The A.I. Gene (The A.I. Series Book 2) Page 15

  The workers and welders on the scaffolding attacked the cybership’s hull. Waiting Black Anvil marines rushed to the location and butchered her people. Piled onto the disaster was the brutal attack against the Ring Retreat…

  “I’m a dead woman,” she whispered to herself.

  She removed one of the hands from the polished desk. She ran her fingers through her short-cut hair. What was this?

  She leaned forward, adjusting the screen with a few taps. This was a message, an intercept. Jon Hawkins had gone with his marines into the rings.

  She blinked rapidly, her thoughts racing. If she could send Justinian a message that she had killed the cybership’s commander—

  The head of the GSB, Saturn System, came alive, issuing curt and most direct orders. It might burn up her remaining assets, but it might also cause the death of the hatefully brilliant capitalist.

  ***

  The five retrieval shuttles stuck together. The shuttles carried the surviving Black Anvils and their prisoners. The caravan slowed to pick up the survivors floating in space. Then, the shuttles accelerated carefully.

  They pulled up out of the debris in the rings, heading for the vast cybership 51,342 kilometers away, and presently out of line-of-sight. The rings rotated at their own rates, the inner rings spinning faster than the outer ones.

  At that point, seven patrol boats skimmed low around Saturn. They were between the highest atmosphere and true orbital space. They were the last, hidden resource of the GSB-motivated conspirators, in the Saturn System.

  The pilots and the gun and missile crews were fanatically loyal Social Dynamists. They had waited all this time, surviving on a near-starvation diet and battling intense boredom.

  The patrol boat chief had one goal: destroy the five shuttles and thereby eliminate Jon Hawkins.

  He calculated vectors, velocities and distances.

  “Push past maximum acceleration,” he ordered.

  “Patrol Chief,” a tech radioed. “The boats won’t take that kind—”

  “Belay your report, Engineer,” the chief said. “Push past maximum until we’re in missile range. Then we’ll launch a full barrage.”

  Seconds later, seven patrol boats roared upward into orbital space. They began spreading apart at the engineer’s pleading.

  As the seven boats gained velocity, one of the engine cores blew. Excessive heat radiated outward, melting components and prematurely igniting missile munitions. The boat exploded spectacularly.

  The debris blew apart. It struck several other boats. They hadn’t moved far enough apart yet. Two survived the pelting. The third began tumbling end-over-end. Then, its engine blew in a second spectacular event. This time, because of the tumbling, no debris hit another boat.

  Now, five patrol boats roared toward the shuttles, straining to get into firing range.

  ***

  “Sir,” Gloria radioed Jon. “Did you see those explosions behind your convoy?”

  Jon was sitting at the piloting panel. He tapped the comm. “I did not.”

  “Patrol boats, sir,” Gloria said. “My prognosis is GSB.”

  “Patrol boats?”

  “With missiles,” she said. “You could be in danger.”

  “Just a minute,” Jon said. He glanced at the pilot. “Do you see them now?”

  The pilot nodded. “The mentalist is right. If I were to guess, they plan to launch missiles at us.”

  “Can we go faster?”

  “No, sir. We have a few defensive measures—” The pilot quit talking as a red light blinked on his screen.

  “What’s that?” Jon said.

  Gloria radioed him again. “You have more bogies zeroing in on you, sir. I think they mean to destroy the shuttles. I have gnat fighters racing to intercept the new threat. But those five patrol boats, sir—”

  “Use one of the ship’s grav beams,” Jon said.

  “To reach them, we’d have to break out of the scaffolding. That would take a long time to rebuild. We’d be in Saturn System far longer—”

  “Stay in the scaffolding,” Jon said. “We’re going to work our way toward you the best we can.”

  “But—”

  “I’m not as important as repairing the cybership. That’s the key. If the AIs should show up too soon…”

  “Yes, sir,” Gloria said. “Good luck, sir.”

  “Thanks,” Jon said. “See you after the home stretch.”

