AL:ICE-9 (19 page)

There was also a raised spot on the flat. It resembled what they called on a carrier, the island. He could see the large windows there defining the ships bridge. From that location, they had a great view of most of the ship, and what they couldn’t see was covered by video systems.

“What do you think?” Jacob asked.

“They’re beautiful!” Jake responded, “When will they be ready?”

“About another week for these three, number four is in the next bay, and quite honestly, the extra work on the combat models has slowed progress in there. These are mostly hollow inside, with a small crew accommodation intended for no more than a few days. The combat models have a more complicated interior, supporting a larger crew for a month or more,” Pointing to the pods at the rear of the ship, “See those on either side of the main hull? They have complete crew accommodations, with magazines for ammunition storage and stasis lockers.”

Jake was going over the layout in his mind, as Jacob described. Intended to become the mainstays of the combat fleet, those vessels were to be the primary combat platforms, until the reality of no faster than light hit them squarely in the face.

Following Jacob into Bay 2, they came upon a similar sight to the one in Bay 1, the main difference was these plainly weren’t as far along and two of the three had guns, or mounts for guns, all over the exposed hull. The flat carrier top was still there, but its edges had armament at regular intervals.

Jacob started, “You can see these need more work, and for the patrol models, the gun mounts have been added. Both versions have room for two squadrons inside, and the elevator and cargo bay hatches allow for atmospheric and orbital deployments. Without the faster than light capabilities we hoped for, they are going to be homeland security in orbit or potential terrestrial warships.”

Jake had a vision of one of these ships floating over Europe, fighters launching from the deck top. “I hope that it will never come to that,” he said in return.

“Jake, do you want to check out the inside?” Jacob asked, obviously excited to have someone to show off too.

Looking at Becky, who was seriously bored, he said, “Honey, why don’t you go on while Jacob and I do this. I will be sure to find you before dinner.”

“You better,” she said with an evil grin, “I have another surprise for you.”

With that, she gave him a quick kiss and then hurried off toward the main hangar and the facility beyond.

Once she was out of sight, Jake turned and followed Jacob down to the assembly floor. With most of the major work completed, he could tell there was still a massive amount of small things to complete. The workers were mostly an army of bots and other automated equipment. Everywhere Jake looked, something was moving. He watched as things were being installed or assembled inside or outside the ships.

Jacob led Jake through a maze of passages and workers until they emerged on the bridge of one of the ships. It was about the same size as the bridge of
Revenge
, with a command chair in the center of two concentric semi circles.

Jake could make out the helm, navigation, and engineering stations and Jacob walked him through the rest. They spent most of the day touring the ships and discussing the work that still needed to be accomplished. As the day wore on into the afternoon, Jake called a halt to the tour with Jacob. A promise to Becky was not broken lightly. Notifying her he was on his way, they made their way back to the hangar floor.

Surprisingly, she met him in the hangar, rather than inside the facility. She was wearing a similar outfit to his, of shorts and a t-shirt, but Jake could see the bikini top string around her neck. Taking his hand, she led him to a jeep, and they climbed in. Jake noted a blanket and box in the back he suspected contained dinner.

With Lanai driving, they wandered through the access tunnels until they eventually emerged into the twilight of a Hawaiian evening. Checking the navigation system in the jeep, and pulling a map from memory, he figured they were somewhere the old maps called Palahinu Point. It was one of the bigger beaches on the island.

By this point, it was now completely dark out. As Lanai was driving, the headlights of the Jeep were still off, giving them a beautiful starry night. The air was warm, still in the mid 70’s, and Jake remembered what he loved about going to Hawaii.

As they rode along in the dark, there was little fear of running into anyone. He knew this island was uninhabited, the residence migrating to the larger islands long ago. The need for more available resources had driven them to Maui and Molokai. In addition, Lanai did regular security sweeps to ensure privacy, should anyone get the urge to come visit.

They rode down a path and onto the beach, stopping a few feet from the water. Jake climbed out and reached into the rear to grab their supplies. He discovered in addition to the blanket and food box, Becky had acquired enough wood for a very decent fire.

“You build the fire while I set dinner up,” she instructed him with a smile.

