Chapter 76
Aboard the Oregon
The Fuzhou’s vertical launch doors remained open, but the Chinese vessel hadn’t fired off any more weapons. Instead, the big destroyer had inched closer to the Baktun and was now just five hundred yards away.
“Helo lifting off,” Linda called out from the weapons station.
“It’s keeping a low altitude,” Max said. “They’re headed for the Baktun.”
Juan’s grip tightened on the Kirk Chair. Not good.
“Looks like the Chicoms want to get in on the party,” Linda said.
“That’s not a party. That’s a shotgun wedding, and the Baktun is the reluctant bride,” Juan said, nodding at the Chinese destroyer.
“What do you want to do, Chairman?” Max asked.
“Our orders are clear. We can’t fire on the Baktun without risking the AGI, and we can’t fire on the Chinese for fear of starting World War Three.”
“I don’t think the Chicoms got that note,” Max said. “Those weren’t exactly spitballs they threw at us.”
“Doesn’t matter. We get our paychecks from Uncle Sam, not the Bank of China.” Juan checked the clock again. “Boys and girls, we only have five minutes to stop the apocalypse. I’m open to suggestions.”
★
Aboard the Baktun
Dr. Bose stood at the observation window, her eyes fixed on the Neural Reef crowded inside the holding tank. The biometric readouts indicated perfect metabolic stats across the board. Every node of the structure was now fully illuminated and no longer pulsating.
According to the clock, there were still five minutes to go.
What did that mean? Was something wrong?
A dozen anxious faces stared up at her from the laboratory floor.
Bose could scarcely breathe.
A digital panel suspended above the tank flashed on. Single letters forming Hindi words in elegantly structured Devanagari script began appearing.
Tears flowed from the Indian’s handsome face as she whispered the words aloud.
“Namaste, Dr. Bose.”
★
Inside the Baktun’s combat information center
“Director Peng’s helicopter will be landing in three minutes, Captain,” the radar officer reported.
“Thank you.” Stokes dreaded Peng’s arrival. The Chinese were never part of his deal with Fierro.
“Sir, Dr. Bose on line one for you,” the comms tech said.
Fierro frowned anxiously. “Is there a problem?”
“How should I know?” Stokes turned to the comms tech. “Put her through.” Stokes pulled an intercom receiver and held it to his ear.
Fierro strained to hear the conversation on the other end of the line. He marched over to Stokes just as he hung up the phone.
“What did she say?”
“Congratulations, Mr. Fierro. Project Q is alive and well.”
Fierro clasped Stokes’s shoulders in his hands and shook him with a near-maniacal laugh.
“Fantastico!”
The CIC crew cheered.
Even the stoic captain couldn’t help but smile. But he wasn’t happy for Fierro. His mind was already forming a battle plan to take on the Americans. He told his helmsman, “Prepare the plasma wave engine immediately.”
“Aye, sir.”
“And I want all systems online, including weapons.”
His crew acknowledged his commands and got to work.
“Our Chinese partners will be pleased,” Fierro said.
Fierro’s words darkened Stokes’s weathered face. “And that’s acceptable to you?”
“Don’t be so glum, Stokes. No need to worry about Peng. Our arrangement still stands. I can still take down the American energy grid, and you’ll still be a rich man.”
“What makes you think he’ll allow you to keep the AGI?”
“Do you think I’m an idiot? He won’t have a choice.” Fierro pointed at an Indian engineer sitting at the satellite console. “Prepare for the uplink.”
“With a program that large, it will take several minutes,” the Indian said.
“Then get after it, man.” Fierro was anxious to put the AGI to work as soon as possible. He turned to the comms tech. “Tell Dr. Bose I need her in the CIC immediately.”
“Yes, sir.”
Fierro was worried. With the American ship prowling around there was no telling how much time he had left before they might seek to capture or kill him. Despite Peng’s impressive show of violence, Fierro wasn’t convinced the Chinese destroyer was equal to the Oregon and its incredible power.
Once the uplink was established, Fierro would have Dr. Bose transfer a copy of the AGI program to a server located in a secured compound he had built in New Zealand. After that, he’d unleash AGI on the American vessel and destroy it.
