Misjump Page 25

  Lori had been working with their virtual greenie for weeks, trying to find some way to restore him to something like what he could have been. The task had always been hopeless in her opinion, but she wanted to be sure that there were no options that she had missed. Her shipmates were not expecting progress on her project and thought that she was pushing herself too hard for no good reason. When she called a meeting, they hoped that she was announcing that she had given up. All of the humans in-system were invited to attend, most remotely since there was nowhere large enough to meet and there were operational duties that had to carry on.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” she started, “I have been trying to restore our captured greenie, Oscar, to as normal a life as can be managed. I am sorry, but I have failed. It simply isn’t possible.” If there was any surprise at this, it was that she had named the greenie. “However, I have managed to do something else. It is … not a good result, but I think that the time for a good result passed years before we captured him. This may be the least bad result possible. Here is virtual Oscar.” She tapped an on-screen button and the view changed to a blue-walled cube with a table, a chair, and a bed. Oscar was sitting at the table, assembling some kind of mechanism. His movements were oddly fluid with multiple joints moving at once. He looked off somehow, a view into the uncanny valley. Some of the viewers wondered if the VR quality was much worse than they had expected. “His actions are not voluntary. An AI running across many thousands of virtual nanites is doing the processing. The nanites control the simulated parasites and feed them simulated power. Virtual Oscar has been running for three weeks subjective time and seems stable. That would be two days objective time.”

  “Okay, so you have a way of controlling a greenie. I can see that being useful. If you could make it work with a real one, we could use him to carry a bomb in or something like that,” commented Jax.

  Lori bit her lip before replying. “Well, yes and no. I am pretty sure that the other parasites would spot that he was controlled at once. Remember that the shape of the host is not important to them. They communicate across hosts.”

  “Okay,” said Jax, “what use is it then?”

  Lori looked uncomfortable. “It doesn’t help Oscar at all, but we know that they have to be breeding humans and animals for hosts. The already converted are not salvageable, but the next generation can be protected and raised to be human. We can raise a new human race this way. It won’t be easy or good, but it will be possible, I think.”

  Jax softened his tone a little. “Well, great work, but I can’t see the greenies letting us do that. Once we capture the planet, sure, really helpful, but that is a long way off.”

  Lori looked at him. “You are not seeing the big picture.”

  Jax shrugged. “So show me!”

  Lori switched the screen to show a diagram. “We do what they did. Fumi came up with a model for their life cycle and it makes sense. When we went to Neuholme, there was a big crater where the spaceport should have been. She thinks that they dropped millions of themselves, of the parasites, and probably a short-lived radioactive source for power. They would spread through the atmosphere. People couldn’t leave because the spaceport was destroyed. The population would breathe them in, ingest them in food, The parasites would probably wait until there was a critical mass and then they would take over, rounding up the hosts for whatever they are needed for. We can do the same—seed the planet with nanites, dropping many millions to give them a quick start. They infect the hosts and then, when we give the signal, they control the parasite and so the host. We take the planet back.”

  There was a silence before a voice came over the speaker. “So, if we do this, we don’t have to kill all the greenies but we end up with millions of AI-controlled organic robot greenies. That sounds … well, just wrong. Like some kind of fucked-up slave. Not loving it.”

  Lori sighed. “No, nor am I. I just hate it less than the alternatives and it will only be for one generation. It sucks but I don’t see a better way. I am sorry.”

  Gregor spoke next. “Not to be sorry. Is impressive. Are you confident that what works in VR works for real though?”

  Lori didn’t reply but changed the image feed again. Oscar sat at the table, still assembling some sort of mechanism. It took a moment for the viewers to realise that they were looking at the medical bay of a Rockhammer ship. “It worked on Oscar. I think that it will work on the parasites hosted in humans and animals on the surface. We are likely to have control issues with quadrupeds, but the AI will adapt. There will be failures, I expect. We have an option there. Normally, we would want to be conservative and stop if there were a problem, so as to minimise danger to a patient. We don’t have to here. We can force the process even at the risk of killing the host. If we want, we can even make that the desired outcome.”

