New Contract (Perimeter Defense Book #3) (24 page)

In the next hall over, I had two light drones demonstrated for me. First, the improved Alien combat drone, distinguished by its increased endurance, speed and maneuverability. Also, with its fully rewritten programming, it was able to change its tactics autonomously depending on type of enemy, working together with other drones and starships in a group, carrying out rocket evasion maneuvers and getting out of range of a turret, as well as firing specifically at enemy ships' weak points.

"We have found replacements for most of the necessary metals and materials that we had a deficit of, reducing the production cost of each unit to one hundred eighty thousand credits. This new drone has been given the name
Razor
for its ability to slice through armor, and a certain physical resemblance."

And in fact, the thin drone did look somewhat like a thirty-five-foot-long razor blade, or even better, a dart with thin flights. I familiarized myself with the characteristics of the model, and nodded in approval, giving the order for mass-production of these "little razors," hoping to completely change out the light combat drones of the Unatari fleet with drones of this new generation.

"Your Highness, no need to rush with that order now," the leader of the laboratory stopped me. "There's another model of specialized light, high-speed drone, with thrusters copied from the alien
Meteors
. We figured out how they worked, but were not able to figure out how to apply them to
Pyro
or
Warhawk
frigates. When carrying out maneuvers at such high speeds, no matter how many gravity compensators you put into it, there are huge G-forces that make it impossible for human pilots and crew to survive. The second problem is with cannon accuracy. At high angular speeds, and when maneuvering, the intelligent ship-tracking and targeting systems are compromised. As such, we tried using high-speed thrusters in special drones made for capturing targets. The energy draw of the system allows for the installation of either warp disruptors for blocking enemy warp drives, or stasis webs for slowing a target down. New models have been given the name
Leech-B
or
Leech-C
for drones with warp disruptors and stasis webs respectively. The speed of the drones makes them more than capable of catching up to and overtaking any ship in existence, including Alien
Meteors
. Or, instead of target-capturing equipment, the drone could also be equipped with a cannon capable of launching bombs up to a megaton, which is model
Leech-A
."

"So you're saying that these drones would allow any fast enemy ships to be captured, then subsequently hit by cannons either from cruisers or
Barbarians
, or even special models made to destroy a bunch of minor ships with nuclear cannon rounds?"

Samantha ton Kruger nodded in silence, confirming that I was not mistaken. I stroked my forehead in contemplation. What does that mean? A cloud of
Leeches
released by my ships could capture anything moving toward my fleet. Battleships, cruisers and heavy
Barbarians
can shoot the immobilized targets from a safe distance. No little ships could get near mine now. Meanwhile, we were already capable of holding heavy ships. I was reminded of the term "imba" from computer games, used to describe a badly imbalanced mechanic. As such, it would have been stupid not to order an adequate number of such drones for the Unatari fleet.

The next couple laboratories from the science complex left me disenchanted. No one had even made a step forward in understanding the concept of how the Aliens were moving around without the warp beacons familiar to humanity. They also hadn't come any closer to understanding the system of mobile warp-beacon delivery. Producing antimatter to use in cannons taken from the ruined
Behemoths
was also at a stand-still. Their successes were limited only to having created individual atoms of anti-lithium and anti-beryllium. Alien
Meteor
thrusters, as I'd already been told, had not been able to be adapted to human frigates. They could put loads of up to 30 G's on ship crews, which was a guarantee the crew would be killed. Reducing the speed, or increasing the mass of the frigates with more advanced gravity compensation systems made using the new thrusters pointless.

New technologies for quickly restoring energy shields, applied in the
Barbarian
drones, it turned out, were impossible to use in small class ships and, conversely, on heavy battleships and motherships as well. They could only be used on light or heavy cruisers, though that was pretty cool in and of itself. I ordered all
Thrushes
,
Curses
,
Umoyges
,
Legashes
,
Katanas
and
Flambergs
modernized with the new systems. Now, anything that couldn't destroy a cruiser right away would be totally harmless to it.

The biology division had had slightly more success. They had managed to grow the "bush" aliens under laboratory conditions, though the specimens that resulted were not intelligent and basically were hardly different from the random primitive life forms found in the cosmos periodically by scout ships on asteroids and comets. The key to understanding the structure of the Alien societies was not found through them, though these "synthetic Aliens" were good enough for testing out the best method of killing them. Herbicides, defoliants, various wavelength laser beams, infrasonic waves, microwaves, cyanides, ions of heavy metal... the list of tested approaches was seventy screens long. The most effective was found to be high-frequency resonator irradiation, which destroyed the intermolecular bonds of the "bushes." Now, the technicians were working on modifying standard Imperial infantry resonators for effective combat against the Aliens.

