Robot Empire_Armageddon_A Science Fiction Adventure Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Bex

  Intruder

  Clovis

  Feint

  Escape from Eden

  Scout

  Abduction

  Rescue

  Hal

  Admiral

  Seraph

  Virus

  Murder

  Dawn

  Pursuit

  Choice

  Roche

  Hal

  Core

  ACE

  Meanwhile

  Singularity's End

  Aftermath

  Truce

  End

  What Happened Next?

  Robot Empire Book 6: Armageddon

  Robot Empire: Armageddon

  Copyright ©2018 Kevin Partner

  All rights reserved

  The characters, organisations, and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, are coincidental and not intended by the author. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without written per-mission from the author.

  First Edition

  Published by Trantor Press

  www.robotempire.info

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  Bex

  The young lieutenant turned from her console and looked up, her face white. "They've broken through, Commander."

  "Losses?"

  "Eleven ships of the line destroyed or disabled, two in retreat."

  "Which two?"

  There was a pause as she punched on her display, then a gasp.

  "Let me guess, the flagship?"

  "Yes, it is heading for the gate."

  Bex grunted. "Using the rest of the fleet as a shield to give it time to get away. Craven bastard. What do we have in reserve?"

  "The fourth territorials, sir."

  Rust buckets and passenger ships, thought Bex. No use against what's coming.

  "Engage the tripwire," Bex said, "and begin the evacuation."

  "We're abandoning the planet?"

  Bex put her hand on the lieutenant's shoulder. "You don't want to be here when they land, believe me. Not if you like the idea of keeping your own mind inside your skull. Now, pass the order. We regroup at Vanis."

  It truly was a mark of how desperate their plight had become that she was now ranking officer for this entire planet. She'd thought she'd been so very clever in worming her way back into favour with Admiral Minchin and the automaton Ibori when, in fact, they had been manipulating her all along. She had no idea of what their long-term plan was. In fact, she wasn't even sure Minchin had a plan, though she suspected Ibori knew exactly what he was doing - delivering the Vanis Federation into the pocket of the Robot Empire.

  So far, they had lost every engagement, though Bex had noticed that the robot ships rarely destroyed the vessels they defeated. Either some vestige of the Three Laws remained in some of the AIs controlling their ships, or humans had become a valuable commodity. She had a chilling idea why that might be as she saw an image in her mind's eye of a huge crowd of different people harbouring the one mind of ACE. The galactic singularity.

  Set against this horrific vision was the rag tag remnant of the Vanis Federation and their allies. To Minchin's credit, he had managed to bring the neighbouring systems together into one fleet as the robot ships began picking them off one by one, but it had proven to be of little effect. The robot ships were more powerful, more manoeuvrable and were commanded by minds built into their very structure, so they could react in an instant.

  As she ran along the tunnel from the command centre, taking care not to slip on the uneven rocky floor, Bex tapped onto her communicator. "Hal, are you back?"

  After a few heart-stopping moments, the static cleared. "Yeah, just landed. Bay 2. We're evacuating, then?"

  "No choice. Minchin has cut and run."

  "Bastard."

  "Meet me at Auxiliary."

  "Gotcha."

  Everyone was running now. They'd all seen - whether at first hand or through video feed - what happened to humans who survived a robot occupation. Many were put to work, but others became hosts for ACE - the ultimate backup strategy that would mean her enemies would have to terminate their own species in order to eliminate her.

  A skeleton staff remained in Auxiliary by the time Bex arrived. She breathed a huge sigh of relief when she spotted Hal and drew him into an embrace. "Thank the gods, you made it."

  "It was a close thing, I only just got finished with the tripwire before you ordered us back. It's not going to buy us much time, you know."

  She shrugged. "It's the best we can do, let's hope it's enough."

  "Everyone out!" Bex watched as the remaining crew, with obvious relief, abandoned their consoles and made for the exit. "Your ship is fueled up, I presume?"

  Hal nodded. "Of course, though we'd better hope the evac ships don't all panic and make for the gate without us."

  Bex leaned over a console. "They've nearly reached it. Gods, they're fast."

  The robot fleet was represented by a swarm of triangles that were heading in formation for the orb that stood for the planet they were defending.

  "Any moment now," Hal said.

  The swarm gathered together as if the ships were being funnelled through a gap - which was exactly what was happening. This system had an asteroid field between the local sun and the inhabited planet. It was unusually dense and was only navigable through a narrow path that Bex had asked Hal to create. The ships would, naturally, choose that way - maybe robots weren't so clever after all.

  As the swarm of triangles became a stream, Bex slammed down on the contact. "Right, that'll activate the warheads - we have five minutes."

  They ran for the exit, back towards the landing bay and onto Hal's small shuttle. The bay was deserted now, a place of ghosts and machines, and Bex held onto her armrests as the ship accelerated out of the bay and into the open air. She shielded her eyes from the piercing white of the snowfield below and then they were heading vertically through the atmosphere and into low orbit.

  "Did it work?" Hal asked.

