Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles 7: Renegades (18 page)

Chapter 22: Betrayal…

Cat and AG worked their way closer to the VASMR drive’s control cluster. Between the two of them they made fast work of the various drones and force fields that the
Alpha
continuously placed in their path. In truth it was becoming harder for the
Alpha
to maintain an adequate defense as
WhimPy-101
was rapidly pruning away power feeds to the Uruk AI.

              Each of the nanite cylinders that had been deployed to take down force fields continued to operate. In an effort to defend one of its last bastions of power, the Alpha had unwittingly hastened its own demise.

              “I think we are here,” Cat said as she spotted a massive bundle of cables connected of a vast array of rectangular boxes.

“I would have thought we would be seeing some type of control panel. Maybe something with a button on it labeled ‘Press me to fire VASMR thrusters’ in Uruk of course,” AG said as he began to place his nanite packages near things that looked like they might be important.

“This has always been an automated platform. There was no need to create control panels other then perhaps for diagnostics during construction. According to
WhimPy
, his generation of weapons platforms don’t normally include the corridors that we have spent the last several hours running through.”

“So why does the
Alpha
have them?”

Cat watched the last of her packages dissolve into the floor. “I suspect because the
Alpha
generation doesn’t make heavey use of nanite technology so the corridors were needed for both construction and maintenance.”

“Makes sense,” AG agreed. “So when will we know if we have been successful?

In response Cat opened a comm-link to
WhimPy
-
101
. “101, can you give me a status update?”

“Affirmative Admiral. I am now in effective control of ninety two percent of the
Alpha
platform. The
Alpha
AI has been restricted to an isolated section of the ship primarily responsible for repairing and maintaining deflector nodes. I have subsumed the
Alpha’s
two backup cognitive cores and am transferring portions of my AI to them.”

“Is that safe?” Cat asked.

“It is. I have wiped the memories of those systems. I am currently operating with only three percent of my data stores decompressed and available. A significant portion of my time has been spend paging memory to have access to information I need. Utilizing the
Alpha
’s cores will allow me to approach forty percent of my capacity.”

“Admiral, these VASMR control thingies are beginning to heat up… is that a good thing?” Lieutenant Stone asked with just a tinge of alarm in his voice.

“
WhimPy
?”

“I have control of the VASMR thrusters. I have begun an initialization routine. Once the units are fully online it is my intent to use them to steer my new body into a safe orbit that does not threaten Earth.”

AG and Cat looked at each other. Cat was the one who finally said out loud what both were thinking.

“Your new body?”

“Yes Admiral. That portion of me that you encountered in the storage hold is all that was left of
WhimPy-101
. The
Alpha
destroyed the rest and salvaged my backup core for purposes of its own. I require a new body in order to protect sentient life forms and the
Alpha
platform provides much needed resources for its construction.”

“And the weapons that are on this platform?”

“Those that are consistent with my programming will be retained. Those that are not will be disassembled. They cannot be allowed to fall into hands that will misuse them.”

Cat nodded and approved. She could only imagine what the Grand Senate and people like Senior Fleet Admiral Imera would do with weapons like the planet buster the
Alpha
had used to destroy several civilizations on its way towards Earth. And that didn’t even take into account what the Ashtoreth would do with such capabilities.
No
, she thought to herself, if such technology was to exist then it needed to be in the hands of a being like a
WhimPy
.

Cat’s internal comm-link signaled for her attention.

“Kimbridge here,” she said out loud.

“Admiral, this is Captain Kirkland. The
Alpha
station is moving. Do we need to start considering other options? Admiral Imera is blowing a gasket he’s yelling so loud and hard.”

“I can understand the concern Ken, but everything is under control. The platform is effectively under the guidance of
WhimPy-101
at this point. In fact, it is the
WhimPy
for all intent and purposes. If you check the course corrections being made you should be able to confirm the platform is moving to a safer course that does not pose a threat to Earth.”

“Confirmed Admiral. The VASMR’s have shut down again. The new course will place the
Alpha
… correction the
WhimPy
platform in an elliptical heliocentric orbit with an effective period of 628 days,” he responded after a brief pause to read his display.