“Are you sure you want the Chinese to have access to it as well?” Stokes asked. The distant beat of helicopter blades signaled Peng was on his way.
“At this juncture, I don’t have much of a choice, do I? Besides, the Chinese hate the Americans as much as I do, and Peng has been a good business partner over the years. It’s not my preferred arrangement, but I can live with it.” He turned back to the comms tech. “Where’s Bose?”
“She hasn’t responded.”
Stokes stepped closer. “A private word with you, in my cabin, if I may?”
Fierro frowned, annoyed. “What? Now?”
“It’s about Bose. It’s urgent.”
★
Aboard the Oregon
Murphy had tapped into the Oregon’s comms ever since they arrived on station. Like a retired fire horse hearing a clanging alarm bell, everything in him wanted to run up to the weapons station once the fireworks began. Of course, he couldn’t. Cabrillo had locked him in his stall for the duration.
He didn’t care about all of that now. A hardwired compulsion within his brain told him the key to everything was finding and solving Eidolon’s code-within-a-code.
Like a paleographer deploying AI-powered X-ray imaging to decipher ancient text from burnt papyrus scrolls, Murphy managed to pull minuscule shreds of data from Eidolon’s code, one bit at a time.
After many sleepless hours he finally extracted the last digital bits—just as Stoney began throwing the Oregon around in a slalom run across the Pacific.
By the time the Oregon hove to, he’d uploaded the data into a software program originally designed to predict the complex folding patterns of DNA protein structures.
Bleary-eyed and jacked up on energy drinks, he was staring at his monitor as it suddenly began spitting out the decrypted digital chaos: Eidolon’s code-within-a-code.
Murphy shouted like a babysitter in a slasher film.
In a good way.
★
“Chairman, the Baktun’s satellite mast just lit up,” Hali Kasim said.
“What? Why now?” Cabrillo asked. “Is it comms?”
“Not according to the Sniffer. The signal indicates major bandwidth.”
“That means AGI is online,” Eric said. “They need to upload it in order to be able to deploy it properly.”
“But there’s still five minutes to go,” Max said.
“It must have completed early,” Stone said.
“Wepps,” Cabrillo called out. “Deploy the Melara and take out that mast. Fire at will.”
“Aye, sir!”
Linda engaged the auto-targeting program for the Melara 127 auto cannon.
Bull’s-eye at twenty-eight miles? No problem, she joked to herself as she painted the Baktun’s distant satellite mast. Juan would have deployed the high-powered laser because of its inherent precision, but it only had an effective range of six miles.
Linda selected the Melara’s Vulcano round as the computer locked onto its swaying target, automatically loading the first fin-stabilized, laser-guided 127-millimeter shell into the breech.
The difficulty of such a long-range hit was complicated beyond human measure as both the Oregon and Baktun bobbed in the running swells. The physical, atmospheric, and tactical challenges in the highly dynamic environment made targeting nearly impossible.
The AI-powered targeting program overcame all of it by integrating the suites of sensors, gyros, electromechanical mounts, and radar-tracking controlling the automated deck gun.
They all could hear the clank of the weapon’s steel container as it fell away high up on the deck, and the faint whirring and clicking of servos, gimbals, and hydraulics snapping the auto cannon into place.
Boom! The big gun sent a single shell downrange. Traveling at nearly five thousand feet per second, it would take twenty-five seconds for it to reach the target twenty-eight miles away.
The high-explosive fragmentation round would act like a shotgun blast. The fragments covered a wider range of destruction than a precision armor-piercing round, making a hit on the fragile mast far more likely and at the same time eliminating the risk of sinking the Baktun.
Three seconds later, Linda fired a second shell—in case the first one missed.
“Chairman, Murph online for you,” Hali called out. “He says it’s an emergency.”
“Put him through.”
“Chairman, I did it. I broke the code.”
“Kinda busy right now, kid—”
Boom! A third shell erupted from the cannon.
“You don’t understand. Eidolon hid another code inside of his code. I just broke it open. He left a back door open on Baktun’s mainframe. I can access it from here.”
All eyes turned toward Cabrillo.
He leaned forward in his chair, grinning.
He knew exactly what to do.