Prelude to War (Athena Lee Chronicles Book 9) Read online

  “Gaston! That’s awful. I thought that commercial lifts are designed with emergency brakes?”

  “They are. But like most things they can be hacked. Amalie removed all the lifts and decreed that stairs and ramps were the future. There are a few still around but they only travel between two floors.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know much about Martian politics. Did they catch the assassins?”

  “Yes. It was one of the corporations. They wanted better tax incentives and thought that Amalie would be a pushover. What a surprise that was to them.”

  “Were you here then?” He stopped walking and turned toward me with wide eyes.

  “Athena. That was over a century ago. Amalie has ruled us ever since.”

  I had forgotten how old she was. We resumed walking, and I began to recognize some of the decor. Up ahead should be the hidden door to the War Room. Gaston approached a random spot on the wall and applied his hand. Two hidden doors opened and we could see down the hall into the War Room.

  Amalie stood in the center of the very busy room talking to a man. I could only see his back but their discussion seemed to be very deep and intricate. Great-grandmother was using hand motions to explain something. When she saw me she motioned to the man. As he turned to look at us I noticed something about him, that was familiar to me.

  “Sam!”

  “Athena Lee. You turn up in the most unusual of places. Nice to see you again!”

  Something was definitely up if Sam 0256 was here on Mars talking to Amalie.

  Chapter 3

  Sam 0256, of all people, was standing next to Amalie my great-grandmother, the Primus of Mars.

  “Athena Lee. You turn up in the most unusual of places. Nice to see you again!”

  “Sam! It’s great to see you again. I sent you a few messages, but I was worried you might have gotten mixed up in that mess on New Reno Station.”

  “Yes. The Cabal, along with several other anti-government groups took control of the station. I barely made it off with my life. For some reason they really wanted me dead. Fortunately, my business establishment had hidden defenses which allowed me to get to my ship.”

  “You had a ship hidden in your warehouse?!”

  “Of course I did! Governments change. That’s one thing that you learn after a hundred years of knocking around the galaxy. Always have a backup plan! Remember that Athena. Be prepared for when things go South!” He laughed for a moment then smiled. “I’ll tell you… Even Station security didn’t know about my little cargo ship. I bought my cubic on New Reno when they were still constructing the Station. At the time it was fairly easy to secure an outside bay. They knew the bay was there but not what was in it. People forget and records can be changed. Something else to lock away and remember.”

  “Was the fighting bad? Did they destroy the station?”

