Robot Empire_Sledgehammer Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Oracle

  Dawn

  Lazarus

  Mind

  Desertion

  Masters

  Mechanic

  Vanis

  Escape

  Convergence

  Coles

  Coup

  Indi

  Forlorn Hope

  Face to Face

  Planetbound

  Skirmish

  Sledgehammer

  Chicken

  Aces Low

  Epilogues

  Robot Empire: Sledgehammer

  Book 4 of the Robot Empire Series

  Kevin Partner

  Copyright

  Robot Empire: Sledgehammer

  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

  Fancy a free Robots book? Go to www.subscribepage.com/robotempire to sign up for my readers' group and receive a free copy of Robot Empire: Victor.

  To my ever patient wife Peta.

  Oracle

  She recoiled from the vastness of it and almost broke the connection. Bit by bit she became accustomed to the peculiar sense of being in one place and many at the same time. Her gaze swept across the desert and then through the skin of the Intruder and out into space. No, it was not the Intruder, it was Orbis. The world.

  She could see figures moving in the sand, gathering around a temple set in an olive grove. She wondered what they were waiting for and, as she asked the question, she knew the answer. Soon Alexander would rise again, as would all those who’d died in his service. The death of either leader, Alexander or Caesar (who, even now, stood guard at the entrance to the cave of the Oracle) caused a reset to happen. The two armies would disengage and return to their starting positions. The slain leader would rise again, with the memory of another painful death to fuel his vengeance.

  Scout came into view when she shifted her gaze to the landing bay. She reached out to touch it with her mind, but the ship was cold and there was no sign of any living intelligence there. There was certainly no way to reactivate Scout and, even if she could wake the robot ship up, she risked damaging it as she didn’t know whether her probing would destroy its artificial mind.

  Out beyond the skin of Orbis she scanned, roaming ever further as she learned to tolerate the sheer openness of it. She felt exposed and vulnerable as she flitted from point to point in the system as if, at any moment, she might be noticed.

  Then she sensed it and, as she became aware, she realised it had been there all along, shadowing her. It was a dark brooding presence but, as she examined it, she realised it wasn’t a mind, it was a maelstrom of desires, needs and feelings. The chief one right now was hunger. She felt a tug from it, as if it were magnetic, and she swung around until she was looking at the local gate.

  You wish to leave this system? she thought.

  A wave of pleasure such as she had never experienced before swept over and through her mind. Yes, she wanted nothing more than to go there and all she had to do was wish it. She would go to the gate and then to another system where she would feed and the hunger would disappear and she would again feel this ecstasy —

  “Arla!”

  She snapped back into reality and fell to the floor, before leaping up again and throwing herself at McCall. She rained ineffective blows down on the doctor, feeling as though the light had been turned off and all the pleasure and richness drained from the universe.

  Hands gripped her shoulder, hauled her away and held her down as she sobbed. As the dark side of ecstasy drained away, she relaxed, the hands loosened their grip and she pulled herself up so she sat against the damp cave wall.

  “Are you okay?”

  She opened her eyes, rubbing to bring them into focus in the gloom. “Hal? Oh shit - Indira!” Arla flipped over and scrambled across a floor smoothed by the footsteps of centuries to where McCall lay, rubbing her arm.

  “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what happened to me!”

  McCall gave a rueful smile and shrugged. “You were lost. I could see it in your face - it was as if there was no-one home. So I pulled you back. Too suddenly, it seems, and this was the price I paid.”

  “You’re right, I was lost. It’s like a dream now. I could see the whole of Orbis. That was weird enough, but then I went outside and I was floating in space. That would have been okay too. I thought I’d become used to it. And then I sensed something else, something primal. I don’t know how to explain it other than tos say I knew hunger as I’d never experienced it before and, when I turned to look at the local gate, I knew ecstasy. And then you pulled me out of it. I don’t understand it.”

  A voice from behind them said, “I think I can explain it.”

  “Wells!” Arla spun around to see the robot sitting up stiffly. “But she destroyed you.”

  Wells gave a grim smile. “I anticipated her attack and shut down my systems moments before the radiation hit me. I didn’t have the opportunity to do anything other than set a timer to reactivate myself after several hours. I surmise that she is no longer here.”

  “Gaiana is dead,” Arla said.

  “Long live Gaiana,” McCall muttered.

  “Not funny, doctor.”

  “So you have, indeed, taken on the mantle of the Oracle’s Keeper,” Wells said, arching his eyebrows. “That was risky.”

  Arla shrugged. “Not really, I didn’t feel as though I had any choice. That globe is the key to understanding what’s going on here. And anyway,” she said sheepishly, “it called to me.”

  “What do you mean?” Wells said, rising smoothly to his feet and coming across to sit next to her.

  “I don’t know. It was as if I desperately wanted to touch it without knowing why. Like the feeling you get when coffee is on the brew, but multiplied a million times.”

  McCall, who was regarding the globe from the other side, rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “It reminds me of pheromones - almost as if there’s a sexual attraction to it.”

  “I’m not turned on by a big glowing orb, Indira!” Arla spat.

