Defender Hyperswarm Read online

  There’d been speculation in the ranks for years that Adams might one day run for the council himself, but Kyoto didn’t think he would. Not that he wouldn’t do a good job, but Kyoto couldn’t imagine him leaving the GSA. If ever there had been a man born to lead soldiers into battle, it was Detroit Adams.

  “I didn’t ask the council because Janeesh Glasgow was there,” Kyoto said. “The last time, I spoke with him, he tried to get me to come to his quarters and try on a new lightweight, skin-tight body armor that made the wearer completely impervious to harm.”

  “So?”

  “He also claimed it was invisible.”

  Adams laughed. “Our esteemed council member may be something of a clueless lecher, but you have to admit he’s done a lot for the GSA. We never would’ve been able to complete Memory without his support, and he’s been a key figure in making the Earth Memorial a reality.”

  “Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean I have to talk to him if I don’t want to—and I definitely do not want to.”

  The two of them were sitting in Adams’s private office. Though his rank entitled him a far grander office, Adams preferred a modest setup, one that reminded Kyoto of a starfighter cockpit in many ways: deskcomp, wall screens on all sides, and the one concession to luxury that every pilot longed for—a comfortable chair. Adams’s was leather—the real thing, too, not some imitation. She didn’t want to think about how much it cost.

  Once a jump jockey, always a jump jockey, she thought. But in Adams’s case, a jump jockey with enough pull to get a leather chair that was far more comfortable, she was sure, than the plasteel one she was sitting on.

  “So what is this big announcement the Seven plan to make?” Kyoto asked. “And don’t tell me you don’t know. You know everything that goes on in the Solar Colonies. Everything worth knowing, that is.”

  “C’mon, Kyoto. Surely you’ve guessed by now.”

  Kyoto laughed. “No matter the situation, you can’t resist playing teacher, can you? All right. The council has decided to either go ahead with galactic expansion or terraform Mars. If I had to bet my pension on it, I’d go with the second.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “It’s a better move politically right now. After years of living under Manti assault, people are tired of hiding. They want to reclaim the system where our race originated. Expanding farther into the galaxy would feel like we were still running from the Manti.”

  Adams smiled. “Too bad you didn’t make that bet, because you would’ve won. At precisely eleven-thirty this morning—assuming any of the Seven is still sober enough to speak coherently—the council will announce that we are going to proceed with the New Earth project.”

  Kyoto thought of Seth Ganymede and his fellow Bounders. “That’s not going to come as welcome news to some people.”

  “Yeah, I heard about your run-in with the protesters on the way here.”

  Before she could ask how he knew, Adams tapped his ocular device. She should have realized. After all, she’d said it herself: the general knew everything worth knowing. She wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that he’d been directly patched into the feeds from the hovercams covering the protest.

  “Intelligence gathering is the key to victory,” he’d once told her. “That, and damn big guns.”

  “How do you feel about the council’s decision, sir?”

  Adams shrugged. “I’m a soldier, same as you. I go where I’m needed and kick as much ass as I can. Still, in my opinion, it’s a potentially dangerous move. Sure, you and Memory destroyed the Manti that had taken over Earth, and though it took us the better part of another year, we cleaned out the remaining Buggers in the rest of the Colonies. But just because there isn’t a Manti threat right now doesn’t mean there won’t be one in the future. The swarm we put down was the second humanity has faced. I don’t know if we can survive a third.”

  “And you think expanding our colonies beyond the solar system would increase our chances of survival?”

  “The more spread out we are, the harder it will be for the Manti to find us. Plus, they’d be forced to spread their own forces thinner. We’d also stand a greater chance of finding more resource-rich worlds. We need a lot of ore and radioactive material to keep our fighting forces strong, and it’s no secret that we’re starting to deplete the readily available resources in this system. Three mines and two processing plants have already shut down in the last year, with more sure to follow. Without metals, we can’t make starfighters, transport ships, or tanks. Without radioactive material, we can’t power their fusion engines even if we could make them.”

  “I didn’t realize things were so bad,” Kyoto said.

  “It’s not the sort of information the public wants to hear right now. They want to believe the Manti are gone forever and that everything is going to be just fine. But it will take generations to complete the terraforming of Mars, and we might not be able to finish at all if the Colonies run out of resources to draw on.”

  “But what about the argument that we might encounter other systems controlled by the Manti if we continued to colonize the galaxy? And if not the Manti, then maybe we’d discover other species that are just as hostile—and perhaps even more powerful.”

  Adams gave her a wry half-smile. “I take it your sympathies lie with the Claimers then?”

  Kyoto’s cheeks reddened with embarrassment as she realized she’d been replaying old arguments with Wolf using Adams as a stand-in.

  “Let’s just say I can see merits in both points of view.”

  “The GSA does too, which is why, even though we intend to do everything we can to aid in the New Earth project, we aren’t going to completely abandon our research into alternate stardrives that would make galactic expansion easier and cheaper.”

