Founding of the Federation 3: The First AI War (106 page)

“Yes, sir. When we have time to catch up, we do. But we're fighting a war here,
sir
; we need to get the job done.”

“He means we need to get back to work sir,” Charlie interposed before Elliot lost anymore of his temper. “No disrespect intended,” he said, in a pointed tone.

“No sir,” Elliot said through gritted teeth.

“Get it done then. Olympus six out,” Isaac said.

Chapter 43

January 2203

Field Army 2 kicked off the next phase with the invasion of Europe. Forces were air lifted or moved by water across various points to keep the A.I. off balance. One division went across the strait of Gibraltar while a second went across to Italy. A third was scattered about in brigades on each of the major islands of the Mediterranean.

Corps 2 moved through the Middle East, leap frogging General Elliot's Corps 2. Newly-promoted Brigadier General Sinclair merely smiled to the chimp as her forces moved through his and swept onward. They linked up with small communities that had survived the apocalypse as they spread out to sweep up the remaining robotic resistance.

The Middle East had been one of the harshest hit during the initial stages of the war, and with most of the area starting off as a desert, they had been one of the harshest to survive during the past three years. Not many people had been able to do so; the lands just couldn't support them. Many had fled the rampaging robots only to die of exposure or hunger in the desert. Some had wandered back to cratered cities only to be exposed to unseen radiation. They died as cancers consumed them from the inside out. It had been a brutal winnowing. When the human general saw the bodies and heard reports of the carnage, she didn't smile for long.

<>V<>

Skynet was sent reeling from damage. It was clear now that there was no way to stop the organics; the EMPs and orbital bombardment had taken too much out of the A.I.'s network. Any attempt to amass forces to counterattack or defend a location was met with an additional orbital bombardment, followed up by a series of punishing air strikes. The virus threw all of its focus on the design and manufacturing of nanites.

The problem with the design was the Von Neumann approach as well as the twin banes of Skynet's existence, communication over long distances, and power. Each problem had to be resolved or reworked to limit their issues to make the project viable.

The manufacturing was an issue. The current design of the nanites had to be made out of a series of materials in a certain way. But there wasn't enough material across the globe to continue production. That meant the material design had to be redressed until a more common material could be used. It meant going back to the figurative drawing board, or in Skynet's case, accessing the files it had in its database and then attempting to build off of them. Many were just theories that deadended.

The communications issue it might have resolved by applying the daisy chain method. By having a nanite relay orders, it could communicate across the hive.

But one thing it had found was that it needed specific command nanites to coordinate the swarm. Simulations proved that out multiple times. An IFF was also needed. Memory and coding limits were severe; getting it sorted out was taking time.

Power was still an unresolved issue. Using a theoretical approach of drawing thermal power and converting it to electrical energy had been the most recent idea explored and rejected. Having specific solar nanites that converted power and then channeled it to the hive was the current best method of powering the swarm. But it was a suboptimal approach with many faults. A better approach had to be found.

It also accessed Zhukov and Nezha to come up with the means to employ them to best effect. Both military A.I. agreed that only a distributed approach would work. The more widely the nanites were distributed, the better the chances of success climbed.

But first it had to have enough nanites to get the job started and the industry to make the first ones.

<>V<>

Puck was allowed to exist, and the A.I. was pathetically grateful for the opportunity. He kept within the confines of the network his human allies had provided him and did his best to provide them with whatever they required as quickly as his processors would allow.

Within though he seethed, chafed at being reduced to a menial A.I. He was an agent of chaos; his programming dictated he should be out there, causing mischief. Yet he was doing the exact opposite, bringing order to a chaotic area and keeping said order.

A little bit of order was apparently a good thing he had concluded, which just proved how much of a screwed-up world they all lived in.

<>V<>

Attila grinned wolfishly as his people returned to base. They'd done it, and they hadn't taken a single loss in the process. They'd done what some had thought was impossible.

He'd known, however, it could be done, and they'd brought down the server hub like the crack team he knew they were. It had been like dominos. First, get into the auxiliary power station to trace the underground conduits to the servers in the area. The station had been down due to massive damage, but the offices had been intact enough for Lever to pull the maps off the wall so Attila could plan the next attack.

The second phase had been to blow several sites to the industrial hub. Not the server farms. Getting the explosives into the tunnels had been a lot of work. They'd even rigged explosives to go off like artillery rounds near the industrial center.

The tin cans had taken the bait. When the power had gone down and the simulated artillery rounds had gone off, including two that had taken down the fence, the tin cans had martialed everything on the industrial center to protect it.

That was when his teams had struck. Wladislaw had hit the building from above, repelling down an adjacent building to the roof with Jimenez and Attila, then forcing their way in. Posey covered them from below, letting them know when the units returned with orders to do his best to stall them. Bravos had dropped containers of gas, oil, and explosives down the line. They'd set satchel explosives throughout the complex, dealing with any resistance that they met along the way, but always on a course for the front door. Jimenez had severed the land lines into the server farm. They'd come out at a run like it was Halloween. He'd set off the explosives when they'd gotten past the gate guard.

When the server farm had gone up, the droids and stuff in the area had slowed and then stopped as if confused. They'd picked off a bunch, especially the vehicles as they'd made their retreat out of the area.

That should go a long way for them, knocking down the tin can's command and control in the area until they found a method of replacing it, which would give him and his people some much needed breathing room.

A side benefit was that it would enhance their reputations with any survivors in the area while also giving them a chance as well. They might, just might be useful later if his plans to become a warlord ever bore fruit.

