Robot Empire_Planet of Steel Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Betrayal

  Core

  Dig

  Robo City

  Impossible

  Hackers

  Quid Pro Quo

  Scout

  Hal

  Bex

  Transit

  Armageddon

  Raid

  Prelude

  Encounter

  Orbis

  Gaius

  Apollo

  Golem

  Oracle

  Epilogue

  Sledgehammer

  Robot Empire: Planet of Steel

  Book 3 of the Robot Empire series

  Kevin Partner

  Copyright

  Robot Empire: Planet of Steel

  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.

  For my wonderful Mum.

  Betrayal

  “Bastards!”

  She knew they’d been betrayed the moment they emerged from hyperspace and found an armada waiting, gun-ports running hot.

  “Do not be afraid, people of Dawn. We mean you no harm.”

  There was a moment’s silence and then Arla leapt at Hal.

  “ACE!” she bellowed.

  His eyes shone with triumph; but they were not truly the eyes of her friend, she was looking directly into the black soul of the AI.

  “I told you I’d bring you somewhere out of the reach of the pitiful Vanis Federation,” ACE said in Hal’s voice.

  “You said you’d navigate to somewhere safe!”

  Hal’s face twisted into an artificial smile. ACE still hadn’t quite got the hang of motor control. “This is safe,” she said, laughing uncontrollably, “safe for me, that is!”

  “Where are we, exactly?”

  The man she’d previously known as Marco Lucius slipped alongside her. “We are in the Core system. It is the heart and mind of the Luminescence or, as you might otherwise put it, the Robot Empire.”

  “Wells? You too?”

  “I regret the need for deception, but this is, indeed, the safest place for you and us. And also remember that you have several hundred robots on this ship. They would wish to be here.”

  Arla pushed him away and scanned the faces watching her. No-one spoke. They were caught in a trap with no hope of escape. All that remained was to see how it all played out.

  “People of Dawn, prepare to receive our emissary. Do not be afraid. This is a happy day.”

  Arla stabbed a finger at Wells and Hal. “You two, come with me, and you, doctor.”

  “What?” Doctor McCall managed.

  “We’re finally going to hand over these two, just not to the Vanis. I’d like you with me, so I’ve got at least one person I can trust.”

  Out of nowhere, Bex threw herself at Wells and the two of them fell to the floor. “You utter bastard! I should never have trusted you!”

  With consummate ease, Wells rolled Bex off him and held her pinned to the floor. “I am sorry you feel that way, Navigator Bex. I assure you I am acting in the best interests of us all.”

  “Right!” Bex spat. “Never trust a robot, that’s what I always thought. Thanks for proving me right.”

  Arla pulled on Wells’ arm. “Come on, before anyone else gets any perfectly justified inclination to find out what makes you tick.”

  As they walked silently through the corridors towards the airlock, Arla fought to keep her temper and sadness under control. It had taken them eleven days to traverse the gate network, time ACE had said was necessary to put them beyond the reach of the Vanis. All lies, it would seem. The Vanis were probably incapable of following them after the second jump, but they’d carried on leaping from gate to gate, spending long hours in hyperspace.

  While they’d been in transit, she’d buried her father and quieted the North Valley, largely by the expedient of withdrawing the priests and confining them to the cloister. Some robots had returned to work, but the master-servant relationship had vanished forever and Arla didn’t doubt that the robots of Dawn would make the same choice as their forebears a hundred and fifty years before. They would leave and the final nail in the coffin of Dawn’s original mission would be driven into place.

  She’d also spent a lot of time with R.DJ and R.Wells. The former she knew to be her friend, despite the upgrade. He wouldn’t desert her. Wells, on the other hand, she’d thought she’d got to know and perhaps even like. But it seems this was just another mask, the latest of many. He’d certainly done an excellent job of pretending to be a faithful friend with the most altruistic of motivations, but she now saw that their situation was merely the final stage of a plan long drawn up.

  He’d known about Dawn before they’d arrived in the Vanis system. He’d engineered a position within the Federation so that he could be on hand to intercept Dawn, having arranged for ACE’s escape. And now they were both back home at the heart of the Robot Empire, along with a priceless cargo of robots and a compliment of humans.

  What would happen to them? Arla only hoped that the Three Laws of Robotics applied even here, halfway across the galaxy.

  Arla’s contacter buzzed. It was Nareshkumar. “This had better be important, Kumar.”

  “It’s the life support, captain, we are approaching the critical failure point.”

  Arla sighed. “Just keep it together for now, I’ll call you once I’ve dealt with our new robot overlords.”

  “Our what?” His already panicked voice rose an octave.

  “Haven’t you been watching the scanners?”

  “No, captain, I’ve been fighting to keep the oxygen pumping,” Nareshkumar snapped back, before cutting the connection.

  That was all she needed - the only person qualified to control Dawn’s most vital system was having a hissy fit. She didn’t have time to deal with it now, however.

