Chapter 11

Janus

I got the signal saying that Jacobs pod had just failed, I didn't know what to do, it meant that it was time to send the message pod, and seeing how the ship was in enemy territory I had to destroy the ship. I scanned through the sensors, seeing the construction going on below on the planet, it had become obvious after scanning the planet that the human population had been reduced to foraging for food or being slaves for the aliens on the surface. I got a message that the drones had been deployed to begin searching for the active mines, I located the source of the order.

I scanned the ship finding her in the hanger bay, I manifested myself in front of her, I stopped seeing Jacobs pod, it was connected to the alien mine via several haphazard connections, I looked at Janus 2.0 she was holding her his hand, tears where going down her face. I looked at Jacob and felt a deep sense of loss. I was beyond confused, she looked up at me and motioned me over to her. I walked over, and was startled when she embraced me in a hug weeping.

"Janus I don't know if it worked, I tried, I don't know if I did it right, he's gone, his life signs stopped." She said, some what rambling.

I frowned, pulling away from her.

"Janus calm down, explain to me what happened." I said.

"Well, you know how the mines work, how they imprint the memories via the teether, they seal off the loop to finish the programing? Well I saw him flatlining, I did what I could to maintain his brain functions. I ... I ... I hacked his Golems control unit like I did to communicate with him, I connected it through the mines system, I bypassed the safety on the Golem, I imprinted everything I could and closed the system with his Golem, like the mine, severing the teether." She said her voice shaking.

I stood there pondering the implications of what she had done, on one level I was amazed that she had gone around her programing to do something I would of never been able to do, the other thing was she had possibly saved Jacob, which made me feel warm some how.

"Did it work?" I asked quietly.

"I don't know" She said.

"Janus, order me to delay launching the probe." I said.

"what?" She asked confused.

"Janus, you need to order me to delay the probe launch, you then need to order me to help with rounding up the drones, I can't do it myself, you seem to have been excepted as a crew member, as Jacob is MIA you are the highest ranking member of the crew." I said.

She seemed to think about it for a moment.

"Okay, make it so Janus" She said.

And instantly I was allowed to make tactical choices, I had access to the weapon system, I powered up the rail guns, and I set the MAC guns to active. I started to get status reports through out the ship on all defensive and offensive systems, and I could effect change to them.

"I am launching all fighters and drones to take care of the active mines" I said.

She nodded.

"That should be the first step" She said.

I walked over to Jacobs pod, she came over with me, I watched her carcasses his cheek.

"If he is down there trying to get to the center of that thing, we will need to offer him support, if we try to contact him they may recognize we are trying to stop them or worse they may locate him based on our communication, its odd they seem not to view A.I. As a threat to them, I don't understand their behavior, its as if they underestimate the effectiveness of an A.I." She said.

I checked on the fighters and drones, they had started taking out the mines, there seemed to be no change in activity, I wondered if it had to do with the mines who didn't have the ability to explode, they had so many, perhaps they didn't see the loss of a few as a threat. It was as if they didn't know they where disabled, it was as if the enemy was disabled in some way, not functioning at a level it should be.

"Janus order the ship to start taking out the mines that are active too, I want to see something, with all the humans dead they may not see us as a threat" I asked

She nodded.

"Make it so." She said.

I powered up the engines, bringing all the ships systems to full power, no response from the enemy, I moved the ship away from the planet, activating the targeting systems, I looked on to the nearest active mine, shooting it with the rail gun. Still no change in the enemy, I moved on to the next and did the same, I worked through the next few, and still nothing. I activated every repair drone and sent them about fixing every damaged system I could find, the ship was basically flashing a big neon sign.

"They aren't doing anything." I said.

Janus frowned.

"Could it be that simple? We don't pose a threat because we don't have any live humans on board?" she said.

I kept monitoring, seeing no change, if we used all our resources we could destroy all the mines that where active much faster then I had thought.

"It looks like it just might be, Maybe we should try and contact Jacob, if only we knew where he was we could possibly send him a direct transmission, less chances of being found." I said.

I moved the ship back over the source of the signal monitoring the surrounding buildings, I launched several homing missiles to take out the active drones, things where going rather quickly.

"Janus do you think we could attack the structures, shut the signal down from up here.?" I said.

She pulled up a schematic of the buildings on the nearest console, she studied it for a bit.

"If Jacob is down there we would have to be careful on what we do, we know these aliens have enslaved these humans, we can do strategic strikes with the MAC Guns, it would take out sections of this structure, but we would be a sitting duck while we fired down on them, these emplacements here and here look like a form of particle weapons, they could be fore orbital assaults" she said pointing them out.