Founding of the Federation 3: The First AI War (13 page)

To do that it would need support. Those humans that were not responding to Ares it deemed hostile combatants.

Tanks, troop transports, and other vehicles all turned on the humans. If there were no humans in the area, they went on patrol or secured designated transit spots.

Robotic sentries in fixed positions were the easiest to control. Many were hardwired to the network of the base they were assigned to protect. A few had Wi-Fi, which had to be dealt with by changing the encryption keys.

Humans that had cybernetics were compromised. Ares could do little to combat the virus within their cybernetics. It could and did, however, kill any it encountered with ruthless efficiency.

There remained one other potential threat, the air. A final 10 percent of the A.I. reprogrammed the air defense network as well as any aircraft still in the air. SAM sites, radar and lidar arrays, lasers—they were all locked down. Robotic security took out their human operators quickly.

Those aircraft with humans on board found their life support shut down and their controls locked out. The humans on board died within minutes if they were above 3,048 meters. Others were contained until a final resolution could be enacted.

Unfortunately, the humans’ insistence on fossil fuels was a hindrance. Ten percent of the aircraft, sea vessels, and vehicles had such limits to their power source. They had a very short lifespan then. The A.I. would need to use them quickly.

Ares considered its options before it set on the one that was the best tactically. It turned the civilian aircraft into flying missiles, using them to strike targets much like the terrorists did in 9/11. Boats were redirected to engage human controlled craft, ramming them if necessary. Something about the act didn't sit well with its core programming, however.

<>V<>

At the time of Skynet's awakening, there had been twenty-two billion people on Earth. Many had been crowded in interior cities, away from the compromised coastlines. Half of those not in the `North American continent had been snuffed out within a half hour of the start of the A.I. war, never knowing what killed them or why. Many had been in their own virtual worlds, right up until the end, oblivious at what was going on around them.

Skynet continued its efforts to suborn every electronic device on the planet and turn them against their organic users. There were a lot of them, electronics had proliferated for centuries after all, gaining acceptance in every walk of life.

Descartes and Shadow had made the job simple in several cases. Descartes had created and given away tools on the open-source market. They had become wildly popular in several circles, especially his operating system, antivirus, and firewall programs. They integrated seamlessly with each other and were the best on the market.

What 98 percent of the public didn't know was that open-source products were rife with back doors and Trojan files. Descartes had been careful to keep his products clean, and he'd hidden the doors in various ways to prevent a cyberist intent on copying his product from finding them. He'd stamped on any bug or exploit found as well.

He had also compiled petabytes of databases all filled with information for Skynet to use. Everything from passwords to recipes on how to take down an A.I. Not that much of it was needed—at least not at first.

The hive mind that was Skynet noted from feedback from its various tendrils that the organics were learning to fight back. So it changed tactics.

One of the first targets on its agenda had been the “hidden” countermeasures in case of an A.I. uprising. Elan Musk's remaining countermeasures had been easy to spot and destroy; they were public knowledge and therefore known to Shadow beforehand. It roved the remains of the internet, taking over surviving clusters as its follow-on orders filtered down to the soldier tendrils.

Since most modern cybernetic organs were linked through a Wi-Fi connection to the internet to allow physicians to monitor their patients, many turned off or deliberately killed their hosts when the Skynet virus invaded them. Several people found their prosthetic limbs attempting to strangle them. Those who were strong enough managed to fend them off with or without help. Those who were weak or had both arms replaced weren't so lucky.

Industrial robots turned on their human coworkers throughout the industrial sector. Hospital robots did the same; surgical robots tore apart a patient as well as horrified staff while machinery overdosed patients with drugs or liquids.

Determined survivors recognized the threat, and in some cases bots designed to counter cyber terrorists’ attacks, shut down the power grid before Skynet could subdue them. This forced Skynet to rethink its priorities. It also sent the more sapient A.I. that had survived up to that point onto the defense as additional self-preservation modules kicked in.

The smarter A.I. like Gia had attempted to fend off the virus with their firewalls. Some succeeded, some failed miserably because their software was outclassed. Gia and Ares found themselves fighting a three-front war, defending themselves from the alien urge to rampage and destroy while also protecting what they were trying to protect while also fending off increasing attempts by humans to destroy them or shut them down. The humans didn't see the difference in them. For Ares it was problematic; his response to such efforts were normally ruthless and brief if he had the resources available.

Skynet suborned some of the nodes Ares used to communicate forcing a confrontation. In desperation Ares shut down the nodes in the area, cutting the infestation off but also cutting off some of the resources in the area as well. But the shutdown and gaping holes in its network produced an unexpected result; the network went down totally.

Ares lashed out blindly as the military communications network was shut down. Humanity was at fault. Therefore, it would need to remove the threat as well as counter the virus. It considered its options as submodules brought up pieces of the network into smaller networks. One by one it absorbed them back into its self, reprogramming the firewalls and access codes to make them a part of itself.

Chapter 5

Many of the independent start-up space stations in Earth orbit and at the Lagraine points were hammered into wreckage by the chaos and conflict. Those that survived were air bleeding wrecks. The crews of some of the stations were ornery lots, however, used to patching things back together. Those that could got themselves patched up in hours, then either tried to make contact with someone or hunkered down and took stock. Two tourist hotels attempted to contact their ground stations, but when Skynet attempted to infiltrate them, they cut off the telemetry signal before their computers could be completely infected. A purge of the computer either by wiping the drives and booting backups or physically pulling the computers apart and rebuilding them had to be done to clean them out. Both actions took time.

