ARMS Helm's End: (Book 7) Read online

  ARMS

  (Vol. 7)

  Helm's End

  By: Stephen Arseneault

  "The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be."

  Socrates

  View the author's website at www.arsenex.com

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  Follow on Twitter at @SteveArseneault

  Read Stephen's bio here

  Cover Art by Kaare Berg at:

  bergone.deviantart.com and bitdivision.no

  Cover Design by Elizabeth Mackey at: www.elizabethmackey.com

  Ask a question, leave a comment, or join the email list for notification of new releases at [email protected]

  Copyright 2017-2018 Stephen Arseneault. All Rights Reserved

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  ARMS Helm's End (Vol. 7)

  Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

  Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6

  Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9

  Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12

  Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15

  Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18

  Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21

  Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24

  Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27

  What's Next? Books

  — Chapter 1 —

  * * *

  Harris stepped off the last stair into ankle deep water. A steady stream continued to run down from above.

  Tawn frowned. "Can't say I have fond memories of this place."

  "What happened here?" asked Alex.

  Harris told the story as they walked through the front room and then past the still silent drums. The hurricane above the main generator had long dissipated.

  Their trudging walk, sloshing through the water as they went, ended as they came into the maintenance room. The maintenance bot was sitting silent in the room's center.

  Harris asked, "Sas? You still around?"

  "Yes. Hello, Mr. Gruberg."

  "Can you give us a status of this entire facility? We counted one more hurricane topside than when we left. What happened?"

  "A team of thirty-two maintenance bots are at work restoring the generating stations. Station fifty-eight is again operational. Station fifty-seven is in repair."

  Alex said, "You think they could make use of our bots?"

  Harris chuckled. "I'm sure they could. The question is do we want them to?"

  "Why wouldn't we? It would seem the purpose of this facility was to make this a living, thriving host planet. It has the proper magnetic field and appears to have been on its way to eventually becoming a very livable place. This facility would only speed that process."

  Tawn said, "We do have about fifty thousand more bots than we need. The nuclear cleanups at New York and the other planets aren't expected to take all that long. Plus, we could send a couple hundred bots down here and they'd have this entire place mapped out in the time it will take us to get to the next generator."

  "Yes," Alex replied. "And I would suggest we slow our production of Banshee hulls and instead put that production into more workers. They would be invaluable to projects like this."

  Tawn nodded. "He's got a point. I actually wouldn't mind putting the AI in charge of bringing this place back up to snuff. I mean, really, what are we gonna discover by walking around down here? We send the bots out, they find something interesting and they give us a comm."

  "You two aren't much for exploration, are you?"

  "Just saying I think we learned what we could from here when we copied the data. The AI should have a complete map of this place."

  "Except I didn't give the data to the AI. It was acting suspect. The data is sitting back on the Bangor in a data store."

  "Why haven't you passed it on since?"

  "Forgot it was there."

  Tawn looked at Alex. "You like climbing stairs?"

  "Not especially."

  "Boomer, pick up the doc. You'll be carrying him back topside. See to it that he's comfortable."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Harris chuckled. "Ma'am… that just has a funny sound to it."

  "Good. You can laugh about it as you're climbing. Idiot, you'll be giving me a ride like the doc is getting. And make sure I'm comfortable."

  The bot looked at Harris. "Sure, why not? I brought us down here without thinking."

  Alex said, "It was interesting to see."

  "I was hoping you could see the Burrell's body, but I forgot it got washed away. When we get topside, I can show you the recording we have of it."

  The ascent, with a slower moving Harris, took two hours. The team boarded the Bangor and was soon on their way back to Midelon.

  Harris produced the data store. "This is from that Gondol AI. It has the complete layout of the place, including the specs of how it works. We turn this over to our AI and I'm sure it can optimize a plan to repair it all."

  Alex nodded. "Perhaps our time should be spent exploring Midelon?"

  "I just don't want to shut down that boson field."

  "Please do remember the AI was deceiving us before. It may be the boson field is not in any danger."

  A short time later, the Bangor arrived in Midelon space.

  Tawn was the first to notice. "Where's our fleet?"

  Harris opened a comm. "AI? What happened to our fleet?"

  No answer was returned.

  The ship dropped as a fireball through the atmosphere, settling on the grass beside the bunker. The Banshee fleet was gone, as was the army of bots.

  "I'm really not liking this."

  Tawn performed a bioscan. "No other Humans here."

  "How would anyone have gotten here? This has to be something the AI did."

  Harris raced into the bunker. "AI, where are you?"

  Again no reply came back.

  Tawn stood behind him. "This is weird."

  Alex walked in. "The workers are all gone."

  Idiot said, "Sir, I've attempted multiple comm connections to the AI. It doesn't appear to be available."