  The pilot glanced wildly at Jon.

  “Take us back into the rings,” Jon told him.

  “I can dodge the biggest rocks, sir, but I can’t even see the smallest dust particles. The shuttles won’t last in the rings at this speed.”

  “If we won’t last, neither will enemy missiles.”

  The pilot stared at Jon as if the captain had gone mad.

  “Do it,” Jon said.

  “Aye-aye, Captain,” the pilot said. “I’m taking us back into the rings.”

  -9-

  The shuttles veered off course. The spacecraft strained at the G forces. Soon, each pilot was weaving to the best of his or her ability. At these speeds, though, weaving was a relative term.

  Jon watched the progress, enduring the back and forth jerking. The enemy patrol boats came into sensor range. They sped faster, closing the distance between them. Soon, the patrol boats would launch missiles.

  Before Jon could decide anything more, an explosion to his right showed him the cost of his decision. A shuttle struck icy particles. That changed the shuttle’s vector, and it plowed against a bigger rock, crumpling at the impact.

  Scratch one shuttle. Scratch one-fifth of what remained of Stark’s company.

  Jon felt sick inside. He’d made a risky decision, and those men had paid the price.

  Another shuttle wobbled badly.

  “I took a debris hit,” a pilot radioed. “I have injured marines in here.”

  Jon slapped the comm. “Through the rings, go through the rings to the bottom.”

  Jon’s pilot looked at him. “The bottom, sir?”

  “In relation to the patrol boats,” Jon said.

  “Right,” the pilot said, changing course once again.

  The race continued as the shuttles struggled to get through the narrow rings intact.

  “The patrol boats are changing course,” Gloria radioed. “They’re going to go through the rings after you.”

  Jon hated this. “Isn’t there anything you can do?” he asked the pilot.

  “I can expel chaff later, and I have ECM going. But we’re travelling too fast for those to work well. The enemy can target us by our heat emissions.”

  Jon crossed his fingers. The lead shuttle emerged intact from the rings. It leveled out again, skimming “under” the rings and heading for the Nathan Graham.

  Soon, all four shuttles were racing under the rings.

  “Once the patrol boats are through, I’d expect them to fire the missiles at us,” the pilot said.

  Jon nodded absently.

  Time passed.

  The gnat fighters took care of the other threat.

  “Five more minutes,” the pilot told Jon. “We’ll be in sight of the warship, and they can use the grav beam then.”

  A bright dot on the sensors showed a scratched enemy patrol boat.

  “They’re not invincible,” Jon said. “Debris killed one of them.”

  “They’re popping under the rings…now,” the pilot said.

  “Back up through the rings,” Jon said.

  The pilot glanced at him, nodded, and took them up.

  Jon ordered the others up into the rings again.

  At that point, the four remaining patrol boats launched their missiles in blizzard fashion. A mass of dots indicating enemy missiles sped toward them.

  The shuttles moved upward, and another of them hit debris, which ripped off the top of the shuttle. It went spinning, and for all purposes, it was dead.

  Jon closed his eyes in pain.

  The pilot besid
e him muttered angrily.

  The missiles raced upward into the rings, following their targets.

  “Hang on,” the pilot whispered.

  The shuttle veered severely and suddenly shook hard.

  “Hit,” the navigator said. “Two people died in the rear compartment. But we still have integrity.”

  Jon realized he was gripping his armrests so hard that his hands ached.

  The missiles entered the rings. They did not veer. They did not have the slightest mechanism to do so. The first missile hit a rock, and disintegrated.

  “Three minutes,” the pilot said. “In three minutes—”

  “We’re leaking air,” a shuttle pilot reported.

  Jon saw it on his screen. The shuttle was leaving a visible trail.

  More enemy missiles exploded in the debris, but not all of them.

  “Sir,” the leaking shuttle pilot said. “I’ve lost fuel. I don’t think we can make it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jon said. “You can make it.”

  “This is Stark. We’re going to be the target, sir.”

