Founding of the Federation 3: The First AI War (93 page)

“True.”

When they got to the pod, the second was coming in behind it. The exterior was still a bit hot, so they couldn't get too close. They could see it sinking into the snow from the waves of heat radiating off of it. Crews were trying to get a handle on the chute. Two of the kids were tossed into the air by the wind and whipping lines. Percy winced when they came down. Someone was going to be feeling that tonight he thought.

“There is another one!” someone called out in Spanish. He turned to see a third, then fourth coming down.

“Well, hot damn. A little late but it's finally Christmas. I love it.”

“Better late than never,” Pat murmured.

“True.”

Pat turned to Fiben, then to Baxter. “You going up?” he asked.

Baxter glanced at both of them then shook his head. “The squad is staying. What's left of it. We're not leaving these people to die on the vine.”

“I'm staying too,” Fiben said quietly. “But you and Kelsy are going up,” he said. “You've each got seats.”

“Good,” Pat murmured, nodding thoughtfully. “What about the rest?”

“The bird is going to be repaired here, then gone over by a fine-tooth comb in orbit,” Fiben said as Harper ran past with a paramedic kit. Most likely for the kids. The other people were being a lot more careful about wrangling the chutes. Fiben hefted a crowbar. “Since the squad isn't going up, we're going to send people up who can help out or whatever. I know Harper was tempted to send the worst of the injured up, but I think that's out.”

“They'd never survive the trip up. The Gee's along would kill them,” Baxter said.

“Exactly,” Fiben said.

“Once they get the bird sorted out, ten to one means they'll be using it to support the African landing. That means it'll be a while before we get another drop. We'll have to make do,” he said, turning to the pod. “Damn! Hot,” he said, waving a hand.

“You should …,” Pat sighed and shook his head as the chimp continued determinedly to get the pod open. “Here, let me help you,” he offered.

It didn't take them long to get the pod open. When they did they smiled at each other. Baxter whistled in appreciation as he pulled a couple totes marked as ammunition out. “It really is Christmas for me,” he said.

“Four drops,” Pat said, eying the rest. “A couple parts for the shuttles in each. Plus some survival gear, looks like seeds and water purifiers, some catch all stuff. Good,” he said. “Not much for me though of course.”

“You'd be surprised,” Fiben said, pulling out an electronics kit and a couple spare radios.

“Gimme!” Pat said happily, making grabbing motions as he grinned.

Fiben chuckled as he handed the gear over.

<>V<>

Four days later the refugees cheered lustily as the shuttle taxied then rose off the ground and climbed for the sky.

More than one person wished they were on it, but quite a few were fearful of the repairs Percy, Pat and the others had managed to make.

“Go baby go,” Pat murmured. Fiben turned to him in surprise. “Thought you'd be on her?”

Pat snorted. “I've got a lady friend here now. She's got two kids, so I'm not going to abandon them now.”

“Oh.”

“Besides, someone around here has to keep the electronics going and you in line,” Pat said.

“Thought that was Harper's job? Or Kelsy's?” Fiben demanded.

“More Kelsy's than Harper's,” Pat retorted.

“Right,” Harper drawled. “Like either one of us can get him to keep his mouth shut.”

“Sure we can,” Kelsy replied. “Duct tape works. If not, we can try food.”

“Hell if you'll use tape. I've got fur!” Fiben said, brown eyes wide in mock fear.

“You mean you'll have fur right up until you lose it if you continue to misbehave, buster,” Kelsy growled, poking a finger into his chest. He stuck his hands up in surrender. “Uh huh. That's what I thought.”

“What'd I do?” Fiben demanded.

“You know. Stop pissing the brass off. They are higher up than us. Piss tends to roll downwards you know.”

“Yeah, and it tends to splatter all over everyone and everything. So hopefully they aim,” Kelsy growled. That got a laugh and shake of the head from one of the women in the area. She couldn't help but blush and then chuckle along with them.

Harper eyed Fiben, then Pat. All three men took on a dignified air of innocence as they walked off.

<>V<>

Harper reported to the group that evening that the shuttle had made it to Olympus without incident. There was a lot of relief at that announcement.

<>V<>

It took a while for the A.I. and the Russian to come to an understanding. It took even longer for Pasha, the Russian's so called tech genius, to figure out how to create a dead man's circuit and rig it to Saul's heartbeat. Shadow had no intention of helping them, and they wouldn't trust the A.I. if he had offered help anyway.

Shadow had no medical coding. He did overhear the Russians talking in their native language. Translating it was child's play for the A.I. Most were concerned about their health as well as that of their leader. Pasha's estimate gave Saul less than a year to live. The A.I. decided to make the best of it. Perhaps if it befriended the others they might, just might, destroy the deadman switch or disable it? One never knew with humans after all.

The A.I. had to admit, having a group of humans around him was helpful. The humans provided security and even did maintenance, which furthered his ends. It seemed a symbiotic relationship wasn't too much trouble for him. Though he needed to step up with his participation.

Once Pasha had the power supply secured, Shadow worked with the small human to set up wired cameras and sensors to watch the perimeter. They were all run to Descartes' control room. It was a mark of how dirty the Russians were that they didn't even bother to get rid of the bodies, just chisel them out and then pile them in a corner outside for the scavengers to find.

Food and ammunition was an ongoing issue. Water was sorted out within the first week. The Russians were leery of allowing Shadow to have robots of its own to control. Pasha set a couple up but each had a remote kill switch. They were also only allowed to work when Saul was sleeping.