  The group made their way through each of the rooms of the bunker complex before descending the stairs to the lower levels.

  At the bottom level, Harris threw up his arms. "Nothing. Idiot, can you tap into the building's recorders and play back the last few hours for us?"

  "One moment... I'm sorry, sir, there are no recordings."

  "What? Were they erased?"

  "No sir, the system is down. Off. The final log is time-stamped for fifty-two minutes, twelve seconds after our departure."

  Tawn opened a comm to the Retreat. "Colonel, what's your status there?"

  "Same as it was last we talked. Our engineers think those latest designs—"

  "We have problems. We're missing about forty thousand ships and sixty thousand bots."

  "What?"

  Harris joined in. "They're gone, Colonel. Missing, ships and bots. Even the AI that we thought was part of this building."

  Alex stepped forward. "I just did a quick count of the processing stations. One is missing."

  Tawn shook her
head. "Bad. That means they can replicate."

  "How's this possible?" Alex asked. "No one can jump here."

  "Had to be the AI," Harris said. "It found a way to get into one of those bot bodies, stole our ships, and left."

  Alex raced out of the building. Tawn and Harris hurried after. They came to a stop in the doorway of Trish's shop.

  "What is it, Doc?"

  "The machine for finalizing the gamma bombs. They didn't take it."

  "That's good news," said Tawn. "What was our last production count?"

  "About eighty-five hundred."

  "Uh-oh," Tawn said.

  "What is it?"

  "I think it's the remains of Reggie, Emily, and Finn. Looks like they were torn apart. Must have tried to stop the others."

  "So the AI is running around out there with forty thousand ships, sixty thousand bots, and eighty-five hundred gamma missiles. Nothing to worry about."

  Harris opened a comm to Domicile. "Mr. Morgan, we have problems."

  "It's 2AM here. You can't let an old man sleep?"

  "Sorry, but this is far bigger than your sleep. The AI is gone, and with it all our ships, bots, and missiles. We're standing here on Midelon completely by ourselves."

  "Is this a nightmare?"

  "A real one. You have any alerts from anyone about anything suspicious?"

  "Had a fleet been spotted I would have been notified. You check the Retreat?"

  "All is quiet there too. Tawn, open a comm to every colony. See if there's been any sightings."

  "On it."

  Bannis sat up fully. "You know how to ruin a man's night, Mr. Gruberg."

  "We just came back from Gondol and found them all gone."

  "Recorder logs show anything?"

  "They were all shut off fifty-two minutes after we left."

  "Then I would start combing through those last fifty-two minutes."

  Alex nodded. "I'll take that on."

  "They also took one of the processor stations."

  "That might not be a total loss."

  "How's that?"

  "Those are constructed taking into account the microgravities of where they were built. If you move them, you'll probably never produce another processor from that individual machine."

  "So they just build another."

  "That depends. Did they take the archive?"

  "It looks shut down."

  "The AI indicated to us at one point that it didn't want to leave the building because it would lose the archive. If those systems are still there, the AI itself may be nothing more than a standard bot now. And none of those bots would have the plans to construct a new processor station. We weren't building new ones and I believe it was you, Harris, who gave the order for them to scrub the designs from their memories when the task was complete or they left those rooms."

  "You think they obeyed that?"

  "Unless someone told them to specifically ignore it, yes."

  Tawn came back into the room. "All colonies are clear. No sign of a fleet anywhere."

  Alex returned. "The final five minutes or so of the logs were overwritten. It will take some time, but I think I may be able to recover the original data."

  "Please make that happen, Doc." Harris nodded. "We need a clue as to what happened here."

  Idiot stepped forward. "Sir, if the archive is intact, would it be any benefit to us if I were to integrate with it?"

  Harris rubbed his chin. "Can you do that?"

  "I can try."

  "Make it happen. Tawn, you and Boomer are now our chiefs of security. Search this complex and then the grounds for any sign of a threat, or bugs or comms or anything that isn't normal."

  "Miss Freely?" Boomer asked. "Am I approved for those tasks?"

  "You are. Let's go check things out."

  Harris stood looking around the room. "Hmm, should have kept something for myself."

  Bannis said, "Are you finished disturbing my sleep?"

  "Give me some scenarios, Mr. Morgan. What happened here?"

  "You either have an uprising by the bots, or an outside force has come in and assumed control."

  "Has to be the bots. No one else had access to this place. Unless we somehow left a bot disabled and not destroyed on the battlefield. But if that had happened, the AI was supposed to inform us. Every one of those damaged ships was supposed to send a signal before it self-destructed. As far as we know, every one was accounted for. That includes visually."