I was already getting ready to finish my excursion around the orbital science city, thinking that I had heard everything new they had, but Samantha ton Kruger suggested I also see the experimental combat explosive laboratory. In her words, this group of scientists had something worth showing me. And I did not regret going.

"Your Highness, before you are bombs of a new type, for cloaked ships." The Chameleon in charge of the laboratory led me to some thirty-foot-long cylindrical objects, approximately twelve feet in diameter. "To the right, is a working model of an electromagnetic bomb, capable of causing serious failures in enemy electrical systems. It can turn off navigation systems, overload tactical computers, temporarily disable automatic thruster synchronizers, destabilize energy shields and..." here the scientist made a pause, drawing my attention, "temporarily disable antimatter storage systems on
Behemoth
-class battleships."

Well then! The Chameleon had my rapt attention. The impenetrable Alien
Behemoths
were a very serious problem for my fleet. Alien battleships either had to be boarded, or I had to risk my ships and go for close combat, draining energy with neutralizers, and losing starships in the process. I was being offered a way of doing some damage to these giants, taking their electronic systems out of commission for a time. And, by some trickery of the devil, I was even given the chance of blowing them up from the inside! As if reading my thoughts, the Chameleon scientist continued:

"The bomb to the left is gravitational. It creates a short-duration, but very strong gravitational disturbance, damaging large construction elements, knocking living creatures off their feet, and causing severe injury, even to those inside armored starships. If applied simultaneously with the previous bomb..."

"It would destabilize the energy fields holding the antimatter in place, destroying the
Behemoth
," I said, finishing the Chameleon’s sentence.

"That's exactly right, your Majesty." The Chameleon bowed in a totally human fashion in respect at my prescient guess. "Both types of round are difficult to manufacture and are very expensive to produce, approximately fifteen million credits each."

"No matter how much these bombs cost, I need them as fast as possible! If I could deprive the Alien armada of their
Behemoth
backbone, we could easily wipe out the remaining enemy ships!"

For the first time since the beginning of the war with the Aliens, I saw a real chance to change the course of the unfortunately-developing standoff. I ordered fifty gravity bombs and fifty EMP bombs manufactured, spending one and a half billion credits in the process. I then spent another two billion to complete the
Quasar
-class carrier. The former monarch of the Fastel system had already sent me detailed diagrams of the giant. For six hundred million, I planned the construction of one hundred fifty
Curse
-class light cruisers. This former ugly duckling, taken out of production in the Empire for its low effectiveness, seemed brilliant to me in light of the new conditions. I spent another three hundred million buying electronic warfare ships.
Thrushes
, already having proven their high effectiveness, became even more attractive with the new energy shields. Finally, another three billion credits went to buying drones of all kinds for the Unatari fleet, and modernizing all cruisers. From the eight billion credits and a bit that I had at the beginning, there was just one billion remaining. Yes, it was a big expense, but it was worth it for the ability to defeat the Aliens once and for all!

"Y
our Majesty, the Fastel fleet has arrived to the Fia star system, with Duke Valesy Unatari at its head," Ayna told me, just as I was sitting down for a meal in the science complex's cafeteria in the company of Admiral Mike ton Akad and Bionica.

"Excellent, tell Duke Valesy to have his people land the
Quasar
at dock five. Everything there is ready to receive it. Then, invite the Duke to join me for dinner. You would be welcome as well."

A few minutes later, confirmation arrived that the Duke had accepted the invitation and would soon be arriving at the Fia orbital science station. I ordered another place-setting made up for our honorable guest, but just then Florianna's alarmed voice rang out in my head:

"Crown Prince, wait! I sense potential danger! Duke Valesy is now on the large landing ship
Skinflint
. Approximate time to docking at the scientific complex: seven minutes. The Duke has five thousand armed assault troops ready for combat. Half of them are wearing heavy exoskeleton space armor right now, and the others are equipped for support. I sense that their general emotional state is one of anxious waiting. The Duke ordered them to prepare for possible active measures."

"An attempt at overthrowing the government?" I clarified out loud, and my companions at the table instantly perked up their ears.

"Duke Valesy has yet to decide, actually. On the one hand, he wants to rule the new Unatari State himself. On the other though, the Duke is not sure that he will be able to deal with that role while at war with three Great Houses. Also, the Duke isn't even close to understanding the magnitude of your Majesty's forces here in the Fia star system. But, if your former relative thinks the time is right, he could easily give the order to his soldiers to arrest or even kill Crown Prince Georg royl Inoky."

