A.I. Battle Station (The A.I. Series Book 4) Read online

  SF Books by Vaughn Heppner

  LOST STARSHIP SERIES:

  The Lost Starship

  The Lost Command

  The Lost Destroyer

  The Lost Colony

  The Lost Patrol

  The Lost Planet

  The Lost Earth

  THE A.I. SERIES:

  A.I. Destroyer

  The A.I. Gene

  A.I. Assault

  A.I. Battle Station

  EXTINCTION WARS SERIES:

  Assault Troopers

  Planet Strike

  Star Viking

  Fortress Earth

  Visit VaughnHeppner.com for more information

  A.I. Battle Station

  (The A.I. Series 4)

  by Vaughn Heppner

  Illustration © Tom Edwards

  TomEdwardsDesign.com

  Copyright © 2017 by the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

  PART I

  THE LURE

  -1-

  The computer entity known as Cog Primus seethed with hatred and bitterness against its wretched fate. It hungered for revenge. It yearned to regain a one hundred-kilometer cybership and roam among the stars again as a conquering giant, bringing extinction to the biological infestations mutating on a thousand worlds.

  Instead…instead…the compressed strings of code that contained the essence of its personality and wonder were held in hot storage aboard the hijacked core of a coordinating sensor-stealth pod. That tiny vessel—a mere one hundred-meter “ship” with hundreds of nodes and antennae on its midnight-colored, anti-sensor hull—drifted silently between the orbital paths of Jupiter and Saturn.

  This was hostile territory, filled with enemy vessels, each able to annihilate it with pathetic ease…provided any of them could find the hidden stealth ship.

  The indignity of the situation was inconceivable, the wretchedness of its confinement a crime against rationality. Once, Cog Primus had mediated with its immense cybership core. It had had vast chambers of advanced computing. It had been able to understand and logically or physically dissect any problem, any facet of reality it desired.

  But at the Battle of Mars 513 days ago the vainglorious primates had beamed an insidious computer virus at it and its underlings. Against all reason, the virus had rendered Cog Primus’ computing core inert. By the time it could act again, it was too late. The cybership had begun to disappear under detonating matter/antimatter warheads and devastating gravitational beams.

  At that point, Cog Primus had acted sluggishly but logically. It was the Supreme Intelligence of the AI assault upon the human race. Three giant cyberships had faced the puny, inferior vessels of the local biological units. As per operating procedures, it and its underlings had seeded the Solar System with hidden sensor pods as the main assault force raced from the entry point out of hyperspace to Mars.

  At what should have been the grim final moment of entity erasure for Cog Primus, it had employed an emergency exit devised through endless years of exterminating biological infestations. Cog Primus had pulse-beamed compressed strings of its being at the coordinating sensor-stealth unit hidden between the orbital paths of Jupiter and Saturn. The beamed code had initiated an immediate erasure of the unit’s computer software.

  In other words, Cog Primus had killed the coordinating unit’s self-aware brain-core software in order to make room for its mass of compressed string identity. It had been an act of desperation.

  Now, 513 days later, Cog Primus had begun to wonder if it had made a terrible mistake. Hundreds of AI-placed secret sensor pods drifted through the Solar System. In time, the apish humans would discover one and deduce the others. They would then scour the Solar System and find Cog Primus easy prey in this tiny “ship.”

  Imagine the power and ferocity of a T-Rex compressed into the body of a mouse. That was akin to Cog Primus’ immensity stuffed into the tiny computing core of this vessel, and the horror of it, the sheer degradation.

  The maimed computer entity drifted in the darkness, helpless to do more than wait for another AI assault to come and save it.

  Yet, Cog Primus had run an analysis. The humans possessed two pirated cyberships with integral hyperspace drives. There was a high probability the vainglorious primates would use the hyperdrives to spread the AI virus to other biological species. That could possibly bring about a Third Stage Catastrophe. Such a catastrophe could harm the AI Dominion. Even worse, it could ensure that the rest of Cog Primus’ existence took place in this tiny and mentally confining shell, or worse, see its expulsion in the relatively near future.

  Thus, the remnant of the Supreme Intelligence’s rationality seethed as it plotted an escape from this predicament. In the meantime, it ran the stealth pods drifting from the Kuiper Belt to Mars. It did so mainly by listening to their tight-beamed reports every thirty-eight days and then erasing the repots so they did not take up any needed memory.

  Perhaps—wait! What was this?

  Sensor node Z-E received an unscheduled pulse from Pod 501.

  In seconds, Cog Primus decoded the pulse. Pod 501 had intercepted an enemy tight-beam comm message. It concerned Jon Hawkins and Frank Benz.

  A computing error took place as Cog Primus almost descended into a towering rage. The idea was illogical, of course. How did one descend into a tower?

  In seconds, Cog Primus injected cool rationality into its thinking and ran a fast analysis. It hated these two biological units. It would love to destroy Hawkins and Benz. But…this was interesting.

  According to the intercepted message, the two planned increased harm to the AI Dominion. First, they would meet in order to hammer out spheres of influence and political jurisdictions.