***

Commodore Clarkson watched the renegade
GCP Yorktown
from the bridge of the
GCP Fulcrum
.  The
Yorktown
remained in a station-keeping orbit one kilometer off of the beast that was threatening Earth.

Several minutes ago the so-called
Alpha
platform had made a course correction. It seemed it was no longer heading directly towards his home. Instead it would pass the Earth-Moon system at a distance of about seven hundred kilometers or roughly twice the average distance between the Earth and the moon.

Clarkson about to contact the Central Operations Center on Orbital One when Senior Fleet Admiral Imera contacted him.

“Jeremy, it looks like Kimbridge has control of that weapons platform. I don’t need to tell you that this represents a problem for the GCP. Kimbridge and the
Yorktown
are renegades.”

“Sir, I think I know what you are asking but I hope you understand I will need specific orders before I will feel comfortable acting against a senior flag officer and her ship.”

“Son, I would have been disappointed if you hadn’t asked. The Grand Senate has stripped Catherine Kimbridge of her rank and her command. The fact that the
Yorktown’s
crew continue to follow her orders… despite being offered multiple opportunities to return to the fold, as it were, means they are culpable as well.

“Your orders are as follows: You are to secure or destroy the
Alpha
platform. That weapons system is not to be allowed to remain under control of the
Yorktown
or Catherine Kimbridge. You may execute your orders with extreme prejudice. Do you understand and accept your orders?”

Commodore Clarkson looked at the holographic image of Senior Fleet Admiral Imera floating in front of the main view screen. Admiral, or rather former Admiral, Catherine Kimbridge had very likely just saved billions of lives on the planet Earth and by way of thanks the Galactic Coalition of Planets had just ordered him to, in all likelihood, kill her. He had three starships under his command. They might not have the combat experience of the famous
GCP Yorktown
but it would be three against one and his ships were based on designs that were several generations more advanced… at least in theory.

“Commodore, I asked you a question. DO YOU UNDERSTAND AND ACCEPT YOUR ORDERS?”

“Sir, yes sir,” Clarkson said with a bitter taste in his mouth. “I understand and accept my orders. Clarkson out.”

He turned in his command chair to face his First Officer. “Commander McMillen, please assemble all senior officers and department heads in the main conference room. Notify the marine contingent on the
Hedison
that they will be deploying to the
Alpha
platform for a
reconnaissance in force
in two hours.”

“Aye Sir. Do you want the senior officers from the
Hedison
and
Basehart
to report holographically?”

Clarkson thought for a moment.
Did he want to involve others in the crime he was about to commit under the guise that he was simply following orders
?

“No Commander. This is a distasteful business. I think I’ll leave the others out of it as long as I can.”

In the end, if I’m to follow my orders, I suspect I will need to bring the others into this mess but for the time being… they can enjoy the moment in blissful innocence of ignorance
– he thought to himself.

***

“Sir, I have three STig class GCP starships de-cloaking off our port side,” Lieutenant Colson reported. “They are within a kilometer of the ship sir!”

Captain Kirkland looked up from the datapad he had been reviewing. “What now?” He said out loud. “Raise shields. Ziggy hail them… let’s see what they want.”

The view screen flickered and the holographic image of a man wearing a commodore’s rank insignia filled the screen.

“
Yorktown
, I am Commodore Clarkson in command of the
Fulcrum
taskforce. While I personally appreciate what you have just accomplished in saving Earth, I am under orders to place you and your entire crew under arrest. Further I am ordered to secure the
Alpha
weapons platform.”

The man leaned forward, “
Yorktown
, I don’t want to fight you. Given the service you just rendered Earth I cannot imagine the Grand Senate doing anything other than offering a general amnesty. Please lower your shields and allow my officers to board your ship.”

Ken signaled Lieutenant Zimmerman to cut the audio. “Ben get on a channel to the Admiral and let her know what’s going on. If I had to guess… she either has or is about to have some company.”

