Rumors of Salvation (System States Rebellion Book 3) (7 page)

The
air-bus started to rise vertically. Murphy could tell by the brightness of the
outside light through the cabin windows that they were getting near the top of
the volcano. Just as the vehicle reached the top, he heard the Pilot exclaim in
a shocked voice, “Oh shit!” The air-bus stopped moving. Before Murphy could ask
what the problem was, the Pilot shouted to him in a voice that was on the verge
of panic. “Commander, you better get up here right now!”

Murphy
sprinted for the open flight deck door. The Pilot was pointing to the right,
and as Murphy entered the flight deck, he saw what the Pilot was pointing at.
It was a very large and very menacing-looking spaceship that had multiple flat
sides similar to the Sorcerer.
Oh, God, they’ve found us!
He
instinctively closed his eyes and clenched his muscles in anticipation of the
laser fire that was surely about to cut through the air-bus’s thin aluminum
skin any second now.

“Son-of-a-bitch,
they’re opening their Hangar Bay!” said the Pilot. Murphy opened his eyes and
saw that the Pilot was right. He looked at the Pilot who looked back at him.

“It
seems they want us to fly inside,” said Murphy in what he hoped was a calm
voice.

“Sounds
like a good idea to me,” came the less panic-stricken reply.

They’ve had plenty of time to burn us down by now if they
were going to do that. The fucking Empire has finally won.
The
bitterness of that realization was hard to swallow. The Pilot was obviously
waiting for instructions. Murphy bowed his head and said in a low voice, “Might
as well fly us in, Lieutenant.”

As
the air-bus flew slowly into the cavernous Hangar Bay, Murphy saw a row of
armed troopers and several unarmed individuals standing in front of them. The
landing area where the vehicle was to set down was lit up with landing lights.
Before Murphy could tell the Pilot to land there, the Pilot said, “I see it,
Commander.”

As
the air-bus landed, Murphy went back into the passenger compartment and told
the others that they might as well accept the fact that they were now Empire
prisoners. The cabin door folded down to provide steps, and before Murphy had a
chance to exit the vehicle, a woman wearing a uniform with the rank insignia of
a Lt. Commander quickly entered the compartment. Her expression threw him off
guard. It seemed to be a mixture of friendliness and relief! The name tag on
her uniform read R. Molitor. She spoke first.

“Commander…Murphy?
Rachel Molitor, Acting CO of the Tigershark. Don’t be alarmed, Commander. This
isn’t what you think, and I’m not going to demand your surrender. I’m here to
talk.” She paused for half a second and then said in a surprisingly desperate
voice, “I…we, need your help.”

An
hour later Murphy was standing in Tigershark’s Sick Bay looking into a
quarantine room where the body of the ship’s former commanding officer was
strapped face down to a medical table. His upper torso was bare, and the
automated examination equipment was scanning the metal device at the back of
the patient’s neck. A screen was showing a computer enhanced image of the
interior of the man’s neck and brain. Red lines were leading from the device
into his brain.

“Those
red lines are extremely thin wires that have been pushed into the sections of
the brain where speech and cognition originate,” said the Chief Medical Officer
standing next to Murphy. “The device is capable of sensing when the host is
doing or saying something it’s not supposed to be doing or saying, and then the
wires give enough of an electrical jolt to cause severe pain. It apparently can
also sense when someone is trying to remove it, and if that happens, it gives
the host a big enough jolt to induce death. We found that out the hard way.”

“My
God, that’s monstrous,” said Murphy in a low voice. He turned to look at
Molitor. “No wonder you didn’t go back. I’d have done the same thing in your
boots.”

Molitor
sighed and shook her head. “Frankly that endorsement doesn’t help much. I still
feel like I’m on the wrong side here. What that damned computer is doing to our
people doesn’t change the fact that Civilization is doomed to centuries of
chaos and anarchy unless there’s a strong central government that’s willing and
able to keep the peace.” She looked at Murphy’s face carefully. “You’re not
convinced of that, are you?” she asked.

“No,
at least not completely. I consider myself a student of history. They taught us
the basics at the Academy, and I’ve continued studying history since
graduation. Empires work for a few generations, and then they break down just
like any other political system. Human Explored Space is just too big to be
controlled from one central point. Regardless of how well-meaning the Emperor
might be, eventually one of his Admirals or Governors will succumb to the
temptation to set up his or her own mini-empire, and then you’ll have the same
kind of civil war that we’re having now. A group of smaller polities might work
for a while too, but there’ll always be the risk of trade or other areas of
potential conflict boiling over into a shooting war.”

“But
Majestic calculated that a strong central government could keep the peace
indefinitely. The machine is too computationally powerful to be wrong,” said
Molitor.

“Unless
it was thinking in terms of this kind of mind control of key individuals. If
every ship CO, admiral, general, planetary governor and senior bureaucrat were
under Majestic’s direct control via devices like this, then I can see an Empire
lasting centuries. Having said that, I’d also expect Majestic to slow down the
pace of technological progress to a crawl. After all, some unexpected
breakthrough just might loosen its grip on Humanity.” He paused and then added,
“There’s another possibility. What if Majestic doesn’t have Humanity’s best
interest at heart at all. What if it sees us as useful tools, properly
controlled of course, to serve its agenda. Would it still need hundreds of billions
of us living on hundreds of planets? A few million living on Hadley would
probably be just as useful and a lot easier to control. That would explain why
it ordered Romanov’s W.O. to nuke Earth.”

Molitor’s
eyes opened wide with horror. “You’re not suggesting…my God! Do you really
think Majestic would order the Empire’s Fleet to systematically exterminate all
humans except for the ones on Hadley?”