I voiced Florianna's message out loud. Popori de Cacha instantly appeared from invisibility and said that there were just twenty of my bodyguards on the station, as well as three hundred local guards, who weren't particularly skilled in combat. In comparison with five thousand assault troops, it was nothing at all. The uneasy admiral turned on his microphone and called the attendant frigate division to the station, though we all understood perfectly well that the ships would not be able to stop a potential landing.

"I could order the androids on
Skinflint
to damage the docking systems, block airlocks and basically just create chaos in the ranks of the landing ship. Robots listen to me. We could earn a few minutes that way," Bionica suddenly suggested.

I took a shocked look at my secretary. I didn't suspect the modest Bionica could tell other robots what to do. The synthetic blonde had clearly understated her role in the hierarchy of Imperial androids. I made a mental note to talk with my secretary about this under calmer circumstances. For now, though, I told them all to wait and not take hostile action before I had the chance to talk with my former father-in-law. And only when a landing ship appeared from the warp tunnel one hundred and twenty miles from the science station, did I order a call placed to the Duke.

The former monarch of the Kingdom of Fastel appeared on screen. The old man was clearly strained and agitated.

"Greetings, Valesy!" I said with pronounced amicability. "Duke, I thought I had called just you to dinner, not all fifty thousand assault troops from
Skinflint
. This isn't a very big cafeteria. I don't think it can fit that many people. Order your men to remove their armor, lay down their laser rifles, store them in your armory, and disperse. You should get in a shuttle yourself, like all normal people, without any grandstanding. Otherwise, I'm afraid your intentions could be misunderstood, and your landing ship might not make it to the station."

Three seconds of strained silence followed, after which the Duke gave a deep bow and answered:

"That is precisely what I'll do, your Majesty. I was in too much of a rush to the meeting, and it didn't occur to me that a landing ship docking at your station could be taken the wrong way. Please forgive my forgetfulness. I'm an old man. My memory isn't what it used to be..."

Standing change. Valesy royl Unatari's opinion of you has improved.

Presumed personal opinion of you: +38 (friendship)

"That's great, Valesy. I'll be waiting for you in the cafeteria."

I signed off and turned to Admiral Mike ton Akad, who had pulled up an image from one of the station's external cameras on his palmtop computer, and was following
Skinflint
's movement with panic.

"They have stopped the approach. They have turned off maneuver drives and dropped shields. Holy shit, Georg! It worked!"

Standing change. Mike ton Akad's opinion of you has improved.

Presumed personal opinion of you: +87 (completely trusting)

"Sometimes, having a negative standing can work to your advantage," I chuckled. "Many are afraid of you, so they imagine that you might just kill everyone around you in the cruelest way imaginable at the drop of a hat. That makes lying about doing so a bit easier to pull off."

Bionica laughed her frolicsome, completely human laugh, but then the android's mood suddenly changed and sadness appeared in the girl's voice:

"I hope the day will come when androids are also allowed to get implants to express their personal opinion of various humans and factions. I think it would be just. After all, many modern robot models practically equal humans in level of intellect and abstract thinking ability, and in many ways even surpass them."

For some reason, I had no doubt that this sentence wasn't simply out of nowhere. It was clearly intended for my ears, and now the android girl was waiting for my reaction. I mulled my synthetic assistant's grievance over, and immediately found several flaws in her proposal:

"Bionica, those implants help people directly interact with databases and figure out who someone is quickly. But androids can do both of those things already. The other role of these implants is that they allow prominent figures to express their point of view through a system of personal and faction relations, thus forming something of an average idea of what a given group thinks. But nowhere near all people have built-in implants. Only the ones who have achieved something important, or those who occupy a high position in society. The key words here are 'only' and 'important.' And now, imagine millions of androids of the same model. They have identical BIOS and software, so their opinion on an event would not be the same kind of aggregate, but would instead depend on settings and behavior model. Whose viewpoint, then, would these millions of androids be expressing? The manufacturing company's? The Green House's?"

Bionica grew ashamed in a very human way and puffed out her lips:

"Master, you cannot tell me you really think my character identical to all eight million model 034-6781 android servants, created since production began, right?"

I hurried to calm my excessively emotional assistant:

"No, of course not. Bionica, you are unique in many ways, above all else your history. Very few robot servants have had the chance to spend a whole quarter century developing and honing their personal character, without periodically wiping unique programming changes, and replacing them with typical firmware and layouts. Well, are there many such 'ripened' personalities in your batch of eight million?"

"No, of course not. Three million model 034-6781 androids have been simply destroyed over the years, mostly disposed of due to lack of demand. More modern models came out. Old ones stayed on the shelves for a while, but were eventually sent back for parts. Of the five million that are still around, only eleven, including me, were not regularly updated to new patches and firmware. And of these eleven androids, two of them care for elderly people, eight serve clients in bordellos, and only I have a dignified job as Minister of Economy for the space government of Unatari..."