He nodded to Ziggy to open the channel to the
Fulcrum
again. “Commodore, I cannot immediately comply with your request. Admiral Kimbridge is currently occupied. Once she is appraised of the situation I’m sure she will come to a quick determination as to our course of action.”

Clarkson smiled wanly. “Miss Kimbridge is no longer in a position of command. She has been stripped of her rank. I appeal to you Captain Kirkland. The
Yorktown
has a fine and storied history. Don’t let her final chapter be one of despair and great loss. Turn over your ship and turn over the
Alpha
platform.”

Ken shook his head sadly. “You see there we disagree sir. The
GCP Yorktown
has many more chapters left to write in her story. As far as the
Alpha
goes… the
Alpha
is dead. As of twenty minutes ago
WhimPy-101
had assumed one hundred percent control of the craft and wiped the
Alpha’s
primary and secondary memory cores. The platform is now essentially under the control of
WhimPy-101
… it is in fact
WhimPy-101
now.”

“
Yorktown
, my orders do not give me latitude to allow this situation to stand. Again I implore you to stand down and allow my officers to board your ship.”

Kens stood up and approached the screen. “Sir, how about this. How about you and a small contingent of guards of your choosing come onboard the Yorktown. I give you my word as an officer and as a gentleman that you will be given safe passage to and from my ship. Take the time to talk with Admiral Kimbridge. Listen and look at what she has to show you. Make your best case in person. Isn’t that better than starting a shooting war that neither of us wants?”

Chapter 23:
GCP Fulcrum
…

Marine Sergeant Hernandez from the
GCP Hedison
, edged forward slowly. Behind him five other marines moved with equal stealth. Their Stark Mark Nine combat suits lacked some of the refinements of the Mark Ten Heshe nanite-enhanced suits that the
Yorktown’s
crew used but they were nonetheless very capable systems.

Hernandez toggled his HUD. The heads up display showed four people in the room to the right and another six about a kilometer away. This beast of a ship was big. He waved two of his team forward.

Their mission was to infiltrate the
Alpha
platform and determine the level of resistance a full assault would face. So far with only ten actives from the
Yorktown
it seemed like it would be a cakewalk. He knew though that looks could be deceiving. There was an old soldier’s adage. ‘
All combat was a democracy and your opponent always got a vote
.’

He toggled his sub vocal mic and whispered “Gunny, I have four locals and another half dozen hostiles one klick out.”

“Got ya team leader one. Team two is advancing on the six further out. Hold your position until they get on target. Be prepared to move in and secure your area. If the opposition looks minimal we may as well go ahead and take it out.”

“Orders acknowledged, Hernandez out”

***

WhimPy
watched the incursion with a detached sense of curiosity. Admiral Kimbridge had left to return to the
GCP Yorktown
. She had left ten of her assault team behind to aid
WhimPy
in his assimilation of the now defunct
Alpha
platform.

Once his highly evolved Heshe nanites had thoroughly infiltrated the Uruk platform he would be able to rapidly reconfigure and repair the various subsystems that composed the massive weapons platform.  That would be a lengthy process simply by virtue of the massive ship’s size. To aid in this effort he had a number of drones carrying containers of his construction nanites throughout the ship. However, due to heavy damage inflicted on the platform during his battles with it, there were a number of areas that remained difficult to access. These were the areas that
WhimPy
had requested the Admiral’s assistance with.

Normally he would have simply dealt with these issues himself but because of the need to have his new body fully functional as soon as possible,
WhimPy
had requested the aid. Every moment he remained in potentially hostile space without full access to his abilities was a moment where lives could be lost due to a misunderstanding or an ill-conceived intent on the part of the GCP.

It seemed strange to think of the galactic Coalition of Planets as a hostile but their actions of late had forced a reassessment of his relationship with them. His analytics subroutine had started to develop a hypothesis as to why the GCP was changing. If his suspicions were correct the recently defeated Alpha platform may have been the lessor of the threats facing the GCP.

