Founding of the Federation 3: The First AI War (105 page)

Lieutenant Khan wasn't thrilled about the operation tempo, nor his newest sergeant. Baloo was far older than he was, but he was also obviously a character. The brass had assigned the bear to him to be the voice of experience, which was one of the reasons he'd put up with the bear and his antics. But if he called him Khanny baby one more time ….

Baloo's counterpart and next in line behind him as senior-most noncom was Loi, a Sumatran Orangutan. Apparently the two noncoms knew each other, though Khan wasn't certain how or why. Not that it mattered. Their ribaldry helped morale. Baloo's stories and laid-back attitude helped ease some of the nervous members of their unit.

Once the leash came off, Khan swung his people into action. They launched their assault at midnight. It was a distraction, a holding action designed as a series of distractions to cover a series of intelligence gathering efforts.

Gia had sent down a specially designed clone to infiltrate and trace the command and control networks of the enemy A.I. to their new bases. During the process she found manufacturing A.I. on the continent had built new control centers and underground small machine shops to generate parts.

The brass forwarded a memo on the results of her scan as well as the assertion that some of the other suborned A.I. like Ares had also done similar projects, so they were to be on the lookout.

<>V<>

A week after the surge, Pavilion landed one of their own shuttles at the Bangui spaceport in what had once been the Central African Republic. Work crews unloaded from the craft, then drafted volunteers to help unload the first carbon air scrubbers. A second shuttle dropped a small microwave receiver since power was unavailable.

The carbon air scrubbers were an update on a nearly two-century-old design. The process worked much like electrolysis, but instead of water the electrodes were inserted in molten lithium oxide and lithium carbonate.

Giant fans sucked in the air, and the compounds pulled the Co2 from it, effectively scrubbing it from the air. There the carbon was extracted to form carbon products like carbon nanofiber.

Pavilion set up the demonstration project with the local leaders. The carbon nanofiber was useful for industrial and medical applications. It was a first tentative start on rebuilding Earth's manufacturing while also providing surplus power to the slowly rebuilding power grid.

The process wasn't without its bugs, however. There were no power satellites left in orbit so power could only be received when the receiver was aligned to the transmitters out in deep space. Which meant they only provided power for a few hours a day. Pavilion promised relay stations to provide power, but they were backlogged with other projects.

Still, it was a start, one noted by the people of Earth as well as some of the spacers. Pavilion was taking an unwanted product, something that needed to be removed from the air anyway and turning it into something useful. It was granted that the first items made from the material were in support of the war effort.

Feeding the carbon plants with the trapped carbon Radick Industries had managed to create a massive surplus of carbon nanofiber material, far more than the small spinners were capable of handling. Orders were placed to make larger machinery, as well as alternative power plants.

During the process of bringing the plant online, the news of it brought some people out with ideas of their own. Small businesses started to crop up. Barter was the only means of commerce, however. The freed zones had no electronics for credits, and the small amounts of cash left weren't worth the plastic and paper they were printed on.

The Marines had picked up or run into some shell-shocked survivor community leaders over the past several months. A few wished to evacuate to space in order to talk with the ruling committee and lay out their viewpoint. None wanted to be left in the dark, out of control of their own destiny.

Some wanted an opportunity to demand justice and to demand an accounting on why it had taken so long to liberate them. Others insisted on remaining to coordinate their own people. Elliot was torn on which he preferred. Eventually he gave up such musings as a waste of time. Let the politicians deal with each other. He and the other soldiers had a war to fight.

General Elliot was put in command of 2nd Corps. General Caesar remained in command of 1st though he tended to dip into Elliot's command from time to time. Getting a command of so many troops was an eye-opening experience for Elliot. He was buried in paperwork almost from the start, while also trying to direct his various forces. He had no time to learn about his officers or noncoms, nor time to make sure of their training. Olympus threw them into combat within days of their arrival.

He did manage to cherry-pick some of his Neo officers and enlisted to fill in some of the gaps in the chain of command. He didn't like the idea of just selecting Neos, but that was the restriction imposed by the brass. The rest of his former unit was sent behind the lines to rest and rebuild while he took the new unit in to leapfrog and spread out across the landscape like wildfire.

<>V<>

Skynet found the latest surge as detrimental to its mission mandate but had no answer to them. They were determined and powerful, more powerful than basic humans. It's coding specified killing humans as priority one, so often units hesitated to open fire on the new Neo species. A patch was written to handle the bug, but due to the intermittent communications, the patch wasn't distributed in a timely manner. That was suboptimal.

The new force moved like lightning, striking and clearing out territory, then moving on. They rarely lingered in an area once it was cleared of all electronics.

Aircraft had been dispatched to fly over the area as well, knocking down any aerial drones the A.I. put up. They also deployed sensors to search for electronics. Transmissions became hazardous to a unit's health.

It took twenty-two hours and three minutes before the A.I. noted the airborne units were also deploying ground sensors as well as wire magnetic resonance scanning to pinpoint structures and robots, even those buried or under water.

SAM units were moved in to take the craft out but gunships were deployed as a counter. Skynet saw the entire situation unraveling out of its control without a means to reverse it.

<>V<>

Selkies, otters, and even a few dolphins were sent out in the waterways and coastlines to map the waters, islands, and beaches. The selkie Neo species had been broadened into sea lions, seals, walrus, and even elephant seals some time ago during Gentek's deal with Pavilion's starship department. They went in groups to map, then returned to a ship in the ocean to resupply and report.

