The Pandora Paradox Read online

  "What the hell does that have to do with anything?" Jason asked.

  "Did you ever tell him about S'Tora? Let it slip to Webb maybe?"

  "What are you jabbering on about, you pointy-eared fool?" Jason stomped over, intent on pushing Twingo out of the way so he could just search the security footage himself. He froze, however, when he saw the images paused on the monitor: six different views showing a group of human males and two battlesynths somehow overriding their security measures and waltzing into the hangar like they owned the damn place. The identity of one of the men in the group was unmistakable. Jacob Brown, his son. The bridge started to spin a bit as he focused on the image of the man that resembled the boy he'd left behind on Earth.

  "Yeah, let's go ahead and sit you down here, Captain," Twingo said, guiding him to a chair. "Here…I pulled out all of the pertinent bits of the feed."

  As the videos played, Jason watched Jacob explain to his companions who the ship belonged to—he appreciated they seemed suitably awed by the Phoenix's reputation—and then walk up and gain access to the ship via the biometric security panel on the left main landing gear strut. How had Jacob gotten himself added to the biometric database? Not only that, but a bio reading was only one part of the security triad the Phoenix employed to keep unwanted guests out of her.

  "How the hell did he open the ship up with just a palm read?" he asked Twingo.

  "I have no idea." Twingo shrugged.

  I think I might, Cas's voice popped up in his head. I may have inadvertently left a partial copy of myself on the Phoenix's main computer when I transferred back to your neural implant. It's not much, but there could be enough there to recognize who Jacob is and override the remaining security measures for him.

  "Why would you—it—do that?!" Jason snapped. Twingo, having no idea who he was talking to, looked at him as if he was crazy.

  Probably because it thought it would be funny to help someone steal your ship if I had to make a guess.

  "Huh?" Twingo asked.

  "Not you." Jason tapped the side of his head to let his friend know that he was talking to his unwanted passenger. "Cas thinks a version of itself may still be on the Phoenix's main computer from when we had it helping out a while back. The copy might have recognized Jacob and decided to help him take the ship."

  "Why would it do that?" Twingo asked.

  "From what I gather, either out of boredom or because it found the situation funny," Jason said. "More importantly, and I already know the answer to this, we have no way to track her once she's underway, do we?"

  "I'm afraid not," Twingo said. "Any tracker we might have installed to help locate her could be exploited by a skilled code slicer. Kage was insistent we not have any active trackers that could be remotely activated."

  "Damnit!" Jason kicked the console hard enough to scuff the finish, but not hard enough to put his boot through it. "Do me a favor and get everyone up here. We have to make some decisions, and it involves all of us at this point."

  While Twingo went about assembling what was left of Omega Force, Jason continued watching the security footage. He could see through the canopy that the person climbing into the pilot's seat wasn't his son. It was one of the men who had come with him…someone much taller. "Now, who is this asshole sitting in my seat?" he muttered as the guy made himself at home aboard the Phoenix, adjusting the seat and the controls before firing up the mains.

  He watched the ship back out of the hangar, rise unsteadily into the air, and shoot off across the sea while Crusher, Kage, and Doc came walking onto the bridge. Two of the three looked like they must have been asleep. They all found seats to slouch in and turned to look at him expectantly.

  "Three things," Jason said, holding up a hand with three digits extended. "First, we need to gather intel on the massive construction rigs the ConFed is assembling. Second, Lucky has apparently had some sort of episode and, after attacking me, killed a lot of people on one of Mok's ship and fled in one of their expensive new Alerra-class shuttles. Third—and my own personal favorite—the Phoenix is unavailable to go track Lucky down with, because apparently my son managed to sneak into our hangar, override her security measures, and has stolen the ship."

  "I like this kid!" Crusher laughed.

  "All of your stuff is still in that ship's armory," Kage pointed out.

  "That little bastard!" Crusher slammed his fist onto the console.

  "Don't call my kid a bastard, you sack of crap!" Jason fumed.