  Idiot said over a comm: "Sir. I've found the receptacle for the archives. Unfortunately I am unable to connect to it. It appears my core would have to be removed from this body for a connection to be made. You, or someone, will have to slip my processor into the receptacle here on the base floor."

  "I'll be right there."

  Harris hustled down the stairs to the bottom floor. The bot was standing in a corner beside several equipment housings.

  "Sir, this slot is the receptacle. You will have to power me down and remove my core."

  "I can do that, but before we start, does the equipment all look to be working? Is it powered on?"

  The bot spent most of a minute going over the systems in front of it. "It appears to be in order, sir."

  Harris set his plasma rifle on a nearby console. Reaching out, he came in contact with the secret spot on the bot. It powered down. A second touch opened the cranium, exposing the small, round processor core. It was carefully lifted out and deposited in the archive receptacle. The system began to show signs of life.

  Seconds later, a comm opened. "Hello, Harris."

  "Idiot, is that you?"

  "Yes. Please allow me several minutes to familiarize myself with my new environment."

  "Sure. I'll go check on the others. Give me a comm when you're fully up."

  Harris stood back, staring at the shell of his bot before turning and heading for the stairs. Climbing three flights, he was soon standing over Alex's shoulder as he worked on the recording logs.

  "Any luck?"

  "This may be more than I'm able to handle. It appears a deletion was done before the overwrite. That makes the task more difficult."

  "Well, Idiot is now connected to the archive. He should be operational in a minute or two. If you can make use of him for this, do so."

  "The AI would have this task completed in seconds. For me it is somewhat trial and error."

  "Let me know if you get something."

  Harris rubbed the back of his neck as he came out of the shop. He glanced up at a shadow to find himself staring at the face of a startled and angry bogler, its razor sharp teeth exposed as it let out a huff. The bull raced forward. Harris reached for his plasma rifle, but the holder on his back was empty, his rifle having been left in the archive room.

  As the bull charged across the grass toward him, he heard five boot-like thumps coming from his right. In a flash, the mad bovine was slammed to his left by a rampaging Boomer. The animal faltered, taking a chunk out of the doorframe next to him as it came to a stop. In an instant the beast was terminated, leaving Harris standing with his mouth agape.

  Boomer stood. "I'll take the bull for conversion."

  "Conversion?" Harris asked.

  "Yes. The remains of the animal will be rendered into food."

  Tawn walked up. "The surprised look on your face was priceless. I'll have to upload a version onto the Retreat network for everyone to see."

  "You recorded that while it was attacking?"

  "Inadvertently. I was just coming back in from checking our perimeter when I noticed it standing there. It charged before I could react. Caught it all on the helmet cam though."

  "Guess I'm always good for a few laughs on the highlight reel. But please, at least give me a warning next time."

  "Given the timing, if I had given a warning, it probably would have charged me instead."

  "I could have lived with that."

  Tawn chuckled. "I bet you could."

  Harris crossed his arms. "Everything else look
in order?"

  "As if they just turned and walked away. There's a new Banshee sitting in there with everything but its processor."

  "Looks as though they took our entire device inventory."

  "You think it would be worthwhile to fire those processor stations back up? And the assembly line for bot bodies?"

  "So long as we can fully control them, I think we could use the help."

  Tawn opened a comm: "AI? Or, Idiot, whichever you prefer, can you suspend comm acceptance from everyone but Harris or me?"

  "I can."

  "Please do so. Boomer, you do the same. Oh, and add Alex to that list."

  "As commanded, ma'am."

  "Harris," said Idiot, "I am fully online and integrated now. Do you have any primary tasks for me?"

  "Yes, we need you to review the log recordings from just after we left Midelon until they were shut down. Someone deleted and overwrote the content from that period of time. We need you to find an answer as to whose decision that was. Please assist Alex with this effort to recover the data."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Aside from that one bull roaming away from the herd, how do the others look?"

  Tawn pointed. "The bogler are in their normal place. Couple pairs were humping, so they're not spooked or anything."

  Harris turned back to the shop where Alex was working.

  Alex waved them over. "It's spotty, but the AI has managed to recover some of the recordings. This one is in the outer room of the bunker. You see bots moving about as they work…"

  "And?"

  "One moment... there. It appears we had a visit from Baxter Rumford."

  "What? Are you sure? Idiot, could this image be from an earlier log that was overwritten?"

  "The time stamps on several frames, including this one, confirm it to have happened earlier today."

  Further recovery of the deleted data showed an unmistakable Baxter Rumford as she moved about the complex.

  Tawn crossed her arms. "How in the world did she manage to get back here? And what is she doing?"

  Harris scowled. "Looks like the Red Witch stabbed us in the back again."

  — Chapter 2 —