Some brought back stories of encounters with sharks and other predators. That was a problem; sharks like great whites preyed on the seals. Their bioform made them targets. Since they were naked and unarmed to keep Skynet from recognizing them as a threat, they had to work in teams to watch out for attacks from the predators. Several selkie were injured by the jaws from the deep and a half a dozen never returned from their scouting trips.

Neos did their best fighting in the first two weeks because they were ignored by the surviving A.I. and Skynet AI virus. Both had been programmed to kill humans first. They were also taking advantage of the narrow window after the EMP strike, taking out as much of the A.I.'s units and infrastructure as possible as they attempted to recover.

There were, however, problems with politics. General Murtough hadn't been happy about how independent the Neo units were. Their insistence on having their own units and their own chain of command was troubling.

It was also a potential problem. The forces weren't well balanced; many of the units were of one species. That spoke of racism to some. The demand for more human oversight and pairing was raised once the media was allowed to cover the Neo landing.

General Elliot and Caesar were caught in the crossfire. They were constantly distracted by harassing calls from the Lagrange points, some from committee members demanding their instant attention at the most inopportune moments. “It's like I can't take a crap without someone calling and wanting attention,” Elliot grumbled to Charlie. Charlie shook his head but he didn't have much sympathy. He was getting the same annoying treatment.

“It's like they don't trust us. We apes have been around for decades. Nearly what, a century or more? Yet they treat us like we're … children,” Elliot spat.

“They'll learn. Success will show them the way.”

“Right. If we screw up though …”

“A thousand ‘attaboys’ is whipped out by one good ‘oh shit.’ The trick is, to not have any of the ‘oh shits.’” Charlie replied, lips curving in a smile as he said that.

“Constipated I am not, nor do I wish to be. Thanks though,” Elliot retorted.

<>V<>

When additional forces began to arrive at Olympus, Jack Lagroose found out that other corporations had worked on their own Neo projects. That included the Indians and the Chinese. Many had cut corners. A few had altered human volunteers into animal species. One of the Chinese corporations had enhanced many animals but had not done as well as Doctor Glass. A surpesticious check of their genetics and a comparison to the latest generation from Doctor Glass showed them that the Neos had been copied from older generations. The term cheap Chinese knockoff was acidly brooded about in emails for several days.

Apparently Pavilion had supplemented and eventually replaced their Selkie helmsman through another means. They had found out that alterations to young human subjects allowed them to pilot ships. Most of the alterations were cloned tissue grafts to the inner ear and brain to allow them to function at a higher level than normal humans.

Through trade of resources, Lagroose learned that Pavilion and Star Reach had extended the range of their starship's sensors and cycled their people every two hours to keep their ships in hyperspace and in competition with Lagroose Industries. The long-range sensors and modified sensors would come in handy with all of the starship operators and builders.

He was curious as to what the competition had learned from him. Obviously a lot, but how much they would be able to implement and on what schedule remained to be seen. It definitely meant he would have to rethink the future he had projected for his company.

<>V<>

Since General Choji had Mars and the training camps under control, Roman took the opportunity to tour the front. He wanted firsthand experience to pass back to Choji and the DIs. He also wanted a look at the Neos to see what worked and what obviously wasn't.

Behind the lines things were slowly returning to normal. It was at a reduced level, in many cases almost medieval. Some communities flatout refused electricity at all. They were the most impoverished in their region.

Power was coming back online in other areas. There was a large reliance on beamed power from space. Cottage industries had also cropped up as well as some farming. He was glad to see that. He was less glad to see some members of the first army taking advantage of the natives or selling off bits of robots to the medics and support personnel as souvenirs. That instantly frightened him.

“We need to not only stop this crap, but we need to scan every piece of hardware. Everyone who's gone up has to be checked and rechecked. Their luggage, all of it. We can't afford one microchip to get to space. If it does …,” Roman snarled in a hastily called conference with Olympus and the theater commanders.

“Agreed,” Isaac rumbled. “I knew security had a few import incidents. I bet there were more; they probably looked the other way. I'll have to make an announcement and then land on them hard.”

“Agreed. Penalties for bringing this shit up. They should
know
better, damn it!” Roman snarled.

“Agreed. But people are people, they are stupid, greedy, idiots,” Elliot said. That earned a snort from Isaac. “I'll also have a talk with my officers. Shit will run downhill. Any ideas on penalties?”

“The harshest imaginable I suppose,” Isaac said. “Especially if anything gets hooked up.”

“You're talking about the death penalty,” Charlie said in dismay. “Shouldn't that be talked about in committee?”

“They will take forever. We need an answer now. I'll forward it to them of course, but for now, I'm imposing it. We need to get a handle on this. Ignorance only gets you so far. We'll give them two days for it to filter through. Anyone caught in the meantime has a grace period. Anyone who steps up and hands the crap over or tells us where it is, we'll give them a warning and a pass. But that's it,” Isaac said. “If this shit does get up here and is sitting on some idiot's trophy locker, then it can easily spread the virus. That would mean death for us. Possibly for everyone.”

“Frack,” Charlie muttered.

“I'm going to check a few more things out. Visit the front like I planned, but I think we need to land on this feet first. I'll cut my trip short and handle the security end if I have to.”

“Spot-check that on your end, Roman,” Isaac said. “Go play tourist; I've been looking forward to your report.”

“Joy, an inspection,” Elliot grumbled. “Like I have time to shine shoes and crap.”

“If they aren't paying attention to the basics, then they aren't paying attention in combat. And you know what that means. It can cost lives,” General Murtough said coldly.