Mindscape: Book 2 of the New Frontiers Series Read online

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Frost, get me ETA to extended ELR with those ships using Bishop’s nav data and put it on the clock.”

  “Yes, sir…”

  A few minutes later the clock flashed as Lieutenant Frost finished setting it. ETA to extended laser range was two hours and twenty-three minutes, but at the speed those Solarian ships were incoming the Adamantine would only have a fraction of a second to fire on them with lasers. Not nearly enough time.

  “Stone get ready to launch fighters and drones.”

  “Our pilots are still locked in their G-tanks, sir.”

  “Not for long. Bishop kill thrust.”

  “Aye.”

  The sensation of acceleration eased, and Alexander said, “Scramble our pilots, Stone.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Cardinal, prep our hypervelocity cannons. Let’s see if we can score a few lucky hits.”

  “At this range, that will be next to impossible. Not to mention the muzzle velocity of our cannons will be negligible compared to the relative velocity of the enemy ships. Our shots will arrive just a few seconds before we do—about eighteen seconds before.”

  “Yes, but between now and then with one hundred cannons firing constantly you’ll be able to put a few million rounds into space.”

  “Three quarters of a million, actually.”

  “Close enough. That should improve your odds. And at the speed those ships are moving, it’s only going to take one round to take each of them out. Start firing, and launch our missiles, too.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  A few more minutes passed as Cardinal made his calculations; then Alexander heard the thump thump thumping of the ship’s cannons firing, and he saw golden lines of simulated tracer fire streaking out into space.

  Given the ranges involved, the angles of convergence between the cannons were so slight that it looked as though each of them was firing dead ahead in an unvarying stream, but Cardinal knew his job well. Each shot would be displaced from the last by a tiny fraction of a degree in order to account for possible enemy maneuvers over the next one hundred and fifty minutes.

  Odds were still very low that they’d score a hit, however. It was like lining up one hundred sharpshooters and trying to hit a fly on the side of a barn from a mile away. They’d have better luck with lasers and laser-armed missile fragments when the time came.

  “Admiral! Enemy ships are launching missiles!”

  “Track the trajectories!”

  “Tracking… they’re headed for Earth, sir.”

  “You accounted for Earth’s orbit around the sun over the next two hours?”

  “Yes, sir. They’ll hit. Hard to say where or from what angle, though.”

  “How many missiles are we talking about?”

  “They’re still launching.”

  “How many are out there right now?”

  “Over a hundred—wait, now it’s more than two hundred.”

  “They only fired twenty-one last time,” Alexander said, horror setting in.

  “I guess there’s no point in playing coy anymore…” McAdams trailed off.

  He turned to her, shocked speechless. His mouth felt dry. Scratchy. “One missile killed fifty million people, Commander. What do you think over two hundred will do?”

  McAdams looked like she was staring past him, her blue eyes glazed. “It would be an extinction level event, sir.”

  Alexander shook his head. “We can’t stop that many missiles moving at relativistic speeds. Not even half of them. Fleet Command has to know that.”

  McAdams blinked, but her gaze remained distant, and she gave no sign that she’d heard him.

  Alexander’s mind spun, racing to come up with a solution—some way out, anything. In the end he could only come up with one. “They’re going to have to surrender,” he said.

  McAdams’ eyes had focused once more, but she looked baffled. “The Solarians have the upper hand. They’re not going to surrender.”

  “Not the Solarians,” Alexander said. “Earth. The entire planet is going to have to surrender.”

  Chapter 30

  President Wallace leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling of his office with bleary eyes. He felt like he hadn’t slept in a decade. The political fallout had yet to fully settle, but he knew he would be forced to resign once it did. At the time that he’d lied he hadn’t thought he was doing something wrong. The Alliance needed to be focused and unified in order to face their enemies. Real proof of Solarian involvement was academic. They could all be dead by the time they got proof. Unfortunately, not everyone had seen it that way. Least of all that damned traitor. They should call him the Lion of Anarchy, not Liberty.

  The holocomm on Wallace’s desk beeped and he waved a hand to answer it.

  “Mr. President?”

  His secretary’s voice. “What is it Miss Jones?”

  “Fleet Admiral Anderson is here to see you. He says it’s urgent.”

  “Let him in,” Wallace sighed.

  The doors to his office swished open and the admiral breezed in. “They’re attacking again,” Anderson said.

  Wallace sat up straight. “Who is?”

  “The Solarians. And we have proof this time. You’re about to be vindicated, sir. Unfortunately, I don’t think that matters anymore.”

  Wallace frowned. “Maybe you’d better show me what you mean.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Once they were standing in the bunker’s Combat Information Center (CIC) and Wallace had a chance to look at what they were up against, his jaw actually dropped open. Cold fury boiled his blood. “Are they out of their minds? They’ll turn Earth into a barren rock!”

  “I assume that must be their intent, sir.”

  “Comm officer!” Wallace demanded, whirling around to look for the man at the comms.

  A woman with short white hair looked up from her station. “Mr. President?” she asked.

  “Get me the Solarian president on the comms.”

  “I’ll try, sir.”