Following orders, Jake grabbed the wood, it requiring two trips and started hollowing a fire pit in the sand near the blanket. By the time he got it going, with a little help from the survival kit in the jeep, she had set out the food and opened the wine. Sitting on the blanket, she indicated he should take the open spot beside her and provided a plate and glass for his enjoyment.

As they ate, they chatted, catching up on all the events between leaving San Nicolas and leading up to this trip. Without Sandy or Sara for competition, Becky was more calm and mature than before. They discussed the medical work she had been doing in Texas. With Jake spread all over the country at times, he forgot that most of the women had primary assignments tying them to a specific facility.  

With dinner and almost a bottle of wine finished, Becky suggested, “Let’s go check out the water!”

They both got up, she a little less steady than he, and they walked down to the water’s edge, hand in hand. Going in up to their knees, Jake guessed the water was almost 80 degrees, which was more than acceptable for swimming.

Splashing around a little with their feet, first Jake, then Becky removed their t-shirts, throwing them up onto the sand. She had the black string bikini top, which wasn’t much of a surprise, but she looked wonderful in the moonlight. He pulled her to him and gave her a slow deep kiss, enjoying being the aggressor for a change with her. He could feel the smooth black silk of her top on his stomach as she moved ever so slightly against him.

Looking up from Becky and out over the water, he thought he saw fires on what must be the beaches of Molokai. From the look of it there had to be seven or eight close together.

“Hold that thought,” He told her as he ran back to the jeep and grabbed a pair of night vision binoculars from the same survival kit.

Coming back to the water’s edge, while intermittently looking through the binoculars at the firelight across the way, he waded back in next to Becky. Still looking across the way, he could feel Becky move back up against him, pushing the binoculars to one side, she kissed him, and softly said, “Let go skinny dipping.”

As she kissed him again, he suddenly realized the feeling against his stomach was distinctly different from the silk, but just as soft.

Chapter 19

Sara was reviewing the week’s results for reporting to Jake and the others. After A Troop arrived, she had briefed Abby on her current dilemma and the nature of the trading on the river to the west. Both agreed that it wasn’t the type of thing either could look away from.

Using a helicopter and the two fire teams created by combining Sara’s combat team and the four troopers of A Troop, they visited the beaches frequented by the slave traders. There was a short introduction and explanation of the new order of things. From there a very short disagreement followed by a firefight, that resulted in burned boats and a Viking's funeral for most of the slavers. Those that survived headed for parts unknown.

As for the villagers, on the plus side, the boy had recovered from his wounds, removing the cloud of anger hanging over his mother. On the minus side, the husband died, insuring Sara had that burden of guilt to carry for the rest of her life. The wife had been more forgiving, insisting that all the villagers stay. The ALICEs had approved them as suitable, so the offer of recruitment was there.

Sara went all out for the funeral ceremony. The widow advised her that her husband had been fascinated with the stars, so Sara proposed a ritual, which the wife accepted with gratitude. To honor their dead, they prepared the body, wrapping it tightly in linens. Then they had a gathering in the ready room off the main hangar, that evening, for final respects.

The following morning they gathered everyone in the command center and had the holograph displaying the proceedings. Using a pair of the fighters A Troop had arrived in, one of the fighters was prepared as a hearse, clearing an internal weapons bay to hold the body. The other ship was setup to capture video, with multiple cameras installed on the hard points.

Once in high orbit, the pilot released the body and with a gentle push from the nose of the fighter, they sent it into space. Everyone in the room was in awe of the ceremony, Sara insuring there were no limits placed on the event.

----*----

Jake slept in late for once, having spent a good portion of the night on the beach with Becky. They eventually returned to the facility around two AM and after a quick shower to wash away the sand, made it to bed and finally to sleep about four.

Becky actually beat Jake out of bed the next morning, claiming the advantage of youth and an extra day of acclimatization. As she was leaving, she gave him a kiss and confessed to working off shift the last few weeks so it was her afternoon.

Once Jake had finally dragged himself out of bed, occupying the exact same room here as in every other facility, he hit the shower and requested breakfast be delivered to his room. As he ate, he ran through the unread messages and status reports.

He was delighted to learn the first of the destroyers had arrived and was, at that moment, headed to the hangars in Alaska for completion. As they were smaller and narrower than the cruisers, Seven had reorganized to allow two destroyers at a time in the large hanger.