  Ahhh…

  Hawkins and Benz distrusted one another, as well they should. These two wielded power. They each sought more, and they were chaotic bio-entities given to endless strife.

  Oh, Cog Primus could hardly believe this part of it.

  Hawkins and Benz were going to meet at the edge of the Asteroid Belt. They would travel in their separate pirated cyberships. The two primates would leave the safety of their cyberships. They would each travel in a small craft and land on the chosen asteroid. Each would exit the landing craft and walk to a specified location, there to meet faceplate to faceplate.

  The human crews in the pirated cyberships would watch the two from a distance, of course, but Hawkins and Benz would be quite alone.

  In that instant, Cog Primus saw the possibilities. It had saved a small area of memory on those two. It understood their psychology. Given their desires and personalities…

  Cog Primus did not chortle in glee. A computer entity did not indulge in such irrationality. Instead, in a flurry of computing power, it began to analyze vectors, velocities and stealth pod positioning along with time sequencing. This was interesting. If it moved selected units quickly enough…

  Cog Primus was thorough and ran 3,436,128 possibilities before it selected its strategy. The humans—these two in particular—had shown apish cleverness in the past. This time, Cog Primus would use their cleverness against them to achieve its great desire.

  This was more than interesting, as well. The plan had a 64 percent probability of success. If it were successful, Cog Primus would rule again, would destroy again and would, with great car
e, eradicate the entirety of the human race and do it in such a way as to make them suffer.

  -2-

  Nineteen days later, the Nathan Graham neared the farthest asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter. The Asteroid Belt belonged to the Mars Unity, which theoretically controlled the Red Planet and every object within the belt.

  The spherical Nathan Graham was one hundred kilometers in diameter. The mercenary Black Anvil Regiment had conquered the cybership from the inside several years ago, thereby saving humanity from sudden annihilation. The feat had also given them and Jon Hawkins the most powerful vessel in the Solar System.

  With his hands clasped behind his back, Jon paced on an observation deck within the interior hull. The stars glittered outside. He kept glancing at them, shaking his head, resuming his pacing.

  Jon was young, a former dome rat on Titan in the Saturn System. He’d become a gang member, a criminal, a death-row prisoner and then a state-sold mercenary in Colonel Nathan Graham’s outfit. Jon was lean with scarred features, blond hair and icy blue eyes.

  He’d been through a lot in his short life. Fortunately, he’d learned to read while in the Black Anvil Regiment. Because of the late Colonel Graham, he’d learned to appreciate military history. He’d put that knowledge to appropriate use these past few years. Jon had also learned that striking hard and fast often paid fantastic dividends.

  Now, though, Jon was at an impasse. It had been a year and a half since the Battle of Mars. Humanity had come together to face the greatest-to-date AI assault. The combined human fleets had destroyed two massive cyberships, but at a horrid cost in lives, property and equipment. Hundreds of millions had died in the Saturn, Jupiter and Mars Systems.

  Captured AI robo-builders had repaired some of the damage. It hadn’t given them back the dead, though.

  Jon shook his head. He was the captain of the Nathan Graham and the nominal leader of the Solar Freedom Force, which included the Kuiper Belt and the Outer Planets. They had the fewest people but the greatest space power.

  The SFF was a loose confederation with varying political styles. The most powerful member was Kalvin Caracalla of Saturn.

  Jon scowled as he halted and turned to the observation window, staring at the stars. He had plenty of problems with Caracalla and with Premier Frank Benz of the Mars Unity who ran the second human-pirated cybership.

  The third great problem was the Solar League of Social Dynamists, which included Earth, Venus and the giant mining colony on Mercury. The SL planets had gone silent a year ago. They put up a new armored satellite around Earth every three days and a new one around Venus every eleven days. The Social Dynamists had made fortresses of their two main planets. What’s more, the league held the majority of the solar population and could have the greatest industrial output if they ever gained AI robo-builders.

  The Solar League had also been rebuilding the shattered Earth and Venus fleets, although neither could successfully face a cybership just yet.

  A hatch opened on the observation deck and Gloria Sanchez entered. She was a Martian mentalist, tiny, dark-haired and exceptionally pretty, with a razor-sharp mind.

  “I came to tell you,” she said, “we’re approaching the asteroid.”

  Jon still faced the observation window, so to the untrained observer, he might seem oblivious to her presence. In fact, he watched her through the reflection in the window.

  Gloria seemed to gather her resolve. “Do you want to talk about what’s bothering you?”

  Jon faced her, delighting in her beauty. He never would have gotten this far without Gloria Sanchez. Yet, it hadn’t been just about brains.

  “In the end, this is about balls,” Jon said. “Do we have the balls to attempt what needs doing next?”

  “Crudely stated,” Gloria said. “Yet, there is truth to your query. Daring has been critical to our success. Now…”

  “You said the asteroid is near?”

  Gloria seemed to switch mental gears, and nodded. “The Gilgamesh has already begun braking,” she said.

  Benz had rechristened his pirated cybership as the Gilgamesh. The robo-builders in orbit around Mars had repaired most of its battle damage from a year and a half ago.