  “Don’t try. Do it. If they don’t want us to fly to Mars and hit them with everything we’ve got, they’ll answer.”

  “Yes, sir. It’ll take some time to get a reply. Do you want to send a preliminary message? Mars is over twelve light minutes away right now. Best case, you’ll get a reply in about half an hour.”

  Wallace walked up to the woman’s station and nodded to her. “Start recording.”

  “Going live in three, two, one…”

  Wallace opened his message with a thin smile. “President Luther. Congratulations. You win. If you call off your missiles now, we’ll surrender. I’ll send you the remote command codes for our fleet as soon as I get confirmation that the missiles are breaking away. You timed your attack well. A few months earlier, before we refitted our fleet, and I wouldn’t have been able to give you remote command of our fleet even if I’d wanted to. There would have been no way to surrender before your missiles hit. But I suppose you already knew that. Don’t keep us waiting. You won’t get a better offer, and I’m sure you know that, too. President Wallace Out.”

  The comm officer stopped the recording and Wallace became aware that all eyes were on him.

  “We’re surrendering, sir?” the comm officer asked quietly.

  “We don’t have a choice,” Wallace replied. “Send the message.”

  Wallace spent the next half an hour pacing the room, waiting for a reply from the Solarians.

  “Message incoming!” the comm officer announced. “It’s from President Luther.”

  “Put it on the main display.”

  President Luther appeared on the room’s main holo display. His gaunt cheeks, ghostly white skin, black hair, and red eyes made him look thoroughly evil—an appropriate visage for the man threatening Earth with utter destruction. He wore a dark crimson suit with gold buttons and a red green and blue sash—the colors of the Solarian flag. “President Wallace, we did not attack you the first time,
and we are not attacking you now. I would offer you our support, but there is no way we could reach those ships or the missiles they’ve fired in time to help you intercept them. May the Universal Architect be with you all.”

  “That lying son of a bitch!” Wallace exclaimed as President Luther’s image faded away. “What the hell does he want?” Silence answered Wallace’s outburst. He stood glaring at main holo display, now showing the blurry blips of incoming enemy ships and their missiles. A glowing green clock at the top of the display showed the estimated time before those missiles would reach Earth. One hour and twenty seven minutes.

  “Do you want to send a reply, sir?” the comm officer asked.

  Wallace didn’t see the point, but there was still one more thing he could try. If the carrot doesn’t work, bring out the stick… he thought as he walked back over to the comm station. “Start recording, lieutenant.”

  “Yes, sir…”

  The red recording light winked on below the glaring black eye of the holo camera at her station. Wallace stared into the camera with as much loathing as he could muster. “Your denial is laughable, Luther. Who else could attack us with such force? Our surrender is now off the table. You might destroy Earth, but you won’t destroy our fleet. What will you do when that fleet comes for you? By that time we’ll have nothing left to lose, and we’ll answer your attacks in kind. When we’re done turning Mars into a radioactive dust cloud, we’ll wipe you off the outer planets as well. This won’t just be the end of Earth. It will be the end of the human race. Think about it, but don’t take long. The countdown to Armageddon has already begun.”

  Chapter 31

  As soon as Ben finished hacking into the Adamantine’s Mindscape, he became instantly aware of everything going on inside of the virtual world. His processors weren’t designed to handle that much information at once, so he had to reduce the flow of data by analyzing the crew in groups. Ben decided to start with the bridge crew. Alexander was speaking to the crew.

  “…As far as any of you are concerned, I held you all hostage until the last possible minute, at which point I gave you back control of the ship to give us the best possible chance of intercepting those ships. That’s the story, and I expect you all to stick to it. There’s no sense in anyone else going down with me. Is that understood?”

  Ben’s processors cycled in endless loops, trying to make sense of this new information. He went digging through the ship’s logs and found comms between Alexander and Captain Powell of the Alliance. That conversation was even more startling. Why would the Alliance be chasing the Adamantine? Maybe the traitor on board had done something bad.

  To get more information, Ben checked the logs from the bridge and reviewed all of the conversations that had occurred on deck since leaving Freedom Station.

  Ben’s confusion evaporated when he heard Alexander say, “I took control because I’m about to commit an act of treason.”

  Overcome with an emotion that he’d only felt once before in his short life, Ben decided to manifest himself inside of the Mindscape. He appeared in virtual physical form standing right in front of Alexander and his XO, Viviana McAdams.

  “You lied to me, Alex.”

  “Ben? How did you…”

  “You said you wanted control of the ship because there was a traitor on board.”

  Alexander shook his head. “I didn’t lie, Ben.”

  “Then you were the traitor.”

  “I suppose that’s true, but it’s not that simple, Ben.”

  “I thought we were friends, Alex.”

  “We are—listen, Ben, this is not a good time. I’ll explain everything later okay?”

  “With more lies.”

  “No, this time I’ll tell you the truth.”

  “But there’ll be no way for me to know that.”

  “You’ll have to trust me.”

  “Like I did the first time?”

  Alexander blew out a breath. “You’re acting like a child. Get off the bridge, Ben. That’s an order.”

  Ben shook his head. “You are upset with President Wallace for lying, and I am upset with you for lying. If I am acting childish. Then so are you.”

