Live Free or Die-ARC Read online

  "I take it back," Tyler said, sadly. "I'm glad Boeing at least tried. It was a noble effort."

  "That sounds depressingly like an epitaph," the Commandant said. "We're not there, yet."

  "I thought the Horvath would give us more time," Tyler said. "Maybe I shouldn't have defied them."

  "Our analysis is that that is hubristic," the Chairman said, snorting. "Although you may have had something to do with it. But not in the way that you think."

  "Don't understand," Tyler said.

  "We have some intel on the Horvath," the Chairman said. "Not much, but some. To do a bio weapon like this requires much more data on the species than our researchers have accumulated. The sort of data you get when . . ."

  "Someone gets implants," Tyler said. "Oh, hell. And while my personal information wasn't on the hypernet, the general information about human physiology is."

  "If it wasn't you, it would have been someone," the Chairman said. "But with that and their own technology—well, Glatun technology they use—they were able to make these . . . vile diseases. We hadn't put that together until this attack."

  "Always fighting the last wars," Tyler said. "No dis. I've been doing the same thing. And now I'm going to say something that is going to sound stupid and heroic and macho and all sorts of other dumb. I was the first person to get plants. The pilots currently undergoing training are going to still be getting used to them. The only two human pilots familiar with Glatun gravitics are myself and Steve Asaro."

  "You're not a pilot," the AF COS said with a snort.

  "I'm not a pilot by the standards you are a pilot," Tyler said, neutrally. "In that I don't have forty thousand hours of flight time. By the standard that I have three hundred hours of time in the Monkey Business and controlling the Paws, that I have another six hundred in simulators, I'm a more qualified space pilot than anyone on earth. Not great. I don't begin to say that I am. And flying those things is an order of magnitude, ten orders of magnitude, easier than flying an untested, not-particularly-well-made-or-designed, experimental anti-grav space fighter. And underperforming. Let's not forget underperforming."

  "Sounds like the Brewster Buffalo," the Marine Corps Commandant said, referring to the aircraft that made up the mainstay of the Marine Aviation wing at the beginning of WWII. It flew about half as fast as a Mitsubishi Zero and could, barely, turn on a city mile. One pilot managed to shoot down a Zero in a Buffalo. He didn't last much longer. That made a ratio of seventy-three to one. "Which is about how long it's going to last."

  "I repeat: Stupid, heroic . . . Our lives, our fortunes . . ."

  "You say that kind of stuff a lot," the Chairman said. "Which is all very well. But that doesn't mean it will work."

  "None of this is going to work," Tyler said. "It's just more likely with me and Steve than with anyone else you can name. I've got more time with plants than any other person on earth. As previously mentioned in another context. I can probably do more with the . . . plane than Steve did. He was still getting used to them. I'm fully dialed in. He'll be better by now, too. You have no clue how much plants help. And, what the hell, if we lose SAPL I might as well go out in a flash of plasma."

  "Recall Major Asaro," the Chairman said. "As in you call him home and, Tim, recall him as a major."

  "Got it," the Marine Corps Commandant said, grinning. "Marine Aviation leads the way!"

  "I'll go make amends with Boeing," Tyler said. "Some of Space Command's people had better get involved with SAPL. And I won't even charge you for laser time . . ."

  "It will take at least six months to reconfigure the Fury for a two-person cockpit," Gnad said.

  Tyler was not good at eating crow. Fortunately, since he was bringing back not only his money but his access to off-world tech, Boeing hadn't asked.

  On the other hand, there were clearly things they were going to have to work out.

  "This is the general tenor of what we, and by that I mean myself and the National Defense Council, think the Glatun plan is," Tyler said. "Distribute the plagues. Wait a short while for them to take effect. Return. Take over the earth from the survivors, using said survivors as miners and maple syrup collectors. They may even make some noises as to being here for humanitarian purposes. But they're not going to wait long. The terminal point was about forty days from when they started their distribution. Ten days for the biologicals to drift down through the atmosphere and thirty-two days for the final agent to go into terminal condition. So we have, at this point, about three weeks before we can expect them to show up. We probably don't have a month. We certainly don't have six months. So what are you planning on doing in two weeks?"

  "Starting on redesign?" Gnad said. "I'm serious. Six months is if we throw in the entire resources of Phantom Works and Boeing. Which we are! But you can't completely redesign a space fighter in two weeks!"

  "I've already apologized for my outburst," Tyler said. "I'll cop that I'm no longer unpleased that you bogarted me and built a space fighter instead of a shuttle. It doesn't give us much of a chance but it gives us some. I'm not going to apologize for this next one. WE DON'T HAVE SIX MONTHS!"

  "I'm not being a bureaucrat here!" Gnad said, furiously. "I'm as much under threat as anyone. So's my family. But this isn't the first design project I've been on! Do you have any suggestions how to cut it down?"

  "No," Tyler said then frowned. "Yes. Hell."

  "What?"

