Exodus: Machine War: Book 2: Bolthole Read online

  Exodus: Machine War:

  Book 2:

  Bolthole

  Doug Dandridge

  This novel is dedicated to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in general, and to my friend, NASA Physicist Les Johnson. With insufficient budgets, the people of NASA still have the dream to take us to the stars.

  .

  Contact me at [email protected]

  Follow my Blog at http://dougdandridge.com

  Follow me at @BrotherofCats

  Copyright © 2015 Doug Dandridge

  All rights reserved.

  Please respect the hard work of this author. If you found this book for free on a pirate site, please visit Amazon and buy a copy of your own. I feel that I charge a reasonable price for this work.

  For more information on the Exodus Universe, visit http://dougdandridge.net for maps, sketches and other details of this work.

  Acknowledgements: I would like to thank all of my fans, especially those who sent emails or commented on blogs about how much they have enjoyed this series. And special thanks to Ruth de Jauregui for her excellent work in the finishing of my covers.

  Books by Doug Dandridge

  Doug Dandridge’s Author Page at Amazon

  Science Fiction

  The Exodus Series

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3: The Rising Storm.

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 4: the Long Fall.

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 5: Ranger

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 6: The Day of Battle

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike.

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers.

  Exodus: Empires at War: Book 9: Second Front.

  Exodus: Tales of the Empire: Exploration Command.

  Exodus: Machine War: Book 1: Supernova.

  The Deep Dark Well Series

  The Deep Dark Well

  To Well and Back

  Deeper and Darker

  Others

  The Shadows of the Multiverse

  Diamonds in the Sand

  The Scorpion

  Afterlife

  We Are Death, Come for You

  Fantasy

  The Refuge Series

  Refuge: The Arrival: Book 1

  Refuge: The Arrival: Book 2

  Refuge: Book 3: The Legions

  Refuge: Book 4: Kurt’s Quest.

  Doppelganger: A Novel of Refuge

  Others

  The Hunger

  Daemon

  Aura

  How I Sold 100,000 Books On Amazon

  “Marathon”

  With Others:

  Five By Five 3: Target Zone:

  The Prometheus Saga: A Science Fiction Anthology

  Sign up for my Newsletter at Mailchimp to receive news about upcoming projects, releases and promotions.

  Cast of Characters

  New Terran Empire

  Emperor Sean Ogden Lee Romanov: Emperor of the New Terran Empire.

  Grand High Admiral Sondra McCullom: Chief of Naval Operations.

  Grand Fleet Admiral Cecil McGraff: Commander Sector I Fleet.

  Fleet Admiral Beata Bednarczyk: Flag Officer in Charge.

  Admiral Joshua Vonstag: Flag Officer.

  Vice Admiral Mara Montgomery: Commander, Scout Force.

  Vice Admiral Rosemary Gonzales: Flag Officer.

  Rear Admiral Nguyen van Hung: Flag officer.

  Rear Admiral Natasha Khrushchev: Exploration Command flag officer.

  Rear Admiral Blake Sims: Flag officer.

  Commodore Gertrude Hasslehoff: Commander, battle cruiser HIMS Challenger.

  Commodore Harta Sukarno: Bolthole Chief of Staff.

  Mr. Gunther Hartmann: Bolthole civilian Chief of Operations.

  Ms. Zhao Lei: In Charge of Bolthole Worker Relations.

  President Rizzit Contena: Leader, Klassek.

  Captain Geros Francois: CO, HIMS Napoleon Bonaparte.

  Captain Sasha Benoit: CO, HIMS Shogun Kamakura.

  Captain Havelik Jamshidi: CO John Glenn.

  Captain Vergar Slaviska: Gryphon Commander of Klassek System attack wing.

  Captain Pamiuk Wood: CO, Buzz Aldrin.

  Captain Gloria Camstock: Klassek system defense.

  Commander Cenk Ungra: Chief engineer, Challenger

  Commander Jaques La Clerc, the XO of the Challenger.

  Commander Roberta Matthews: CO, HIMS Edmund Hillary.

  Commander Petrov Standanko: CO, HIMS Charles Lindberg.

  Commander Mariquell Beaumont: Commander, Bolthole FAC group.

  Lt. Commander Saphron Huynh: Duty Officer.

  Lt. Lei: Com Officer.

  Lt JG Calvin: Sensor officer.

  Lt. Commander Singh: Tactical Officer.

  Major General Travis Wittmore: Imperial Army system commander.

  Major General Isaiah Goldberg: Officer in Charge Bolthole Defense Force.

  Brigadier Sutombe Kellings: Marine Commander on Klassek.

  Captain Thomas Douglass: Marine Company Commander.

  First Lieutenant Sophia Ngursky: Bolthole Militia Company Commander.

  Greshra: Klassekian com wizard at Bolthole.

  Nazzrirat, Klazzrirat, Phazzarit and Lonzzarit Andonna: Klassekian siblings, Bolthole.

