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  DEVASTATOR

  AI FLEET BOOK 2

  Isaac Hooke

  For my Mother

  My greatest, most devoted fan.

  1938 - 2018

  Contents

  Books by Isaac Hooke

  Limited Time Deal

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  In Closing

  Copyright © 2018 by Isaac Hooke

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  www.IsaacHooke.com

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  A Captain's Crucible

  Flagship

  Test of Mettle

  Cradle of War

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  He Who Crosses Death

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  A Second Chance

  The Mirror Breaks

  They Have Wakened Death

  I Have Seen Forever

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  Walls of Steel

  The Pendulum Swings

  The Last Stand

  Thrillers

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  A Cold Day in Mosul

  Terminal Phase

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  1

  Jain stared at the swirling mass of glowing clouds, a maelstrom that threatened to devour everything in its path.

  “What the hell is it?” he asked, not taking his eyes away from the camera feed.

  “A freak event,” Xander said. The dark-robed man stood beside Jain on the virtual bridge. He was Jain’s Accompanying AI, or Accomp, an independent partition of Jain’s neural network that helped him operate the Talos—the starship Jain’s mind was embedded in. “A type of solar storm: all three stars have erupted in solar flares at nearly the same time, and the interactions between those flares—the friction produced by the opposing plasmas—has caused this swirling mass. It’s basically a once in a lifetime occurrence.”

  “Well, this once in a lifetime occurrence of yours threatens everything we’ve built over the past ten years,” Jain said.

  “Maybe Sheila’s energy shield can hold it off,” Medeia said from her station on the virtual bridge. She was the captain of the Arcane, a vessel with cloaking capabilities. She dressed like a witch in that black cloak and wide-brimmed, pointed hat of hers. “If she positions her vessel in front of Anne, and we line up in a row behind her…”

  “No,” Xander said. “Nothing will hold this back.”

  “Could Mark redirect the plasma flow with a few black holes?” Jain asked.

  “The event horizons will be too weak to capture all of the incoming energy,” Xander said. “We’d have to create so many black holes, with a pull so strong, that our own ships would be devoured in the process.”

  “Well that’s no good…” Jain said.

  “No,” Xander agreed. “Our only hope is to relocate ourselves and Anne to the far side of the planet.”

  Jain ran a quick calculation. “I think we can do it. I’m bringing Anne’s lat thrusters online.”

  Jain remoted into the computer system of Anne—the orbital base. He fired the lateral thrusters and switched to his external cameras to watch the advance. The base began to move, slowly. She looked like two gray bicycle tires tilted at angles to one another and sharing a common axis, to which they were connected with spokes. The circular segments revolved around that axis, but also moved up and down in a seesaw pattern, causing them to regularly overlap and appear as a single tire.

  As she continued to accelerate, Anne broke away from the frameworks in orbit next to her: those were the various shipyards Anne and Sheila had used to construct the fleet. They contained the skeletal husks of three vessels whose progress had only just begun.

  “It’s too bad we can’t save the shipyards, too,” Gavin said from his station. As usual, he was attired in an outfit that consisted of white captain’s formalwear. He commanded the Hippogriff, a ship that could produce an expanding shockwave, as well as launch three drones to form energy fields that could be used for offense and defense.

  “They’ll have to be abandoned.” Jain kept his eye on the tactical display, watching as the storm rapidly approached.

  Sheila shook her head, and her hoop earrings jingled back and forth. “She’s not moving fast enough.” Sheila was the captain of the Wheelbarrow, the fleet’s builder ship.

  Jain stared at the display a moment longer, then nodded slowly.

  “All right, we’re going to have tow her,” he said. “Void Warriors, assume haul positions!”

  The twenty-four starships of the fleet maneuvered in front of Anne and matched her current heading and acceleration. The shipyards had constructed eighteen of those ships, which were operated by autonomous AI cores, while the remaining six were part of the original fleet that had first jumped to the system. Jain and the others were installed into the AI cores of those original ships, one per vessel. They were what was known as Mind Refurbs—humans whose minds had been scanned and installed into art
ificial neural networks.