Admiral Mike ton Akad, sitting next to me, choked on his beer, coughed it out, and suddenly began whinnying like a mare.

"Wait, is that true?! Minister Bionica, seventy percent of robots identical to you work in bordellos?!"

It was clearly an insulting question, but the synthetic girl didn't get ashamed one bit:

"Admiral, if we widen it to all subtypes of my model, over ninety-two percent of them are involved in sex work in one way or another. We were initially created to replace people in all kinds of professions, but we were also made to be attractive to men, and given a whole set of female bodily organs. That is exactly why Crown Prince Georg royl Inoky ton Mesfelle drew such a wave of reproach and mockery from his detractors when he chose me as a secretary and translator. Only the direct interference of Emperor August, who had a positive opinion of my work and awarded me an Emerald Star, was enough to stop all the insinuation on the topic. I am no worse than a living girl, which is why I would like everyone around me to think of me and treat me like a living person."

But the admiral did not distinguish himself with his sense of tact today.

"In issues of labor, yes, you are no worse than a living girl. But androids cannot have children, so no matter what, when talking with you I will be left with a sensation of artificiality, no matter how pretty an envelope it comes in."

"Admiral, the Crown Prince's assistant Ayna is also not capable of having children. Would you also call her artificial? Find me even one parameter in which she can surpass me. All the same, Ayna has a built-in implant, expresses her personal opinion to the world around her, and that doesn't surprise any of you one bit. Why, then, do you refuse me the same ability?"

"This is no time for demagoguery, robot. There are differences between you. For example, androids cannot kill."

Bionica didn't have time to answer that argument, as the subject of the conversation, Ayna, walked in, leading the ancient Duke Valesy by the elbow. The old man looked a lot older "in real life," than the person I was used to seeing on screen. I suspect that, before talking with me on video phone, he usually got touched up by his make-up servants, and did his best not to walk on his shaky legs. Now, though, you could see all eighty years of his life on his face. As he approached me, the old man tried to fall to his knees, but Ayna held him upright.

"Your Majesty, please forgive me for my stupid thoughts. I have done you wrong!" The Duke declared with repentance in his voice.

But I immediately stopped the old man's self-accusatory speech and pointed him to a cushy armchair next to me.

"Duke Valesy, you didn't manage to actually do anything reprehensible, and it is not accepted practice to punish someone for their thoughts. Admiral Mike ton Akad over there has been doing nothing for the last half hour but openly mocking my Economy Minister, mentally creating some very perverse scenes as he did so, but we can't exactly punish him for raping my android servant, can we?"

The admiral grew embarrassed for a brief second, but then laughed out loud. The tension disappeared in an instant. The Duke sighed with relief and sat at the table. We had our lunch, then conversed on various topics in a relaxed manner until Bionica suddenly said:

"Crown Prince, the Swarm diplomatic ship has just taken the warp jump out of the Forepost-4 system toward the Sivalla system."

I did not ask Bionica where she had gotten the information from. It was, after all, probably just some inconspicuous android from the Human border station there. But then, the deeper meaning of the synthetic blonde's message was, in fact, very important. Triasss Zess's diplomatic ship had made it unharmed through Perimeter Sector Nine, and was now on its way to Swarm space. And that meant that the Orange House wouldn't be able to stop me from meeting my daughter now, no matter how much they wanted to. By the way, it was now possible, and even necessary to inform the Purple and Blue Houses on the whereabouts of their missing Princesses.

First, I made a call to the Head of the Purple House, Duke Takuro royl Andor. I was put through almost instantly. The ancient aristocrat was clearly ailing, lying in bed held in place with some wires and data-reading suction cups. I greeted the Duke, following all applicable rules of courtly etiquette, then said:

"I received a letter from my daughter, Crown Princess Likanna. She is currently on her way to Unatari through Swarm space. She took two girls from her school with her. Crown Princess Natalie royl Cruz ton Miro and Crown Princess Joan royl Reyekh ton Andor..."

The old man on the screen shuddered with his whole body and closed his eyes. Tears unexpectedly started rolling down his cheeks.

"Duke, Likanna invited her friends over for break, and the girls decided not to tell their relatives, because they were afraid they'd get told 'no.' I would like to offer my apologies for my daughter's thoughtless behavior and the worry she caused. Today, though, I'll be meeting the Crown Princesses and will try to return Joan royl Reyekh to Purple House space as quickly as possible."

The old man opened an eye, smiled through the tears and looked at me: