Corebound Chapter 3-28 (Patreon)

Jacob explained what happened immediately after the battle, leaving nothing out. As expected, there were two very different reactions.

“I see,” Barry replied.

“You see?” Katherine demanded. “What the hell do you see? Is it the fact that the Concord Imperium isn’t dead, the fact that it seems to be run by an ancient AI, or the fact that Jacob decided to work with them, even though those bastards are the reason we’re in this state to begin with?”

Barry looked at Katherine but showed no outward emotion about her outburst or Jacob’s story. “I’m sure he has his reasons,” he replied.

Jacob nodded at that.

Katherine scoffed. “Yeah, stupid ones. I don’t want any part of whatever bullshit this AI is spouting. And I don’t want them anywhere near this station, are we clear?”

It was less a question than a demand, and it wasn’t directed at Jacob.

“We can discuss this in detail,” Barry added diplomatically.

Katherine wasn’t having any of that. “No discussion. If they come, I’m gone. And I’m telling our eriaxin allies, because they have a right to know. I can guarantee you that they don’t want anything to do with a revived Imperium any more than I do.”

Before anyone could argue the point, she vanished from the virtual apartment, and even dumped her drone on Earth. Jacob tried to ping her, but she had blocked his access. He could still break through her firewalls, but he didn’t see the point; she had already made up her mind about Concord long before this new group appeared.

“I’ll speak with her,” Barry said.

Jacob couldn’t stop the snort from escaping. “Good luck with that. You know how she gets when she’s angry.”

Barry gave only a slight head tilt in acknowledgement.

“I’m surprised you’re not more worried.”

“Should I be?” Barry asked.

Jacob didn’t know how to answer that, so he didn’t, hoping that would be enough.

After a long silence, Barry responded. “Jacob, I have faith that you know what you’re doing. If it’s something we can help with, please let us know.”

“I’ll do that,” Jacob admitted. “How’s the political front?” he asked, changing the subject.

Barry was smart enough to realize the High Chancellor could be listening in, and everything they did or said might be recorded and dissected by the ancient AI to use against them.

Without missing a beat, Barry switched topics. “I have filed the complaint about the veyrit using nanite weapons, but I doubt it will go anywhere. The Astryx council rarely humors the requests of non-council planets unless the request is forwarded by a representative on the council. The few records of them doing so were for conditions so egregious on colony worlds that they were forced to act. Only one of those rulings went in the favor of the original inhabitants of that world, and it was against the shalis.”

“And this is the group Representative Chalto thought we should join?”

“He was right to suggest it. If you can’t beat them, join them. Of course, that was back when we lacked options. Our options aren’t much better now, but we have some.”

“I’m not giving away the new tech we just bargained for,” Jacob stated firmly.

“Nor should you,” Barry admitted. “That tech will give us the slight advantage we need to bootstrap humanity. That doesn’t mean we don’t hold some cards.”

“Quit trying to be cryptic and just tell me,” Jacob sighed. All this talking around was giving him a headache, and he was a digital copy immune to such things.

“It took some time, but I was eventually able to learn that the t’uk attack was orchestrated through power cores, specifically Xalos models. The population at large didn’t really suffer too much from the attack, but there were some deaths associated with malfunctioning drones running on those cores. Despite that, the Astryx are still using those cores.”

“Are they nuts?” Jacob asked.

“I think it’s more that they don’t have an alternative. The other cores on the market aren’t nearly as energy-dense or long-lasting. And they can’t make any more, because the Xalos company chose to destroy their production facility instead of turning it over to the Astryx.”

“That was a dumb move, considering they are now the most hated species in this section of space.”

“Agreed,” Barry replied. “I think they were hoping to cripple the other species even more with the loss of those power cores, knowing the ringleaders had escaped with the knowledge to build more.”

“So what you’re saying is that we control the only source of these cores now, and that we should use that as leverage?”

Barry nodded. “Absolutely. We can either ration out the cores to only those who fall in line, or deny them to the Astryx altogether. Both come with consequences, but I think the positives outweigh the risks. If we ration them out, we can get certain political parties or even entire species on our side. That will anger other council species, and we don’t have nearly the same production capacity or ability to protect our investments as the t’uk did. Piracy and outright theft would be the most likely outcome until someone finally managed to reverse engineer the cores.”

“They haven’t managed that so far. What makes you so certain they will now?” Jacob asked.

“The t’uk had a stranglehold over the tech before, and there was never any major incentive to do so. Now both of those things have changed.”

“And the other option?” Jacob had a pretty good clue as to what Barry was getting at, but it would be good to hear the full plan.

“Stop all sales to Astryx space. With them warning off most merchants, we don’t need the funds. The Concord cores we’ve sold already won’t make much of a splash either, and the people who have them will be pretty reticent to give them up. The lack of trustworthy power sources will limit the Astryx’s ability to wage an effective ground war without redesigning their entire combat drone program.”

“You really think the Astryx will attack Earth again?”

“I do, and I think it will be sooner than you realize. I’ve been hearing rumors that the ivathians set up a comm relay network on their way to Earth. It seems they weren’t entirely consumed by their greed. If the ivathians set up a comm network, there’s no reason to believe the other two hadn’t also.”

“They know about the nanite missiles?” Jacob asked in alarm.

“I don’t believe so. The rumors suggest that something blocked the comm network prior to the battle. I think we know who that was.”

The High Chancellor. The AI was muddying the waters and ensuring the fog of war was firmly in place even before it reached out. If Jacob had any doubts about the AI using Earth as a pawn in its game, that was gone now.

The chancellor’s actions also let him know that the comm network was compromised. If Jacob couldn’t trust that connection to transfer his consciousness between cores, he was going to have to find an alternative. None of his immediate ideas seemed very good, but a few had the possibility of working. Jacob made a mental note of them as Barry continued.

“Right now the rumors are focused on the fleet being overdue for communication. That’s going to change rather quickly when they fail to reach the closest relay satellite. With the loss of their previous expeditions, which might be related,” Barry added, dancing around the subject, “it’s safe to say they will be quite vocal about getting a military presence to Earth as soon as possible to see what’s going on.”

And playing right into the High Chancellor’s hand, Jacob added internally.

Jacob hated this backdoor plotting. Actually, he hated being a pawn in someone else’s backdoor plotting. If he were on the other end, he would be gleefully rubbing his hands together as the Astryx tore themselves apart on some hapless fool while their home systems were conquered without a fight.

“The station belongs to you and Katherine, so I’ll leave the decision to you as to what you want to do with the power cores. But if you want my opinion on the matter, I say screw them. Block all sales and terminate all existing sales contracts. I’m pretty sure we have some sort of belligerence clause in the contract we can point to if it becomes a legal issue.”

He would need to give Sha’la a heads-up, and maybe even Hallik. Both had made quite a bit of money selling cores purchased from their little corner of space; Sha’la quite a bit more than the mercenary, but both would be considered filthy rich back on their home planets by this point.

“That is appreciated, Jacob, but let’s face it. The three of us are in this together. Katherine and I already decided on our preferred course; we were just waiting to see what you thought. It seems we are all on the same page in that regard. I’ve already issued stop orders for the merchants. The few on station have been notified, and security agents have been sent to help maintain the peace. This decision will likely put this station in the Astryx crosshairs, but they can’t afford to destroy it now that they know it’s the only source of production for Concord cores.”

“So they will board the station once again,” Jacob grimaced.

Barry laughed, which was rare for the man. “No, not this time. Not when I tell them that we’ve rigged the entire station with void bombs.”

“You have?”

“No, but they won’t know that. And even if they do call our bluff, they won’t have the same numbers advantage as last time. There are literally thousands of combat drones on the station now. And I’ve been producing a dozen a day since Katherine and I decided on a course of action.”

“Okay, that’s a lot,” Jacob admitted. “Do you have enough people to merge with them?” he knew they didn’t, even with the eiraxins that were aboard.

“No, but we have a way around that,” Barry replied, surprising Jacob.

“How?”

“Meet Helen and Troy, our new resident guardian AIs.”

“Hello,” two flat voices replied in unison, one a man’s voice, very similar to Barry’s, and the other was unmistakably Katherine without the sass.

Jacob quirked an eyebrow at Barry. “How?” He hadn’t provided any of his Concord AI research to the pair. Not because he didn’t trust them, but because they required an AI reprogrammer to insert an AI into a core, and they only had the one, which was aboard Melody.

“Modified Astryx defensive AIs using the mesh network design you used on the scouts. They’re nowhere near as capable as the station AI, but they are more than capable of providing additional control to the drones. I didn’t give them full control. They are simply linked into the command stations, and the soldiers and eiraxins that weren’t merge-compatible have been trained to operate the drones with the AI assistance remotely. It’s not nearly as efficient as a merged mind, but it is still more efficient than allowing the drones to operate using their onboard computing, or having the station AI’s resources fully committed to defensive operations.”

“You’ve been busy,” Jacob admitted.

“As have you,” Barry replied. “Or did you forget you spent the last few months prepping Earth and saving the survivors from the previous attack?”

Jacob admitted the point. Then he asked one final question. “What do you think our odds are now?”

“Better,” was all Barry said.

Not great, but it would have to do.