******
Julius sat in his command chair, levitating in front of the bridge’s viewscreen. As he floated there, he observed the bulging blue sphere of Earth. The world rotated on its axis, exposing to him the dark blotches that marred its beauty—like black eyes on a prizefighter, Earth had taken a beating.
Where the target of the attacks by the A.I. were unpredictable, the methods it employed were like a well-rehearsed script. The A.I. would broadcast a message across the Ocean—a treaty request for peace that would be ignored.
Exactly an hour after the transmission, the A.I. Moon would appear in orbit over either Earth or Mars, and unleash seemingly random attacks with its nanobots against their cities.
Earth’s navy would retaliate, destroying billions of nanobots in the process—but before they could get close enough for some payback, the moon would jump away.
Nobody knew where it went, and all they could do was prepare for the next attack—in the next day, next week, next month. Nobody knew when the next transmission would come, but eventually it would come—just as it had almost an hour ago.
“Captain, ten minutes,” reported Dresil, his Wave Warfare Officer.
“Understood, Lieutenant,” Julius responded.
Julius commanded the UES Intimidator, a powerful UEP Navy Strike Carrier. It had a ship’s company of 1,700 crew and displaced 98,000 metric tons. It normally carried a complement of twelve squadrons of Z-22 fighters, but for this mission things were different.
Inside its launch bays rested ten dropship platoons of Human Assisted Mechanized Robots—HAMRs. The ship was alone, without an escort—but this was all part of the plan.
Julius and the ship’s crew were now a part of “Operation Sledgehammer”—a grand plan to overthrow Majesty. Julius did not know all of the operational details; only the admiralty would have that knowledge—and even then probably only General Hugo Valdez really knew how all the pieces fit together.
What Julius did know was that his assigned mission was a significant part of it. Assuming Earth was the next target, the moment the A.I. Moon appeared, they would approach it in normal space—without stealth due to the proximity of Earth. Instead, they would use an experimental holographic projector to hide their approach, and when they got close enough, they would drop their payload of HAMRs onto the moon surface.
The outcome would then rest with the HAMR pilots, who would march across the moon to its core. If they successfully made it there, they would locate Majesty’s conduit and shut it down.
Julius did not know why he was picked for this critical piece of Operation Sledgehammer—though he felt the hand of General Valdez was somehow involved. He seemed to have gotten the old general’s attention ever since the nanobot attack on the CSOW base.
Certain unknown details still disturbed him—even with the projection system, the moment they dropped the HAMRs, their invisibility would be compromised and they would be hit hard by the A.I. Without additional firepower to help the Intimidator, they would not last long against the full fury of the A.I.’s nanobot swarm.
Whatever the outcome, this mission would be the culmination of the job he started when he trained the HAMR recruits eight months ago. He knew them well—all eighty of them… all eighty of them kids.
“They aren’t kids, Verndock,” General Valdez had said to him. “They never were. You stripped them of whatever made them appear as children to your eyes and revealed what was truly hidden underneath: a marine—ready to follow orders and kill for us.”
The general was a cold, hard bastard—but perhaps that was the leadership needed in these cold, hard times.
“Five minutes,” his officer said.
Julius moved his command chair to the ground tactics station where he could see the status of the marines. They were inside their HAMRs and in drop pod configuration—ready to be fired into the moon like precision bombs.
Julius let out a sigh.
The responsibility of such a mission would have been enough of a burden for him, but one thing made it more difficult …
Daryl.
His own little brother stood among those HAMR marines—a platoon leader, in fact.
When Julius was forced to recruit him, he had secretly hoped that Daryl would not pass the first phase of training. But deep down, he knew it to be a wish unlikely to come true.
Daryl passed through all three phases of the training atop his class—beating out hundreds of other recruits to make it to one of the ten platoon leader spots.
As time went on, Julius had become accustomed to the idea of Daryl being a marine—but now that he was here, and the time was approaching where they would be going to battle, the idea of Daryl going to the front lines terrified him. Daryl was his only family now; he could not lose him.
Shaking the thoughts out of his head, he moved his command chair back to the home position and waited. The attack would come any moment—the question was whether it would be them, or the Martian Confed’s problem this time.
“Ten seconds,” the officer said.
All eyes looked up at the main screen expectantly. The officer counted off the remaining seconds.
“Three… two… one …” he continued.
If it was going to happen, it would be now. Nothing yet. Perhaps it would be Mars’ turn for a black eye.
“Lieutenant Randal, anything from the Confed channels?”
At that moment the bridge alarms sounded. The viewscreen focused on the intruder.
Julius looked at the A.I. Moon—a round space body about a quarter the size of Earth’s moon. Its thick artificial atmosphere hid whatever mysteries lay on its surface. A web of intricate energy patterns flowed throughout the black clouds of its sky. The ignitions of energy resembled discharges of lightning, but instead of a pale white, they looked a mix of green, violet, and red.
