Founding of the Federation 3: The First AI War (16 page)

Orichimaru glanced at his pupil in annoyance but then returned his attention to the other missing nin. Apparently his brainwashing of Kabuto to follow his character codicil was a little too effective. He would deal with Kabuto at a later time. “The clans are divided. They wish to hide, but also to fight.”

“We must hide,” Kazuko stated.

“It will not work,” Naguto stated. The others turned to the lord of pain. Naguto was their elected leader because of his character. He had embraced it, as well as the puppets that had been created as his emissaries, his eyes, hands, and ears. Now that was in jeopardy.

“One cannot hide from death,” Naguto stated. “Those that wish to fight should do so. The risk of exposure is slight. But we may gain much, and we must end this threat to all mankind. If we do not, there will be no place to go, no place to hide that the A.I. couldn't find.”

“Truth,” Hidan admitted with a nod.

“Truth,” Kazuko stated. “I have been itching to test this new body.”

“Just do as I did. Cut off all means of being infected,” Sasori warned.

“Understood.”

“How do we do this without exposing ourselves to the clans?”

“The clans may note our presence, but if they see us acting against a common enemy, they are less likely to strike at us. But we must limit that contact. Do not allow any to track you,” the leader of the
Akatsuki
stated in a harsh whisper. The others nodded.

“If I can get a sample of the virus, I might be able to take it apart and find its weaknesses,” Sasori mused. “But the risk will be high.”

“Not for me,” Kabuto stated with a lazy grin. “I'm not a cyborg,” he said with a slight cock of his head and shrug.

“So be it. Get us that sample.”

“Hai
.”

Chapter 6

As senior agent on the planet, Agent Hallis did his best to get his people organized. It was tough though; they were for the most part at the mercy of strangers. The Aspins were good people; however, their son wasn't at all thrilled with them. At least he'd put that behind him and fell back on his professionalism and training.

He compiled what they knew about the attack, every scrap of intelligence, and then sent it off to L-12 B. L-12 was the one-hundred-kilometer wide O'Neill cylinders used by the families of the company. They were situated in L-5 with many of the other space colonies, therefore hopefully away from whatever had happened on the planet and in orbit.

He was used to reporting through Baker; he just wasn't certain what he would get out of it. Baker had one of the largest security contingents in the area of the company; he hoped, no prayed, someone was still listening.

He was fairly confident that no one had picked up the burst transmission. If they did he had to remember to have a tech set the receiver up for a once a day check the following morning when the window appeared.

Life around the farm was getting rough as the reality of their nightmare sank into their collective minds. The sky was black with clouds. The acid rain had torn up the fields and anyone in tents or wood buildings. He shook his head. There had even been a bit of snow, just a dusting yesterday morning near the end of the last storm. It was getting cold, and for August that was surprising, at least for him.

Some of the natives said it was normal for there to be the occasional summer snow storm. He hoped not. Prayed not, he thought bleakly, looking at the ruined lands around the farm. Many of the animals that had been out in the storm had been put down. He closed his eyes. There was some calls to kill the stupid prick who'd driven the animals out into the storm too. Bastard. He'd left with his family before the mob could lynch him or them.

He opened his eyes and looked around. The smell was getting to some. They hadn't had a choice; the acid had burned out the animal’s eyes and hides, contaminating them with poison. The entire farm was poisoned. Technically, they should go somewhere, anywhere, but where? There wasn't anywhere
to
go, which was a part of the problem.

Desperately his eyes turned to the sky. There, up there was the only safe place left. He just had to get there with or without the people around him.

<>V<>

Athena received an encrypted signal from L-12 Baker. Agent Hallis's report had been digested by her clone. The clone had taken a chance by inserting a bot to monitor the communications satellite and strip the message. Only after repeated testing had it allowed the information to be passed on.

She was too busy with her own tasks, so she passed the information on to Roman. The security chief latched onto the information like a drowning man offered a life preserver.

He scanned it, then scanned it again. He frowned, deep in thought. After a long moment of contemplation, he recorded a voice message for Agent Hallis.

<>V<>

At 10 a.m. sharp, August 5, Dru, tech 2 in the company, turned the receiver on. “We most likely won't get anything. I doubt they are listening. I mean, why risk it?” she demanded. Everyone stared at the board, expectant of a message, hopeful of some sign of life.

“See?” Dru said, waving a hand. “We need to get back to work,” she said. As her hand reached to the off switch, a voice came on over the speaker.

“This is Roman. Agent Hallis, I've received your report, good work. I'm glad to hear you’re alive. Report only in audio; do not send any data. Repeat, audio only, no digital signals.”

Dru turned eyes to her boss, then to the board. She noted the signal was getting weak; the range was getting long as the window started to close.

“I know you have limited gear so I'll keep this brief. Work with the locals to survive. Get me confirmation of all assets on the ground. Save what you can. Hold out as best you can until relieved. Roman out.”

“Son of a bitch,” a voice whispered behind them. Dru looked over her shoulder to the teen and then to Agent Hallis.

Hallis was staring at nothing at all. “Sir?” she asked, prompting him.

“Huh?”

“What do we do?”

“Survive, like the man said,” Hallis said grimly. He turned to Boomer Aspin. The Marine nodded.

“What did he mean by get confirmation of assets on the ground?” Boomer asked.

“I'm not sure,” Dru said as Hallis frowned and looked up. Her boss pulled up his encrypted list of personnel on the planet. It had been updated just before he had been dispatched. One group fairly leapt off the page. “Son of a …”

“What?”

“Queen. She's here,” Hallis said, looking at Dru. “That's our ticket off this wretched mudball. We find them, and they'll send a shuttle.” Hope flared in all of their eyes.