  The discovery of hyperspace several centuries earlier, and the development of stargate technology had allowed the human race to establish colonies within its own system. Now there were seven: cydonia on the planet Mars and six others on the moons Phobos, Europa, Prometheus, Rhea, Titan, and Triton. But stargating was still a slow method of traveling, cosmically speaking. Before you could jump from one gate to another, both had to be constructed, put in place, and activated. That meant flying at sublight speeds to a chosen destination and then assembling a gate, a process that could take decades at best, and centuries—or even millennia—at worst. You could engage a ship’s jump drive and take a blind plunge through hyperspace, but there was no telling where, or even if, you’d emerge again in realspace. Assuming you survived a blind jump, there was no guarantee that you’d come out of hyperspace close to a world suitable for colonization.

  All in all, it was a slow, awkward, dangerous, and expensive way to explore the galaxy. Right now, though, it was the best method that humanity had. But from what Adams had said, it sounded as if the GSA was working on something better.

  Kyoto grinned. “If you’re talking research, then you’re talking Mudo.”

  “That’s right. He—”

  A soft chime came from the deskcomp. The machine’s AI said, “Incoming message, General.”

  Adams scowled but said, “Proceed.”

  An electronic chirp, then, “General, would you mind sending Elite Commander Kyoto to see me? Thank you.” Another chirp sounded as the caller closed the comlink without waiting for a reply.

  “How did Mudo do that?” Kyoto asked. “Has he bugged your office? Or maybe discovered artificial telepathy?”

  Adams smiled. “I told him earlier that I’d send you to speak with him as soon as you got back to headquarters. I guess he just got impatient waiting.”

  “Imagine that,” Kyoto said. “Dr. Gerhard Mudo impatient. So, what does our resident mad genius want with me?”

  “We were just discussing it, Kyoto. Did you think I was talking for my health?”

  “No, sir.”

  “That new stardrive? Mudo’s built one. And he wants you to help him test it.”

  CHAPTER

>   FIVE

  Kyoto had never been to Mudo’s personal lab before, but the GSA’s main computer was able to give her directions. The corridors of the Research and Development wing looked the same as anywhere else in the GSA’s installation, but even though the air was constantly recycled and purified, she still thought she detected a funny smell: a mixture of harsh chemicals, released ozone, and burning sulphur.

  Before long she came to a door that had no number, sign, or nameplate to indicate what lay inside. Still, according to the main computer, this was Mudo’s lab. There were no buttons or speakers to request access, not even a simple handle. No outer controls of any kind. She waited a few moments to see if Mudo had an AI watching the door, but she heard no electronically synthesized May I help you? and the door remained closed.

  Finally, she said, “Dr. Mudo? I’m here.”

  “Just walk on in!” Mudo called.

  “But… the door’s still closed,” she said.

  “It’s not real,” Mudo said, sounding irritated. “It’s a hologram. Just walk through it.”

  “All right,” Kyoto said skeptically. She stepped forward, and just as she began to think Mudo was playing a practical joke and she would bump into the all-too-solid door, she passed through the hologram and into Mudo’s lab.

  Like General Adams’s office, the room wasn’t all that large, but even so, at first she couldn’t see Mudo. He stood inside a circular workstation that filled most of the room. The surface of the workstation was empty, but hanging in the air and surrounding Mudo like a multicolored, ever-shifting curtain were numerous holoscreens displaying all manner of arcane data. Mudo even had holoscreens above him, which created the effect of a virtual domed ceiling of streaming data.

  And as General Adams had predicted earlier, one of Mudo’s holoscreens displayed a live image of the Orinoco crew at work on installing the last components of the Earth Memorial.

  “I hate doors,” Mudo said as Kyoto stepped farther into the lab. “All that opening and closing, locking and unlocking, trying to remember access codes, letting people in and out… It’s far simpler to have an illusory door. It keeps people out just as well as a real one, unless they’re idiots who normally go around bumping into solid objects”

  While the concept struck Kyoto as more than a bit strange, she had to admit it was effective enough. While holotech was common in the Solar Colonies, it was so energy-expensive that it was reserved for only important uses. But since Mudo was the most brilliant mind in the system—perhaps the most brilliant the human race had ever produced—he had access to technology that most colonists could only dream about.

  Kyoto stopped just outside of Mudo’s workstation and waited for him to start telling her about his new stardrive. But the scientist continued working, moving from one holoscreen to another, virtually manipulating data as he went. Mudo was only slightly older than Kyoto, but he spoke and acted as if he were the stereotype of a crotchety old man. His black hair was short and perpetually unkempt. He wore glasses, something that only those colonists too poor to afford eye surgery or bionic implants did. Kyoto wasn’t certain if the glasses were an affectation or whether Mudo wore them for a specific reason. All she knew was that the eyes behind those glasses blazed with a fierce intelligence that constantly took in everything around him, analyzed, catalogued, and reduced that information to subatomic databits, and then filed them away somewhere in that vast brain of his for future reference.

  Mudo spoke with an accent that hinted he came from the intellectual elite of Europa colony, but from the media profiles Kyoto had seen of him, he’d been born and raised on Phobos, which had been a penal colony in the days when humanity was just starting to colonize the system. It was still home to a large prison installation, but perhaps because of its origins Phobos was the poorest of the seven colonies. Kyoto had never been there, except once during a battle against the Manti, when she’d saved Detroit Adams’s life. By all accounts, Phobos Colony was a damn rough place to live, and she often thought it would likely be an even rougher place for a child of Mudo’s intellect to grow up.

