A.I. Assault (The A.I. Series Book 3)

  A.I. Assault

  (The A.I. Series 3)

  by Vaughn Heppner

  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.

  -Prologue-

  -1-

  Computer Specialist Eli Gomez was a fraud, but he had nerves of steel. He’d needed them this past year. He was going to need them even more in the next few minutes.

  Eli glanced both ways down a narrow cybership corridor. It was devoid of people. He pulled out a tiny palm scanner. There was a risk in using it. The Nathan Graham’s security systems were hellishly effective. Eli hated the mentalist witch, Gloria Sanchez. Like him, she’d been born on Mars. Like him, she was highly trained to use her mind with ruthless efficiency.

  Eli grinned uneasily as he switched on the scanner. It sent out tiny pulses, searching for any security traps.

  The fraud was of medium height but lean unto the point of frailty. He had narrow features with close-set eyes that burned with intensity. His nose was like a prow, jutting from his face.

  Eli would never win any athletic competitions. A childhood of insecurities and bullying had taught him to hone his one true gift: his mind. That had become a lethal instrument in the pursuit of his goals.

  According to the palm scanner, the path ahead of him was clear for a short distance.

  Tucking away the device, Eli adjusted his jacket and began to saunter down the corridor toward the brain-tap chamber. He was wearing technician’s garb, with a heavy belt of specialist tools jangling at his waist.

  Eli Gomez belonged to the five hundred Saturn System techs trapped on the Nathan Graham when it had simply left the space scaffolding almost a year ago. That had been Eli’s second moment of good luck. The first had been getting into the tech union without blowing his cover.

  As he sauntered along the narrow corridor, Eli pursed his lips and forced himself to whistle a jaunty tune.

  He’d been on the cybership during the harrowing battle with the aliens near the dwarf planet Makemake. Later, he’d endured many indignities as the Old Man’s Intelligence people had asked him questions and painstakingly studied his answers. He had passed the interrogations, and later those of the mentalist witch. Afterward, the Old Man had given him a third level security clearance. That had allowed him to work with the strange alien construction robots on the outer hull.

  The Nathan Graham was presently parked inside MK2, the hollowed-out moon orbiting Makemake way out here in the Kuiper Belt. The captured cybership had been in the moon dock for two months already. The one-hundred-kilometer vessel had taken extensive damage in the matter/antimatter blast that had ended the battle against the AI-run cybership. The alien construction robots were far along in repairing the hideous blast damage.

  “You!” a marine shouted sharply.

  Eli gave a small start, but otherwise kept sauntering and whistling. He approached the big man whose steroid-enhanced muscles strained against his uniform.

  The marine was originally from the Neptune System, from one of the destroyed cloud cities in the ice giant’s upper atmosphere. The marine’s name didn’t matter, although Eli knew it well enough. What did matter was that the marine had grown up in a highly exploitative capitalist system. It had taught the marine the utility and, more importantly, the acceptability of bribes.

  This was all part of Eli’s plan. He’d gone into hiding two weeks ago. First, he’d engineered a mechanical accident that had killed three other techs. Machinery had gruesomely crushed the three unlucky fools. Eli had been part of their team, and should presumably have been with them during the accident. The crushing had been critical. It had thoroughly mushed and mixed their remains, which seemed to have led to the necessary conclusion.

  Eli Gomez of Mars had been scratched from the Nathan Graham’s manifest of the living. Because he was presumed dead, there was no one searching for him. That had allowed Eli the luxury of slowly but methodically working his way inward toward the giant cybership’s center. He’d memorized the Nathan Graham’s layout a long time ago. He’d also used his skills to avoid detection—until now.

  “Stop where you are,” the muscled marine said. The man drew a sidearm. It was heavy, a three-shot gyroc pistol, Eli supposed.

  Eli did not stop, but continued advancing.

  “I’m talking to you, tech!” the marine roared.

  “Trouble, Gorky?” a second marine said. The other marine was a sergeant. Gorky the Neptunian was only a corporal.

  “No trouble,” Gorky said, turning. He pulled the trigger.

  A gyroc shell leaped out, hissed, and implanted in the second marine’s stomach. The following explosion killed the sergeant, blowing him off his feet and making a bloody mess on the deck plates and nearest bulkhead.

  Eli stopped whistling. The fat was in the fire, as the clowns on Earth had told him more than once during his training.

  Eli Gomez had fraudulently declared himself a tech specialist. He was good enough, as far as that went. He had many skills, computer teching among them. But he was primarily a GSB agent. The Government Security Bureau was the secret police arm of the Solar League. The league provided the fighting forces for Social Dynamics, a share-the-wealth communistic political system beloved by the masses on Earth, but particularly by their highly motivated leaders.

  “Ready?” Eli asked Gorky.

  “Da,” the big marine said.

  Eli kept from rolling his eyes. He didn’t care for Russians on Earth or for those that had immigrated to the Neptune System. But he would take what he could get for the mission.

  “Let’s move,” Eli said. “We have to download a memory before anyone misses your sergeant.”

  Gorky smiled, showing thick teeth. “Follow me. I know the way.”