  “No,” Jon said.

  “I ain’t arguing with you, sir. I want my company to survive. Sometimes—you’re good, lad. I appreciate your hard work. Now you listen to me. You beat the Solar League and you beat the damn AIs. I’ve seen you in action. These bastards on our tail know your worth. Well, so do I.”

  “Stark!”

  “Good-bye, lad. Do me proud.”

  The line clicked off.

  Jon stared at the pilot. The man focused studiously on his controls.

  How can this be happening? We beat them. I’d won. Now—

  The next few minutes passed in a daze for Jon. The shuttles exited the rings. Two of them zoomed for the Nathan Graham. The third, the last one, deliberately hung back.

  That shuttle expelled chaff. It used the one PD cannon it had, knocking out the first missile.

  Jon watched the sensor board, unaware that his eyes had welled with tears. He couldn’t believe this. What did Stark think he was doing?

  A missile streaked for the shuttle, hitting it, igniting. Two more blew as well, destroying the shuttle and killing Stark and his marines.

  Jon slumped in his seat, hardly aware that the last two shuttles had reached the grav beam’s line-of-sight.

  “We’re home free,” the pilot told Jon.

  Jon couldn’t even nod. This had been a disaster.

  -10-

  While the raid had been a disaster, resulting in massive casualties, it did bring some positive results.

  They squelched the conspirators’ attempt to capture the Nathan Graham. All along the line, the GSB operators had used everything. That meant they had almost nothing left for a second attempt in the Saturn System.

  The prisoners from the Ring Retreat Satellite also provided excellent intelligence. It turned out all of it came from one woman, an arbiter.

  This gave Jon inside data on the GSB operations. He shared the data with several Saturn Government representatives. They could use it to clean out the last GSB infestations hidden in the cloud cities, orbitals and moon domes.

  When the Nathan Graham left, the Saturn System would need its own defenses. Talks had already begun concerning a system-wide governing body and a Saturn Space Navy.

  Jon would have to hire more workers, more welders and more techs to complete repairs on the cybership.

  “Everything should go more easily without the constant GSB interference,” Gloria said.

  Jon heard her. She was standing close enough for him to feel the heat of her body. They were standing in an observation dome on the cybership. He was staring at the colorful rings of Saturn and remembering former Sergeant Stark.

  It had been three days since the gorilla of a marine had died. Jon missed the stubborn bastard. He couldn’t get over what the man had told him.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Gloria said quietly.

  Jon didn’t look at her. How could he look at anyone now?

  “The GSB is a cunning enemy,” Gloria said. “We’re lucky to have done as well as we did.”

  Jon wanted to bang his fists against the observation dome. Instead, he spoke quietly.

  “It was my fault,” he said. “I led the raid. I gave the orders that sent the shuttles through the rings.”

  “I have carefully thought through your options. You did the right thing. Your decisions saved part of the company.”

  “I should have brought gnat fighters along. That was a terrible oversight.”

  “The gnats helped us squash the worker revolt. Without them, the welders might have broken into the cybership. We could still be fighting them.”

  “Even so,” he whispered.

  “Jon Hawkins,” she said. “You cannot accept the blame if you do not accept the credit. You will destroy yourself by agonizing over these decisions.”

  “The pressure…” he whispered.

  Gloria looked away.

  Jon closed his eyes. Command was a lonely post. How had Colonel Graham done it? How had Genghis Khan done it? Is that why the great captains in history all seemed to have become bloody butchers? Had the hard decisions and the countless deaths of friends taken a grim toll on those warriors as well?

  Jon opened his eyes, the sight of the jewel of the Outer Planets greeting him. He loved seeing Saturn and its rings, even though those rings had killed Stark and would forever remind him of the sergeant.

  Jon cocked his head. The rings had saved two-thirds of the company. Without the debris, the patrol boats would have caught all of them.

  I can’t wallow in sorrow. That’s throwing away Stark’s sacrifice.