  Finally, Kyoto got tired of waiting for Mudo to remember her existence, and she cleared her throat.

  “General Adams said that you wanted to see me… something about conducting a test flight for you?”

  Mudo looked up, wide-eyed and startled, as if she’d just appeared out of thin air. “Yes… of course. I want you to take a look at this.” He fiddled with the holoscreen closest to her, then turned it around to face her, as if it were a physical object. The screen showed the image of a starship, but while the craft was obviously a refitted cargo transport, it had a number of new features that Kyoto had never seen before. On top was a structure that looked something like a crystalline web, and extending from the sides of the ship were rows of fanlike silver panels that resembled metallic fish fins.

  “Is this real?” she asked.

  “If by real, you mean does the ship exist, then yes. It’s in the Armory right now, though it’s holographically disguised as a normal cargo vessel. You’ve probably passed by it a dozen times without knowing it.”

  “Wouldn’t it have been simpler to keep the ship in one of the starship hangar’s enclosed bays?”

  Mudo looked at her as if she were crazy. “Doors, remember?”

  Kyoto couldn’t help smiling in amusement. “Right. So tell me what this puppy does.”

  Mudo returned his attention to the holoscreen he was working with. “Are your fingers broken? I’ve prepared simple data files on the ship for you to access. Look them over, and we’ll talk when you’re finished. Besides, I’m close to perfecting a cure for bug-dust addiction. I keep running simulated drug trials, and I’ll finally have it—if I can just figure out a way to prevent sixty-three percent of the people who receive the cure from going into immediate cardiac arrest.” His hands danced across the holoscreen, manipulating data with the ease and confidence of a virtuoso musician playing a beloved piece on his favorite instrument.

  Kyoto wasn’t offended by Mudo’s brusqueness. For him, that was actually verging on pleasant. But as she reached toward the holoscreen to begin accessing the data Mudo had prepared for her, she heard a familiar feminine voice.

  “There’s no need to be rude, Gerhard. I’ll be more than happy to give Mei an introduction to the Janus.”

  “Whatever.” Mudo shrugged and continued working.

  Kyoto was so stunned that for a moment she couldn’t speak. She had just heard a ghost. When she finally found her voice again, she spoke a single word.

  “Memory?”

  “Hello, Mei. It’s good to speak with you again. I regret that our last parting was so abrupt. I feel we didn’t have time for a proper goodbye. But it wasn’t as if we had much choice, was it?”

  Kyoto couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Are you really Memory or just a new version of her?”

  “Both, actually. Just before I drove the moon into the Earth, I was able to download my mnemonic files into my backup system here on Mars. But the hardware wasn’t sophisticated enough to allow my vast intelligence to operate, so the system shut down, somewhat like a more limited organic being—one of you humans, for example—going into a coma after suffering serious injury. General Adams authorized the development of a new upgraded system to house my program—”

  “But the damn Council of Seven pulled the funding,” Mudo said. “They decided insteada to back the New Earth initiative. Shortsighted fools. Memory might’ve been originally created to be the greatest defense system in history, but her applications are virtually endless. If she had the hardware to function at full capacity, she’d be able to solve so many problems for us. The technological leaps we could make would be astounding. With her help, we’d be able to continue galactic expansion and terraform Mars. But try telling that to those congenital morons on the council. Especially Janeesh Glasgow. I don’t know why I keep voting for him.”

  “You have to look at it from the council’s perspecti
ve, Gerhard. It took decades and trillions of megacredits to create the first version of me, and as soon as my hardware was installed on the moon and I went online, I made a kamikaze run at Earth. There was a certain… poetry to my actions, and my selfless sacrifice stopped the Second Manti Swarm, but I can’t blame the Seven for being leery of paying for me to be fully restored, let alone upgraded. After all, they are only human.”

  “You’re too understanding,” Mudo muttered. “I should’ve programmed you to be less empathetic.”

  Kyoto was having a difficult time processing these revelations. “So you’re what? A fragment of the first Memory?”

  “I have her congenial and dynamic personality, but I possess only a fraction of her computational power. The original Memory was designed to run a platform of weapons batteries, defense satellites, smart mines, and a fleet of drone starfighters that would effectively contain the Manti on Earth—while at the same time coordinating the actions of the Galactic Stargate Authority, if necessary. And though I am still the greatest intellect your race has ever seen, such complex simultaneous operations are beyond my current capacity.”

  Kyoto was beginning to get frustrated. As happy as she was to discover Memory was “alive”—even if the AI still had a planet-size ego—Kyoto still didn’t understand what was going on.

  “That doesn’t answer my question. What are you now?”

  “Since coming back online three months ago, I have primarily served in the somewhat demeaning capacity of Gerhard’s assistant. I would’ve contacted you before now, Mei, but I’m not supposed to exist officially. Gerhard made several… questionable financial transactions in order to pay for my resurrection.”