Chapter 12: Compelled to Betray

(Looked over by Glenn)

Sam could not deny a sense of deep friendship as he saw the towering Cerberus standing there by the entrance. Even though it was a Mark IV, made obsolete quite a while ago with the Union military now using the Mark IX, it still was an impressive combat system. The fact that Charles was truly sentient made the Cerberus much more dangerous than any known main battle system in Sam’s opinion.

Sam has just stepped out of a TMT booth and onto Treasure Island Plaza, right before the sky-reaching construct known the galaxy over as Annapolis Tower and one of the Union Fleet administrative centers. Now several millennia later, no one but a few historians and the Immortals themselves remembered and knew about the historic significance of the name or that Annapolis was the name of a place and an old naval academy of the East Coast while this tower was at the very edge of the opposite coast of this Earth continent.

A brisk cool wind tugged on Sam’s jacket as his eyes adjusted to the brilliant light of the local sun.

Sam had been born on Earth. Even though he had left the planet when he was just five years old and ever since had spent his time on other planets, he could not dismiss the feeling of truly coming home. Everything felt just right, from the way gravitation felt to the very spectrum and wavelength of the sun’s light. Rationally and by all conscious thought his home was a Tantalus wood house on a distant planet aptly named Green Hell, but his body and his very soul told him, this was his true home.

He hoped he would find time to visit South Carolina and see who and what was still there.

Charles had no face per se; he could not express emotions with the compacted Ultronit skull, or the omnidirectional visual sensor the robot had for eyes. But Charles had been with Sam for many years now, and the former Marine could read the Sentmac’s emotions from the subtle ways the war machine moved and acted.

Sam grinned from ear to ear and was not ashamed to give the towering machine a brotherly hug. “You made it to Earth, my friend. What do you think of it?”

Charles rotated his head and returned focus on his human friend. “It is still a novel idea for me to form and express an opinion. Having an opinion is not a very common feature among robots, but I am beginning to understand the concept. Opinions are usually formed on the biased processing of collected information. I simply have no positive or negative pre-conception about Earth to have a genuine opinion.”

Sam grunted. “Well, I have the necessary bias as it appears and I cannot say it any other way, but this ol’ dirtball feels like no other world.”

“You have not summoned me to form an opinion on Earth, am I correct?”

“You are. I am stuck in more than one way with the other matter. If nothing else develops, you and I might as well take this as a nice vacation and maybe I can show you where I was born.”

“It would perhaps the first time, a Cerberus has taken a vacation. I am looking forward to this.”

“You didn’t have any problems coming here?”

“Sentient machines are a common occurrence within Union borders, however a sentient Cerberus robot, with a genuine CITI is still somewhat novel I must admit.”

Sam noticed the many beings staring and sighed. “Well, I am glad you made it.” Sam thumbed over his shoulder towards the mind-blowing structure of Annapolis Tower. “Union Fleet.”

Then he pointed to a boxy building much smaller. “Union Marines.”

Charles said. “If I enlist, will I be treated as a marine or as a machine? I checked the BaPhy requirements. I meet them all.”

Sam scratched his chin. “Never even thought about that. I came here to ask a few questions. I have friends and connections here, you know I lost track of Martha and I am not in Freespace.”

“That is unusual indeed. Maxwell system does not have all that many traffic options.”

“No, Charles it does not. There is a regular Cruise ship connection operated by Silver Lines and there is the Space Bus.”

The robot’s head did not really have a face, but his artificial voice had a hint of pride. “According to the Border Patrol records, she has boarded a private charter, the ENR- Tahoe left Harper’s port with declared destination Earth Torus port One.”

Sam had no such limitations and openly smiled with pride. “You should not just be my sidekick, but a partner. You know RAvE always needs people. You are getting good at tracking, and I checked the passenger lists of the private charters, freighters that offer passenger accommodations. Her CITI was scanned for departure and the ENR- Tahoe left only an hour later, but she has arrived days ago and Martha was not among the passengers scanned for entry.”