  “And if we just kill the parasites and leave the host alive?” asked a voice over the comm. She didn’t recognise it, which meant that it was probably a rockhound that came in on the Orange or the Claw.

  “Then the host stops moving, dies of thirst in a few days, and rots where they fall. I am not saying that this is good. I am just saying that it may be least bad,” said Lori.

  Gregor nodded. “Is good plan, best possible. I want details ready for as soon as we have faced whatever comes at us and the stalk. I approve this.”

  Meilin spoke up; the crew of the Sarafina had learned that she was always worth hearing. “Commodore, with respect, we should make this a priority. I think that we should implement it as soon as possible.”

  “Da,” said Gregor, “as soon as we have secure jump points. We can’t spare resources until then.”

  “Sir,” said Meilin, “if we do this, we have a planet’s worth of resources and a planet’s worth of workers. I don’t think that we can afford to wait.”

  Gregor sat and thought. He knew that everyone was waiting on him, but this was important. Finally, he spoke. “Da, is good point. Dr Hernadez, I want detailed plan as soon as possible. If you need help, I will make available, yes? Your plan is crazy, but may be crazy enough to work.”

  The preparations took longer than anyone had hoped. The nanite design had to be changed to allow them to work off even shorter wavelength radiation so that they could operate off the same power as the parasites until safer transmitters could be set up. The design also needed changes to make it more resistant to ionising radiation. The final version was let loose on a massive pile of salvage and slowly began to convert the scrap into more nanites that would eventually package themselves up for distribution. The initial plan had been to drop them in the upper atmosphere, but simulations showed that the nanites could be suspended at altitude for weeks or years. They would need to be dispersed into the lower atmosphere. The design that they went for was based on an old emergency naval re-entry kit. Eventually, the cargo space of the Fist and the Blade were filled with foam-sprayed packages that would be dropped in the upper atmosphere to fall before being scattered when the atmosphere grew thick enough to burn away the protective coating. The Claw and the House of Orange took the place of those ships in the guard on the jump point as the loaded ships fell towards the core of the system. They passed through the asteroid belt, sparse enough to pose no real risk, and powered in and past the local gas giant. They noticed skimmers collecting hydrogen from the upper layers of the clouded atmosphere, doubtless controlled by the network of Henks. They had no idea how many of him there were by that point but it was a lot for someone who didn’t think that he liked company.

  The plan was relatively simple. The ships would each fly a spiral orbit in opposite directions, in the upper atmosphere, close to vacuum. As they went, they would push one of the nanite packages out of the cargo hold to tumble and disintegrate in the lower atmosphere. Billions would be lost to wind and rain, but billions more would find hosts and locate the parasites without taking control. They would listen for a signal from a small satellite and then take over. The approach to the planet went to plan, th
e thin wisps of air doing no more than wailing despite their speed. The timing of the drops was irregular but calculated to bring the packages as close as possible to areas of maximum population density. Jax had joined the Blade to help while Ivo was handling cargo in the Fist. The packages were heavy, but the ships were designed to allow cargo containers to be handled using a powered exoskeleton that was usually stowed in a recess in one wall. The miners didn’t use them, so the Sarafina crew manned the suits. The exoskeletons were vacuum rated, and the co-pilot of each ship was suited and assisted using grav lifters.

  The first five packages were away without incident when the Blade suddenly lurched, the lights flickering and the artificial gravity fluctuating. The hull breach alarm sounded, unheard in the near vacuum but relayed to the suit radios. The gravity slewed to one side, weaker but at forty-five degrees to the deck. Jax grabbed hold of a strut with the hands of the exoskeleton, the mechanical assists following his movement inside the machine. The copilot slid across the deck, scrabbling for a handhold. The main lighting failed at the same moment, leaving only the red emergency lights to see by. The direction of the gravity continued to change and the view from the open hatch tilted alarmingly. Jax struggled to remember the copilot’s name … Pieter, that was it. “Pieter, get to engineering or the cockpit and try to do damage control. I will handle the packs. Go on, get!” The suited man ran across the madly canted deck into the airlock, cycling it rapidly.