  -2-

  Eli huffed and puffed, trying to keep up with Gorky. The marine clanked and clattered, having put on a helmet and combat vest and armed himself with a heavier rifle.

  Eli resented the marine’s easy strength and stamina. Martians were seldom strong due to the low gravity and the strict rations most Martians endured on the Red Planet.

  “Should I carry you?” Gorky asked, the insult thrown over his broad shoulder.

  “Keep going,” Eli panted. “Run if you think we’ll need more time.”

  “You tell me,” the marine said.

  Eli didn’t bother replying. He concentrated on keeping up.

  Soon, thankfully, they reached the coveted hatch.

  Gorky glanced both ways, seeming more nervous by the second now. “I don’t know…” he said slowly. Maybe he’d started rethinking the odds of their getting away with this.

  Eli was bent over, breathing hard, with his thin fingers resting on his scrawny thighs. The fear in Gorky’s voice grated on him. He shoved upward, using a sleeve to wipe sweat off his face.

  “Move aside,” Eli snapped.

  The marine did so, looking at him with wonder.

  Eli understood that his contempt actually mollified the frightened marine. People respected confidence. It was as simple as that.

  The GSB knew about the brain-tap machines deep in the captured cybership. Eli knew the secret police leadership desired the machines almost as much as the cybership itself. The legends and half-truths that had already grown around the alien brain tapping…

  Eli had spent many careful hours learn
ing everything he could about the process, the machines and the aftereffects on the “tapped” or “thought-pattern enhanced” individuals.

  The lock in the hatch clicked. Eli put away his tools-in-trade, twisted the handle and stepped within the fabled chamber.

  The simplicity of the room did not shock Eli, although Gorky grunted almost as if in dismay.

  There were tables, with big bulky alien-looking machines near each one, and helmets attached by wires. The controls had dials and levers instead of modern consoles. It looked like something from a 19th century mad scientist’s secret laboratory.

  “Which table should I use?” Gorky asked with childlike simplicity.

  Eli pointed at the nearest one. He doubted they had much time to do this. The witch and the Old Man would have installed secret detection devices. But he’d planned for that.

  The marine hesitated, worry etched onto his thick features.

  “Do you want to be smarter or not?” Eli demanded. That had been the bribe that had turned the slow-witted marine.

  “Da,” Gorky said. “But…”

  “There are no buts,” Eli said. “Hop up and I’ll get you ready. If you don’t do it now…Jon Hawkins will let the Centurion torture you for weeks.”

  Gorky paled, swaying slightly where he stood. Finally, with a grunt, he advanced toward the nearest table. He set down his weapon, took off his combat helmet and hopped onto the table.

  Eli took out a hypo as he followed the man.

  “What’s that for?” Gorky asked.

  “Your weak nerves.”

  The marine frowned suspiciously.

  Eli laughed. “Is the pit of your stomach bunching up?”

  “Da. How did you know?”

  “I know,” Eli said with authority.

  Gorky gave it another three seconds’ thought. Finally, he said, “Go ahead. Give me shot.”

  The hypo hissed as Eli injected the easily-manipulated idiot with a death serum. It would be extremely difficult for medical personnel to find the drug later during Gorky’s autopsy. That was the second thing that made the specially selected drug so useful.

  “Feeling better yet?” Eli asked.

  “I feel sleepy.”

  “Perfect. Let me put the helmet over your head.”

  “That is how it is done?”

  “Don’t you remember? I know about the brain-enhancement machines better than Bast Banbeck.”

  Gorky lay down on the table, yawning.

  Eli took a helmet off a machine. It was heavier than it looked. Letting the attached wires trail behind him, he slid the helmet over Gorky’s broad head, pushing down.

  “Feels tight,” Gorky said, his words muffled by the helmet.

  “Don’t worry about that. Sleep if you want to. This won’t hurt at all.”

  Gorky didn’t answer. His big body relaxed on the table, simply going limp.

  The extent of his own brilliance hit Eli then, both for reaching this place and the monumental step he was about to take. He was a great GSB agent. He’d also had a run of good luck in getting into the right places at the right times. But Eli wanted more, much more. The problem was that he lacked connections and almost no one appreciated how skillful a skinny boy from Mars had to be in order to climb as high as he had.

  He’d studied, asked questions and probably knew more about this chamber and what it did than anyone other than the green-skinned Sacerdote and the mentalist witch.

  “Are you ready?” Eli whispered to himself.

  With an abrupt turn, he moved toward a different table. He’d learned an incredible amount on his own, and then even more by bribing a marine to get Da Vinci the Neptunian’s secret journal for him. Da Vinci had written it in code. That had been the least of Eli’s problems. He was as good a code breaker as he was a tech specialist.

  Steeling himself, Eli went to the main brain-tap controls. He set them, turning dials and moving levers, listening to the thing hum and clack.

  Then, Eli whirled around, hopped onto a table and slid a heavy helmet over his head. He lay down and closed his eyes.

  And waited…

  This isn’t working, he finally realized.

  In his mind, he went over the procedure, looking for something he’d forgotten. He—

  A strange memory of a ringed terrestrial planet he’d never seen before finally intruded on his thoughts. Eli realized the memory had been trying to bubble to the surface for the last few seconds.

