Wilson's War: Tales From the Athena Lee Universe (7 page)

At that moment a warning began blaring across the hangar.

"
Attention hangar doors are opening... Attention hangar doors are opening
."

"What the fracking hell, sir? When did we get THAT message installed?"

The officer looked as puzzled as they did. "I don't know but we need to get inside. None of us have suits on!"

Lieutenant Xan ran for the crew airlock, the techs closely following. "Wait, wait. I need my tool kit!" DJ stopped running and reversed course running to get her kit.

"You idiot, you are going to get us both killed!" Dorene was right on her heels.

The hanger emergency lights began to flash, the yellow strobes painting the fighters with flashes of color. A loud groaning could be heard as the hangar doors started to open.

DJ grabbed her best friend and pulled her into one of the fighters, shutting the hatch.

"Thank you DJ, you saved my life."

"You. Are. An. Idiot! Why did you follow me?" DJ really wanted to know.

"DJ you are like a sister to me. Sisters should stick together. Now lets see if we can stop this crazy computer module and get out of this thing."

The Navy fighter suddenly came to full power and lifted off flying on its own off the hangar deck and out into space.

The thrust from the fighters coming to full speed threw both techs back into the seat. The girls looked out the windows to see the other fighters all lined up in formation on either side. The control screen lit up and five flashing words filled the screen.

"
Do you like Roller coasters?"

DJ looked at her friend, "What in the hell is a roller coaster?"

The fighter came to full power and began doing all sorts of acrobatics. Loops and fast turns, the ship zipped with pinpoint accuracy around sharp corners and through tight narrow construction spaces. The navy fighter was getting the flight test from hell. The other 11 fighters were engaging the unsuspecting Militia. The locals were suddenly freaked out when a high tech modern fighter popped up on their 'six' and began scanning them with a firing solution. The unpiloted fighters were sweeping the field in mock combat.

The two techs were unaware of any of this. The G forces inside the cockpit had cause both of them to black out. Their fighter slowed and finally stopped just outside the hanger doors. The other fighters continued to scare the crap out of just about everyone.

"What is the use of having witnesses to greatness if they pass out and take a nap?" I let the techs down easy and parked the fighter with them in it. I was having way too much fun to stop now. Those stupid locals in the Fuglies were the most fun to mess with. Their radar was not strong enough to counter me. Especially when I came in inverted over them and they looked up seeing the empty cockpit! They will start calling this Ghost squadron. Just wait.

Oops, Athena noticed the lack of alerts. It looks like the
Brass
is freaking out big time. They want ME to try and fix their new toys.Time to go pretend to know nothing about any of this. Computer error's can be the blame, some program left over from the Imperials. At least I had some fun this time.

On their own the fighters returned to the hangar deck. Emergency responders managed to get the two, now awake, techs out of the fighter.

"I know one thing DJ."

"What's that Dorene?"

"I never want to be a fighter pilot. Date one yes, be one NO!"

"I'm right there with ya, sister!" The two women linked arms and went to go find a drink, maybe in the pilot's lounge.

In the end the 'resident' computer expert discovered that the fighters were responding to a program left in the modules from when the Navy tested them. Since nobody was here to dispute that, it made a good excuse.

"I will have to do that one again. This system has promise when it comes to computer fun time!"

Giant Robot Attack

by T S Paul

This story takes place before the events in Ghost ships of Terra. Athena Lee had met and gotten to know Sam 0256, the owner of Grandpa Sam's Junk Emporium. He specialized in rare and unusual ships, parts, and other antiquities. Sam is the main character in the series prequel, The Lost Pilot.

Every time that Athena came to this place I tagged along. Grandpa Sam's Junk Emporium sounded like some place that I could have lots of fun in. Like me, the owner was a big fan of 20th century vids and literature. The front of his store was a plain gray wall with a blue police box painted on it. Bigger on the inside, the door opened up to an enormous complex of warehouses and parts bins. Sam had the largest collection of space junk in the known galaxy. Athena has found this place while looking for parts for her autonomous drone project. So far the thing looked like a trashcan with wheels. I keep calling them 'droids' hoping she will get tired of correcting me and just go with it. She has spent every liberty call searching through the shelves and bins looking for servos and motors small enough for the trashcan sized droid to use. Using the warehouse's camera and sensor system, not to mention galloping through the inventory system, I have been peeking into the nooks and crannies of this place. The owner, Sam, has a bunch of stuff here that is 'off the books.' I think I just found my new project.