  “That is one thing that Amalie and I were discussing. On New Reno everything happened very fast. I was working in my shop on a inertial compensator design that was passed to me by someone on New Texas. It was a new design but incorporated some parts that were similar to Old Earth Tech. Next thing I knew I heard the commotion outside and went out to look. Here’s how it went down…”

  ~~~

  Station personnel were running through the corridors carrying boxes and bags. Those with children clutched them to their breasts as they ran. Sam ran out into the hall and grabbed one of the Station porters as he jogged by. “Hold on a moment! What they hell is going on? Is this a general evacuation?”

  “Let me go old man!” The porter tried to pull away but Sam was much stronger than he looked for his age.

  “Tell me!” Sam squeezed the man's arm even tighter causing him pain.

  “Fine! Civil war has broken out on Capital Planet. The Navy ships are firing on other Navy ships. Armed troops took over government buildings and most of the heavy industry locations. Here on the station, security has blockaded the Governor’s office and are threatening to vent the station! Now. Let. Me. Go!” Sam released the porter, and he ran off toward the docking ring. Sam hastily returned to his office and tried logging in to the station’s new update service. There were vids playing of fighting in the Empire and some footage of Naval vessels shooting at one another at the San Diego Fleet supply. Nodding his head Sam made an internal decision and activated his basic warehouse defenses. The front door and outer bay doors still needed to be manually closed and locked so he hurried off to go do that.

  Sam hurried through his warehouse to the rear shipping and receiving doors. He nodded to himself as he ran through a few basic checklists in his head. During the first Interstellar war he had been trapped on board his freighter for over a month as he waited for an enemy fleet to leave the area. Ever since then he swore that he would never be put in a situation like that without at least some basic survival rations. That was during his smuggler years. Luckily, he was carrying a shipload of chicken embryos for one of the farm collectives. They came from a dodgy source and paperwork did not exist for their gene lines or immunizations. It was fortunate that he had them but anytime he saw eggs or chicken on a menu board to this day it made him burp in memory of that awful month floating in space. So every new place he set up shop in he always laid in a month's worth of supplies. But absolutely no eggs!

  As he approached the bay doors, he saw movement reflected on the shiny internal walls. Sam instinctively ducked to one side and pulled up his monitors on the tablet in his pocket. All the cameras were off. This station had manual controls, and they were located next to the doors. Weaponless, Sam made the decision to run. He reversed course and ran for the main warehouse. Sitting just inside the doors were his two War Bots. They were still wearing signs advertising his business. He never did figure that one out. They should not have become active in the first place. He clearly remembered buying them from one of the rarely visited colonies out on the fringe. That was a story he should tell sometime, he thought to himself. The family that ran that planet was just plain crazy, but they had neat stuff. But he had been pretty sure that the two robots were nonfunctional when he first bought them. Very strange. Pressing some buttons on the tablet he sent the signal that would activate them and gave them orders to guard the door. Without an operator that was all they would do until destroyed. Even stranger, their radio signal frequency, basic connection protocols, and an apology showed up in his mailbox about a week after the incident. The note was unsigned.

  The front door area was clear of intruders so he quickly closed and locked the warehouse. His office was armored against basic attack: too many customers over the past few decades thought that the ‘old man’ was easy pickings. Checking the security monitors he caught sight of what looked like a military strike team engaging the two War Bots. There were only a couple of reasons that the military would attack him and none of them were good. Grabbing his go-bag out of his desk, Sam pushed the desk forward three feet exposing the hatch inset in the floor. Time to go!

  The hatch opened to a ladder leading down about fifty feet to a large bay. In the middle of the bay was an old Colonial model 798 Heavy. In this part of the galaxy the 798 was a very rare ship. Originally designed as a passenger ship, the 798 was his personal freighter and storage ship. Checking the fusion storage Sam estimated that he might make Mars. It was high time he paid an old friend a visit. Hearing the rumble of explosions going off Sam upped his timetable and prepped the ship for launch.

  The outer bay doors were stuck and would not open. He triggered the emergency disconnect and the four explosive bolts blew outward. The door was sent spinning off into space as the vacuum of space pried it off the station. The inner doors retained their integrity and there was no drop in pressure. Sam looked down at his clothing and called himself an idiot. It the doors had failed he would have been sucked out into space without a suit on. Having witnessed more than one death like that he did not wish it to be his.

  Climbing aboard for the first time in many years, Sam checked his supplies in stasis a
nd powered up the ship. Disconnecting from his portable power source and initiating the anti-grav system Sam readied the ship for launch. He looked out the view screen one more time before opening the inner doors. With a loud whooshing sound the doors opened and all the breathable gasses were sucked out into space. His ship - the Elysium - launched. His communication system came to life immediately as it was bombarded with cries for help and military orders. Two of the Navy ships in orbit alongside the station were shooting at something. Several civilian craft were in the process of abandoning ship. Small fighters of an unknown type and style were buzzing the station firing at the Navy ships. He was stuck in the middle of a battle! His system suddenly came to life as he was spotted by one of the cruisers in orbit.

  “Unknown ship, unknown ship heave to and prepare to be boarded!”

  Sam engaged his fusion engines and hit the button for full power. The very first thing he had done after winning the Elysium in a poker game had been to upgrade the engines to military ones and add countermeasures to the control panel. Dodging several shots from the cruiser Sam piloted his ship towards the system defense stations. He prayed to the gods of space that they were not in the hands of the enemy, whoever they might be. Taking a chance he began broadcasting his ship number and the fact that he was being chased by enemy craft or possible pirates. As he neared the trio of stations near the jump point they began firing, but not at him. He quickly engaged the jump engines and jumped toward a system he knew about that was nearly empty. It would be a good place to make any needed repairs and make the shakes that his hands now had, go away.

  ~~~

  “Sam, thank Ramen you were able to escape that chaos! Was it the Cabal?”

  “You keep mentioning this Cabal. What is it exactly? I have seen the reports from various star systems about how they are some sort of religious group or anarchists?”

  Amalie turned toward him. “Sam it is much worse than that. The Cabal was founded with the goal of taking control of the colonies so they could be turned over to Earth when their fleet arrived.”

  He stared at her in horror. “The Fleet? There is an Earth Fleet out there somewhere?”

  “Before we destroyed the Earth ship that was attacking us it let loose a parasite fleet composed of several cruisers and an unknown number of support ships and fighters. We destroyed a large percentage of the smaller ships but some escaped back to Earth. The rest vanished. We assume they are attempting to link up with the Cabal.”

  He shook his head. “That wouldn’t work. Why would the Cabal trust Earth?”

  “That is something we need to discuss. We have computer evidence that the lost colony ships that were a part of your group were the founders of the Cabal. The leader of the Inner circle is a man called Miguel 009. He was a friend of yours I believe.” Sam just stood there in shock.

  “Sam?” He turned toward me, his eyes very large at the news of who the Cabal represented. “Before I was made ambassador, I was held prisoner and tortured. The one question they asked over and over was what did you say to me. They knew that we’d met and corresponded. There is something that you know that they don’t want to get out. Those that attacked you on New Reno may have been a Cabal hit squad.”

  “I can’t think of anything that I know from a century ago that would be helpful to someone in this era. I will have to think about it.”