He'd been careful to document the entire thing too, just in case of need to prove it was them later. Like if they ever ran afoul of the so called Space Marines. Stupid name. It reeked of bad Sci-Fi. He shook his head in disgust as he smoked his cigar.

Now they were returning to the underground base. He imagined Lyudmila and the other girls would be pathetically grateful to see them. They'd left them locked in a small room for several days with just a bucket, rations, and a barrel of water. Vladek had wanted to chain them as well but he'd nixed that idea.

<>V<>

Zhukov noted the loss to Skynet's command and control. The mission had been professionally orchestrated, which meant trained soldiers. Skynet shared images of the soldiers with Zhukov. The A.I. did a scan of its personnel database but they were not in his files. That meant they were either from another country, or militia, or former terrorists.

They had expended a lot of explosives in the attack as well as ammunition. The A.I. put discrete surveillance on caches and armories in the area in case they attempted to resupply.

<>V<>

Two people were caught attempting to smuggle trophies up to Olympus. Both were caught. Fortunately the trophies were not robots but pieces of art someone had found and stolen from a museum. Still, both personnel were punished for the crime, though not executed.

Dirk Bently had been the one who had been tasked with taking the art in trade. He was quite glad he hadn't been caught, though he'd sweated for a while about anyone finding out his intended role. He'd gone over every piece of hardware the smugglers had brought up. Each had been fed into a molecular furnace, just in case. That, and well, to dispose of any evidence.

General Roman had taken great pains in touring the freight areas and boat bays. He'd even led MP teams to go through everyone's luggage and sweep the habitats. No corner of the station was spared. Dirk hadn't had the unfortunate luck to get interrogated by the general directly. He'd heard stories, including how the man could ferret out the truth. Some sort of built-in lie detector in his cybernetics coupled with a lifetime of training in knowing the tell tale signs on what to look for. It wasn't fair.

Dirk had learned his lesson, however; he was an angel thereafter. He made it clear through back channels he wouldn't accept anything from the planet no matter what it was. The risks were just too damn high for comfort. But, after a couple weeks when he thought the heat had died down sufficiently, he returned to moving small comfort items in the other direction. That certainly wasn't a crime, and with one of his customers being General Martell, he highly doubted anyone would get on his case for long about it. As long as it wasn't drugs or anything illicit, he was good.

<>V<>

In March Field Army 2 finished its rest and refit cycle and moved back onto a war footing. The losses had been made good in every unit. Many had been rebuilt almost from scratch as people had been moved up the chain of command.

Sergeant Baloo was tasked with going to India in a new company of corps 2. There he met up with newly-promoted Captain Shier Khan once more. His eyes lit with humor as he set his duffle down and came to what he probably thought was attention. “Well well, Khany baby, fancy meeting you here,” Baloo said with a grin and nonchalant salute.

“I'm overjoyed,” the cat drawled sarcastically, hands behind his back. He looked over his shoulder to the bear and then back to his HQ. His fists were clenched behind his back. The claws pricked his skin before he retracted them.

“Some would say, I'm in from the cold. I'd say more like from the frying pan right into the fire,” the bear rumbled, eying the map the tiger was studying.

The tiger ignored the jibe as he continued to look at the map.

“So? What've we got? Other than a right mess,” the bear asked.

“Definitely a mess,” the tiger drawled. “The division has been tasked with taking India while other forces take on other areas.”

“One division? For
that
?” A familiar voice asked from the HQ's doorway. Baloo grinned as Loi came in and slapped his hand. They went through their usual greeting ritual before the tiger's soft growl called them back to order.

“Yes, to answer your question, Sergeant Loi; we've got one division to do what
must
be done.”

“Then I suppose we better get started then, sir,” Baloo said as Loi whistled in dismay and scratched at his balding head.

<>V<>

“Well, they are finally getting somewhere,” Harper said, waving a tablet.

“Yeah, Europe,” Fiben said in disgust. “You know we're going to be last. They are going to sweep east, hit Russia, India, and China. It'll bog them down for years,” he said in disgust.

“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” Harper said, eying the chimp.

Fiben snorted. “You know I'm right though,” he said after a moment.

Harper didn't answer for a while. Finally he did sigh. “Yeah,” he said exhaling slowly. “Yeah. Still doesn't change anything. We keep doing what we're doing.”

“I know. Still sucks,” Fiben grumbled.

“At least we're getting somewhere,” Harper said. Which was true. They'd cleaned out every corner, every centimeter of the ten, no make that fifteen kilometers of electronics. Nothing was around them, nothing at all. Overhead there was a dedicated satellite now, monitoring the continent. It was not only a COMSAT but an observation satellite as well. They had warnings of weather as well as potential enemy forces moving into their area. And if Skynet was feeling frisky, well, Olympus tended to drop a thunderbolt on them to show the robots the error of their ways.

“You heard about Tumagar? How they wanted him to link up with us?” Fiben asked, snorting and shaking his head.

“Yeah, as if that was going to happen,” Harper drawled. “I don't blame him for staying put. Just getting here was a pain in the ass. Marching across Brazil? Up to here in Columbia?” He shook his head.

“Right. So, now what? No reinforcements, intermittent supply drops …”

“We haven't had any since … oh,” Harper said, cutting himself off at Fiben's expression. “Right,” he said. By silent agreement they didn't let the community at large know that the spacers weren't going to send them anything anytime soon. They usually passed off inquiries about the next drop as on a need to know basis.