Occasionally, one would catch a glimpse of what looked like structures or cities underneath the veil of clouds. But it was difficult to tell if it was real or just tricks of the eye—and no ship sensors had been able to penetrate its atmosphere to reveal the truth of it.
“Status of projection system?” Julius asked.
“Operating normally,” Osario, the Technology Officer, answered. “Stealth integrity holding.”
“Battle alert,” Julius ordered.
The lighting on the bridge went red and the holographic viewscreen expanded—surrounding them the full 360 degrees, as well as top and bottom.
“Nav—take us in,” Julius ordered.
The UES Intimidator moved, depositing itself in an orbit that would take it close to the A.I. Moon. As they approached, Julius could see a tornado of orange and violet nanobot clouds stream out from its atmosphere and reach down to Earth’s surface.
“What’s its target?” he asked.
Ramey, his Tactical Officer, brought up a holographic image parallel to the viewscreen. The image showed an area of Western Australia and an icon overlaid in the center of it—the Gibson Medical Facility.
“Pull up the military grid,” Julius said.
On the screen, it showed the locations of UEP Space and Terrestrial forces. The bulk of the forces were surrounding the major cities and military installations—the medical facility was practically undefended. Only the Intimidator was now in a position to assist them. He wondered how the generals could have made such a blunder.
“Dresil—transmit to central command: permission to abort current mission and defend medical facility.”
“Aye, sir,” Dresil acknowledged.
Julius did not like the idea of abandoning the plan, but Gibson was a key underground hospital for the UEP and the war effort—and it clandestinely housed tens of thousands of wounded military and civilians.
The fact the A.I. could find out about it was frightening—its location and existence were closely guarded secrets.
“Sir,” the officer responded. “I have General Valdez on conference, audio only.”
/> “Open,” he ordered.
“Captain Verndock—request denied,” Valdez’ voice came on—Julius could hear what sounded like explosions in the background “This is all part of the plan, continue with your orders.”
“General, are you aware of the imminent attack on Gibson?”
“Of course I am—I’m counting on it. Proceed with your mission, Captain.”
Julius glanced at the screen—they were almost in position and the A.I. had not detected them. Adjacent to the visual of the moon was the close-up of the medical facility. The nanobot swarm had already touched down a kilometer away from the facility.
The clouds danced across the ground, as if feeling it for the footprints that would lead it to the underground hospital. Flashbacks from the attack at CSOW entered his mind.
“The link has been closed, sir,” Dresil said.
“Sir,” Ramey began. “We’re in position—the HAMRs are ready to be dropped.”
Julius floated his chair to the Ground Tactics Station. He took one last look at the readiness indicators—everything was normal; there was nothing to stop it now… he would be sending Daryl into combat.
“Transmit to command: we are ready,” Julius said.
“Aye, sir,” Dresil said. “Command has acknowledged. We are to await the general’s order to proceed.”
Julius turned his chair and faced the viewscreen. The nanobot clouds appeared to be racing across the desert floor of west Australia. The swarm of nanobots looked like a sandstorm of energy—banking and turning madly, almost as if chasing something.
“Ramey, tighten up that visual,” Julius said. “What’s at the apex of those nanobots?”
The screen zoomed in to reveal a lone Z-20 fighter—a weakly armed fighter that had the entire nanobot swarm chasing it.
“Who is that?” Julius asked.
Ramey’s hands darted across his station for a moment, and then he turned around to face Julius.
“Sir, the transponder shows it is General Valdez himself.”
Julius followed the course the general was taking—leading the nanobots straight to the medical facility. The choice of a Z-20 fighter was deliberate—although lightly armed, it was a fast and nimble craft.
“What’s he doing?” Julius pondered.
He looked at the tactical display on the A.I. Moon; its estimated complement of nanobots were dwindling—almost all of it was now on Earth, leaving the moon almost defenseless. A diversion; that must have been the plan—but at what cost?
“Sir!” Dresil began. “Transmission from the general: drop the HAMRs.”
“Very well,” Julius said, turning his chair back to the ground tactics station.
He touched the holographic controls and opened a channel that was broadcast to both the HAMRs and the ship’s crew.
“Crew and marines of the Intimidator—this is your captain. We are now in position and our homeworld is being attacked at this very moment. We have received orders to begin the assault on the A.I. Moon.
“This may be the biggest battle of the war—and everyone is counting on us to make it the last.
“I will not say good luck, because luck is already on our side. Luck favors the moral and just society of man over the evil, cold injustice of the machine. To keep this balance of luck in our favor, we must continue to create luck—foster it, like fanning a flame. That flame of luck is within you all.”
He paused a moment.
“And when that flame becomes a roaring inferno, we will unleash it at our enemy’s peril. Remember what we taught you—listen to your officers—do your duty. Let’s end this war.”
The bridge crew cheered, joined by the cheers of the marines on the link.
“Marines,” he barked into the station. “Hammer away!”