  The exoskeleton had magnetic grips in the boots and Jax activated them. The suit hung at a crazy angle from the floor, but the powerful servos kept it moving. Jax took the next package to the hatch and pushed it out, letting it tumble into the thin air. The wind plucked at the suit and Jax stopped for a moment. It wasn’t supposed to be that thick this high up. He took another look at the planet below. It was hard to tell, but it looked closer than he expected. There was no way that this was a good thing. Over the open comms channel, he asked “Status?” He knew that Pieter and the pilot whose name he had never known would be busy, but maybe they could give him a little information.

  “Not good, very bad. Getting worse,” replied Pieter, almost at once.

  “Yeah,” said Jax, “I know. What happened?”

  “Laser fire, took out main power. I have hydraulics back online, but Jan is trying to deadstick this thing and it doesn’t do well in an atmosphere,” said Pieter, clearly working on something in the background.

  “Okay, are we going to land, crash, or get the hell out of here?” asked Jax.

  “Maybe the first, probably the second, trying for the third.”

  “Okay. Out,” said Jax. There wasn’t anything that he could do to help and the man was busy. No sense in distracting him. Anyway, there was a job to be done. He started moving more packages to the opening, clipping them in place to stop the strengthening wind from pulling them out too early. The surface was visibly closer and his suit was registering heat. He knew what that meant and realised that Pieter was an optimist. He swore into his dead mic and went back for another package.

  There were two more left when the sound came, a sound that Jax realised that he could hear as well as feel through his boots. It was a tearing like an immense soldier ripping open the universe’s largest ration can. That had to be hull. He activated the cutter on his suit and slashed at the bindings on the packages, slicing both the casing and the ties. He booted one and then a second out of the hatch, their contents spilling. He had just cut into a third when the ship flipped end over end, starting to break up around him. They were low enough and slow enough that the suit could handle the heat, but there was nothing that it could do about the speed and nothing down there that looked anywhere near soft enough. A twisting flip flung him out of the airlock, and he tumbled into the open air away from the ship. In the glimpse that he had, he had a moment to admire the job that the pilot had done. No way should that wreck have been flying up to that point. It was a mess. He tried to get his spin sorted and managed it more or less. Drop training had been a long, long time ago, but the sergeant had drilled them until they couldn’t forget it. He took a proper look at the ground and saw that it was both too close and much too far away. In a drop capsule, this would be fine, but an exoskeleton was just so much more weight. He thought furiously but unproductively before saying what would turn out to be his last words. “Well, fuck!”

  The remaining Rockhammer dropped its last package and peeled away from the planet as quickly as possible. The dark ribbon of smoke from the crash was all too visible in the morning light.

  Chapter 28

  Ivo radioed the news to the Sarafina as soon as they were out of the upper atmosphere. They deserved to know. Gregor would tell the others although he assumed that Fumi would have already seen the message. They had all known that what they were doing was dangerous, but Jax had thought that he would get through this. Maybe that was the way that it always was. Maybe that is how people could go into danger.

  The Fist was halfway to the fleet when the emergence alarm triggered. That meant that whatever had happened, it was four hours ago. The ship sped on, knowing that it would be there for the victory celebration or to look for survivors. Battles in space were quick or slow based on distance, and this one was close.