  "Mother, is the necessity of invention," Tyler said, holding up his hand to prevent further questions. He looked off into the distance for a moment. "I don't know exactly how we're going to do this. But I know we're going to need a lot of stuff that people aren't going to want to give up. And we're not going to be able to tell why we need it. So . . . You need to go call your CEO or whatever and tell him we're going to need a bunch of stuff. I'm going to call some people, too. Then we'll get to work."

  "What stuff?" Gnad said.

  "Well, first, we need an SR-71. And probably some crowbars . . ."

  "Mr. Vernon. I am sorry to be informed of the plagues on your planet."

  Communicating directly with an AI using only your plants was weird. When you communicated with them on the Glatun space-stations or a ship they normally used a hologram to 'personalize' the interaction.

  When you contacted them with a plant it was more like they took over your brain. It wasn't so much telepathy as the feeling something was talking to you from inside your head. Somebody with a very big voice. Like . . . God. Very freaky.

  "We're not real happy, either," Tyler commed. "Thank you for your prompt response."

  Glatun medical response ships, some of them as big as the heavy cruiser that had come to Earth's aid during the Maple Syrup War, were pouring through the gate. Whether they would be able to help any significant fraction of humanity was the question. Nanniepaks for 'critical personnel', read high muckety mucks and various people Tyler had designated, had already arrived. Of course, the real killer was still at least two weeks away.

  The deaths had started, though. A surprisingly large number of people from across the gamut of the world's population had ignored the Johannsen Worm. As far as the CDC had been able to determine, every single person who ignored it had died. And the 'pre-existing conditions' packets were hitting. The US and Europe weren't quite up to death carts but it was getting there.

  "There's a further problem," Tyler commed. "I'm sending you two gestalt reports."

  Gestalt reports were about as close as the system got to telepathy. You gathered everything you knew together in one little thought and squirted it.

  The first was Tyler's best guess of the Horvath strategy. Kill most of the humans. Wipe out any remaining resistance. Put the few survivors to work mining and gathering maple syrup. Maybe make their response a 'humanitarian' mission.

  The second was about the Star Fury. In an action that would make everyone want to murder him, he included all the designs and technical documentation to date along with a vague plan for converti
ng the fighter into a two man craft.

  "Interesting," Athelkau commed. "I remain neutral on the subject of the Horvath. The reason for this information?"

  "We need help," Tyler said. "I've never checked on costs for processor time and design assistance for an AI. We have to do this in so short a time, though, it's the only way I can imagine getting anything done."

  "We are constrained from assisting in military developments absent political approval," Athelkau commed. "Which you will not get."

  "I don't want help with military materials," Tyler commed. "Technically, this is just a test bed for human gravitic craft. The gun and targeting software either work or they don't. All I need is help getting it to fly."

  "Stand by," Athelkau commed.

  Rarely if ever did you have to wait on an AI. They thought way faster than humans. They actually had built in delays to questions so that it didn't confuse the organic sophonts. But actually waiting was rare.

  "Your argument meets some legal tests," Athelkau commed a moment later. "Fortunately, Glatun law is sufficiently complex just about any argument meets some legal tests.

  "How much processing did that take?" Tyler asked.

  "Quite a bit, but not all mine," Athelkau replied. "I contacted legal specialty AIs. I am unsure you have enough funds to pay for sufficient processor time to do the conversion. And you are certainly not a candidate for a loan. But I am legally permitted to assist. Your general design concept is novel but may work. We are going to need additional resources."

  "Gimme," Tyler commed. "I'll put them on the network."

  "I can do that myself."

  Max Yanes was thirty-nine and since he'd gotten his masters in aeronautical engineering and headed into the workforce he'd worked in the aeronautics industry. He'd started as a junior design engineer at Lock-Mart and since average time in any one company was a year and a half he'd worked for just about every major corporation, and several minor ones, at this point. And he'd done some interesting stuff and a lot that was boring and a lot that was just stupid. But he'd rarely been asked to do something absolutely crazy.

  Which was why he was looking at the Skil-Saw in his hand in bemusement.

  "It goes in the frame, not in the air," Tyler yelled. He was about half way through his cut on the port side of the Fury's upper quadrant.

  "We worked on this thing for two years!" Yanes shouted. "You can't just cut the damned cockpit out!"

  "I can't do it quick," Tyler said, shaking his head to try to clear out some of the fragments. "You guys glued the hell out of it. Ungluing it isn't an option. So we're cutting."

  "And cutting up an SR-71 is just . . ." The word 'sacrilege' came to mind. "Wrong!"

  "Are you going to help or bitch?" Tyler asked.

  "I'm trying to help," Yanes said. "By pointing out that this is crazy!"

  "No," Tyler said, stopping his saw and taking off his safety goggles and ear protection. "Taking a hacked-up, jury-rigged, barely-built, untested space-fighter into combat is crazy. But it's exactly what we're going to do. If we can get some people to work the problem instead of being the problem! Now, apply saw and start cutting! Or I'll find somebody who will."