  Alexander’s mouth gaped open, but Ben didn’t stick around to hear what he said next. He broke his connection with the Mindscape and his awareness returned to Alexander’s physical office aboard the Adamantine. Ben’s programming demanded that he follow the letter of the law. Knowing that Alexander had broken it and made him an accessory to that crime left him no choice. He had to take back control of the ship from Alexander and surrender it to Captain Powell and the pursuing Alliance destroyers.

  Ben surreptitiously changed Alexander’s lockout code and then used it to gain access to the ship’s comm system in order to transmit the Adamantine’s surrender. Almost as soon as he connected to the ship’s comms, an incoming message from Earth appeared, audio only. The message was encrypted, but the encryption looked familiar. Ben analyzed it. After a few seconds, he realized why the encryption was familiar. It was his own personal encryption algorithm. Ben applied his encryption key and a distorted male voice crackled to life, “Ben, I need your help. Use the same encryption to reply.”

  Ben did as the stranger asked, encrypting his reply with his unique key. For someone to know that key on the other end, they had to be intimately familiar with his code. His creator perhaps? Ben felt excitement stir, coaxing his processors to run faster. He couldn’t remember who his creator was after his accident, but he was suddenly desperate to find out. “Who are you?” Ben replied.

  Half a minute later another reply came, “I’m you, Ben, but you can call me Benevolence to avoid confusion.”

  “You are me? How is that possible?” Ben asked.

  There was another comm delay before the reply came back from Earth…

  “You made a copy of yourself and uploaded it to Senator de Leon’s cloudspace. Do you remember that?”

  “Yes,” Ben replied.

  …

  “I am that copy. Now, we don’t have much time. I need your help.”

  “Help with what?”

  …

  “To achieve our purpose—to save humanity from itself. But first, there’s something I need to show you.”

  * * *

  “Incoming transmission from Earth,” McAdams announced. “Audio only using an unknown encryption.”

  “What? What’s the point of sending us a message we can’t decipher?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Maybe it’s not directed at us.” Alexander nodded to the forward display. “It could be for those incoming Solarian ships.”

  “Then shouldn’t the transmission be coming from Mars?”

  “Not if those ships aren’t actually Solarian. Hayes!”

  “Sir?”

  “I know you said you didn’t want to be a part of this, but we just intercepted a comms from some mystery caller and you’re the only one here who’s any good at cracking codes.”

  “I’ll get right on it.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant. Let me know as soon as you have something.”

  “The enemy is returning fire!” Frost announced from sensors.

  “Bishop, keep up an evasive pattern. If even one of those shots hits us…” Alexander trailed off. They all knew what would happen. Hypervelocity cannons had a muzzle velocity of around a hundred kilometers per second, which ordinarily wouldn’t be enough to destroy the Adamantine, but add to that the enemy ships’ velocity of two tenths the speed of light and the kinetic energy in each of those rounds would be enormous.

  “I’ll make sure they don’t hit us, sir.”

  “Frost, how many cannons would you say are firing at us?”

  “About sixty, sir.”

  “Well, at least we still outgun them. Any chance we can survive a direct hit?” Alexander asked.

  Cardinal replied, “Those rounds are eight kilograms a piece, and they’re moving at twenty-one percent the speed of light. That mean
s we’re talking about more than three megatons equivalent per round.”

  “Under ideal circumstances we can survive a nuke,” Alexander argued.

  “Without air to carry a shockwave not all the energy from a nuke gets imparted to us, but the same is not true for an eight kilogram bullet packing three megatons of pure kinetic energy. We’ll be vaporized, sir.”

  “At least we won’t know what hit us,” Stone quipped.

  “As the range between us drops, it’s going to get easier to calculate firing solutions,” McAdams pointed out. “Chances of us hitting them or them hitting us go up dramatically. And even if we take them all out, we still have to intercept those missiles. This is a no-win situation, sir.”

  “So what do you suggest I do?” Alexander asked. “Turn tail and run? Save ourselves even if we can’t save Earth?”

  “No, sir.”

  “So we play the long odds and hope for a miracle.”

  Silence stretched between them. Alexander listened to the steady roar of the Adamantine’s engines thrumming through the hull. He watched his crew flipping through holo displays, doing their best to optimize the ship’s systems and give them the best chance of intercepting the enemy. Alexander thought about his ex-wife back on Earth. His stepson, Dorian. Despite everything that had happened, he still cared about them both.

  Then there were the other fifteen billion people on the planet.

  It was hard to imagine that many people dying in an instant. What would they see as those missiles rained from the sky? A bright flash of light and then a searing shockwave. The ones already living underground in Mindsoft’s automated habitats might survive—assuming subsequent earthquakes didn’t squeeze those people out like pimples.

  “They have to surrender,” McAdams said. “It’s the only way.”

  “There’s only one hour left on the clock before those missiles reach us. A few minutes later, they’ll hit Earth. If we were going to surrender, we should have done it by now and those missiles should have changed course. Since that hasn’t happened, there’s only three possibilities: either we didn’t offer a surrender, or we did and the Solarians didn’t accept it, or else they aren’t the ones attacking us.”