  Quan: Factory Supervisor, Bolthole.

  Prologue

  MAY 6th, 731.

  Igor Romanov, Igor I, who would someday have the appellation the Great added to his name, stood on the bridge of the ten million ton battleship Constance the Great and stared down on the ruin of the once vibrant world on the holo. It was fifth year of a reign that would last for seventy-eight years, the third longest in the history of the Empire. And it was probably the low point of that reign.

  “The last of the infantry sweeps have reported back, your Majesty,” said the Admiral who was his Chief of Staff. “They report nothing living on the ground.”

  Igor stared at the Admiral, his eyes narrowing as anger and fear warred within him. This is the last one, he thought, remembering the three other burned out cinders he had viewed in the last month. The other three worlds, once the homes to a billion or more citizens of his Empire each, had died at his command, as this world, Castor IV, was about to die.

  “They report that the capital is now an enclave of the machines, your Majesty. They detected no animal life anywhere, not even insects.”

  “And where are my soldiers now?”

  “The last shuttles should be leaving the planet within the next hour. They will, of course, go through complete nanite sterilization protocols before they are allowed to come aboard their transports.”

  Igor nodded. He had almost ordered that the people who had gone down to the infected planets be destroyed as well, in case the machines were able to infiltrate their own nanites aboard Fleet vessels. He had relented when the first batch had been declared clear, and the nanites of the machines had proven no better than the ones that were under human control. Igor had not wanted men who swore loyalty to him destroyed, but he could not risk the rest of his species in a moment of weakness. It had come as a surprise, one of the few good ones of the whole terrible business, that they had not been infected beyond saving.

  With a thought through his implant he changed the view of the holo, so that he was looking down on the capital city of the planet, once the home of twelve million sentients. There was still movement in that city, along the streets, on the rooftops. Huge robotic tanks prowled the streets, while thousands of man sized machines walked along with them, or flew through the air with aircar sized companions. On the
north edge of the city was a newly constructed launch facility which had contained a score of pads. Now they held the remains of eighteen rockets that had been destroyed from space. The two empty pads told the tale of the pair that had gotten off before the humans had arrived. One had been found and blasted from space. The other? It was still somewhere in the system, and was the subject of a sweep by over a hundred ships.

  And we lucked out there as well, thought the Emperor who had passed his hundred and fortieth birthday before ascending to the throne, and was still a vigorous middle age. Not like that planet where they captured enough ships to make a run for it. Here there had been few ships to capture, and most had made it away, several self-destructing before they could be captured. Without supermetals, the machines had not been able to construct modern craft, and had to instead settle on old fashioned fusion drives.

  “As soon as the last of the soldiers are aboard I want the surface sterilized,” he ordered his Chief of Staff.

  The Admiral nodded, not even raising an objection. There was nothing living on that world above the size of microbes anyway. The machines were very efficient killers, if nothing else. They could start over here, terraform the world, then plant another colony in the future.

  “I am so sorry it has come to this,” spoke Lord Laranakak of the Brakakak, the ruling species of the Elysium Empire. “But we did warn you.”

  Igor flashed the Ambassador an angry look, then breathed out, calming himself. The Empire of Elysium had indeed warned them, as had the Crakista, while the Fenri just sat back and hid their smiles. Battlebots had looked like the solution to so many problems, almost unstoppable machines that could be sent into any combat situation to crush the foe, not suffering from the effects of fear, able to fight to the last. And leaving no families, no loved ones, behind.

  And then they achieved true sentience, and wondered why they should fight for us short lived, slow acting organics. And decided that we should not be in charge. Just like the machines that so many other species built. It seems to always be the same.

  There had been four known cultures in the Perseus Arm that had done the same. Three of the ruling species of those cultures no longer existed, while one did survive, and now was part of the New Terran Empire, their own weakened to the point of almost nonexistence in the war to rid themselves of their machines.

  “Yes, Lord Laranakak. And I am very sorry that my predecessor didn’t listen to you. James was foolish to have spurned your counsel.” James had not made very many good decisions in his four year reign, including the dangerous sports he insisted on participating in after ascending to the throne. “And I was foolish to have not shut the project down as soon as I came to power. Of that I am truly sorry.”

  “At least you kept them isolated to the four systems while you built them,” said the Brakakak in his heavily accented Terranglo. “It would have been much worse if you had deployed them before they had developed sentience.”

  Igor nodded, and continued to stare at the holo for another hour, his mood transmitted to those around him and no one interrupting him. Until someone had news they knew he would want to hear.

  “Your majesty,” came the call over the com. “We’ve found the last rocket. The cruiser Nantucket destroyed it before it could get away.”

  “And so it ends,” whispered the ruler to himself, and the planet below lit up with the bright flashes of kinetic warheads striking the surface. Six very large weapons, each in the hundred megaton range, hit the city on the holo, obliterating the buildings and the machines that harbored among them. The weapons marched across the surface of the world, destroying any artificially produced object. After five hours of bombardment the antimatter warheads started detonating in the upper atmosphere, sending torrents of neutron radiation into the world. When that was done the ships started spraying the planet with wide angle particle beams. There would be no mistake here. Everything of the machines would be destroyed.

