ARMS For Eternity: (Book 8), Page 3

  "They do. But their impression is they aren't overly useful. They believe them to be slow to respond and incapable of anything more than direct-programmed learning. With a couple dozen I could take down that whole command ship. I haven't been impressed by what I've seen so far, but I keep in mind that my take may all be a ruse on their part, just as it is on mine."

  The red-haired regular began to pace back and forth. "I'm having to play fast and loose on this one. I tried to get them to release a few battle recordings to me under the guise of studying the Burrell. They didn't fall for it. When I return, I'll have to push harder. At the moment, their capabilities are nothing but a big dark void."

  "What can we do?"

  Bax stared at the camera. "You volunteering to help?"

  "Not yet. But we can go to Domicile and talk with everyone there. I could mention your plan and see if they have interest."

  "I'm hesitant to do that. I want the Frizoid believing they're in control and not Humans. All it takes is one slip-up and our intentions would be known. I'm certain they have effective interrogation techniques just like everyone else. If we do enlist the help of anyone else, it has to be a tight group and only at the top. The more who know of what we're doing, the more risk we're all at."

  Tawn said, "Had you cooperated from the beginning, we could be sitting on our own massive fleet right now, not answering to anyone."

  Bax huffed. "Your people didn't have the will to do that, which is why Croft was elected. The Emperor of New Earth would have seen to it you never amassed such a fleet. You're still living in a dream-world, Freely. Domers are too dumb to lead themselves. Without someone like me, they just stagnate."

  "You are so full of yourself, Bax. One day I'm—"

  Harris cut in. "OK, we've already been down this road. Bax, I believe your option to be the best we have at the moment. We'll head back to Domicile and float it to the President and a few others. If we're back before you leave, I'll fill you in on their decision."

  Bax crossed her arms and smiled. "All this has been quite the adventure for the three of us. I have to say I admire your tenacity and commitment to our species. Imagine if we were all like that. This galaxy would already be under our control."

  A jump was made to Domicile and a meeting was hastily arranged. Bannis Morgan joined the President, his top military advisor, and the head of the DDI.

  Armstrong leaned forward on his desk. "So Rumford has jammed herself in the middle of it all again. Why should we believe she has our interests at heart?"

  Harris replied, "No way to be certain, sir, but I believe she does. I believe she truly wants us as an independent species—ruled by herself of course, but independent of other species. What I can't say is whether or not her tactics will work. The Frizoid know about the bots, but according to her they think they're rudimentary, only following direct programming."

  "How does she propose to free us of the invaders?"

  "She wants to build up a clandestine fleet, using the resources we could provide. In the meantime, she believes they'll be coming with ships and equipment, wanting to make us their new military force to fight against the Burrell. She hopes to delay our training long enough for us to take control of whatever they give us and to then combine it with whatever she has built. It's a bold strategy, but it has the bones of something that just might work."

  Bannis commented over a comm display. "Just how is it she's going to produce these ships? How are we to provide resources without the bugs knowing what we're doing? I would have to believe they'll have spies on every corner. I would."

  "Those are the issues we'll have to work out. Tawn suggested she set up camp on the planet the Denzee were heading for. It's outside our normal space, Gianus I think, and easily reached by the hop-drives. I think a big shortfall of this strategy is she only has seventy thousand cores to play with. We could provide her with more, but that has its own issues."

  The discussion carried on for most of an hour.

  Harris stood. "This is the gist of it. The Frizoid are coming here. We can either surrender to them or work a surrender with Baxter Rumford. With her, we at least have a middleman to run interference. If the Frizoid come here directly, they'll fill all oversight positions with their own people and direct us on exactly what they want us to do and how. The alternative at least gives us some possible leeway."

  Armstrong rapped his knuckles on his desktop. "Gentlemen, Miss Freely, I believe we are all thinking the same thing. The logical choice is to go along with Miss Rumford. We know her long term strategy, and if needed we can deal with that when the time comes. For now, I don't see that we have a better choice. Is anyone in opposition to a Rumford negotiated deal?"

  No one offered a reply.

  "Good. Mr. Gruberg, you have your consensus."

  "Can't say I'm comfortable with this either way, Mr. President. Could go wrong on so many levels. But I believe it to be our best option at the moment."

  The Bangor rocketed up through the sky. Twenty minutes later, they slowed to a stop in the far system.

  Tawn shook her head. "Where is she? She double-cross us already?"

  A general comm channel opened. "Goober, Slug… if you haven't guessed by now, this is a recording. I've decided to opt out. I'm leaving the boson field with my bots. If I'm able to build a suitable force to free you all, I'll return. If not... I guess that scenario doesn't matter. Unfortunately for the two of you, this means the current situation falls squarely on your shoulders. Hope it works out. Best of luck."

  The comm closed.

  "So she ditched us. What a skank."

  Harris sighed. "Looks that way. Don't think she felt confident about running interference. Can't say I blame her. This is exactly what you said you'd do under these conditions."

  "It is. And I would have."

  Harris turned the Bangor around and punched in jump coordinates.

  "Where we going?"