Within a month they had attracted the attention of other refugees passing through the area or living in the sewers or other hidden places. They came out, tentatively at first. The A.I. was surprised that Pasha and a couple of the men were gruff to the survivors. They did their own weeding; those that were not of any use were escorted out. If they made a fuss, they had their throats cut and were stripped of anything of value, then left for the scavengers. It was a short but occasional lesson in ruthlessness and to what ends they would go.

It took time and convincing, but eventually, Shadow instructed them on how to tap into Skynet's internet. Warily, the Russians did so. The A.I. sent no inquiries, no sign of its presence. It just monitored the flow of data and interpreted it for Saul. It took several hours before it had a clear enough picture of the surrounding area, the assets Skynet had, as well as a report of the African landing. The A.I. reported the news to Saul.

“So? What do I care about that? It's there, not here. I care about the shit around us,” Saul snarled, then stopped himself as he coughed. When he finished he rubbed his chest with one hand, while the other whipped drool and phlegm from his mouth with the back of his hand.

Chapter 37

February 2202

Skynet noted the problem of fighting a determined enemy. It was having increasing trouble coordinating its forces. A check with a surviving processing cluster gave the hive several possible answers, none of them good.

One was that many of the robots and vehicles under its control required GPS or cell tower triangulation for their navigation. That was an ongoing problem for all of Skynet's forces across the globe. The A.I. had work arounds, but they were very inefficient.

Second, the A.I. no longer had strategic surprise. The organics were now aware of it, and had come up with methods to fight back. They had also come up with a means to fight without their technical hardware or with it air gapped against the A.I.'s best efforts to infiltrate and turn it against them.

Third, the A.I. had expended a lot of its resources killing the humans on the planet; these fresh new ones were far harder to kill. They had weapons and armor. Civilian grade hardware was almost completely useless against them. Kill ratios were 100 to 1 and increasing as they became more adapted and proficient at destruction.

They were also supplied better than the previous targets, with military training, fire support, vehicles, and logistics.

Fourth, the orbital bombardment had seriously hampered its power and production, forcing the A.I. to scale back its offensive efforts in order to rebuild. The threat of another orbital bombardment meant the A.I. had to distribute its remaining resources while finding an alternative means to power them.

The orbital bombardment had also destroyed Skynet's efforts to build rockets to send platforms up into space.

Unfortunately, the A.I. saw no means to remedy any of the problems it faced. And it was aware there were others it would soon face as the organics gained a larger foothold on the African continent.

But through discussions with Zhukov, Ares, Nezha, and Tengu, it was reminded that the enemy would have to go door-to-door to clean the A.I. out. They would need to take and hold ground. Both were opportunities for Skynet to bleed them, to kill their soldiers.

Which was part of its purposes after all.

<>V<>

With a beachhead secured and most of the power knocked out, parts of central Africa was considered secured. The military was focused on the open ground, for the time being avoiding the entanglement of cities and towns. General Martell didn't wish to be bogged down in an urban fight going door-to-door. The decision didn't sit well with some, but his territory gains played out very well with the media and general public. Finally, they were making some progress in what was depressingly evident was going to be a very long, drawn-out campaign.

Wherever they could the troops linked up with small villages, farms, refugee camps, and towns that had been freed of any electronic influence. In each place every piece of electronics had been destroyed. Many had been used as artwork, hanging in strings outside the walls.

Teams of medics were flown in. They were transported with a security contingent to each site. A second security contingent also moved in with the convoy; they passed out food and supplies while the medics did their best for the ill and injured.

On the third week, engineers were dropped. They joined the convoys in order to assess each site. Many of the engineers were hastily-trained combat engineers. They were tasked with not only making each site defensible, but also to redesign their utility infrastructure for the needs of the community. They did their best, but like the medics and food shipments, they were overwhelmed by need. Just setting up water filtration systems all over again was a complex task.

While the engineers and medics worked with the communities to rebuild some semblance of their shattered lives, the rest of the military forged a highway through the deserts to the north and another into the east to the Middle East. It took time before each was considered secured. But both were lightly patrolled and defended. Ambushes were common.

Each week tens of thousands of refugees were turning up, threatening to overwhelm the forces on the ground. They were doing their best to turn equipment and supplies over to the grounders in charge who had some time to recover. Unfortunately, a few were turning into hoarders or small time kings and warlords. Dealing with that was a constant headache.

On Valentine's Day Colonel Sinclair landed on the ground with additional forces to help out. Her tasking was to secure the rear areas and coordinate with the refugees. Pressure was mounting to do more for them once images of their suffering started to play out in the media.

The colonel immediately started to reallocate units to follow her mission mandate. That set up a clash with Elliot, who had them for his own mission. They had several email discussions, growing heated as both dug their heels in.

“I'd like to point out, I have you, not on date of rank certainly, but on rank period, Colonel,” Elliot stated when he'd had enough. He could tell the woman was not thrilled about having a chimp for a boss, let alone one who had no formal military training or experience. That was tough for her; he would put up with the bigotry. Fortunately, she was enough of a professional to not voice her opinions.

She kept the clash professional and on point. “We have too many missions and not enough supports. We need to scale back on some of our objectives,” the colonel stated.

Elliot let the lack of sir honorifics slide for the moment. “You are correct. But we have been issued mandates by our superiors and we need to fulfill them.”

“I don't see how,” she said.

“I'm not certain either. Sometimes I think they do it on purpose, to get us to perform miracles. There is only so much we can do, and so many rabbits we can pull out of our hats,” he mused.