he appointed his new wife as his second in command, but the
grumbling quickly changed to compliments as her organizational skills became
evident. She was better at managing the day-to-day operations of the colony
than he was, and as an outsider, she was acceptable as a leader to the three
groups consisting of the scientists and their families, the farmers and
professionals brought from Vril in the second evacuation, and the officers and
crews of the ships. Naming a second-in-command from one of those groups would
have irritated the other two. Drake had tried that before bringing Lorelei back
from Vril, and the result had been a lot of friction and wasted effort.

“All
right, I’ll stay,” she said reluctantly. “Which ship are you taking?”

“Coral
Sea. Might as well give the new systems a real field test.”

“I’d
sleep a lot better if you took the Kirov. At least then you could shoot back if
someone starts shooting at you.”

“The
report brought back from Midgard said that Murphy’s ship had flat sides, which
we know gives it stealth capabilities. None of our warships has the new
detection system installed yet and therefore wouldn’t be able to see stealth
ships. Coral Sea will tell me where every ship is, and the new ECM system will
hide her from those same ships. I’m less likely to be shot at if they can’t see
me.”

“I
just wish we had taken the extra time to test the new systems on one of the
armed ships, even if the armor would have complicated the testing, instead of
an unarmed missile boat carrier.”

Drake
laughed. “Spoken like a former cruiser CO. If I didn’t know better, I’d say
that you really wanted to come along just so that you could shoot at somebody.”
He chuckled as he ducked just in time to avoid being hit by the multi-colored
rock he used as a desk ornament.

Day
146/2554

Makassar
orbital space

Murphy
realized that he was pacing back and forth in front of the main display again
and stopped. Having a much larger Bridge had seemed like a good thing when the
new and bigger cruiser was finished at the volcano base, but if he had been on
Sorcerer, there wouldn’t have been enough room to do any pacing, and his Bridge
crew wouldn’t be seeing how nervous their CO was. It wasn’t just the fact that
he and Molitor were attempting a second attack on Makassar that was making him
nervous. The first attack had gone off okay until one of the x-ray laser satellites
had somehow detected Tigershark and fired at her. Her very thin layer of
neutron armor had absorbed most of the laser’s energy, but enough got through
to damage interior equipment and kill a couple of crewmembers. It was the
unknown way that the ship had been detected that made Murphy nervous. Well, it
was that plus the fact that on the first attack Molitor had been in overall
command due to her more extensive experience, while on this mission he was in
overall command of Tigershark, Sorcerer AND the new Phantom. When Molitor had
pointed out that two of the three ships ‘belonged’ to Murphy and should be
under his command for that reason, it made sense for him to command all three.
At the time, he was impressed by her willingness to keep her ego in check, but
now that he was firmly in the hot seat with everyone waiting for his commands,
he was beginning to wonder if she actually got the best part of the arrangement
by having only one ship to worry about.

He
checked the display and its sidebar data again. His three ship squadron was
coasting toward Makassar at a very respectable five percent of light speed.
That meant that it would take them just over five minutes to penetrate the
planet’s hyper-zone and get within optimum range for a systematic missile
bombardment of the industrial centers they had missed the first time around. So
far they hadn’t found any signs of Empire ships in Makassar orbital space, and
Murphy still hadn’t had an opportunity to give his ships’ anti-missile recon
drones their first live fire field test. They worked perfectly in the field
tests in Midgard orbital space, but the tests were predicated on the fact that
the ship firing the recon drones knew what direction the ‘enemy’ missiles were
coming from. If there were stealthy Empire ships in Makassar space, they could
be firing missiles at his ships even now, and he wouldn’t know it. The recon
drone idea had seemed like a good idea when it was first proposed, but now that
his ships were facing the possibility of real enemy fire, their usefulness left
a lot to be desired. However, there was one thing he could try using them for.

“Weps,
program a spread of rec-drones to fan out in a three hundred sixty degree
pattern, maintaining a constant distance from Makassar, and have them scan the
planet optically only. If there are ships in orbit, maybe the drones will
detect them against the lighter planet background.”

“A
three sixty pattern coming up, Skipper,” said the Weapons Officer with obvious
enthusiasm now that he could fire something. “Recon spread is ready for
launch,” he said after a few seconds.

“Very
good. Let ‘em rip, Lieutenant.”

“Drones
away!” he said in a louder than normal voice. Murphy resisted the impulse to
let his face express his amusement at the young officer’s excitement. He had
heard enough stories about how horrific ship combat could be to realize that he
could easily do without another ship-to-ship battle and its pulse-pounding
adrenaline rush. Engaging in an orbital bombardment was action enough, thank
you very much. A quick check of the sidebar data showed that his squadron had
just crossed into Makassar’s hyper-zone. They were committed now. If the drones
detected Empire ships, his fleet would not be able to simply jump away.
I
should have launched those drones sooner,
he thought with a mental shake of
his head.

Empire
Cruiser Agincourt

Makassar
orbital space

Commander
Hendricks jerked his head up at the sound of the tactical display ping. He
realized that he might have dozed off for a few seconds and hoped no one had
noticed. His implant apparently didn’t record when he slept, but now that all
Bridge personnel also had Majestic’s device implanted, any impact on their
behaviour as a result of observing him sleeping while on duty could potentially
cause Majestic to remove him from command. He felt his anger threatening to
surge and took the deep breaths that he knew would calm him down. The implant
could detect strong emotions, or rather the physical side effects that strong
emotions generated such as higher heart rate, faster breathing and heightened
brain activity. He had already learned the hard way that allowing free
expression to his anger at having that damned device in his neck and brain
would generate a wave of agony that left him bathed in sweat and shaking like a
leaf.

Turning
his focus back to the tactical display, he saw that one of the high orbit
optical satellites had detected what appeared to be three ships approaching
Makassar. With no ships expected, they had to be hostiles. He thanked whatever
Gods there might be that Majestic was too far away to take direct control of
his and his ship’s actions. The fucking machine either didn’t understand that
humans couldn’t react as quickly as it could, or else it didn’t care. Even
training simulations were marathons of trying to act on a tsunami of detailed
instructions with intermittent spasms of pain meant to encourage him to perform
faster.
God, will this nightmare never end? It won’t even let me kill
myself!
Get control of yourself for God sakes! Focus on the hostiles!
Just as he was about to wonder why Makassar Defense Control hadn’t reacted,
another ping announced a text message from the MDC.