  "Domicile. We have less than ten hours to get everything we can grab and take it to Midelon. I would say that includes the Biomarines, Mr. Morgan, and the rest of our team. And as much raw materials as can be moved."

  Once in comm range, the new situation was relayed. Four hours later, the first of the ships lifted off on its way to Midelon. It contained Bannis Morgan, his top engineers and scientists, enough MREs to last a thousand people for a year, and the bulk of the processed material that was set for gamma missile production.

  An hour later, the captured Burrell transport jumped through a wormhole opened by the Bangor. It carried all forty-one hundred and fifty-six Biomarines, including those who were still recovering from the fights on Helm and at the Retreat. Following the Biomarines was a seemingly endless stream of freighters carrying the raw materials needed to produce half a million bot workers and fifty thousand Banshees.

  The mass move continued until word came from a scout ship that the Frizoid fleet was on the move. The last of the loaded freighters lifted off from Domicile's surface. Those that had just returned were sent back to their respective home ports. Production and evidence of any tech that was to be held back from the Frizoid was purged from records and equipment was destroyed. Two hours after the fleet move began, the Frizoid arrived above Domicile. Harris and Tawn watched quietly from the stealthy Bangor.

  Tawn took in a deep breath. "Wow. Can't say I like what I'm seeing."

  "The DDI has gone underground. We have access to all the networks and systems, so we can keep tabs on what's going on. Everything else will appear to be normal."

  "Eventually they'll be asking questions, such as: who occupied the Retreat? It's abandoned right now. And with a little nosing around, they'll be asking about stockpiles of materials. What were we building? How did Bax defeat the Burrell? They'll want to know everything about us, so they can fully control us."

  Harris nodded. "Same questions we'd have. I think we did a good job of moving what we did to Midelon. By itself it won't be enough to take this sector back, but it will give us options. Maybe
we'll be able to resurrect the divide and conquer strategy. Or maybe the Burrell will show before they have our people equipped and trained. Anything we throw out at the moment is pure speculation."

  A general comm was opened from the surface to the incoming fleet. The same four diplomats who had negotiated with Baxter Rumford sat at a table on one side of the split screen display. The President, anchored by his chief of staff and two military representatives, sat at a table on the other side.

  The ranking diplomat spoke first. "Humans, the Communion has come to free you of the burden of the Burrell. You are defenseless and weak. We will make you strong. We will give you a path to earn a position as citizens of the Communion. Your full cooperation with our efforts is imperative to your survival."

  Armstrong replied, "As a representative of the people, am I understanding the situation correctly? The Frizoid are assuming control of the worlds in this sector? And if so, you will be providing us with the means to protect ourselves?"

  "You are now subjects of the Communion. Our efforts here will be to bolster your fighting capability so the Burrell can be defended against. If we have your full cooperation in that effort, you will move from subjects to pledges. As pledges you may earn the eventual right to become citizens.

  "As to your question about assuming control. Yes. These are now Communion systems and Communion space. As subjects, you will follow our every command. Any resistance to full cooperation will be met with swift and sure measures to ensure that resistance does not continue."

  Armstrong slightly bowed. "You will have our full cooperation. I will send word of our new governmental status to all colonies. What can we expect in the coming days and weeks?"

  "You will be asked to continue with your daily lives. Teams of auditors will deploy in the coming days. All questions must be answered fully. Any resistance, delay, or perceived deception will be dealt with in a manner that should dissuade further issues. Welcome these auditors and openly answer their questions and Humans will be treated with dignity and respect."

  The discussion continued for more than an hour. A delegation of two of the diplomats was dispatched, along with fifty thousand Frizoid Marines. The presidential estate and the surrounding properties were soon flooded with troops. All non-essential Humans were told to go home.

  Tawn and Harris continued to watch Armstrong and his cohort on a secure channel connected to the estate cameras.

  "You see the network control room?" Tawn asked. "Those don't look like auditors. Those are techs. I bet we lose our privileges within the hour."

  "Maybe not. These are DDI channels."

  The comm display went black on all sections. Seconds later, the channels closed.

  Tawn chuckled. "You have to owe me something for that call."

  "I think we have a good idea for what's coming in the next few days. The bugs will poke and sniff at anything that moves. I have to wonder what options the DDI actually have. Last I knew, our sensors would pick up bios down to half a kilometer."

  Tawn pointed. "Half that fleet just broke orbit and is descending."

  "Asserting full control, I'd say. Don't think there's much else we can do here. Back to Midelon?"

  "Yep. We have plenty there to keep us busy. Should we drop a probe out here?"

  Harris returned a half scowl. "Would rather not tell them they're being observed."

  "What happens when they try to come to Midelon and can't make it?"

  "That's where Armstrong and the others will get hammered with questions. They know more than we want them to, but not enough to cause us issue."

  The Bangor silently sped out of sensor range before slipping through a wormhole.

  As they dropped through the Midelon atmosphere, Tawn shook her head as she looked over the display. "Hardly any grass left down there for the bogler."

  "Crowded for sure. You ready to turn out some bots?"

  "As many as we can build. Look. They already have the grounds cleared for the colonel and the Bios."

