AI War snippet 6 Chapter 3b

Ezel Bernard saw the world go crazy and shook his head in disgust. He didn't know what to think, where to start, but he knew they had to do something, and do it damn quick like.

"We're going after that one," Mishi Sa Sin, commander of their tug said. His chief engineer stared at him but he ignored the look. "Get your game faces on folks," Mishi growled.

Beakman was officially designated as an MSTE class tugboat. The designation stood for Manned Space Tug, Earth orbit. She could move packages or other ships around space, transferring them from one orbit or another. If she pushed her massive drives she could even shove payloads on a trajectory to the moon under the right situation.

Beakman was a large tug due to her space designation. Harbor tugs were designed to work in and around a space station. They were small one or two person craft designed to nudge payloads to and from docking ports.

Ezel Bernard was their lone EVA qualified deckhand on board since his long time partner Sinji Catlin had been injured and forced to retire a month ago. The company had promised them a replacement but had let them run light for the past month. It had been hard on Ezel, doing the job of two people.

They had a couple other people on board, Mat and Patty, deckhands, and Samy, their cat. The robots had been locked down when the entire insanity had begun. Mat and Ezel had taken a hammer to the things until Patty had calmed them down and showed them how to pull the batteries out.

Their breakage of company property had put them on Mishi's shit list. He wasn't looking forward to explaining the situation to corporate when they reached port. Ezel wasn't helping the situation as they talked over the PA system.

"Going after what? With what? We're a damn tug!" Ezel ground out. He didn't know where the hell to start, but he was grateful for a job to do. A job would get his mind off of the big picture and what was happening around them. It would get him focused, not wondering what insanity would strike next.

"Shut up and get ready," Mishi ordered as the tug began to maneuver with puffs of LOX. Ezel opened his mouth to object but 'Mush' Mishi was the commander and captain of their ship. You didn't piss the Asian off, and he'd pissed him off enough for one day. It was on his head, he'd have to deal with the corporate bean counters when they saw the fuel expenditures. He realized his train of thought after a moment and barked out a short laugh before he got himself under control.

"What was that about?" Mishi demanded.

"Nothing. Everything. So what are we after?"

"Salvage. SAR style," Mishi informed him, voice growing grim. "Take a look at your five o'clock," he said.

Ezel's sharp eyes picked out the rising anchor station. It seemed to be swelling. He didn't understand at first what was going on until he saw the cable whipping behind it back and forth like some sort of tail. "What the hell?"

"There are thousands of people on that thing. The cars are getting kicked off. I don't give a shit about the cargo pods, but the ones with people in it, we can do something about them."

"Right," Ezel said. "And Anchor station? Boss, that's a bit much even for us!"

"Don't worry about it. Someone else will figure them out. I'm pretty sure they've got enough oxy on board to survive their jaunt to who knows where. At least I hope so. We'll focus on the small fish."

"Any idea where to unload them at?" Ezel asked, pulling his gear out.

"We'll daisy chain them together if we have to."

"Any word from anyone else? The other tugs?" Ezel asked as he pulled his suit out. It was a hard suit, not a cheap ancient flexible design. He had to give the company credit for doing him right. He had his undergarment on already, he connected the liquid cooling lines, communications, and grimaced as he plugged the catheter connection.

"No. Not since Athena warned us there is some sort of virus rampaging through the network. I bet everyone else is scared shitless."

"So why are we doing this?"

"Someone has to."

"Yeah, but... we're one ship! We can't make that much of a difference!" Ezel pointed out.

It took a few moments for Mishi to reply. "We'll make a difference to the ones we help. Focus on your job Ezel, let me worry about the rest." Mishi replied, clicking the radio off. He turned to the controls, expert eyes scanned the various gauges and digital readouts without focusing on any in particular. His mind was racing to other thoughts. He hoped... oh how he hoped! He hoped they had a place to go. They only had so much oxy after all. He also hoped the other tugs would see them moving in and do something too. But if they didn't... well, he'd do what he could. He owed the poor bastards on those pods that much. He felt his eyes sting and wiped at them angrily for a moment.

Just maybe... just maybe he'd find the right one. The one with his wife and little girl in it.

<>V<>

The weapon vaporized the base structure and sent a whipcord snap up the elevator line. The cars clamped on for dear life but a few in motion snapped free, falling to their deaths. The massive acceleration needed to tear them from the wire was fortunately enough to knock most of the passengers on board unconsciousness or death.

They were the lucky ones. Thousands were trapped in the remaining cars as the mushroom cloud threw the cable up, out of the area. Between that impetuous and the anchor station's orbital speed, the cable and anchor were knocked free of their orbit to rocket off into space. Debris broke off behind the runaway elevator.

Cars that had been on their way down or that had been too close to the ground slipped off the cable and fell like rain around the surrounding ocean.

The beanstalk wasn't the only elevator to suffer that fate as each space elevator was similarly uprooted or cut. Ecuador's Mount Chimborazo was twisted as it was uprooted, tearing cars off to be shed all over the north west of the continent and central America. Tens of thousands of people died. Thousands more were crushed when portions of the elevator cable and the debris rained back down onto the ground.

62 years prior Pavilion Industries had replaced Lagroose Industries in Ethiopia, resurrecting the facilities there around Mount Chilalo in order to build their own space elevator. However it was not immune to Skynet's malice. The skyhook was uprooted as well as a pair of cruise missiles struck the city that had grown up around the base of the tower. Cut unexpectedly free, the anchor station in orbit collided with orbital warehouses setting off a chain reaction of collisions. The damage to civilian life paled to that of what it was below, but to those directly involved or seeing it happen, it was a new nightmare.

<>V<>