  "Well…isn't he?" Kage asked. "You did technically abandon him."

  "You can both go and—"

  "If we could please get this meeting back on track!" Doc yelled over everybody. "Captain, this would go quicker if you lay all the facts out so we can make a decision."

  "I feel like we need it on the record that the captain is a horrible father," Crusher insisted.

  "You don't even know a single one of your dozens of kids! I've seen rabid coyotes that were better parents than you!" Jason yelled.

  "Don't insult my culture!"

  "Can I go back to sleep?" Doc asked.

  "No. Shut up." Jason looked at the ceiling for a moment. "Where was I?"

  "Three problems. Lucky, the Phoenix, and—"

  "Right, right, right." Jason waved Twingo off. "We're going to reach out to Marcus Webb and see if he has any idea where Jacob might be going, but that's likely to be a dead end since the Phoenix was taken specifically to keep the team off Webb's radar. I could probably find Lucky given enough time and resources, but we're short of both right now. The ConFed issue, however, is both immediate and within our ability to handle."

  "Meaning what exactly?" Kage asked.

  "While it kills me to say this, we may have to abandon Lucky and the Phoenix for the time being and focus on the job at hand," Jason said. "Too much is riding on our ability to discover what the ConFed is up to at these remote locations and reporting back so we can figure out what to do about it."

  "Why do we need to do anything about it at all?" Kage asked. "Seriously. A number of heavy construction projects we can't identify a purpose for doesn't seem like something immediately critical."

  "I think the fact they were hiding them in remote locations as well as the scale of the projects means the Machine is up to something," Twingo said. "I saw the imagery that was smuggled out. These aren't just random public works projects. I'd bet everything I own this is the next phase for the ConFed, and it most likely has to do with Ancient weapon tech."

  That last sentence made everyone lapse into an uneasy silence. The Omega Force crew knew exactly what weapons built by the long-dead race they'd dubbed the Ancients could do. They'd been aboard one that had the power to destabilize and destroy stars. These were doomsday weapons on a scale that made Jason's human mind recoil in horror, but it also brought up an interesting point. Why did the Ancients, a race that he'd come to know through Cas as thoughtful, artistic, and highly-evolved, build such devastating weapons? Cas hadn't had a clear answer on that one, but the question led Jason to another: what was the Machine's goal? If it was simply dominion over the quadrant, it could do that with the ConFed war machine it already commanded. If it was building these terrible machines again, what did it intend to do with them?

  "We'll need to go check out what the Machine is up to," he said slowly. "No choice. We'll head towards the first target and devise our strategy along the way. Not having Lucky with us causes some challenges, but we'll tackle those as we get to them."

  "I don't like the idea of abandoning Lucky when he seems to need us the most, but I get it," Crusher said, standing slowly. "The greater good, eh?"

  "This time? Yes," Jason said. "We'll still use any resources at our disposal to try and track him, but just abandoning this mission to chase Lucky across the quadrant would mean completely turning our backs on our responsibility. Let's not forget the Machine was safely isolated aboard the weapon before we got there and set it loose."

  "I haven't forgotten," Crusher said, "bu
t it doesn't mean I have to like it."

  "Stay a minute," Jason said to Doc as the others filtered out. He glared at Kage as the Veran sneaked by quietly without making eye contact. It was his turn on bridge watch within the next ten minutes, but it looked like he intended to skip out.

  "Something else?" Doc asked.

  "It's something that's bothering me that, out of this group, I think you're the only one with the right kind of mind to answer," Jason said. "Why is the Machine bothering with all this? I feel like there has to be some greater goal in mind besides propping up its own totalitarian regime or just writing all of this off as the insanity of a corrupted AI."

  "But that AI was insane," Doc pointed out. "We knew that when we got aboard that weapon. I doubt it's become more stable as it transfers itself back and forth between ConFed computer systems that aren't fully compatible for its matrix."

  "I just don't buy that," Jason said. "Not anymore. It's too methodical and precise in how it has seized control and bent the ConFed's manufacturing and military base to its own designs. An unstable or insane intelligence wouldn't be able to pull this off."