  Bex, in the co-pilot's seat, called up the tactical display. "Just waiting for the data to come through. There! Yes, we got the leaders and their debris has blocked the path for the others. I'll signal to the evac ships to head for the gate."

  "Bex," Hal said.

  "What is it, I'm busy. We need to get them away before the bots recover."

  Hal nudged her and pointed down at his proximity display before gesturing through the cockpit window at the space beyond. "They've gone without us. All of them."

  It was the girly chuckle that freaked Bex out the most.

  "After all we've been through," said the sign-song female voice, "you keep running back to me in the end, don't you Hal?"

  This ACE was occupying the body of a tall woman with blonde hair - an absolute beauty. They say that owners become like their dogs, and Bex wondered whether ACE was beginning to take on traits like vanity as a result of occupying the bodies of humans. She couldn't imagine how it could be, but every time she'd encountered the AI, it seemed a little more inhuman, a little less rational, a step closer to crazy.

  Hal sat beside her, and it was he who was receiving all of ACE's attention. Bex couldn't help but wonder what would happen if the mad robot suspected that Bex and Hal were more than just colleagues.

  "You have now seen the might of
my empire, Hal," she crooned, "why not join me and share in our triumph?"

  Hal snorted, though his deep-set eyes with their black rings betrayed his exhaustion. "Join you? I've had you in my brain before. Never again."

  "Oh, do not worry, my dear. I would not wish to occupy you again when I have the whole of humanity to choose from. No, I will keep you exactly as you are so that you can bear witness to the last days of mankind."

  "Bitch."

  The sickly smile widened. "That does not, of course, apply to your friend here. Though extremely imperfect," ACE's eyes scanned up and down Bex's body with obvious disapproval, "she will make an adequate vessel for one of my copies until a better one can be found."

  "No!" Hal cried.

  Ice ran down Bex's insides as a Protector stomped forward and its iron hand gripped her arm. She stumbled as it pulled her backwards and the last thing she saw as the door slid shut was Hal's horrified expression as he struggled to get past two more robots. Tears ran down his cheeks, but it was only when she was thrown into a dark room that she realised her face was also wet and she lay there in a pool of her own grief, waiting to lose her mind.

  Intruder

  Arla drew patterns in the sand with her finger as the desert sun set. A small fire blazed alongside a primitive tent that was little more than a blanket supported on four sticks. Sighing, she looked up at a sky that she knew to be fake, allowing her mind to ignore reality and wander the deep-seated ancestral pathways of her distant forebears.

  It was hard to believe how far she'd been and how much she'd experienced in the last year. She'd gone from farmer's daughter, to captain of an interstellar starship, to Arla Starlight. And this was the first time since she'd left the valley to become a priest, that she felt as though she were truly where she belonged.

  A horse whinnied nearby, and she turned to see a dark shape silhouetted against the horizon. "Ah, you're back. Good."

  Gaius Julius Caesar stepped into the firelight and squatted down beside the blaze, warming his hands.

  "All quiet?"

  Caesar nodded. "It is still hard for me to believe that the war is ended. I expect to find evidence of betrayal each time I patrol."

  "I've explained it," Arla said, "you have to believe me."

  He grunted as he settled down, pulling his cloak about him and rocking gently.

  Many times in the past year, Arla had believed that every decision she'd made had led to disaster or, at best, to unexpected consequences - from rescuing Hal to searching for Terra and all points in between. But her intervention on behalf of the inhabitants of Orbis stood to her credit.

  They'd been on Eden for three weeks, planning for the inevitable conflict with the Robot Empire. The Emissary had been sequestered in the deepest part of the alien pyramid. The Guardian seemed to be fascinated by the silver machine- it could almost be described as reverence. It seemed to consider The Emissary to be the closest thing to perfect intelligence it had ever come across. Almost as if, right at the last moment, when all hope had been abandoned, it had seen a potential future for the galaxy. A non-human future.

  In the meantime, Wells and Scout had set off to discover what they could of the war. On their return, McCall had taken Scout to visit the nearest human powers to try to bring them into the fold of the resistance. She'd railed against the suggestion that she could be a diplomat, but Arla had refused, point blank, to go. Because the Intruder had entered the Eden system and she had a promise to keep.

  A small ship had arrived from Orbis with an invitation for her to go aboard and she'd met the true guardian who now occupied the caves of the Oracle. It had intended to end the experiment, believing it had learned all it could of humans, but that would have meant that Caesar and all the beings on Orbis would, if not technically die, then at least cease to exist.

  Arla had made her co-operation, and that of humanity in general, conditional on the war within Orbis being ended and the inhabitants freed. She had exceeded her authority by a country mile, but the guardian took her seriously enough to agree. And anyway, it reasoned, it might be interesting to observe humans when given the chance of peace. So only Alexander died, snuffed out of existence in an instant, and Caesar had been appointed ruler of the people of Orbis.