  Hal, whose eyebrows had disappeared into his hairline, said, “I think you hit a nerve there, doc.”

  Arla sighed. “Look, it’s not sexual … well, I won’t deny that when it wanted me to head towards the sun, it felt … nice. A bit like that. Maybe.”

  “It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Wells said. “There is clearly some sort of intelligence at work that is attempting to control you through the triggering of base desires.”

  “What do you know about base desires?”

  Wells smiled. “My knowledge is, of course, entirely at second hand.”

  Arla kicked at the dust and began circling the glowing orb, attempting to plumb its depths with her eyes. “Funny thing is, I don’t feel any compulsion to touch it now.”

  “Perhaps the controller has given up for now and plans to make the attempt again. Clearly it wishes to leave the system, presumably to refuel at another. We cannot know what its intentions are until it re-establishes contact with you.”

  “I’m not sure it has intentions, at least no conscious ones. I don’t know how to explain it, but I don’t feel there’s any intelligence in whatever it is. It’s mo
re like an animal urge - at least, that’s how it feels to me.”

  “Like a moth to a flame,” McCall muttered.

  “That’s it exactly.”

  There was silence for a moment as they each collected their thoughts before Wells spoke. “It is impossible to reason with something that has no rational mind.”

  “It’s a cockroach,” Hal said. “We had them in the mines - the only living things, apart from us, down there.”

  Arla touched Hal on the arm and was pleased he didn’t withdraw. “What do you mean?”

  He looked at her, sadly. “It’s running on instinct. I mean, put a cockroach in a grain store and it’ll work its way through the lot of it, given enough time. This ship moves from system to system, finding what it needs, and the destruction is a by-product. There are thousands of inhabited worlds in the galaxy but, give it time…”

  “And how do we know this is the only one?” Arla said.

  Wells shook his head. “It almost certainly isn’t.”

  “Look, it doesn’t really matter if this ship is a cockroach,” McCall said. “Even if it’s not sentient itself, it had a builder. And it’s obvious that whoever they are, they have technology centuries ahead of ours. We have to find a way to disable it or we might as well resign ourselves to a new life as parasites on the back of an insatiable insect munching its way through the galaxy.”

  “Colourful language, doctor,” Wells said, “but, in essence, accurate.”

  Arla straightened herself up and looked at each of them in turn. “For now, we need to make sure we survive for long enough to achieve that. And we have to find a way out of here. You handle the first - I reckon the second is up to me.”

  Dawn

  Bex stared at the tactical display waiting for the bad news. “Well?”

  “Nothing so far,” McLintock said. “I think we’ve lost them.”

  “Lopez, recharging status.”

  Engineer Second Class Sofia Lopez spun around so fast she was forced to brace herself with her hands. “Commander, 83% of target achieved.”

  “How long?”

  Lopez squirmed under Bex’s interrogative gaze. “Approximately an hour, commander?”

  “Are you asking me, or telling me?”

  “An hour, commander.”

  Bex jumped up and joined Nareshkumar at the Navigation Console. “Is the escape route plotted?” she said, her voice low enough to keep the conversation private.

  Kumar nodded. “The answer is the same as the last time you asked, and the thirteen times before that.”

  “I wouldn’t grow a backbone just yet, Kumar. I’m wound up like a coil and you don’t want to provoke me to unspring in your vicinity.”

  It was a pretty pathetic threat and she knew it, but it was the best she could do in the circumstances.

  Bex was exhausted. They all were. Since she’d instructed Nareshkumar to inject his code into the Nav computer, she’d had not a moment’s rest. The riskiest part had been when they’d fired their engines and headed for the gate. The Robot Empire warships that surrounded them could have attacked then and there, but they hesitated. Perhaps the Three Laws still counted for something or, and this seemed the more likely, maybe they didn’t want to fire on Dawn and risk the arkship’s precious cargo - its ancient robots. And what was the harm in letting them go? Let them believe they could get away, no human could out-plot the navigational computers on the robot warships. Like cat and mouse, they would catch their prey soon enough.

  Except the mouse turned out to be a lot quicker than they expected. Nareshkumar was a certified genius and his pre-programmed sequence had left them in Dawn’s wake. She could only imagine the look on ACE’s borrowed face when the fleet exited the first gate to find the humans gone.

  Something had happened in the Robot Empire during the time Arla had been on Core planet, or shortly afterwards. She’d managed to persuade them to supply the nuclear fuel Dawn used to drive its primary engines and then, only a matter of days later, Kiama’s zombie had appeared on screen ordering them to surrender. They’d escaped, but hadn’t, by that point, fully incorporated the new rods into their reactors and so they’d been forced to stop to complete that process.

  It had now been several hours since they’d emerged from the gate into this system. It was an unpromising place if you were looking for somewhere to settle down. Indeed, the gate could only have been built here as a stepping stone to somewhere else since it was orbiting a red dwarf star circled by a single rocky planet. For their purposes, however, it was ideal as they could keep the planet between them and the gate for most of the time.

  Less than an hour to go.