  "Hopefully we have a full assessment of what we can manage food-wise. That small herd won't sustain four thousand slugs and stumps."

  Tawn chuckled. "Gandy has to be scrambling about now. Hope he knows feeding everyone isn't his responsibility."

  The Bangor landed to Gandy standing with his arms crossed. "They piled stuff up on one of my gardens."

  "We'll survive." Harris hopped out of the hatch. "How goes the organizing?"

  "Mr. Morgan is running everything. His scientists and engineers have taken over the first floor of the bunker. They're using Idiot as a recorder for their ideas and have been blown away by how fast he turned out designs. Aside from constructing housing for the Bios, the bots are busy working on ramping up bot body production. We can still produce a thousand processor cores a day, so we have plenty for when bodies become available."

  Tawn asked, "How many bots we have?"

  "Around twenty-six hundred. Mr. Morgan thinks we'll break ten thousand in two weeks and another ten the week after. Should be over a hundred thousand in about two months, if everything goes the way it should."

  "This island is gonna get crowded."

  "It's already crowded. We're looking at either building a floating city or moving some of the production up to the moon. The bots won't care."

  The group walked into the lab, where Alexander Gaerten was fast at work on a new project.

  Harris asked, "What are we working on?"

  "I've been studying the Burrell hop drive."

  "Think you can speed it up? Longer jumps maybe?"

  "That's precisely what I'm investigating. If the boson generator functions as I think it does, I hope to utilize the directional capabilities of the gamma bomb to focus that field in a single direction."

  "Isn't the nuclear explosion what fuels that directional capability?"

  "It is. And my intention is to use that in combination with the boson field."

  "So we'll have to set off a bomb to make a jump?"

  "Possibly. But imagine that jump being a hundred light-years distance jumped all at once. With such a method available to us, we could reach the Burrell worlds in minutes."

  Harris chuckled. "And why would we want to do that?"

  "Perhaps a preemptive strike to dissuade an attack?"

  "When did you go militaristic on us, Doc?"

  "I'm certain that would not be the only use for such. Imagine also only being minutes away from traveling to Earth."

  Harris glanced up at the ceiling in thought. "Now that one I could see as being huge. If habitable, we could move our entire population there. Would be too far for the Frizoid or Burrell to bother us for quite some time."

  Tawn scowled. "I wouldn't bet on that. Remember, it was the Burrell who brought us here in the first place. They've been to Earth. They can go there again."

  "With the hop-drives, yes. I don't think they have whatever they used to reach that far before available to them now. At least they indicated as much."

  "Doc, you think this is something you could actually get working?"

  "I believe it's possible, yes."

  Harris nodded. "Amazing. Oh, and I wanted to make a comment about Farker. He's been talking more of late and it would seem he's making a lot of very relevant and timely suggestions. The other bots don't do that. What makes him special?"

  Alex turned. "His new core. I modified his programming not long before your mission to Helm. I made use of Idiot to work a few of the programmed updates into his hardware upon the rebuild afterward. I wasn't certain of how those updates would affect his reasoning circuits. Is the difference pronounced?"

  Tawn laughed. "Very. We're talking suggestions for solutions without any prompt."

  "Interesting. Those changes were intended to test out hardware restrictions for the bots so we wouldn't have another Baxter Rumford theft. And you say these suggestions are unprompted?"

  "Out of the blue."

  Alex looked at the mechanical pet as it sat on its haunches behind Ha
rris. "Farker? What do you have to say for yourself?"

  "The situation was dire. I merely offered what seemed to be a logical choice."

  Alex sat silent for several seconds. "Hmm. This requires further study."

  "Have at him, Doc. We should be here for a while."

  — Chapter 4 —

  * * *

  Harris opened a comm to Idiot. "Any sign of Bax since New Earth?"

  "I'm sorry, sir. She has not shown in boson space on any scan. It is possible she was able to determine our method of tracking her. The adjustments required to negate that method are easily implemented."

  "No. I don't think she has the smarts for that. Nor do her bots. She's either parked in empty space or she headed out to that Denzee planet."

  "In the navmaps recovered from the Grindle, the planet was designated as Gianus V. As is customary, it is referred to as Gianus."

  "I know. How far a journey with the hop-drives?"

  "Just over a day."

  "That's it? That doesn't offer much of a buffer. Can we fit one of our Banshees with a mast and send it out for a recon?"

  "We can."

  "Make that a priority task. I want to know if she's there. If so, we can make regular runs out to check on her progress. Heck, we may even be able to assist her with the buildup. Between both of our forces, we might actually be able to beat the Frizoid fleet."

  Tawn shook her head. "While she would fully accept any assistance for a buildup, when it comes to a fight she'll withhold her force until ours is weakened to the point she could defeat us afterward."

  "So you're saying we shouldn't help?"

  "I'm saying that exactly. If there's any chance it detracts from our own production or advantage, why would we put effort there? Priority one should be taking back this sector and leaving us in control."

  Harris chuckled. "I'm not arguing with that. But what if we can't accomplish that on our own?"

  "Don't think this argument is winnable by either of us. We haven't fought the Frizoid and have no idea of what size fleet we'll need to defeat them... if we can do it at all."