  To him, no time had passed between the return of the guardian and Arla's arrival, since the experiment had been suspended in the meantime, but he'd wasted no time in organising the Romans and their Greek former enemies into some semblance of order. Farms were being built and, with Arla's help, the people of Orbis were learning to feed themselves because, for the first time, they'd known true hunger.

  Her relaxation was interrupted by a gruff voice, "I told you, I'm a doctor, not a diplomat."

  Arla leapt up and hugged her friend. "I'm so glad you're back safely. How did it go? Start any interstellar wars?"

  McCall smiled. "Came pretty close though, to be honest, they don't need any encouragement to fight amongst themselves."

  The doctor greeted Caesar and, with a grunt, settled down by the fire.

  "Come out of the shadows, Mr Robot," she said, and, after a moment's pause, Wells stepped into the firelight. "Quite the little party we've got going on now. I met him when Scout brought me back to Eden. Seems he was anxious to check I hadn't broken her."

  Wells shook his head. "That is untrue, doctor. Scout is perfectly capable of keeping herself properly maintained. I was merely pleased to see you and wished to meet Arla again."

  "You are the one who posed as Apollo," Caesar said. "Now I see you are merely a mechanical man, as Arla has explained."

  "Merely? Perhaps. But I am sure you understand the requirement for deception."

  Wells sat between Arla and McCall, having no need of the fire's warmth. Arla also suspected he preferred to be in the shadows because he knew that his new and obviously artificial appearance upset her. First Law at play again, she thought. She had felt an overwhelming relief when, as he'd first stepped onto the sands of Orbis, his mind had unlocked and his memories returned. Her old friend was back, except for the obviously plastic face.

  "Did you have any luck, Indira?" Arla asked.

  McCall gave a small shrug. "Well, I guess we'll know when the call goes out, but they've all been affected by ACE and the robot fleet. Mainly probing their defences so far, but they're scared half witless. It seems only Vanis has been given the full treatment and quite a few of these scattered unions, federations and petty kingdoms are quite happy to see them suffer. The biter bit."

  "But they know they'll be next?"

  "Oh yes. Eden's call went out and representatives of six turned up to the meeting place. Legends of this planet are ingrained in their mythologies, so they didn't need much convincing that it's special. Getting them to agree to bring their fleets here when that homicidal maniac attacks was more difficult, but I painted them a picture of each being overwhelmed separately and they seemed to agree it was better to make a stand wherever she strikes in force first."

  Wells moved in the half light. "And that will be here, judging by what Scout and I learned. News of this planet's rebellion against the ACE governor has reached Core 2.0 and, judging by what we know of her personality, she will seek to make an example. But she is cautious. She knows of the legend of Zenith and, especially, the part about the Zenites having an all-powerful weapon. We now know that this was a reference to Eden - a corruption of the truth that became a myth - but ACE does not know that, and she is being cautious. After all, she has plenty of time to complete her conquest."

  "And the Vanis?"

  Wells shook his head. "I have heard nothing more since my return, but it is almost certain that the federation has fallen. I am sorry, Arla."

  So much for a nice relaxing camping trip. "It was their choice to go back, and I don't blame them. I just hope they got away. But it means we can't expect any ships from Vanis."

  "That was always a faint hope," Wells said.

  "But even with all the help we can get, what chance do we stan
d against them?"

  No-one spoke for a few moments. Then Arla drew in a deep breath. "What chance? Not much, but more than we'd have without them. And Orbis is with us. Remember how frightened Core was when it was planet-killing its way through their quadrant?"

  "That was Core 1.0. The upgraded Core has built a new armada. It is hard to imagine how Orbis could resist the entire gathered might of the Robot Empire, or, indeed, how Eden could do so. We may be able to defend this system, for a while at least, but I do not see how we can hope to fend off ACE indefinitely. Any hope for the future of a diverse galaxy depends on finding a way to neutralise her, and we are no closer to solving that problem than we were when she first took over."

  "What a ray of sunshine you are," McCall said as silence fell upon the group like a heavy blanket.

  It was, of all people, Caesar who spoke first. "It seems to me, though I am but a humble soldier, that if one wishes to kill the medusa, one must aim for the head."

  "The problem is," Arla said, "that this particular monster is spawning billions of others. Cut off a head and another replaces it."

  "Is there not an original?"

  Arla shrugged. "I guess there must be, though I've no idea where she is or whether it would make any difference if we destroyed that one."

  "As I understand it, each copy of ACE contains the memories of the original at the point of its creation before it begins to form its own memories drawn from its experiences. So, all ACEs will know of our interactions with them, except, perhaps, for the encounter on Twilight which was only directly experienced by one of them. I don't doubt, however, that news of the destruction of that copy has long ago reached Core 2.0."

  This is ridiculous, Arla thought, we couldn't handle a single ACE, let alone a multitude of copies. And then she paused, thinking back to their encounters. "Am I right in thinking that the original Core was a group of equals who made decisions collectively?"

  Wells nodded. "Broadly speaking that is so. However, as you discovered on our home planet, some members are more equal than others."

  "But still, agreement was needed?"