  It was an odd feeling, knowing that your body was a warship. Virtual Reality helped ground his consciousness in a more familiar setting, but that was all an illusion. He could still feel physical blows when projectiles drilled into his hull; he could sense the pull on his extremities when the competing forces tugged at his frame while close to extreme sources of gravity, such as gas giants. So, while VR might mask reality, there was no way to hide from it fully.

  Jain directly operated three of the autonomous starships, the Crater, Peltast, and Warwolf, while the other five Mind Refurbs also controlled three each. The autonomous ships were essentially Piranha Class vessels, vast frameworks of engines, power couplers and heat distribution systems that served solely as delivery vehicles for the weapons installed aboard. Those weapons were the same as the original six warships, minus any alien weaponry. These included starboard- and port-facing “raptor” lasers, sixteen per side; dorsal- and ventral-facing “stinger” railguns, four per side; and three dorsal-facing “hellraiser” missile launchers.

  “Stopping rotations,” Jain said when all the vessels were in position.

  He still had his remote connection to the base and disengaged the motive subroutines. On the external video feed, the two circular components of Anne ceased all internal motion. The lateral thrusters continued to fire, however, adding to the structure’s momentum.

  “Fire grappling hooks,” Jain ordered.

  The twenty-four vessels fired their grappling hooks in turn and latched onto the outer rims of the base.

  When that was done, Jain said: “All right, let’s get her moved behind Cygnet.”

  Jain accelerated the Talos, and instructed his Direct Reports—the three ships directly under his command—to do likewise. The other Mind Refurbs also gave out their silent orders so that all twenty-four hauled the base toward the far side of the planet they called Cygnet.

  “What about our planet-side horticulture experiment?” Sheila asked.

  “Nothing we can do about it now,” Jain replied.

  The twenty-four ships of the fleet accelerated away from the incoming calamity. On Jain’s tactical display, the storm front was represented as a three-dimensional expanding wave that headed toward the sphere that was Cygnet. The fleet and the base were blue dots in orbit above that sphere.

  “We’re still not going to make it…” Cranston said. About five years ago he had stopped wearing a standard uniform like Jain, instead opting for a casual T-shirt and cargo pants. He had a very controlled and reserved way of moving, appearing calm, yet poised to strike. A little like a snake. That suited the man, as he was former spec ops. Like Jain himself. He commanded the Forebode, which was equipped with a micro machine swarm, and a teleportation device.

  “We will,” Jain said. “Faster. I want emergency speed.”

  “The engines are already strained close to their maximum output, thanks to the mass we’re hauling,” Xander said. “Emergency speed will only worsen the potential damage.”

  Jain thought of everything that was aboard the base. The labs containing the different gene splicing techniques they’d used to develop plants that could survive the hostile environment of the planet below, using seeds taken from another world in the hopes of terraforming Cygnet into something more like home. Other labs were responsible for weapons and technology research.

  Anne was loaded with hundreds of extra 3D printers, and essentially acted as a second builder ship to Sheila’s Wheelbarrow. In fact, Sheila had moved several of her own 3D printers aboard, because she spent most of her days remotely interfaced with Anne anyway, overseeing all the projects under development.

  “Do it,” Jain said. It was worth blowing a few engines to save all that. It was easier to repair a few engines than to rebuild an entire base.

  Jain studied his display. It still wasn’t going to be enough. It was taking too long to increase Anne’s velocity. If he wanted to save the fleet, he was going to have to abandon that base.

  “Release grappling hooks,” Jain ordered.

  “No!” Sheila said. “Just a little longer. Please… we can make it. I know we can.”

  “I’m sorry, Sheila,” Jain said. “We’re not going to survive. We have to jettison Anne. Void Warriors, release your grappling hooks. All speed forward. To the far side!”