“The ENR- Tahoe has left for Kapteyn’s Star and arrived at John Enroe’s Star, the ships Port of Call is JE-III and has not left.” The robot was thinking and added. “You are not here to re-enlist?”

“I have been thinking about it ever since the war started, and now that I am here on Earth I am tempted, but I hate unfinished business. Martha asked me for help and now she has disappeared. I am afraid she was snatched by someone and it happened within the Union Space.” Sam’s face clouded. “This galls me more than anything.”

The two beings watching the robot speaking to the black man that just arrived, tried to get audio but there was no surface they could laser for audio vibrations. “Be careful, we don’t want to be discovered. This is Fleet HQ and they do not like spies.” one of them said. He openly appeared like a Saran tourist and the other was quite apparently Saresii. Despite centuries of genetic manipulation, makeup, and all else, this one could not hide the strong male features.

The male Saran snorted. “Those silly Terrans could not catch a real spy if I wore a sign on my back saying so. We managed to put a spy right on top as the president and he was there for quite some time.”

“They are not that silly, my friend. Despite our successes, you say we had, why don’t we know how to build Translocator canons?”

“Because they don’t either. It is Celtest technology from the First Age of Knowledge. Far beyond their understanding, they somehow manage to copy what Stahl has brought back from exile.”

The Saresii did not respond to this. It was useless to argue against Kermac arrogance, the Saran was obviously disguised and not a genuine Saran. The Saresii was genuine and helping the Kermac because of an age-old rivalry between the Black and the Grey Cats. He knew of course, that the Translocator technology Stahl had brought back, along with the fearsome ship that became the famous Devastator, had little in common with the main weapon system of all Union combat units. Union engineers and especially Terrans made this system their own. Modern Translocators were much more reliable and could translocate a wide variety of bombs. There were Long Range TLCs able to engage targets at ranges of almost five lightyears. Sniper TLCs, able to send small Kilo bombs over long distances with incredible accuracy. The latest Destroyer suits had micro Translocators giving Marines the ability to crack any known shield. Rotary Translocator Carousels spitting out micro loads at a rate of 2000 bombs a minute. The Saresii looked at the disguised Kermac with sadness because he felt sorry for the White Faces of Kermac Prime. What a society and leading culture the Kermac could be if they were less blind to the advances of others.

The disguised Kermac deactivated the audio laser. “This cursed Marine is not close to any surface I could laser. Why is he talking to one of these fearsome Cerberus, do they use them down here for guard duty?”

“You are not well informed. It seems you did not read our dossier on Brown.”

“I looked over it, it was boring and full of false praise. No simple human could possibly do all that he supposed to have done. If there are Cerberus they could have detected my laser. I shut it off just in the nick of time.”

“It is Kermac arrogance that will spell doom for your kind and not any Union weapon. This simple human as you say is none other than Sam Worthington Brown, former Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps. He is one of the most decorated beings of all time, perhaps second only to the Immortal Warrior himself. No one doubts he earned every single one. He was a member of the Steel Gauntlet and its leading NCO. Do you have any idea what it means to them to be handpicked to be part of the Steel Gauntlet?”

“I never even heard of the Steel Gauntlet, so it cannot be all that famous.”

The Saresii rolled his eyes and waved at a teenager splitting the air with dangerous acrobatics, trying to outdo other teenagers, and impress watching teenage females who sat by trying to ignore the antics of the boys in a game that had been played ever since there were human teenagers. The tech they used changed; their reasons for doing what they did had not.

The teenager rushed the short distance with his flight belt in a daring ground-hugging flight and dropped to his feet before the two disguised spies with a wide-open smile on his young face. “What’s the deal ladies? Impressed with my skills?”

The Saresii nodded. “Indeed, you seem very good. We are tourists and we have never been to Earth or Fleet HQ. My friend and I have a wager going on. She believes no one ever heard of the Steel Gauntlet.”