  By pulling out some of the rounds for the gun, the cockpit and some of the earth-built avionics, there appeared to be just enough room to put in an SR-71 cockpit. Since the 71 cockpit was designed to be used in near vacuum, it was totally sealed. And, conveniently, it held two people.

  How it was actually going to work out was another question.

  "This is . . . evil," Yanes said, putting on his earphones and glasses. He took a deep breath and started the saw. "Just . . . wrong."

  He winced at the scream as he applied the saw to the frame.

  "Sorry. Sorry. . . ."

  "How's the gluing going?" Tyler asked.

  "You just glue these together?" the tech asked, shaking his head. He was used to working on circuitry in a clean room and using high-powered microscopes and waldoes. Not sitting at a table applying what looked for all the world like hot glue to them. And even though atacirc had reduced in price, he was still gluing together a fortune in circuitry.

  "According to Athelkau the glue creates molecular level connectivity between the chips," Tyler said, shrugging. "We're going to have to use a lot of brute processor power since our plates are basically crap. I had a shipment of atacirc coming in. With enough processors and the right software you can overcome anything."

  "Even integration?" the techn asked. "I mean, there are about a billion control runs for this thing, right?"

  "Two hundred and eighty-seven thousand control runs or sensors," Tyler said. "Which we're going to attach the same way and more or less at random. One hypernode connection for each pilot, one hell of a lot of processor and some hacked software. I didn't say it would be pretty, just that it might work."

  "Rivets?" Gnad said, looking at the ship. "You riveted the cockpit on?"

  Since the Star Fury had a passing resemblance to the SR-71, if you backed way up it just looked more like an SR-71. If you backed up enough, for example, to miss the patched on carbon fiber where Tyler had cut a little too wide and the rivets holding on the cockpit.

  "The frame's carbon fiber," Tyler said, shrugging. "The cockpit's titanium. There's no good, fast, way to connect the two. We couldn't wait for the special epoxy to set. Three layers of extra carbon fiber and . . . rivets. It's sort of like doing the edge of a sail."

  "The body was part of the frame-matrix," Gnad pointed out.

  "Yeah, well, we glued in some supports," Tyler said, shrugging again. "Athelkau said it wouldn't fly in it, but it should fly. Sort of. If we can get the integration of the pilots together."

  "Steve's arriving tomorrow," Gnad said. "On one of the Glatun medical support ships."

  "Yep," Tyler said.

  "Is it just me, or is most of the world crazy?" Gnad asked.

  While Tyler had been up to his neck in red tape and carbon fiber, which he was starting to quietly loathe, the world had been dealing with a plague.

  The odd part about it was the . . . attitude. The progress of the diseases was throwing off people's response. The initial presentation of the Brunette Killer portions of the bio-attack package were minor. Cold-like. You got the sniffles and that was about it. Made sure it spread but the hosts weren't, in general, harmed. People with reduced immune systems might get worse, but they were already being wiped out in droves by the 'pre-existing conditions' bugs. Africa, with all its AIDS problems, was being hit particularly hard. So hard it was difficult for the news to even keep up. Most of it was coming from South Africa and you could only see piles of bodies being burned so many times before you just got inured.

  But most people who had a decent immune system, no major pre-existing conditions and who had treated the Johannsen Worm, felt fine. They had the sniffles. Big deal?

  That condition, based on the analysis of the Brunette Killer, would continue for thirty-two days after initial presentation. And then, if you didn't get the vaccine, you died. In about three hours. Three very unpleasant hours.

  But that meant that you had to trust the people giving you that information to accept the nannites. You had to trust the Glatun and the people they were interacting with. You had to trust, in other words, people who many governments and the press, especially the international press, had said for years shouldn't be trusted if they said that that the sun came up in the east. Because, clearly, the sun coming up in the east was just a plot to oppress the poor people of . . .

  Many people weren't accepting it. Whole governments were dragging their feet. Officially. Unofficially, every governmental official on earth had screamed for the nannites. They weren't stupid about personal survival. But in many cases their official line was that 'the validity of the claims by the WHO, the Glatun and especially the American CDC needed further study by their own experts.'

  The President of South Africa had officially stated that the plagues were a plot by the West to reinstate aparth
eid - which between the Blond component and fact that AIDs was mostly found in the non-Caucasian portion of the population had a certain amount of traction - and that the Glatun medicines were actually mind-control devices. He and all his family had been treated but he was telling his people not to take the medicine. Similar statements had been made by officials from throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. The only leaders in the region who had embraced the treatments were the Presidents of Burundi and Kenya. And they had not only inoculated their military, they were performing forced inoculations as fast as they could get the nannites distributed. And running into armed opposition.

  The Grand Mullah of Mecca had given a speech denouncing the nano-vaccines and stating that they were made from the entrails of pigs. He had, at least, been consistent and not gotten the shot himself. The King of Saudi Arabia had, however, while officially backing the statements of the Grand Mullah. The Gulf, in general, was pretty mixed in distribution. The more 'Western', and therefore decadent, portions were distributing aggressively. The more 'pure' areas were resisting or had rejected it.