  Jain released the base, and instructed the other ships under his command to likewise jettison their grapplers. On the tactical display, the fleet began to move away from Anne.

  All except four ships. The Wheelbarrow, and the other three under Sheila’s control.

  “What are you doing?” Jain asked.

  “I can’t let it go,” Sheila said. “This is my life’s work.”

  “Damn it,” Jain said. “If you don’t release your grappling hooks, we’ll cut them away!”

  Sheila didn’t answer.

  Jain glanced at Xander. “Target the Wheelbarrow’s grappling hooks, and those of her Direct Reports, with the raptors.”

  “Ready,” Xander said.

  Jain glanced at Sheila. She met his eyes defiantly. “If you do this—”

  “Fire,” Jain ordered.

  The eight grappling hooks from the four ships severed as the starboard laser banks of the Talos unloaded. At such close range, only one quick pulse from each laser was required.

  Sheila slumped. Her ships accelerated away from Anne now that they were freed from the load.

  A few moments later the storm front hit the base, engulfing it. Jain and the others vanished over the horizon, followed by Sheila and her attendant vessels. In the rear, Sheila was hit by the storm, but she activated her shield, and it protected her until she was able to duck past the planet’s protective curvature.

  Jain exhaled in relief.

  He waited until the storm was well away from the planet before he said: “Xander, launch a telemetry probe. I want a bead on Anne. Let’s see what’s left of her.”

  The telemetry probe launched, and a few minutes later the debris of the base filled his view screen. There wasn’t much left but a bunch of space dust.

  “Not pretty,” Mark said. He wore a blue robe covered in stars and hieroglyphs, and looked like some modern day warlock to Medeia’s witch. His ship was the Grunt, equipped with a black hole weapon.

  “What about my surface-side plants?” Sheila said.

  “Sorry,” Xander reported. “The plants were on the far hemisphere when the storm hit.”

  “I know that!” Sheila said.

  “Er, yes,” Xander said. “Well, they did not survive. Nor did the planet’s ozone layer—the storm ionized the upper atmosphere. The surface will be bombarded with ultraviolet radiation for the next few years.”

  Sheila rubbed her forehead.

  “Join me,” Jain told her forcefully.

  She looked up and reluctantly met his gaze. Then she gave him a barely perceptible nod.

  Jain logged out of his current VR, and switched to the environment of his private office. He was seated behind a large, ornately carved oak desk. A simple chair resided in front of it.

  Sheila appeared a moment later.

  Jain pointed at the chair. “Sit.”

  She sat down, and stared at her hands, which she held folded in her lap in front of her.

  “What happened out there?” Jain said.

  She shook her head slightly. “I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, you made a mistake all right,” Jain said. “It almost cost you your life.”

  “You have backups,” Sheila said. “You all carry copies of my latest mind images. You can restore me.”

  “Can we?” he said. “And what about your ship? Without the base, you’re the only builder we have. You know how long it would have taken us to build a shipyard from scratch, using only the 3D printers we have aboard?”

  “A long time…” Sheila admitted.

  “Yeah, more than a long time.” Jain leaned forward. “Do I have to worry about you ignoring, or even
subverting my orders, going forward?”

  Sheila hesitated. “Have I ever gone against your orders before?”

  “No,” Jain said. “But that wasn’t the question.”

  She finally looked up, and met his eyes. There was no defiance present, not anymore. Only defeat. Shear and utter. Jain felt sorry for her.

  It had to be done.

  “You don’t have to worry about me subverting your orders,” Sheila said flatly. “And I apologize for doing it in the first place.” She looked down at her hands again. “I just… that base was the culmination of ten years of work.”

  He sat back, sighed, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples. “The loss of that base hits everyone hard. The weapon prototypes, the bioweapon designs, all gone. You’re not the only one with ten years invested in that base.”