His internal sensor net detected four teams of six marines each working their way through the various corridors that made up his body. One team was guarding the entry point that they and the Kimbridge contingent had used to gain access to the platform. Another was motionless near his backup core. The third team was heading towards a cluster of fusion generators that
WhimPy
had just managed to get back online. The final team was the one that concerned him most.

In the course of taking over the
Alpha
weapons platform,
WhimPy
had located, disabled and isolated a number of redundant
Alpha
AI cores. Without power and without access to sensors, weapons, and navigation or drive systems these cores did not represent a significant threat. That said, the fourth incursion team was heading toward Lieutenant Stone’s team near the only one of these backup cores that had represented a potential concern. The power feeds to that AI had been intact. When the fusion generators came back online the core powered up and began casting about with the few systems it had access to in an effort to determine what was going on.

It was that casting about that drew
WhimPy’s
attention. He had immediately dispatched the Lieutenant’s team with a number of construction nanite cylinders so that he could subsume the rogue AI.  

While the Lieutenant had been able to isolate the core, there were too many available power feeds to completely power it down quickly. They were even now placing more of the nanite canisters so that
WhimPy
could complete the task. The risk was that the incursion force could delay the operation and thus complicate the situation needlessly.

WhimPy
opened a channel to the
Yorktown
forces. “Lieutenant Stone and Sergeant Moore. Please be advised you have visitors moving into your respective AO’s. There are twenty four marines from the
GCP
Hedison
in four groups. One group is guarding access port A12. A second is near Sergeant Moore’s position but seems to be holding in place. The third group is attempting to access the primary fusion generators. I’ve erected shields that should prevent them from accessing those power system. The fourth group is approaching your position Lieutenant.”

“
WhimPy
,” Lieutenant Stone replied, “Can you determine their intent?”

“I do not have access to their encrypted quantum communications. However a heuristic analysis of their actions to date would suggest they are attempting to assume control of this station.”

“Can they?”

“Negative, but they could complicate matters if they interfere with you efforts to shut down that backup AI core you attempting to isolate. If the core gains access to one or more of the weapons systems before I can stop it… the
Alpha
AI could do serious damage to Earth’s biosphere.”

“How close are they?” Stone asked even as he pushed his men to move faster.

“That their current pace they should be in your vicinity in less than five minutes.”

“Thanks for the heads up 101. We will take it from here.”

“Lieutenant, one more thing...”

“There always is…”

“The men are wearing Mark Nine Combat suits. They are equipped with stealth technology. It is not as advanced as the Mark Ten’s but if they stand still you will have a difficult time spotting them.”

“That’s worth knowing. Thanks.”

***

AG explained the situation to his team and instructed them to hurry and get their nanites deployed as fast as they could. He and four of his men dropped their packages off in the proscribed predesignated locations WhimPy had indicated. The fifth man, Private First Class Jackson had trouble reaching his target and so was a few minutes slower than the rest.

He was walking up to the rest of the group with a self-satisfied smile on his face when a pointer plasma beam materialized out of nowhere and hit him in the back. Although they could be lethal, the discharge from a pointer rifle was typically used to stun an opponent.

Fortunately for Jackson the pointer in question was set to stun. His Stark suit was capable of absorbing most of the energy from a stun blast but it would still hurt. Jackson, to his credit, dropped in a heap on the floor without uttering a sound… just like he had been trained. Opponents unfamiliar with the specific abilities of the Mark Ten would have no reason to suspect he was anything other than unconscious.

“Men fall back,” AG ordered.

“Lieutenant, this is Lieutenant Commander Crosby Davis from the
Hedison
. We have taken control of this weapons system. You and your man are ordered to stand down.”

“Men, engage cloaks,” AG ordered. “Lieutenant Commander … Davis did you say?”

“Tell your men to deactivate their Starks, Lieutenant… that is an order.”

“Beg’n the Lieutenant Commander’s pardon sir. But you are not in my chain of command. I do not recognize your authority to give me orders.”

“So that’s the way you want to play this Lieutenant? Marine fighting marine?”

“My name is Stone. Anthony Grant Stone. I have no desire to fight you.”