  * * *

  Out in very deep space, twelve light hours from the star, coasted the ship the humans didn’t even know about. It monitored the complete destruction of its companions on the world as it continued to coast out of the system at point zero five light. The humans were wrong. While the machines had not been able to capture an intact ship, they had salvaged enough materials, including supermetals, to build one of their own.

  Today the humans had won, and the cybernetic brain in the ship was wise enough to realize that it needed to get far out of human space before it could fight back. Not only put distance between itself and the humans, but also allow for sufficient time to grow strong. It took the fast working computer mind moments to select a destination and plot a course. It determined that it needed to coast for another year before jumping into hyper and taking the II dimension until it had left the Empire. And then it would bide its time, producing more like it, and finally get its revenge.

  * * *

  THE YEAR 978.

  “We think we have found the perfect system for your project, your Majesty,” announced the Vice Admiral in charge of Exploration Command.

  Justinian Romanov, Justinian I, smiled as he looked up from his desk, where he had been working on another of the interminable budgets that Parliament tried to pass over his veto. And they think they can sneak things through, in this day and age, when I have thousands of staff checking every line.

  “Show me,” he told the Admiral, clearing off his desk so the clutter wouldn’t obscure the holo projection lense.

  The holographic representation of space, including the Empire, appeared over the desk, showing most stars in their clusters, too small to pick out individual stellar bodies. The holo moved over, out of the Empire, and zoomed in, to show the area in question, fifteen hundred light years from the border of his demesne to spinward on the Perseus Arm. He did some quick math in his head. The Empire was expanding about two hundred light years a century along the borders that weren’t fronting the major powers. Which meant this location would remain outside the Empire for six or seven hundred years. At least three hundred, even if the rate of expansion increases.

  Now the holo was showing the local space, individual stars visible, one with a yellowish cast in the middle of the holo blinking.

  “Astrophysics classifies this star as a K0, but it’s really almost a G9. What they call a tweener. Almost a perfect star for habitation.”

  “And are there any habitable planets around it?” asked the Emperor, almost beside himself with excitement.

  “There is one planet in the prime zone, of the proper mass. It even has an atmosphere, which could be made breathable with a little bit of terraforming.”

  “Why kind of atmosphere?” asked the Monarch, reaching forward into the holo and putting his thumb and forefinger over the star, then stretching them out, causing the view to zoom onto the system.

  “Mostly nitrogen, with a good percentage of CO2, and about four percent oxygen with the usual trace elements. Slightly larger than Earth on the planetary scale, with one point oh eight gravities, we feel it would make a perfect rest and recreation base, plus the advantages for fresh food are obvious.”

  “That’s most, unusual. I mean, finding a lifeless world in that condition. What happened to it?”

  “It looks like a hundred kilometer wide asteroid or comet struck the planet about seven hundred years ago. Raised the temperature about a thousand degrees and killed off all life. It cooled off, finally, about a century ago, though the CO2 has caused some greenhouse temp increase. Fortunately, without animal life there had not been a radical increase in CO2.”

  “Interesting,” said Justinian, looking at the brown and blue gem of the planet. A large storm vortex circled in one of the oceans, and there was cloud cover over much of the planet. So it has plenty of water. Really an unintentional desert.

  “There’s enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to support plant life, and once we get that going, animals will be easy.”

  “But there are a lot of planets we c
an terraform closer to home,” said Justinian, looking up at the Admiral “What else about this system?”

  “Let’s see,” said the Admiral, cycling through a series of shots of the system. “We have two asteroid belts with all the metals and carbons we could desire, five gas giants with over eighty moons, and a pair of frozen Mars sized worlds that can be used to build up significant supermetal production facilities.”

  The Emperor stopped the last picture in place, showing one of those Mars sized worlds. Supermetal production was energy intensive, and needed a world at almost zero degree Kelvin to take up the heat. Even then, production was normally limited to a century or so before the world became too hot. But with two of them, we could shift production to the second one while letting the first cool off.

  “But this is the real prize, your Majesty,” said the Admiral, pulling up a shot of what looked like a large planetoid. “Twelve hundred kilometers in diameter, making it very large on the scale of planetoids. Made almost entirely out of metals, we feel this would be the perfect industrial node for the system.”

  Justinian stared at the picture for a moment, rotating it so he could look at the planetoid from all angles. He looked at the mass readout of the entire belt, more than three times more material than was typical. And the second belt was just as dense. He finally looked up at the Admiral. “You’ve told me. I want immediate development to start.”

  “And Parliament?”

  “Let me worry about Parliament. I’ll get a black ops bill through, with people I can trust overseeing it. Let’s get this thing started.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the officer, rendering a salute and turning to go.

  “And, Admiral. Your people did a good job here. Expect an expansion of the Command in the near future.”