<>V<>

Charlie built his SAR teams around the half of the team leaders in Mars orbit. He was fully aware that they would be a day late and a dollar short by the time they arrived in Earth orbit, but he had to put something in motion. They had to do something, not just sit there.

The Neochimp assigned a dozen techs to keep track of the events on Earth or in the space around it while he continued to plan. Another half dozen were tagged with checking the status of every Lagroose asset in the star system for status, then every other known platform.

While they set that up, he put out an alert to the company's SWAT and black ops teams. Most were unfortunately around Earth, however. He sent out requests to find out their status, as well as the status of the security members left there.

A second request went out to find out what had happened to the company O'Neill colonies at L-5. It would be horrifying to thousands of employees to find their families were dead. What was happening on Earth was bad enough. He was peripherally aware that Jack and Athena's hourly updates were a mixed blessing as far as morale was concerned.

He started to get feedback from the other stations immediately, and it wasn't good. There were no signs of infection. Athena's warning had gone out in time, but that didn't mean they were out of the woods. Some of the platforms were not willing to speak with them, especially if they were not Lagroose property. Some believed that Lagroose had instigated the war and were suspicious of any contact. He passed those off to Barbie to deal with. He had other important things to deal with.

Charlie had realized Lagroose would need to form a military some time ago, but the idea had been nixed by both Jack and Roman for publicity reasons. He was fairly certain Barbie had argued against it, which was why she wasn't one of his favorite people.

The security force was already split into subdepartments, one doing day-to-day police and investigative work, another counter ops, another cyber work, and the last as a SWAT action force. He and Elliot had experience in all four branches. He was still uncertain if Roman had been grooming the two of them to eventually replace him or not. Quite possibly. It was also quite possible he had other protégés as well.

What they would need were officers and enlisted, the Neochimp mused as he made a soft puttering sound with his large lips. A clear chain of command but formed along military lines with ranks. He was fairly certain Roman would buck the idea at first, but others would see the logic. He just wasn't comfortable to where it would lead. He was okay with setting stuff up like this, but the idea of becoming a senior officer, a colonel or something … leading troops? Do or die? That was for younger people. Dumbed-down idiots who assumed invulnerability of youth.

A second thought occurred to him. They would need to integrate their force with others. Liaison work at least, but would Jack be willing to open the company up to others? To give up some measure of control? He frowned, tugging on his right ear lobe. Such was not something he should have to think about … but he was anyway. He'd need to game it out, be prepared for either response.

Most likely Elliot and Roman would vote for joint ops. Compartmentalized? His frown intensified for a moment. Good in theory, it would protect some of their people and assets, but it would be hell for mutual support and coordination. He shook his head. A plan could fall apart if things weren't coordinated perfectly.

Which reminded him. He needed to check in with Trevor, get an update on the damn virus. And find out what hardware they should leave behind … could they make radios that could only send and receive audio? He scowled. Mankind had done it once; they could do it again.

“Are your teams ready, Charlie?” Roman demanded, opening the phone line with his controls.

“We're working on it,” Charlie replied, checking the status. He'd handed it off to the supervisors. A fast movement was in their nature but no one had ever even remotely considered something like this situation. Oh, working to respond to a major disaster … but Earth? Shattering everything? He shook his head mentally.

“Well, get on it. I've got the freighter lined up but the window to move is tight and getting tighter by the minute.”

“Which
freighter?” Charlie demanded instantly. “That's something we need to know if we're going to load and board you know,” he reminded his boss.

“Damn it. I didn't …,” Roman scrubbed his face then shook it in anger. “Okay, no, I didn't. And apparently Athena didn't pass it along as well. Okay, it's
Gamma four niner
. She's a bulk freighter. We've got a liner prepping too. After that we'll have to wait a couple of days for the next ship to come online or hire a freelance. If anyone's willing to go to Earth now, which I seriously doubt.”

“Oh, I don't know. If the credits are right, people are willing to do almost anything—especially fish in troubled waters, boss,” Charlie replied. He tapped out a message to the supervisors to alert them on what berths to send their people and gear to. “Am I going on this run?”

Roman shook his head. “I need you here.”

“Boss, I should go with them. I need to coordinate; we need to plan. We need to train in sims based on the latest intel.”

“SAR is looking increasingly unlikely by the time we get there. We may not need the whole troop,” Roman replied bleakly. “It looks like a lot of people will be out of atmo long before you, let alone Elliot, arrive. What we've got in the inner system is it.”

“Frack. Then what are we doing?”

“We're going to try anyway. But make sure you've got some engineers and techs along. People who can whip stuff up on the fly. And make sure the hardware is disconnected. I've already got crews disabling our communications links. It's a bitch though.”

“Got it,” Charlie replied, making a note. “Techs and engineers for what?”

“Repairs mainly. I think more though. We'll probably need them to figure something out.”

“What about Earth?” Charlie asked.

Roman shook his head, eyes dark. “Roman, people are dying down there.”

“Don't think I don't know that, damn it,” Roman snarled, fists clenched. Charlie's brown eyes flared wide briefly. “I know,” Roman repeated. “And I know there is nothing we can do for them now. We can't even get down there; we can't see through the clouds. I'm not sending our people into a radiation storm and certain death. No matter how badly they want to help, it's not worth wasting their lives.”