  Gregor had been on a rest shift with Fumi nominally flying the Sarafina when the emergence alarm had sounded. In practice, this meant that he was dozing in the pilot’s seat rather than in his bunk. He never slept well when he had people on missions. Old habits lingered. He opened his eyes and reached for the coffee bulb that was keeping a brew warm for him. It would taste awful, but that really wasn’t the point. He gulped some down. The greenie ship had emerged a little off the centre point. That happened sometimes and was to be expected. It was big compared to the system defence boats that they had fought here before, but it was somewhat short of battleship class. A second ship appeared, offset a little from the first ship and moving fast. This one was smaller, slimmer, and built for attack rather than defence. It streaked away and then exploded into a cloud of fragments with hints of flame as it slammed into debris that its light armour couldn’t handle. The larger ship moved slower, deflectors flaring slightly as small chunks of rock and metal were pushed away. Suddenly a small cloud punched out of the midsection of the greenie vessel, a flash of light at the centre followed by a widening ghostly plume. He knew that sight. Hull breach. Lights winked out on the surface of the larger ship and smaller plumes started to appear. What the … was that plasma? Had the magnetic flinger really managed to get that level of energy? At the least, the ship was severely damaged.

  Another ship appeared with a second of the same type next to it, dangerously close to each other. They fired weapons on emergence, missiles of some kind. They streaked out, somehow avoiding the debris, seeking a target. The nearest ships were four Rockhammers, equidistant, and the missiles selected the two closest, streaking forwards despite the small rocks that pinged off them. Both hit, the Rockhammers not even trying to avoid the impacts. The hulls fragmented as the missiles exploded, leaving a rough cube shape behind. Those had been the dummy ships, designed to attract attention while only being a housing for a missile rack. The missiles started to fire, targeting the vessels nearest to the jump point. Before they could arrive, a second set of missiles burst from the two newly emerged greenie ships and turrets started to rise from the hulls of the paired ships where they had been tucked, hidden under the field during the jump. They looked like dual laser turrets, but they would not be ready in time to defend against the incoming missiles. The larger greenie ship fired then, not at the incoming missiles as a human ship might have done but against one of the Rockhammers. It looked to be a pulsed laser and it bit into the ablative material on the port side of the target Rockhammer. The ablative shielding puffed away as it was meant to, but some of the beam was getting through. The targeted ship started to roll, presenting new armour to the laser.

  The captured missile boat, the Foehammer, responded with lasers, seeking out th
e armoured turrets of the big ship while the missiles from the rack closed in on the pair of vessels in the centre. A new ship appeared above the couple, dangerously close. Gregor had never seen such disregard for jump point safety even in battle. The greenies clearly assessed risk very differently. The new ship looked like an armed merchantman, not much different from the Sarafina before its modifications except for the addition of two pop-up turrets, already deploying and carrying four lasers each. Gregor recognised the design. They would fire in a pseudorandom sequence to prevent overheating. They were not warships by any measure, but they were able to fend off attackers in unsafe space. The old Sarafina would have been in trouble, but the new one could handle this. He targeted the ship and threw power into the continuous beam lasers. They wouldn’t fire for long, but they wouldn’t need to.

  The massive ship started to swing despite the damage that it had taken and the raking of the beams from the missile boat. Missile racks began to unfold from the sides, and Gregor realised that it was a similar design to the missile boat that they had captured. That explained how it had survived the first hit, which would have devastated most ships. They had taken the missile boat with a lucky shot last time, and that would be impossible to pull off in the debris field. He gave an order over the general comms channel. “Target the missile boat! The big one, to port!”

  Lasers turned to the bigger ship, but the hull puffed black dust, disrupting the beam and preventing penetration. Two new ships, both controlled by Henk copies, entered the scene, not from the jump point but from behind the fleet, accelerating hard and moving much too fast for safety in the debris field. They looked misshapen and naked with missiles gaping from the central bay. The design was insane for a warship, lacking all defensive abilities, but they were fast. Engines designed to lift cargo gave the modified ship fierce acceleration, and the overclocked rockhound pilot meant that it could use gaps that no-one else would attempt. They barrelled past the other ships of the defence force and closed at lunatic speed, ignoring the dust and gravel but rolling around larger rocks. Independently controlled, they flew almost perfect mirror image courses.