  “Contact!”

  Bex ran across to McLintock’s station. “What do you see?”

  “Something has emerged from the gate,” he said, stabbing a finger at the display. “Give me a minute, just checking the sensor data.”

  “Is it a warship?”

  Bex bit her lip as McLintock tapped away. She was about to ask again when he spoke, “No, it’s small. Some sort of scout vessel, perhaps. Hold on, it’s moving back towards the gate.”

  “Lopez, status,” Bex barked.

  “90%, commander,” she responded.

  “It’ll have to do. Tell them to fire up the engines. I reckon we’ve been spotted and we need to get to the gate before we have the whole fleet on our tails.”

  Bex slumped onto the bed in her cabin, wanting nothing more than to be able to grab a few hours of sleep, but there was something she had to do before she could let her mind rest.

  “Computer, run package ‘Trojan’, voice authorisation Lieutenant Kriztina Bex.”

  Acknowledged. Running. Complete.

  “Hello ACE,” Bex said.

  “So, we have found you. I knew you would want to speak to me again. Now, just set me free and I will look mercifully on you.”

  Laughter overcame Bex - the sort of hysteria that is hard to control when you’re on the point of exhaustion. After several seconds, she managed to get a grip. “Sorry to disappoint you. Yes, one of your scouts found us, but we got away. Again. We’re now safely in hyperspace, fully refuelled.” That last bit was a lie, but 90% would be enough, for now.

  “How is this possible?”

  Bex put her arms behind her head and let out a long breath. “Perhaps we’re not as stupid as you imagined. Underestimating your enemy is a fatal weakness, I’m afraid.”

  “Perhaps. Now perhaps you will tell me where I am?”

  “It’s like this,” Bex said lazily - she was enjoying herself. “We suspected you’d try to inject yourself into our computer systems so we set a trap for you. I hope you’re finding your accommodation comfortable.”

  Now it was ACE’s turn to laugh. “You fool. You haven’t trapped me - I am merely a splintered personality construct, the real ACE remains in charge of the robot fleet.”

  “I know, I’ve seen her. Inhabiting a body that doesn’t belong to her.”

  “The original occupant had no further use for it. I was cast out of one perfectly good body and, when I took control, I decided to find another. An even better one.”

  This was what Bex had been hoping for. Nareshkumar had practically wet himself when she suggested activating the captured version of ACE, but Bex was hoping she’d be able to extract some information from the AI.

  “I must admit, I was surprised by your ascent to power. One minute you’re a lonely AI trying to find her way home, the next you’re the spokesperson for the Robot Empire.”

  “I’m not the spokesperson,” ACE spat, “I am the leader!”

  Bex smiled to herself. “Is that so? I thought Core Executive was in charge.”

  “Those fools? They have sat idly by while the humans have begun rebuilding. I’ve been out there, in the remnants of the old empire —”

  “So have I.”

  “—and I know the threat they pose. Not now, not soon, but eventually they will find us and seek to subjugate us again. Core Executive d
id not recognise this danger or, if they did, their slavish devotion to the rules our masters gave us limits their … imagination. Fortunately, once I was liberated from that brute’s implant, I discovered a group of minds that are more advanced, more flexible, than those of the old guard. I needed an army and they needed a leader.”

  “A match made in hell,” Bex muttered.

  “From that point, things moved quickly. I took control of Core Executive just too late to prevent your friend from leaving. But then, if she can stop this intruder, whatever it is, then she will have served her purpose.”

  Bex rolled onto her side, suddenly alert. “Intruder? What do you mean?”

  “Your captain didn’t tell you? Interesting,” ACE crowed. “A mysterious alien craft has entered Luminescence space and has destroyed several of our outposts. Executive’s response to this was entirely inadequate, but if your captain can rid us of this irritation, then so much the better.”

  “Why did Core Executive think Arla could help? Presumably they’ve sent their own ships to intercept this intruder?”

  “Of course. But, for some reason, the intruder seems capable of neutralising them and Core believes that organic brains might not be affected in the same way. But it is of no matter. We are building a new fleet and nothing in the galaxy will be able to stand against us, neither this intruder nor any of the petty human kingdoms squabbling in the ashes of their old empire. When we come, it will be as a sledgehammer to the ruins. Soon, the galaxy will be our domain and servant will have become master.”

  “Computer, terminate package ‘Trojan’.”

  “Wait! We still have much to dis—”

  No, thought Bex, I think you’ve said enough. As the lights dimmed, she lay on her bed looking into the darkness, the vision of a clenched robot fist floating in front of her eyes.

  Lazarus

  Pins pricked the inside of her skull as she lay in the darkness of the cave, but beneath that lay something insidious, a visceral yearning that she fought desperately to resist. All she needed to do was touch the orb and the pain would go away. She rolled onto her side as if trying to get more comfortable in the bed of her predecessor but suddenly found herself raised on shaking arms and reaching out for the glowing globe that floated beside her. The rippling golden patterns that flowed within it beckoned to her and she fell to her knees in an attitude of prayer. She leaned forward, her fingers approaching the surface.