  "So, you're suggesting that an AI that wiped out its own creators—an entire race of super-advanced beings—isn't insane?"

  "I'm saying we're not doing ourselves any favors by writing it off as crazy without taking a deeper look," Jason corrected. "It's just something I'd like you to think about on the flight out to the first target. What is motivating it? There has to be some greater goal in mind here to keep it this focused and motivated."

  "An intriguing thought exercise, if nothing else," Doc said, frowning as he contemplated it. "But you realize if you're right, our job just went from exceedingly difficult to nearly impossible, don't you? Just digging out a corrupted AI could have been as easy as exposing it to the right people. If it's still in command of all its faculties, it will likely have already anticipated any move we might make against it."

  "It didn't seem to expect the attack on Miressa Prime," Jason pointed out.

  "Didn't it?" Doc asked. He patted Jason on the shoulder and walked off the bridge, leaving the human with some contemplating of his own to do. Had the Machine known they would retake the Imperial Navy remnant and allowed them to attack?

  It seemed ridiculous on the surface, but the attack had caused them to expose themselves and their alliance makeup. The Machine now knew who and what aligned against it. It also could use the confusion and fear from the attack to further solidify its hold on the ConFed power structure as terrified, weak politicians turned to any promise of protection. Damn. Had they been played from the very beginning? Could the Eshquarian invasion have been a part of that?

  "Damn you, Doc. Now I'll be up all night thinking about this," he said, looking around the empty bridge. "Which I guess is okay since it looks like I'm pulling a double shift."

  12

  United Earth Navy Captain Marcus Webb paced the bridge of the UES Kentucky, his command and control ship from which he could manage all active operations within Naval Special Operations Command. He'd been told to come back to Earth to be part of a dog and pony show to welcome an emissary from the ConFed. Navy brass wanted him close by in case the touchy subject of Earth's special operations into ConFed space were brought up, and they needed answers from him. The ConFed was sending a Senior Councilman all the way to Earth for preliminary talks, an unusual honor to bestow upon a small, upstart power like Earth.

  As the head of NAVSOC, Webb knew better. He was privy to all the raw intel that came in from his Scout Fleet teams before it went to the analysts to be scrubbed and parsed for the policy makers. The ConFed had shifted gears recently from the fat, content, benevolent superpower that was happy to skim off the top few percent of every planet's GDP to an inexplicably aggressive threat to every independent power in the region. The fact they were coming to Earth and not to the Cridal Cooperative's capital world to talk to Seeladas Dalton caused Webb to suspect they were up to something. The fact they were trying to be sneaky and come at them under the flag of diplomacy scared Webb more than if they'd just arrived in the Solar System with a full battlegroup.

  "Sir, you are being asked to accompany the delegation aboard the ConFed flagship," an ensign at the com station reported. "Admiral Halloran wants you on a shuttle on the way to the Columbia within the hour, full service dress, no weapons."

  "Ask the Columbia if it would be possible to send my exec," Webb said. "I'm much more useful here on the Kentucky monitoring things." That wasn't necessarily true. As capable as his C&C ship was, it was a bit superfluous with the Sol Defense Grid in place protecting the homeworld. It was an ingenious bit of engineering that made it damn near impossible for someone to sneak up on Earth without the UEN knowing about it well before they got there.

  "Negative, sir," the ensign said. "The admiral said the ConFed envoy has asked for you specifically. He also said you're wasting time asking pointless questions…his words, sir."

  "Tell him I'm on my way," Webb sighed. "Call down to the hangar and have one of the shuttles prepped for a ship-to-ship transfer."

  Webb walked back to his quarters as quickly as decorum would allow. He'd not have his people seeing him running around the passageways like a madman. It didn't inspire confidence as a leader. While he was tossing on his black service dress, which his steward kept meticulously prepared and ready to go in an instant, he felt a ball of ice forming in his stomach as the full weight of what was happening sank in. Why would the ConFed envoy even know who he was, much less want to speak to him? The only explanation was a Scout Fleet operation had really shit the bed out there, and he only had three teams operational at the moment. Four if you counted Obsidian but they were…

  "Oh, shit," he whispered as he buttoned up his coat. "What the hell did that kid do now?"