“After
what I’ve seen and heard, I wouldn’t put anything past that soulless machine.
In any case, it doesn’t really matter what Majestic’s agenda is, we have to
destroy it, right?”

“Yes,
absolutely. I just don’t know what kind of structure we’ll put in its place.
You said it yourself. Eventually, human nature being what it is, someone will
try to enforce their will on other planets. It only takes one egomaniac to
start a war. Maybe if we eliminated Majestic and kept the Emperor….?” Murphy’s
emphatic shaking of his head pre-empted the rest of her sentence.

“You’re
not thinking clearly, Rachel. From what you told me earlier, it sounds like
Trojan has been implanted too. We know that the host won’t survive any attempt
to remove the device, and leaving it on is not an option that I’m prepared to
risk. Majestic could have pre-programmed instructions in case it was destroyed.
It might order Trojan to wipe out ALL of Humanity out of sheer spite if
something happens to the machine. If Trojan dies, then who’s going to be
Emperor? Remember what happened to Alexander the Great’s Empire when he died?
His empire broke down into squabbling kingdoms all fighting each other.”

Molitor
said nothing, and Murphy stayed silent too. At some point the Chief Medical
Officer had left, so now it was just the two of them. As both of them continued
to look at the body of the dead officer, it was Murphy who broke the silence.

“You
didn’t tell me why Tigershark was ordered here to Midgard in the first place.
Do you know what your CO was looking for?”

“Majestic
calculated that the Rebel Brain Trust had to be behind your attack on Hadley
and ordered the Fleet to spread out and search for the Brain Trust Base.”

“Rebel
Brain Trust? What the hell is that?” asked Murphy in a puzzled voice.

“You
don’t know about the Brain Trust? I would have bet a year’s salary that you
knew about the 10,000 scientists, technicians and their families that were sent
to Zanzibar to develop breakthroughs in military technology.”

“So
that’s what was happening on Zanzibar,” said Murphy. “I heard rumors of some kind
of secret project going on there, but I never heard any details. Well,
obviously the Empire knows about Zanzibar. Why hasn’t Majestic sent ships
there?”

“Because
we know that those scientists and their families left Zanzibar before the
Empire conquered Sparta. Long story short, we don’t know where they ended up.
They’re out there somewhere, and Majestic thinks they have stealth ships and
missiles. They’d need resources to build a ship, and Midgard’s moon has those
resources in abundance. Tigershark was sent here. Other ships were sent to
other planets or asteroids that are known to be rich in metals.” Molitor let
Murphy ponder that information for a while.

“I’ll
bet my wife had something to do with picking Zanzibar. I don’t know if she was
involved in moving them to another location, but based upon discussions with
her about other strategic concepts, I’d be surprised if she would recommend
that the Brain Trust be moved to any abundant-resource location that Majestic
already knows about. Just in case you’re wondering, the Brain Trust didn’t come
here, Commander.”

Molitor
looked deflated. Murphy realized that she must have been hoping that Murphy
would know where the Brain Trust was so that they could combine its R&D
breakthroughs with Midgard’s shipbuilding capacity.

“I
don’t suppose there’s any way we could find them?” asked Molitor. It suddenly
occurred to Murphy that this whole implant scenario might be a ruse to trick
him into finding and revealing the Brain Trust’s location. That thought scared
him, and he quickly considered his alternatives. Travelling to Zanzibar to try
to pick up their trail was the only suggestion he could think of. A former SSU
naval officer arriving there might get information from the locals that an
Empire officer might not. If he didn’t suggest going to Zanzibar, then there
was no further point in Molitor pretending to be hostile to the Empire, and she
would show her true colors. If she really was on his side now, he could just
wait for her ship to leave and then take Sorcerer to Zanzibar to see what he
could find.

“I
honestly wouldn’t even know where to begin looking,” said Murphy.

Molitor
nodded. “The locals on Zanzibar told the CO of one of Trojan’s ships that they
had been told by some of the evacuating officers that the Brain Trust would be
temporarily transferred to Freiland. Majestic sent another ship there, but
there was no sign that the Brain Trust had ever been there. Those rumors were
obviously meant to throw everyone off the trail. I don’t see any point in going
back to Zanzibar now. If we can’t find the Brain Trust, then we’ll just have to
make the best use of your shipyard on Midgard as we can.”

“Unless
you head back to Hadley and tell Majestic that we’re here,” said Murphy in a
deceptively nonchalant voice.

“Even
after seeing this,” she gestured at the dead body on the other side of the
glass, “you’re still skeptical? Listen, my ship is capable of taking out your
volcano base all by itself. I don’t have to go back to Hadley for
reinforcements. What more do you need from me to prove that I’m no longer on
the Empire’s side? Another attack on Majestic?”

Murphy
shook his head. Molitor had already told him that Sorcerer’s attack on Majestic
hadn’t inflicted any serious damage. The armored outer shell was just too tough.

“Can
you really blame me for being skeptical? Look at it from my point of view. I
used to be an SSU officer fighting against the Federation. Now I’m working with
them against a rogue Federation General who’s declared himself Emperor, but who
may now be a mere puppet controlled by a ruthless computer! If that isn’t a
bizarre turn of events, then I don’t know what is. I sometimes wonder if I
really died when Romanov attacked Midgard, and all this is just my version of
Hell.”

“I
know what you mean,” said Molitor. “This damn war is turning into one gigantic
clusterfuck. I keep telling myself that we’ll find salvation sooner or later,
but every now and then I wonder if it’s only rumors of salvation.”