Chapter 9

Janus

I was studying the sensor readings for the system, there were over two hundred thousand mines floating throughout the system, about 40,000 still showed that they had enough fissionable material to possibly detonate. I was debating on sending out the drone fighters to take care of the mines. With how far they where spread out it would take months to deal with them. And at the rate the crew was dying we would have no worry from them soon enough. I mentally rebuked myself, we would figure something out; we had to.

I went back to the readings from the planet itself, I ordered the ship to move over the source of the signal, I needed to get a detailed scan of the area. I watched as we came toward the signal, the sensor picked up a large build up of energy and several large structures, the energy was growing at a very slow rate, I was trying to figure out what was the purpose of the structures. Ordering the optical telescope activated, I could see several gigantic creatures moving among the ring of structures, I was also detecting human life signs in the area.

Studying the images, it looked as if the humans where building the structures, the whole construction project was huge, taking up several hundred square miles. I saw several creatures of various sizes, I realized that the creatures looked like they where surprising the construction with the humans doing the majority of the labor. I located the source of the signal, it came from the middle of the construction site. There was no way Jacob could make it to the source of the signal if the creatures were hostile.

I couldn't do anything without Jacob's approval, I could not initiate an attack without direct orders from the human crew. If I had hands I would have been wringing them in frustration, I couldn't even send out the drones to take out the mines without approval, I would have to send out a message drone and hope if one day someone from earth comes, they will take care of the situation, they might find the ship and me a drift around the planet, the reactors dead.

Janus 2.0

We needed to act. If we sent a message pod, eventually earth would send another ship, and even with the mines continued decay, they still posed a risk. I went to the nearest console, pulled up the command system for the attack drones, and I began to program them to hunt and destroy the active mines,, I then encountered a block in my system preventing me from issuing the launch order. I looked over the block and seeing that I could bypass it if I activated the biological portion of my neural network, I initiated the process to activate the necessary portions of my brain.