  The only rational explanation was that Jacob Brown, Jason Burke's only son and current rogue Scout Fleet asset, had done something that put him on the ConFed's radar in a big way. If they were asking to see Webb, he could only assume the kid had been captured, and they'd made him talk. None of the scenarios running through his head as to why the representative of a galactic superpower wanted to talk to a lowly captain in the United Earth Navy made him feel particularly good about his chances of his career surviving the day.

  "Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll kill me on the spot," he grumbled, grabbing his cover, and storming out of his stateroom.

  "Relax, Captain. This is just an informal talk. No recordings, no witnesses…just two people having a conversation."

  "Thank you, Councilman…" Webb trailed off, his mouth struggling to form the alien sounding name for some reason.

  "Scleesz," his host provided and handed him a glass with an amber liquid in it. "I'm sure you're wondering the reason I asked for you specifically."

  "I’m actually wondering how you even know who I am, sir," Webb said.

  "We have a mutual friend," Scleesz said. "A certain human who likes to pretend he's a grubby mercenary and a hardened killer but always seems to get himself into hopeless fights to defend the weak." Webb visibly deflated as he relaxed.

  "Ah," he said. "Yes…he does have a bit of a self-image problem. So, what's he done now?"

  "You know what I'd enjoy, Captain?" Scleesz asked as if he hadn't heard the question. "A personal tour of one of your wonderful ships, perhaps even a walk along the edge of your famous Grand Canyon…just the two of us. It would be a chance to reminisce about our friend." As far as tradecraft went, Scleesz was about as subtle as a neutron bomb. The councilman was obviously saying he needed to talk to Webb, but the ConFed ship wasn't a safe place despite the fact he was the ranking member of a diplomatic envoy.

  "It can certainly be arranged," Webb said. "I understand your schedule is busy with matters of state, so I will put myself at your convenience and meet with you anyplace you deem appropriate, sir. I'll only need a short notice to reach you."

  "Excellent!" Scleesz said. "Now, come, let's rejoin your delegation.
Your admiralty looked quite distressed when I stole you away. Bring your drink along if you'd like."

  Webb almost refused. There were no official regulations specifically stating he couldn't drink in uniform during official events, but it was generally frowned upon. But he didn't want to insult his host, and he couldn't help but smile as he thought of the ambassador, his staff, and the admirals all wondering what the hell was going on as some captain most had never heard of walked out with a drink and laughing with the councilman. So, he just nodded to Scleesz and took the glass with him. It was very good booze, and it would be a sin to waste it, after all.

  As he'd hoped, Admiral Halloran looked apoplectic when he walked out with Senior Councilman Scleesz, smiling and sipping on a drink as if they'd been long lost friends. His good mood lasted until his shuttle dropped him back off on the Kentucky and his com unit chirped, letting him know through a series of dead-drop message boxes that Burke wanted to talk to him.

  "Great," he grunted. Burke probably had had time to think about Webb shipping Jacob off to a forward recon unit and was calling to let him know the Phoenix was inbound for Earth, and he planned on killing him with his bare hands.

  When he reached his quarters, he took his time stripping out of his service dress, didn't bother putting anything else on, and activated the slip-com terminal he'd had installed in his quarters. He'd been running NAVSOC operations out of the Kentucky so much lately he grew tired of trekking down to the com center every time he needed to open a private channel.

  "Hey," Jason said when the channel resolved. "Thanks for getting back so quickly. You have a minute to talk?" Webb just blinked. This wasn't the demeanor or approach he'd been expecting from the merc.

  "I…uh, sure," he said.

  "You know anything about the specifics of Jacob's plan?" Jason asked.

  "I don't," Webb said. "And that's the honest truth. He's completely off the grid."