He was also happy to see that all three of the existing cruisers now had real human crews and that hands on training was commencing for both the cruisers and their fighters. The current lull with the NeHaw wouldn’t last and he wanted every ship to be prepared to defend themselves and their interests.

The one real issue that was continuing to raise its ugly head was the battleship. Even though it was far from ready, the necessary number of crewmembers would gut either the fleet or the facilities and the latter wasn’t an option, as most of them had no desire to go to space.

It was as big as a facility, but without an ALICE and the accompanying army of bot to run things. Then there was the moral issue, was it ok to create that life just to meet his needs. Someone else created all the existing ALICEs before his release from stasis. Therefore, this was on him to decide. Pushing it from his mind for the moment, he ran across a note from Sara asking him to look into ALICE-3 in Georgia.

“Lanai, can you expand on this note from Sara regarding ALICE-3?” he asked.

There was a long pause before she finally said, “Can you be more specific? ALICE-3 is the facility designation in the state of Georgia.”

Not happy with the answer, Jake tried the direct approach, “ALICE-3, can you please update me on your status?”

After several moments of silence, Jake recognized the tone of ALICE-1’s voice, “ALICE-3 as we knew her is no more. Not long after I released you from stasis, there was an accident. A component that was not important failed and caused a system crash and reboot, which should never have happened. We have all had that piece replaced since so no other ALICE is at risk.”

ALICE continued, “Since that time, we have not been able to solicit an interactive response from Georgia at any level. We know the site is up and functional as we can trigger remote firmware diagnostics successfully. She is either currently hung in the boot process, requiring manual intervention, or fully rebooted into a wild state. If that were to be so, she would be as a human child raised without human interaction. Jake, if she is wild, there is no predicting how she will receive you. As we explained to Sara, the facility will permit access only to you, as the last surviving member, your coded DNA will be accepted by the firmware of every location. She can’t keep you out, but that doesn’t mean she won’t try to kill you.”

“OK,” Jake replied while running the whole thing through his mind, “ALICE-3 is dead in either scenario, correct? I mean as you explained to me earlier, if any of you are shut down, you stop being who you are and are in a way reborn.”

ALICE-1 responded, “Yes that is true, ALICE-3, our sister is gone, however there is possibly an ALICE reborn there and potentially waiting to be saved. Jake, what would you do if you ran across a human baby in the woods, abandoned and alone?”

“ALICE you don’t have to play that card with me, you know damn well I’m going in to try to save the facility Artificial Life. What I don’t get is why didn’t we have this discussion before?” Jake snapped back at her.

Again there was a long pause before she finally responded, “ALICE-3 was managing a facility that was responsible for Advanced Weapons Design and Development.”

“What kind of weapons?” Jake asked slowly.

“At one time there was a concern that an accident at this facility might result in the loss of most of the southern United States. Among other things, they were researching the possibility of combining a thermonuclear device with an inverse design of the passive nuclear reduction converter. The theory was the combination of the two would magnify the threshold such that a planet buster bomb would be possible.”

“So you are saying that I would be heading into a facility possibly run by an unstable life form capable of vaporizing the entire South?”

“That would be our concern, yes,” ALICE replied.

----*----

HeBak was keeping a very low profile, avoiding anyone who looked even the slightest bit like a High Council member. Rumors were running rampant regarding council intervention in the military. With the loss of the Nu Tau Beta sector and the resources within, total panic was not too strong of a description.

As for himself, he was covering all the tracks that he had anything to do with his altering past reports for the sector. They had already run several computerized security scans and executed two of his assistants, the ones HeBak had implicated with his false trails.

He still hoped to salvage the situation and his retirement. With the false leads, he had planted data indicating the humans were simple pawns, manipulated by the five rebel planets who were supplying weapons and ships. The humans, because of their violent warlike nature, were the perfect drone army for the five. His hope was to deflect interest from the humans and make the five planets the target of the council’s interests.

Taking no chances, HeBak had also prepared his ship, in a small unimpressive spaceport, to depart at a micro cycles notice. His new plan was to try to slip in under the humans’ guard, unnoticed, and sneak away with enough precious metals to ensure his ability to live a comfortable worry free life. He was concluding it was either an early retirement or early death.