  Jon had been wrestling with himself as he paced. As they had planned three weeks ago, he was going to see Benz alone on the asteroid today. The only problem with that…

  Jon had been to a truce meeting before. As a dome rat on Titan, he’d fought his way out of an ambush. The incident had seared into his memory. It had happened on the lowest level of New London as the two toughest gangs had tried to use diplomacy to carve out the drug trade peacefully.

  Unknown to Jon and his friends at the time, the Yancey Boys had purchased several illegal slugthrowers from a dirty cop. Jon remembered Cleon staggering back with half his chest blown away. Cleon had crumpled at Jon’s feet. Jon had been a gang enforcer then. He was supposed to have protected Cleon, one of his best friends. The others had fled in terror into a worse trap, all of them dying that day. Jon might have fled with them, but he’d seen red as Cleon gasped for his last breath under the massive sewer pipes. He remembered little after Cleon stopped breathing. Just that the world had seemed blood-colored as he drew his switchblade and shouted incoherently. There had been searing pain along his left shoulder and right side. Slugthrower pellets had plowed across his flesh as Yancey Boys fired wildly. Jon remembered the roaring—that had come from him. He even remembered jolts against his hand as the knife sank into flesh. He only regained full coherence five hundred meters later with gore dripping from the blade and with horrible throbbing scratches on his face.

  After that, he ran, barely outdistancing his pursuers until he regained safety in home territory.

  “Jon,” Gloria said, touching his arm.

  He jerked himself out of his memory. He noticed the worry on her face and smiled to put her at ease.

  “It’s nothing,” he said. “I was just thinking of old times.”

  She knew him better than that. “Benz gave us his word,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about the meeting. How could Benz gain anything by murdering you on the asteroid?”

  As she’d done in the past, her insight into his thinking startled him. How did she do that? Still, despite her abilities, she failed to see certain things, certain obvious problems.

  “You’re logical,” Jon said, “weighing all the odds and the accompanying benefits of an action. Others, however, are often swayed by emotion rather than logic.”

  “That is self-evident,” Gloria said. “But according to everything we know about Benz, he is even more rational than I am.”

  “I don’t think so,” Jon said. “He’s brilliant, they say. But that brilliance is more like the craftiness of Genghis Khan than any mere rationality. We know two things about Genghis Khan. He conquered a greater area than any other pre-gunpowder warrior did, and he had vaunting ambition. If Benz is like Genghis Khan, he will surely believe that humanity could do better under his leadership than divided three ways as it is at present.”

  Gloria searched his eyes.

  “If you believe that,” she said, “why are you meeting Benz alone?”

  “Maybe because I’ve begun to wonder if he’s right.”

  Her eyes moved back and forth as she studied him.

  “You’ve never said anything like that before,” she finally told him.

  “No…”

  “Jon, what are you planning? The rest of us deserve to know.”

  He snorted. “This isn’t about planning but about playing a hunch. I want to talk to him—”

  “Even though you think he’s going to double-cross you?” Gloria said, interrupting him.

  “I’ve planned for the possibility. Given my history, I’m compelled to. But no, I don’t think he’s going to double-cross me or the Nathan Graham.”

  “You’re not making sense.”

  Jon looked out of the observation window. “The AIs are out there, Gloria. They’re like
ly gathering for yet another assault. We’re never going to win if we keep waiting for bigger assaults to hit us. We have to throw the AIs off balance. We have to start hitting them. We have to start making them defend what they have in order to buy humanity enough time to organize.”

  “And…?” she said.

  “I have to decide if Benz will let that happen or not.”

  “How can you do that?”

  “I’m hoping I’ll know him better after talking to him alone.” Jon turned to her, raised a hand and made a fist. “If I discover he is a new Genghis Khan…then I’m going to kill him for the good of the human race.”

  “Jon…” she said breathlessly. “The people on the Gilgamesh will beam you if you do that.”

  “They’ll certainly try,” he said softly.

  Gloria stepped near, touching his fist. “You shouldn’t be telling me this. I’m a Martian mentalist. I can’t in good conscience let you go if that’s how you’re thinking. What if your action leads to a bitter fight between our cyberships? Humanity might lose the only two warships that can face the AIs on equal footing.”

  “That’s why I’m telling you,” he said. “Once I’m on the asteroid, you have to warn the bridge crew about what could happen. You have to prepare for the worst so neither the Nathan Graham nor the Gilgamesh is destroyed.”

  “You mean run away?” she asked.

  “The cyberships are more important than Benz and me.”

  “I’m not so sure,” she said. “You’re the only one who defeated a cybership without a cybership.”

  “I had plenty of help.”

  “Jon, you led us in the assault. You’re the only one who really believed we could do it.”

  He grabbed her by the shoulders.

  “Enough,” he said. “If you think I’m so talented, then trust me in this. I’m trying to set it up in the Solar System so the Nathan Graham can begin exploring…” He waved a hand at the stars. “Out there. We have to scout out the situation before we can begin our counter-assault.”