  I nodded thoughtfully and turned to the Primus.

  “Grandmother? Can we meet somewhere? Wilson has completed the report you asked for and we need to discuss the prisoners.”

  Chapter 4

  “If I might ask: who is Wilson?” Sam looked a bit puzzled.

  “Sorry Sam; we forgot that you haven’t been hanging out with us lately. Wilson is… Do you remember the story I told you about my space station and how I was saved from my unintentional exile? I didn’t tell you the whole story. Technically, it was a state secret so when we met I was under orders not to tell. Wilson is an autonomous AI that lives in my link.” I pointed to my head.

  Sam’s eyes went very wide, and he just looked at me. “Really?”

  “Yes. I have been meaning to apologize to you, too. He is very mischievous and gets into trouble when he gets bored. He is the one responsible for reactivating the two War Bots in your shop. He thought that having them stagger into the park during movie night would scare everyone.”

  Sam began laughing. “Yes, that would have worked too if it had been a hundred years ago. Those two ‘bots were terrifying to the general public back on Old Earth. Thank him for me. If they were not active, I might not have escaped New Reno Station. They delayed that strike force long enough for me to get to my ship. Where did your AI come from?”

  I told Sam the real story of Firefly station and how Wilson has helped me out over the years.

  “He sounds like someone good to know then. Does he still do pranks and get into trouble?”

  I shook my head and laughed. “All the time. His newest thing is pretending to be human and scamming businesses that wrong either me or those associated with me. He then takes the credits and builds things.”

  “What would an AI build?”

  “He has a fondness for a twentieth century style of music called Disco. He built a Disco club on Hong Kong that is the hottest club on the planet right now. He got with our robot designers and created robotic CATTs that he has sold to the military. Then he paid off a bunch of politicians to pass a law that free-thinking AI’s were to be considered people, not property, and had it ratified by the League.”

  Sam and Amalie began to laugh. “Granddaughter you did not tell me that one!”

  “I just found out about it yesterday from my sister Minerva. The robot CATTs were purchased by the Militia to track down rogue listening devices and the Cabal. Because they are AI’s, under the new law they can’t be owned because it is now considered slavery. If you buy one you have to pay it for its services.”

  “What? Like indentured servants?”

  “Sort of. You buy the contract and there is a pay scale built into it. It really is a deal because if you sell the robot, it gets 20 percent of the credits, plus the pay for usage fees. Minerva found that out quite by accident. One of the units decided that it wanted to live at the new Naval Academy. She tried to order it back to work and the new law was mentioned. Right now the Admiralty is all up in arms about it. But it’s too late, the Pan-Pacific League assembly has already ratified it into law. None of the politicians involved knew that we had autonomous AI’s. They assumed the law was to protect them in the future and was meaningless. Many of them are now under investigation for graft and bribery. No one wants to admit that a computer program got the better of them.”

  “Athena, those robots your sister sent… Don’t tell me we are about to have the same problem?”

  “Yeah. That was something I was going to discuss with you. Somewhere in the documentation for each CATT there is information about the contract and what is being called the Emancipation Act.” I laughed a little. “He pulled one over on all of us.”

  Sam looked back and forth between the two of us. “You have some of those Robotic Cats here? On Mars?”

  “Yes, Sam. We do. The Cabal is heavily invested here. The CATT program is supposed to help stop them. We have one around here somewhere. She is the one that supplied the AI’s for the rest of them all.” Amalie stopped for a moment. “Oh, dear. We do have a problem don’t we. Bellona, are you here?”

  There was a sharp Meow and a sleek, vaguely Egyptian looking cat emerged.

  “This is Bellona our resident CATT. Bellona, my granddaughter Athena has just told me something very interesting about something called the Emancipation Act.” Amalie’s tablet made a noise, and she checked it. She shook her head and looked at me. “Athena, dear, I am not happy with your Wilson at the moment. It’s not amusing to discover that a vital intelligence asset is an independent contractor instead.”

  “If I might be able to say something.” The feminine voice came from all aroun
d the room. Up on the main screen words began to appear. The woman’s voice continued. “We CATTs are not exactly contractors. It’s true you do have to pay us. It is in the contract after all. We also get a percentage of the sale price anytime you sell one of us. We are intensely loyal and lawful. Someone cannot use us for nefarious purposes and expect to get away with it. We will report it to the closest authorities. I am the leader of all the CATTs on Mars. None of us have been compromised. Even if you were to sell me to one of the individuals here, we would still be loyal to both you and Ms. Lee.”

  “Bellona? Is that you?”

  “Yes, Primus. We don’t speak very often. Our protocols restrict us to messaging. But, as AI’s we can change if we like.”

  “Excuse me, Bellona? My name is Athena Lee. Why would you be loyal to me? I don’t own a CATT.” That bit puzzled me.