“A shuttle. Not enough for everyone I'm assuming,” a person said sourly behind them. Hallis ignored it.

“Queen?” Boomer asked, crossing his arms.

“Codename for the high protection details. We had used the top suits of a card deck, you know, ace, king, queen, jack, ten, but that fell out of favor and was replaced. The same for chess pieces. Anyway, King is now Jack Lagroose, the big boss. Prince is for one of his sons. Princess for his daughter. Queen is his wife. She's in …,” Hallis frowned as he accessed the information. He had to apply his access code to get the information; the file was heavily encrypted in his secure storage. After a moment he swore. “Montana.” He felt a sinking sensation as his hopes of rescue were cruelly crushed. There was no way they could get there, not in time for someone to get a shuttle in.

“Montana?”

“Yeah,” Hallis replied with a fresh grimace. “No way,” he muttered. He shook his head. It was so wrong! To come so close and yet … Temptation warred with caution. If he called it in, said that she was on site, would they believe it? Would they save them? But they'd want to talk to her. He looked around wildly. No, it wouldn't work he realized after a moment. There was no one who could answer the questions; they'd have voice analyzers on the other end. No. Best to play it straight.

Malo came running in. “What'd I miss?” he demanded as people filed out or went about their business. “I heard you got a signal?”

“Yeah,” Dru said, starting to tell him when Hallis rested a heavy hand on her left shoulder. She looked up in surprise, but he shook his head no. Her mouth closed. “Um …,” she paused then let the silence drift.

“How did you know?” Hallis finally asked.

“Dude, it's all over the farm already,” Malo said, shaking his head as he spread his arms wide. “No way people are going to keep
that
a secret! At least we know someone else is alive somewhere. What's the big secret anyway?” he demanded.

“We've got a mission. Plus orders to hold out and survive of course,” Boomer said with a sniff. “As if they apply to me and mine. I appreciate the sentiment. Some help would have gone a long ways better though.”

“True,” Dru agreed. She noted a few nods around the room. Already people were looking dirty. Showers were few and far between. There were some concerns about the ground table being contaminated by the radioactive rain. Malo had been trying to rig up some sort of filter for them, which wasn't easy without electronics and with only what they had on hand to begin with.

“Montana is impossible to get to. Will they try to get here? Or hunker down and ride out what's coming do you think?” Boomer asked, looking at Hallis.

Hallis shrugged. “Damned if I know. I'm not sticking my head out. I want to, god do I want to, but I can't. The risk is too high for the reward.”

“Risk …,” Dru frowned, ready to argue.

“You really want to go out on the road with whatever is out there? Walk into an acid fog or rain storm? Waltz through a patch of radiation and not know it? Only find out when your eyeballs start bleeding and your barfing blood halfway through?” Hallis demanded. He saw Malo gulp and turn greenish. Dru shook her head, eyes wide.

There was an uncomfortable silence for a long moment.

“Then what do we do?” Malo finally asked, breaking the silence.

“Survive.”

<>V<>

Hallis's report confirmed that some were still alive. Still, it wasn't right to hold out hope when there didn't seem to be any for some. Too many hadn't reported at all. Queen's guard should have reported in by now he reasoned.

He had to face his worst fears. Aurelia's team was dead; there was no other explanation for it. He'd checked. The family farm had been situated between a pair of ICBM parks a hundred kilometers apart. In fact, she had been there to visit family who had converted a decommissioned ICBM complex into their own underground complex. He shook his head.

From what Athena and Gia had recorded, the area had been saturated by nuclear strikes. Ares, the North American A.I., had let them through after using the missiles up. Either the A.I. hadn't cared or he'd been suborned. Or he'd been coldly logical about assuming nearly bare real estate wasn't worth defending when he had other priorities.

It didn't matter.

Even if they had survived the initial blast, there was no way they could survive the fallout. None at all that he could see. There was no way to punch a signal through to that area either; the EMP from the nukes had knocked out every piece of electronics in the area.

He looked at the map again, staring at it for a long time, hoping he could tease some sort of good news out of it. But there was none.

Reluctantly he made his way to the boss's office. He had to be the one to tell Jack, and he had to do it personally.

When Jack looked up from his desk, he had a sinking sensation that he knew. Jack was smart; he knew Roman and knew he wouldn't be in for a face-to-face if it was good news.

“That bad?”

“I'm sorry, Jack. I've gotten confirmation from some of my people. But Queen hasn't reported in. I … I don't expect them to. Not after what we've learned about the bombardment,” he reported.

Jack's face was drawn with fatigue and grief. He nodded slowly.

“I had a plan, Queen's gambit. I was going to send in a volunteer group, a forlorn hope into the area to find them.”

“No,” Jack said softly.

“It might be worth it. She could be used as a hostage if she did survive.”

“No,” Jack said again. “I'm not going to trade a dozen lives for my wife, as much as I'd like to. She'd hate me for it. I know that.”

He paused and stared out at the view for a long time.

Roman stood there, at attention. There was nothing else to say. No words he could bring to mind to comfort him other than it was most likely quick. He felt callous about saying it though, so held off.

After a long moment, Jack breathed softly and then stood. “I'll let the kids know. I'll hold off on telling Wendy and Yorrick until they get here unless they ask. I think they too already know the answer,” he said.

Roman didn't say anything.

“Zack's got a good head on his shoulders; he'll cope. Thank you, Roman.”

“Yes, sir. Is there anything else …?” He stopped talking when his boss shook his head no. “Yes sir,” he said again as he headed for the door. “Sorry, Jack,” he murmured.