  Could this really be working?

  Eli reached up for the helmet, thinking to adjust it. Before he could, intense pain burned into his mind. The pain roared like a torrent, gushing with rivers of memories and alien thought patterns. The gush became a flood, and suddenly he could no longer perceive the process.

  At that point, he realized he’d forgotten one important point, one safeguard, to limit the extent of the alien thought patterns.

  In a mighty effort of will, Eli tore the helmet from his head even as it attempted to download more alien thought patterns into his brain.

  It was the last coherent thought and action that Eli Gomez the Martian had. The new thing in his mind grasped the helmet and plunged it back onto his head.

  The interruption had broken the flow. Although some of the data had passed—and therefore did not enter Eli’s brain—with the helmet in contact with the skull again, more data poured in. Despite the momentary break, the alien thought patterns swept his human identity away like a tidal wave smashing a house. A new persona roared into possession of the frail Martian.

  He was the Prince of Ten Worlds: Methlan Rath of Janus House. He perceived through the scattered memories of his new mind that he had been in this place before. He had enemies here, foes who had destroyed him once already. The cipher Eli Gomez had learned about it.

  The Prince chuckled to himself. It was a vicious sound. He knew what to do to his enemies.

  Removing the helmet, scanning his surroundings, noticing the stink from the corpse on a nearby table, the Prince once more tapped into the memories of Eli Gomez. He perceived the frail Martian’s plan, and decided it was rather good. The dead marine would take the fall. If he could escape from this room fast enough and hide in the larger cybership, no would ever know he’d been in this chamber.

  Yes. Methlan Rath could now begin to plot in earnest, rewarding those who aided him and cursing those who hindered his progress.

  Methlan slid off the table and tottered to the hatch.

  He would cause everyone who’d had a hand in his former body’s death to rue their existence. They would all learn what it meant to challenge Methlan Rath of Janus House—Jon Hawkins in particular.

  PART I

  MAKEMAKE

  -1-

  The dwarf planet Makemake was presently 49 AUs from the distant Sun. The icicle planetoid received next to no sunlight as such. The Sun was a bright star from here, ineffectual except for the ever-present tug of Sol’s gravity.

  Makemake had roughly two-thirds of Pluto’s diameter, although it possessed greater mass. The dwarf planet’s surface was mostly composed of methane, ethane and nitrogen ices. Underneath the icy shelf were rock and some metals. The former human occupants of Makemake had machine-chiseled many kilometers of tunnels. According to Gloria Sanchez’s sensor teams, the alien robots still down there under the ices—and possibly whatever human servitors they controlled—continued to mine and possibly to build.

  The Cybership Nathan Graham was inside the Moon MK2. It was Makemake’s only moon, which made it different from other Kuiper Belt dwarf planets. MK2 had the surface color of charcoal, making it a much darker object than the reflective dwarf planet.

  The captured cybership was one hundred kilometers in diameter. MK2 was a mere 175 kilometers in diameter. Parking the Nathan Graham inside the hollowed-out moon had been like parking a huge air-car into a small garage.

  The crew had waged an intense battle four months ago against a newly constructed cybership. Fortunately, the giant vessel had on
ly been three-quarters finished. It had boasted plenty of gravitational cannons but not enough hull armor. Jon Hawkins had gambled on a quick-strike interior attack and won. The brand spanking new cybership had ignited in a glorious matter/antimatter explosion. That had taken out the vast enemy missile fleet and most of the gigantic P-Field guarding Makemake. It had also shredded much of the Nathan Graham, which had been a little less than two million kilometers away.

  The Nathan Graham had been in much worse shape this time than it had when Jon had first brought it into the Saturn System for repairs.

  That’s why MK2 had been such a goldmine. It had cost the Black Anvil Regiment a number of marines to clean out the defending robots. And it had taken even longer to figure out the alien construction technology. Thank God, the research team had finally made the breakthrough. And thank Him even more, the team had figured out and installed safeguards into the big building robots.

  The moon dock with its robotic construction tech had only been running full tilt for the last six weeks, but what a difference those six weeks had made to the Nathan Graham.

  Jon had gone so far as to proclaim that they might actually fix the cybership in a few more short months. Shortly thereafter, a mysterious explosion wiped out five entire moon-holds of stored supplies.

  The Old Man had gone into overdrive. The Intelligence people combed every corner of the ship and questioned everyone with the remotest possibly of a connection. Nine days later, the Old Man admitted that his people had come up empty. He didn’t have a clue as to who had caused the sabotage.

  The Centurion—the regiment’s new colonel—planned and implemented another sweep of the entire moon, inside and out. It took two weeks and came up as empty as the Old Man’s search.

  Captain Jon Hawkins presently stood in a conference chamber inside the moon complex. Jon wore a dress uniform because he had a special call to make after this.

  The captain was lean and muscular with thick wrists. He had short blond hair and hard blue eyes. He’d grown up in New London Dome on Titan in the Saturn System. He’d been a dome rat as a youth, a gang member and a bone-breaker for those delinquent on their loans. Later, the Black Anvil Regiment had bought him off death row.