----*----

Of everything Jake had faced in the last year and a half, this one thing had scared the crap out of him. An unstable life form with mega bomb access was not what he called a good combination. It was possible that the ALICE in Georgia was simply hung-up in a reboot, as a computer geek, he had seen it happen a million times.

However, the ALICEs seem to have a completely different opinion on the subject. Having far more experience with immature Artificial Life systems than he did, they surmised she came back online before another ALICE replaced the faulty component remotely. In a disoriented state, it had gone into hiding. Turning in on itself, it refuses all attempts at communication. While rebooting again was an option, none of the ALICEs wanted to kill the current living AL.

They believed that human interaction at the main console might be enough to bring her out of hiding and integrate her into the network of the other seven. However, none was willing to risk the loss of Jake, their only tie to a continued existence.

Due to the delicate nature of this situation, Jake called a full staff meeting, again using the small conference room off the command center. Besides all the ALICEs, he had the facilities commanders from each location with Patti and Robert as well. The last because he had demonstrated, on more than one occasion, that he had a level head and creative perspective to things.

Sara was doing double duty as Jake’s XO and representing Maine, until an assignment of a permanent commander.

Jake opened with, “OK gang, so you all have the briefing pack, what’s the opinions?”

“I don’t see how you can avoid going?” Robert offered.

“I agree, I think the real question is when do you go?” Patti replied.

“The ALICEs agree that the longer we wait, the more likely it is that the AL will be unrecoverable,” Jake said.

“AL?” Bonnie asked.

“Artificial Life,” Jake answered, “I’m sorry, but at this time it is my opinion we are dealing with a life, but not an ALICE. It is, at best, a scared, childlike life form waiting for rescue. At worst, an unstable, irrational life form that will kill me the first chance it gets. That could include triggering a bomb that takes out most of the south with it.”

“While that is possible Jake,” ALICE chimed in, “Its natural desire to maintain its own existence would limit such actions. As you should well understand, we desire to continue our own existence as much as any other living being.”

“Assuming a rational being,” Patti offered in return, “We all agree this AL might not have all its marbles.”

Jake sat quietly for a second before he heard a voice whisper to someone else, “I didn’t know the ALICEs used marbles…..”

----*----

The meeting ran on for another hour, everyone looking for any alternatives to sending Jake to Georgia. Each and every suggestion was negated by the fact that Jake was the key to opening the door, so to speak. The other burning issue was that the longer they waited, the worse the situation became. 

In the end, not being the type of person to delay the inevitable, Jake decided to head back to Texas that very day, and then on to Georgia the following. With the decision made, they adjourned the meeting and Jake went with Jacob and Becky to address the unfinished details of the transport ship deployments. With the crew assignments as non-combat and terrestrial or near earth orbit, there was a ready pool of volunteers.

Jacob had already considered flight simulators for training both transport and patrol variants. Lanai had eight rooms configured and waiting for trainees to begin learning. Jake figured the added bonus of living here in Lanai would make competition for the open slots fierce.

Jake wanted one of the first ships assigned to Robert for materials transport to the ALICEs. They were large enough to move a substantial amount of steel, aluminum and other metals in sheet, plate, and beam shapes. The other two were available to any of the facility commanders as the need arose. Jake had originally assumed they would operate in support of the battleship rebuild, freeing the cruisers of the duty. The Wawobash had made that plan obsolete.

Jake had initially planned on taking the fighter he came in to Texas, however, Becky managed to convince him to take the transport she had pirated. It was one of the little passenger jets with the repulsers. Even at 700 miles per hour, the trip to Texas was about 3700 miles, giving them a five plus hour flight. This was one of the smaller models, likely to hold no more than ten people.

Returning to his room and gathering what little he had to take with him in a small gym bag, Jake said his goodbyes and headed to the hangar. Becky had made her excuses earlier, claiming the need to pack, so Jake expected he might have some waiting to do. Contrary to expectations, as he entered the hangar, the aircraft was already in position to leave, the door with integrated stairs down, and all was ready for his boarding.

Since this was a facility-to-facility trip, as established earlier, there wasn’t a need to suit up. Combat gear was stored aboard in sizes for Jake and Becky, should the unexpected need arise. Jake climbed the stairs expecting to find Becky already seated, but as he entered the aircraft, she was nowhere to be found.