The young man gasped. “Are you serious? From what Fringe world do you come?” His eyes glittered with pride. “Everyone knows about the Steel Gauntlet. Handpicked by Immortal Stahl himself, the best of the best, a special mission force without equal. When our Stahl needs someone to join him in one of his missions he relies on the Steel Gauntlet. If the Assembly wants the glued-on false beard of that whacko Supreme Wizard, he’ll wake up the next day sans that thing and not be able to tell what happened, while the Steel Gauntlet presents it to the Assembly. Don’t they watch ‘Adventures of Steel’ on that planet of yours?”

The Saresii swiped twenty Credit into the young man’s wrist-worn reader. “Apparently she never did. Here is a twenty for helping me win my wager.”

The teenager thanked them and flew back to his friends. The Saresii said. “I doubt there isn’t anyone who hasn’t heard of them. Adventures of Steel has been the most-watched GalNet show for over eight hundred years.”

“And the robot? I see only one.”

“As I said you did not read the dossier. That is Charles, a decommissioned Cerberus. This Cerberus IV Robot is one of the few fully functional Cerberus Robots that are private property.”

The disguised Kermac made a dismissive gesture. “Decommissioned and a Type IV. No wonder. Is it part of some kind of museum exhibit?”

“Friend, they would need no more than a single Cerberus for security if they had decided to use one for that task. Tell me what kind of technology you would consider superior to a type IV?”

“Katharian Ground Combat automatons perhaps?”

“You aren’t serious, right? Anyway, this SII Cerberus IV 4788 Model 909580-MBR-493-C was named Charles by his first owner Sam Brown. That man over there received ten Cerberus Robots as he is the only legal Califerm farmer and grower in the known Galaxy. But Charles has no owners anymore, this robot is a recognized Sentmac and a legal Union Citizen. The machine still has close ties to Brown.”

“Isn’t the creation of Sentmacs highly illegal, and only Mothermachine able to create X101s?”

“Yes, one of the Unions’ highest laws and strictly enforced too, but there are always exceptions. The super-advanced AIs they use have lots of safeguards to prevent them to become sentient, but once in a while such a safeguard fails or is somehow overlooked and an AI becomes sentient. Why this particular Type IV gained sentience no one really knows as far as I was able to discover. That Charles became sentient was officially discovered by Stahl himself as he came to Green Hell, defeating the ill-fated Kermac invasion attempt on Green Hell by the way. Stahl not only ordered the complete restoration repair of Charles but forbade any tampering with its mind. SII tried and offered a substantial amount to buy back the machine so they could study it.”

“I know of SII, no one can deny them if they want something.”

“You are not so wrong, but not even Rex Schwartz himself has the pull or enough money to go against something the Eternal Warrior knows about.”

“Is that immortal fool that powerful?”

“How long have you been on this side to even ask this? If Stahl decided to declare him emperor tomorrow. Eighty percent of the fleet, every single marine and most of the Union population would cheer and follow him to whatever end, with the Klack Queen, Mothermachine and mysterious Vantuur right behind Stahl. He is integrity personified and everyone knows he would never do this of course, but Non-Unions cannot fathom just how popular he is and how deep the Eternal Warrior is embedded in this collective society. It is a phenomenon my friend, hard to explain but I tell you these innocent teenagers over there, playing with their flight belts would most likely willingly die for Stahl, would tear us both to pieces if they knew. We are not just inside the Union, we are on Earth. As quiet and sleepy this world might seem. It is the home of the most aggressive species ever to ascend, and to this day no one builds better weapons.”

“Enough of this. I did not come here to listen to your propaganda induced swill. We know Brown was with Martha Masters until she disappeared. He must have used some Union clandestine trickery to make her disappear. Now he is here, if we keep tracking him, he will lead us to Martha and thus to the Experiment.”

The two Kermac spies were not the only ones observing Sam’s reunion with Charles. Not too far from them, a group of Thaurans living on Earth for quite a while accompanied a high ranking church official on a sightseeing tour of Earth. The group was ecstatic that a Blue Bishop of the Church of the Blessed Virgin himself came to sanctify a small shrine. After this momentous event, the Blue Bishop mentioned being interested in a sightseeing tour of this old planet. Why the bishop wanted to see Treasure Island and Annapolis Tower first was not something they understood, but then who understood the motivations of such holy men anyway? The two associates of the bishop however knew why Tilo Taros wanted to be here because, like him, they were motivated members of another much darker and mostly illegal sect. They also kept track of Sam Brown as much as they could.