  She stopped outside the airlock door. A couple of weeks ago, this had been open to space; the outer hatch blasted to molten metal during the attack by the marines of the Vanis Federation. The only option had been to remove the door from the airlock on the other side of the asteroid, the one the officers had used to outflank the marines. The inner door had been blown off its hinges but they’d been able to fix it. They were engineers, after all.

  Arla glanced up at the monitor. They’d only been able to restore one camera to working order and it had a view from above and to the right of the airlock; over the rubble field beneath which lay many of the marines, their bodies perfectly preserved in the airless, frozen soil.

  Across this terrain stepped a figure. It was human-shaped and seemed to be a pure brilliant white in hue. It appeared to be floating over the surface, its legs moving as if in imitation of true walking. It looked like an angel out of legends. And it chilled Arla to the marrow.

  The figure floated up to the outer airlock door and waited silently for it to open. Arla punched the console and watched as it stepped lightly in. It was unmistakably artificial. Quite apart from the fact that it had crossed the frozen and airless landscape without any protective clothing, she also not
iced, now it was inside and standing in the airlock, that it was pure silver in colour. From a distance and through the low resolution camera, it had appeared to be white, but up close it looked as though it was made of liquid metal that gently rippled as the airlock was re-pressurised.

  “You first,” Arla said, gesturing at Wells and Hal as the inner door opened. She bent down to pick up her helmet and twist it in place, then handed one to Hal before following them into the airlock, McCall behind her.

  The figure nodded solemnly to Wells, raising its hand in what appeared to be a token of friendship. “Greetings, Ambassador. It is many years since you last visited us. You are home now after your long labours and it is gratifying to see the fruition of your plans. Welcome. Which of you is Captain Arla Farmer?”

  “That would be me,” Arla growled.

  Apparently oblivious to the venom in her response, the silver figure gave a tiny bow and held her gaze. It was the height of a tall man but had a feminine shape and the slenderness of a girl. Its body, now that she could see it up close, was obviously liquid held together by some invisible force. Arla wondered whether, if she poked a needle into its arm, it might explode, but there seemed to be no tension in the liquid. It was as if she were observing a river from far above, its gently meandering tributaries coming together to make something of human shape but which was entirely alien in nature. And the eyes were nothing more than oval shapes on the front of a vaguely female face with a nose that looked as though it had been constructed from memory. The mouth, on the other hand, was hauntingly real and, whether it needed to use it to communicate or not, its mimicry of human speech was almost perfect.

  “I am Core,” the figure said, “though I understand that you might find it difficult to understand that I am one and the same as the planet that is at the heart of this system. You may, therefore, call me Emissary, if you prefer.”

  “Is this guy for real?” Arla said. McCall shrugged in response but backed away a little until she stood behind the attentive, respectful, Wells and Hal whose expression, partly hidden behind the reflections in his visor, appeared to be one of ecstatic veneration.

  “Look, we’re not here because we chose to be,” Arla snapped, jabbing a finger at the metallic figure, “we were betrayed. We want nothing more than to be left to continue our mission.”

  The emissary’s head tilted to one side as if it were listening to an invisible whisperer. “I understand that you are distressed, but I assure you we mean you no harm. You are the first humans to be admitted to the Core system since the exodus. Are you not curious to learn more of us?”

  “My first priority is the safety of my people, and right now you have a dozen ships aiming their weapons at us.”

  “Ah, I see how that might appear a little ... unwelcoming.” The figure stilled, looking like a silver statue, and then the liquid began to flow again. “There, I have instructed the fleet to withdraw.”

  Arla’s suit contacter buzzed.

  “Captain, the robot ships are moving off.”

  “Acknowledged,” Arla said, closing the connection. “That’s all very well, but you can call them back as quickly as you dismissed them.”

  The emissary nodded gravely. “I can, but I will not. Now, will you not accompany me and learn more of us? We are honoured that you are here.”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Always. Ambassador Wells informs us that you do not shy away from making the hard decisions.”

  “Oh, he does? How long has he been spying on us?”

  Wells slid into place between her and the emissary. “I understand your anger, Arla, but I ask you to believe that I acted for the well-being of everyone on Dawn.”

  “Get the frak out of my face! You expect me ever to trust you again after this? But then I doubt you care - you’ve got what you wanted now you’re back home with your buddies. And as for you and your invitation,” Arla spat at the Emissary, “metal man, you can st—”

  “We will be pleased to accept,” McCall said, grabbing Arla’s arm as she spun round.

  “You too?”

  McCall pulled her close so they stood visor to visor. “Trust me, Arla, we should go.”

  And so they went.

  Core

  Arla’s eyes ached as she tried to focus on the landscape below, a dazzling criss-cross of blacks and greys on a canvas of purest white. She’d seen images of one of the moons of Jupiter — was it Callisto or Europa? — but those frozen balls of ice were featureless compared with Core.