“Then don’t, Lieutenant Stone. How we proceed is entirely up to you.”

“So if I order my men to power down their Starks, except for the gravity plating on their boots, and to surrender their arms you will not shoot us out of hand?”

“Of course not son. We are all marines here,” Lieutenant Commander Davis said with an air of fatherly compassion.

AG stood up and deactivated most of the systems on his Stark suit. Given his recent enhancements the suit would only slow him down. He placed his weapon and backpack carefully on the ground.

“Men,” he ordered, “Deactivate you suits and relinquish your arms.”

As they did so the team from the
Hedison
disabled their cloaking fields.

“Smart move son. We are going to get along just fine,” a tall marine said as he walked over to where Lieutenant Stone was standing. He kicked away the younger man’s weapon and started to pull one of his arms down to fasten magnetic restraints on it. That was when AG made his move.

Now that he could see where each of his opponents were, without their cloaks on, he could take action.

In one superhumanly fast motion he reversed the Commander’s grip and placed the magnetic shackles on him. Next he threw the startled officer five feet in the air into the two men standing behind him. That was three of the six down. Just three more to go.

The first of the three tried to bring his pointer up and fire it at the blur that was Lieutenant Stone. Even though he was a good fifteen feet away, Stone was on him before he could finish swinging his weapon up. As the corporal pulled the trigger, AG pushed the barrel around with his bare hand to point at one of the other
Hedison
marines who was still standing.

The beam hit him square on the chest. Mark Nine Stark suits didn’t have the same level of shielding that the Mark Ten’s did and so the marine in question crumpled – another victim of friendly fire.

AG had just turned to face his last opponent when he felt an electric tingle surge over his body. He knew had he been unenhanced he would be down. As it was he stumbled… slightly dazed… but still on his feet. The last marine from the
Hedison
seemed amazed that his pointer had not dropped his target. He knew he got a clean shot in. He started to raise his weapon for a second go at it when he himself was hit by a pointer blast. He crumpled like a rag doll.

Private Jackson stood back up with his rifle in his hand.

“Tisk tisk,” the young private said. “Didn’t your drill sergeant teach you to never assume an enemy is out?” 

***

Commodore Clarkson stood at top of the ramp of his shuttle facing the flight deck of the
GCP Yorktown
. How many times had he dreamt of standing here as a young boy? And yet now that he was here there were few places in the universe he would rather not be.

Admiral Catherine Kimbridge stood just outside his shuttle door at the base of the ramp. With her was a security detail and the man he had talked to before, Captain Ken Kirkland. Clarkson walked down the ramp.

“Captain, permission to come aboard?”

Ken looked at Cat. Failure to recognize a superior office was a severe breach of protocol but given the current situation he supposed it was understandable. Cat for her part smiled wanly and gave Ken the barest of nods.

“Permission granted Commodore. Welcome onboard the
Yorktown
.”

“I wish I could said it’s a pleasure to be here but we have some serious business to discuss.” With that he turned to face Cat.

“Doctor Kimbridge, while I greatly respect what you have done for Earth and the GCP I find myself in an awkward position.”

Cat smiled and stuck out her hand to shake his. He hesitated but then relented and shook her hand back. This seemed to break the ice.

“Commodore,” Cat said gravely, “I have some information that impacts the very future of the GCP that I need to share with you… But in order to do so I need to be sure with whom I am sharing it. With your permission I want to take you by our medical bay and show you some equipment we recovered. While we are there I want our doctor to do a quick scan of you and your security detail. You have my word that it will be done quickly and will be non-invasive.”

Clarkson motioned for his security detail to follow them as they took the turbo lift to the medical deck. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting. The Yorktown was officially classified as a renegade vessel and yet it operated with the spit and polish of the premiere flagship it had once been. As they passed crewmen in the wide corridors the crewman stood off to the side and saluted as they passed. What the Commodore did not know was that Cat had put an end to courtesy protocols during normal ship operations. The only reason it was in place now was because Captain Kirkland had announced over the public address system that a flag officer was visiting and all courtesy protocols should be observed for the duration.