“There he is, your Eminence. The big dark-skinned man bear-hugging a Cerberus robot no less.”

Tilo blinked the zoom icon mirrored onto the inside of his sunglasses active and increased magnification. “Are you certain he has connections to this Martha Masters?”

“Our source on Green Hell confirms that he is a close friend. He and Martha left the planet together and booked passage on the Silver Swan.”

“And we know she never completed that voyage. If we can trust your sources, she debarked with seconds to spare, ditching Brown.”

“We are not sure if she ditched him or if this was part of an elaborate plan. We know Brown is not just a highly decorated marine, but one of the most successful RAvE agents. No one speaks much about them in the open, but those who do, speak with the highest respect of them. As you know, we are pretty sure he was after Martha while she was still a fugitive in Freespace.”

“RAvE sounds like another one of these alphabet soup groups. Who are they?”

Officially he was a local member of the Church of the Blue Virgin but secretly organized the Eglise de la Mort as a new seed for the Necro cult. He was one of the few who knew what Tilo Taros really wanted and who he really was. His name was Alexandre Toussaint, a laymen priest in the Church of the Blessed Blue Virgin, a successful and wealthy wine merchant. His family originated on Royale, a Thauran planet but had decided to return to Earth. The Toussaints lived in Le Havre and on Earth for over 500 years and claimed to live only a few miles from the birthplace of Rene Thauran.

Alexandre leaned on his arms which rested on the chest-high barrier of this Viewing platform. It overlooked parts of the Old Avenue of the Palms with a wonderful vista to the South where the San Francisco-Oakland Bridge connected Oakland to the old and famous Terran city of San Francisco. Of course, no one but tourists and a few surface vehicle enthusiasts still used bridges of any kind. Alexandre explained. “RAvE is a special branch of the Citizens Office. Not exactly secret but still kept out of the public eye as much as possible. Slave and pirate raids affecting families and citizens that happen outside Union jurisdiction or involve cases that cross into it are handled by the Crime and Catastrophe Victim Assistance department. If pirates or criminals abduct a citizen and demand ransom or if slave raiders hit a town or city on an undefended planet and drag them to slave markets, you know of course the Union cannot send military or police. So they created RAvE to retrieve hostages, rescue slaves, or if that is not possible, avenge them by executing the ones responsible. RAvE stands for Retrieve, Avenge, Execute. RAvE operatives are officially civilians and legally considered mercenaries for legal purposes. They are well funded, but cannot rely on any official Union resources once they are deployed past Union borders. They hide their Union identity while rescuing or avenging many citizen victims and executing those responsible.”

The Blue Bishop had listened without interrupting, then he said. “There are always new and fascinating aspects of our Union. I am certain that RAvE outfit has close ties with the intelligence gathering community.”

Alexandre nodded slowly. “No doubt, your eminence. Specialists who are able to move beyond Union space and track someone down is nothing less than amazing and I am certain of great interest to those who need to know more about conditions and developments outside of Union reach. This Sam certainly knows about the Experiment.”

“How can he not? Martha did not make it a secret. She researched the matter and posted a report of her ordeal on an Anti-Slavery GalNet site.”

“And you lost her?”

“We managed to track her to Paris. Something strong and utterly savage eviscerated a brother of the Death Church. We are almost certain it was done by the Experiment. We think Martha and the Experiment met in Montreal, but that is all we ever managed to find out. There are no unexplained deaths in Montreal, no missing people reported anywhere on Earth. Martha has been seen and identified by a friend of ours near a Transmatter booth in Montreal, but that was the last sighting. We have not managed to track her down.”

The Blue Cardinal kept his eyes on the former Marine. “And you think he helped her to disappear?”

“All reports on Martha indicate that she was a scientist without any military or para-military training or exposure at all. Yet if we believe the reports, she managed to ditch a trained Marine and RAvE man and then managed to completely disappear. That is not as easy as it might sound.”