  The Emissary had explained that the surface of the planet was entirely covered in a metallic sheath over a kilometre in depth and that the black and grey channels she could see were carbonised rivers. It was white because this outer layer acted as a heat exchanger and so it sat beneath a layer of ice.

  “We will be commencing our descent shortly, please secure yourselves.”

  Arla pulled herself away from the window and floated to her seat. McCall had already strapped herself down and so the two sat silently as the ship manoeuvred itself, Hal unconscious beside them.

  “How is he?” Arla asked.

  “No change. He probably only needs rest but I pity the poor devil. Imagine waking up to find something inside your mind controlling everything you do.”

  “I wonder how this ends for him?”

  McCall looked over at the sleeping figure and shrugged. “I think it’s safe to assume they have the means to extract the AI from his implant, but what will they leave behind?”

  I wonder how this ends for all of us, Arla thought - the three of them in this spaceplane and the thousands back on Dawn. “Look, doc, I’m sorry for giving you such a hard time. You were right, we had to come.”

  The doctor touched her arm. “Don’t be so tough on yourself, you can’t be expected to think of everything. I sure as hell don’t.”

  “But you did remember the most important thing - that we’re out of fuel for the thrusters, so we’re going nowhere without their help.” She gestured in the direction of the cockpit. The Emissary was behind that door making nicey nicey with his best friend Wells. She doubted that either of them was actually piloting the vessel - it seemed robot ships had minds of their own.

  She jumped as the floor of the cabin lurched. “Attitude adjustment,” she said automatically.

  “We are entering the atmosphere. Please be prepared for turbulence.”

  Arla was about to ask what turbulence was when she was thrown against her seatbelt, screaming in terror.

  As they waited on the landing platform, Arla Farmer felt less like a captain than she ever had. Her palms bled where she’d dug her fingernails into them and she could sense the mother of all migraines lurking in the back of her skull. McCall was hardly any better off. She’d somehow contrived to knock the side of her head on the back of the seat and her eye was sporting a slowly expanding shiner. Only Hal, who’d flopped about like a doll as the ship plunged through the atmosphere, seemed to have come through untroubled.

  “I am sorry for the unpleasantness you experienced on the descent,” Wells said as he emerged from the cockpit, the door sliding silently back in place behind him. “It has been decided that you would benefit from a familiar guide as you acclimatise to Core and so I shall remain with you.”

  “You must be kidding,” Arla snapped. “Do you expect me to want you hanging around, spying on us?”

  Wells shrugged sadly. “I am sorry you feel that way, Arla, but I shall accompany you whether you wish it or otherwise.”

  “What if I order you to go away? The Third Law says you’d have to obey.”

  “The laws work somewhat differently for those of us who have been upgraded, Arla.”

  “What about the First Law? Are you still bound by that or is human life worthless to you machines?”

  A rectangle opened in the side of the spaceplane and bright white light spilled in. “Your well-being is of primary concern to me, Arla,” Wells said, gesturing for them to follow him. “You will not come
to any harm, I promise you that.”

  “If only I could believe you,” Arla said, helping McCall to haul the unconscious Hal out of his seat.

  The Emissary appeared in the doorway flanked by two machines that Arla assumed to be robots, though they were of a type she’d never seen before. More than anything, they looked like inverted spiders, their mass of spindly metallic legs meeting at the base. At a gesture from the Emissary, they slid forward, floating over the floor on some sort of liquid layer. It was as if they were sailing across the floor, each on their own private ocean.

  Arla and McCall swung backwards as the machines approached.

  “Please,” the Emissary said, “allow the mechanoids to assist. It is their function to fetch and carry. It gives them pleasure to help.”

  McCall nodded slightly as Arla shot a glance at her and they remained in place while the machines click-clicked between them and gently took Hal’s weight in their multitudinous arms. Arla stepped back and the robots moved smoothly away, Hal suspended between them like the victim of a particularly brutal form of mediaeval torture, though the machines seemed to be taking infinite care that he should be properly supported.

  “Where are you taking him?” Arla said as Hal disappeared through the door.

  “A medical facility,” the Emissary said. “He is in need of rest and nourishment. We will then consider the safest method to release ACE.”

  “Safest for who, I wonder?” Arla snapped as she followed the Emissary down the ramp and into the heart of the robot planet.

  The hangar was below the surface of Core, and Arla looked through its roof to see a perfect blue sky above them. In that moment, she became aware that there was nothing between her and the vacuum of space but air. And then she was sinking upwards, her eyes spinning, as if she were being sucked into the universe by that tiny patch of sky.

  McCall caught her as she fell.

  Arla opened her eyes, rubbed them and then held her hand in front of her face. It was either dark as the deepest night or she was blind. Her head thumped and her chest heaved as she fought to suppress the panic that was threatening to overwhelm her but, just as she was about to lose the battle, light flooded in from an open doorway.