A.I. Battle Station (The A.I. Series Book 4) by Vaughn Heppner

Author:Vaughn Heppner [Heppner, Vaughn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Published: 2017-09-19T06:00:00+00:00

PART III

THE BATTLE

-1-

The Nathan Graham hurtled through hyperspace at a constant rate, traveling one light-year every 24 hours. That meant they should reach the Allamu System in 17.2 days.

Each of the cyberships—the Nathan Graham, the Sergeant Stark and the Gilgamesh—had built up a tremendous velocity before entering hyperspace. They would exit hyperspace at the same velocity.

They would use a similar tactic to the one used by the three AI cyberships when they had invaded the Solar System almost two years ago. It hadn’t worked for the enemy. Would it work for humanity’s first interstellar attack?

Jon Hawkins thought about it constantly. For quite some time now, he, Gloria, Bast Banbeck, Benz and Vela Shaw had been exchanging opinions and ideas.

It came down to this: the attack was a gamble. If the AI virus did not work, they were going to be in serious trouble. One thing the Battle of Mars had taught them was that their window of opportunity once beaming the virus would be of short duration. That meant they wouldn’t find out if the virus was going to work or not until they had already engaged in battle.

The human-run cyberships brimmed with space marines. If Jon had to, he planned to do this the old-fashioned way by storming the battle station until they found the computer intelligence and destroyed it. As the cyberships traveled through hyperspace, Jon slept fitfully.

He got up after at time and went to the weight room. He did some squats, deadlifts and pull-ups on a bar until he was breathing hard and his heart was hammering. It felt good. He might be able to get some shuteye in two hours after his body wound down.

Jon took a shower, toweled off and headed for his quarters. His mind still whirled with plans and ideas, but he didn’t like the thought of taking sleeping pills.

Suddenly, the corridor shook. Intense groaning surrounded Hawkins. The lights flashed on and off and then died, throwing him into darkness.

On instinct, Jon went down onto his belly. He could feel the deck tremble underneath him and then shake as if the cybership was trying to burst apart.

What in the heck was happening? Was this a delayed trick from the stealth pods? Jon didn’t see how that could be.

The groaning worsened. Jon put his hands over his head as if he could protect himself from any falling metal.

The groaning, twisting sounds grew louder and louder. Ship klaxons began to wail.

The ship had to be under attack.

Yet that didn’t make any kind of sense. They’d been in hyperspace twelve days so far. Did the AIs have a way of fighting ship-versus-ship while in hyperspace?

At this point, that seemed more than possible.

Abruptly, the groaning stopped. The lights didn’t come on, but the deck no longer trembled under Jon.

Gingerly, he sat up, looking around. No one but him had been in the corridor before this started. Jon felt around on his belt. He didn’t have anything but his clothes. There was no flashlight, no gun, not even a knife.

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