  Jon snorted softly. Stark’s ghost would now propel him onward, in league with the colonel’s ghost who had been doing that for some time.

  The AIs were out there, cruising the galaxy in search of life to eradicate. He had to remain strong and fixed in his purpose.

  “You have to learn from this,” he whispered.

  “What’s that?” Gloria asked.

  Jon turned to her. “Thanks, Mentalist. I appreciate your effort. I’m glad you’re my confidante. How long until the Nathan Graham is ready to leave the space dock?”

  “The repairs could last years at our present rate.”

  “Then we’re going to have to speed them up,” Jon said.

  “How do we do that and make sure we remain in control of the warship?”

  Jon nodded. “I’m not sure just now. But I plan to figure it out.”

  Gloria smiled sadly. Then, the two of them returned to staring at Saturn’s beauty.

  Part V

  KUIPER BELT

  +2 Years, 7 Months, 13 Days

  -1-

  June Zen snorted, wrinkled her nose and sneezed explosively. Afterward, she began to shiver. Why was it so terribly cold in here?

  She shivered more. She wanted to get warm and go back to sleep.

  “June,” a harsh voice said. It sounded like a badly unused voice. “June Zen.”

  Why was she hearing this stranger in her bedroom? Had she gone out drinking last night? That didn’t seem right. What was going on?

  “Can you hear me?” the harsh-voiced man asked.

  “Go away,” she said.

  “Go where?”

  “I already said. Away. Don’t you understand English?”

  “Open your eyes, June. You’ve been under a long time. I think…I think it’s been over two years by now.”

  What did that mean? It sounded downright ominous. She raised her arms, stretched, hearing her right elbow pop, and slowly opened her eyes. As she did that, a terrible stink hit.

  This placed smelled. Where was she anyway?

  It took some doing for her eyes to focus. Finally, she saw a little fellow with fur around his chin. He had weird eyes, making it impossible to tell where he was looking.

  His hair was greasy and his clothes not only stank, they were also in tatters.

  “Don’t yo
u remember me? Walleye?” the little man asked.

  She frowned as she stared at him. He had stubby arms, stubby hands with grubby little fingers.

  Walleye!

  June gasped in comprehension. Wildly, she glanced right and left.

  Curving bulkheads greeted her. They were much too near each other. She was in an escape pod with Walleye the Mutant. Had he said two years?

  “Are we…are we dead?” she whispered.

  Walleye kept staring at her. At least, it seemed as if he did.

  “Walleye,” she said.

  He started as if in shock. “Sorry, I must have zoned out. It’s…It’s been a long time. I’m…”

  The little mutant zoned out again.

  June began to shiver. This was just great. She was trapped in an escape pod with a freakish mutant and two lousy years had passed. And she was freezing.

  She sat up, as the mutant seemed to have fallen into a daze. How had he spent the past two years?

  June just about groaned then. She remembered that she’d tried to murder him. It had been for her protection. It had been—

  She looked at Walleye. He was a wreck. He was rail thin, and his skin was splotchy. The eyes were worse than before. Had he gone mad during the two years? She would have gone stir-crazy in that time in his position.

  Where were they?

  She wondered if she should look for the stitch-gun. Walleye had been sharp and efficient two years ago. He might be dull and slow now. She could save herself from his madness if she could kill him.

  The little mutant shivered himself aware again. A tremulous smile quivered onto his face. This wasn’t the same Walleye that she remembered.

  June tried to stand, pushing up and hitting her head against her open cryo unit lid instead. The pod lacked gravity.

  “We float in here,” Walleye said. As he spoke this time, some of the burr, the harshness left his voice.

  “Are you okay?” June asked.

  He laughed in a whispery manner, shaking his head.

  “Are we dead, Walleye?”

  “What’s that mean, huh? You’re breathing. You’ve had a good nap. You ought to be ready for an adventure. Are you ready, June Zen?”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  The whispery laugh lasted longer this time. He seemed demented.