OK, it is not really a project. More of a way to terrify a great many unsuspecting humans and then laugh myself silly sort of enterprise. Like my best buddy Athena, I really like this Sam guy. He has some really neato stuff. Hidden in the back, behind some really old trash compactors, a couple of space capsules with Cyrillic writing on them, and what looked like an Atlas rocket was two berserker battle drones from the last World War on Old Earth. In the history books it is called the Cyber War. It was the last great war before the exodus to the stars. The tech created during that war is what gave humanity the stars. Or that is what Athena likes to tell me. I'm a computer, what do I know. Battle drones, if I had a back, It would shiver. These were the boogie men for pre-space humans. Where this guy got them, is not in his records. To me they looked complete. I thought about telling Athena about them, but she would want to take them apart and ruin my fun.

Power. I had to have power to hook them up. Doing some research I discovered that they could absorb most any kind of power. Using Sam's drone fleet, that he uses to transport parts, I carried a few anti-grav tractor batteries over next to them. I don't have hands, I use Athena for things like that. I need to borrow some hands to hook these up. I left the cameras at Sam's and started jumping around the ones at the mall. I love malls. I checked out the pet store first. No small birds. Or crickets. Or ants. Someone must have heard about that other station where stuff had happened. Stuff that I had nothing to do with. This was a really big station with lots of humans on it, they have a really nice toy store for station children. Small flying drones seemed to be very popular here and they have construction drones. Once again I don't have hands to open a box. As I watched, parents with children used the stores demo's before buying new drones. I thought about this for a moment. I had an inspiration, but it would have to wait for third shift to implement it.

The toy store was closed during third shift. I sent the owners of the store a email and 'paid' for one of their demo drones. I added an extra 50 credits for their trouble charging the whole thing to Commander Arthur. He was our ships Chief Engineer. Athena says he's kind of a jerk. I activated the drone, opening the door to the store electronically. "Whee." I was free-flying through the station. Using the built in hands on the toy construction drone, I connected batteries to the two Battle drones. One was red, the other was blue. They had blocky arms and legs with a square-ish head. Using the drone I very carefully reconnected their communication system. Their primary frequency was one used for door openers and alarms. Every time I sent a command, doors and alarms will go off across the station. Fun. Cleaning them up a bit, I started calling them rock and sock. Gotta love the classics.

It took all of two days to charge Rock and Sock back up to operating levels. The two had been armed with anti-personnel rockets and machine guns. Both weapons had been removed thankfully. I didn't really want humans to die. Accidents happen enough. Sending my first signal to the robot like drones I set off all the airlock alarms in the waste disposal area of the station. They had to shut the system down and inspect it. Humans all over the station were doing the 'pee-pee' dance. Haha haha. My second attempt at signaling the robots opened up all the trash bins on every floor prompting over a thousand calls to maintenance. It's a dirty job but someone had to do it. My third attempt finally made contact. As an after effect, fire alarms began sounding in the swimming pool area of the park. Maintenance and systems repair were just standing there scratching their heads over that one.

My new toys, Rock and Sock began to power-up and come to life. They only had a very rudimentary operating system. They needed constant input from an operator. The reason that these were so feared on Old Earth was that the operators were hard wired to the systems. The human nervous system couldn't handle the impulses needed to operate the system for very long. The pilot usually went insane, attacking and killed everything in sight. They became a true berserker. I'm an AI. I don't have a nervous system and won't go crazy. I ordered Rock and Sock to take a few steps forward. The robot shaped drones stepped forward with the screams and creaks of metal joints long forgotten. Time for the fun to begin. Every night was movie night in the park on third shift. Using my hacking skills, I arranged for this week's theme to be 20th century robot movies. Too bad I couldn't find a giant lizard suit, now that would have been fun!

I borrowed two of Sam's magnetic advertising signs and stuck them on the backs of my toys. Just to be nice to one of Athena's friends I placed a 'fake' order in his logs for two 'movie bots,' so he would have an explanation for later. Time for all my hard work to come to fruition.

The cameras in the park showed a good turnout for tonight's show. It was one of the mecha mania movies from the 1980s. People in robot suits terrorizing the public. Perfect for what I had planned. At the peak of the show when the on-screen mecha's attacked my two red and blue monsters came creaking out of the darkness. Staggering and weaving back and forth the two robots had the reverse reaction by the crowd. Instead of running in terror or hiding, the people clapped and laughed. They thought that this was some kind of publicity stunt! How is that fun? I wanted terror. I wanted panic. I wanted fun but it was supposed to be for me!

As I watched, the humans pointing and clapping held up their small children so they too could see the robots. OK, sure, why not? I sent new commands. The two drones began to do a short dance across the park before staggering out on their way back to the warehouse. The crowds all saw the signs and later congratulated a bewildered Sam on his stunt. My fun day was not a complete loss. The signals I had been sending caused all the slot machines in the Casinos to all pay out at the same time. It caused a riot that station security had to put down with stunners and tear gas.

So I did all that work, but missed out on the fun. I did make some children's night with real 'live' robots. And while no humans were fleeing before me, I did cause a riot. This year was still young. Maybe I can still cause more trouble in it.

Farmer Wilson

by T S Paul