The Ashes of Worlds - Kevin J. Anderson [106]
“It’s Former Chairman Maureen Fitzpatrick, sir. She plans to betray you to our enemies, perhaps even resume her old position.”
Basil hadn’t expected this at all, not even an inkling. “Explain.”
“When you first aired your suspicions of the former Chairman, we established covert surveillance on her mansion. You will be interested to know that she recently had a visitor: her grandson, Patrick Fitzpatrick.”
Now Basil was incensed. The young man was a deserter who had publicly denounced the Hansa and blamed the Roamer ekti embargo on EDF atrocities. Not only had King Peter used Fitzpatrick’s confession to spread sedition throughout the Hansa, Freedom’s Sword had used him as their poster child. “What was he doing here?”
“Recruiting her for the Confederation. The former Chairman intends to defect to Theroc and join King Peter.”
“Is everyone in the Spiral Arm hell-bent on stabbing me in the back?” Once retired, a Hansa Chairman was supposed to be respectful toward the person currently in charge, not meddle in politics or voice objections to the current government. His immediate predecessor, Ronald Palomar, had led the Hansa for seventeen lackluster years, and when Basil took over, Palomar quietly and gratefully disappeared from public view. In fact, Basil didn’t even know if the man was still alive. But Maureen Fitzpatrick had led the Hansa for only nine years before she chose to retire; she had been out of office for nearly a quarter of a century, and now she wanted to come back? The power-hungry bitch.
“Contact Admiral Pike. I need his ships to intercept the former Chairman before she can do something stupid that irreparably damages the Hansa.”
“Yes, Mr. Chairman.” She turned briskly to leave.
Pike might have objections, but he would do exactly as he was ordered. After all, Basil held the man’s family hostage, as well.
* * *
74
Sirix
In addition to their primary duties of reassembling EDF ships, the Chairman had secretly asked the black robots to perform a strange yet vital task in Earth orbit. Sirix did not question his reasons, since the human leader had offered him an additional one hundred new robots in exchange for this minimal service. Humans often did not make sense.
After inspecting the frenetic ship-repair operations, Sirix flew a small vehicle to where five black robots tinkered with a long-mothballed weapons satellite, a directed-energy projector abandoned in orbit more than a century ago. Basil Wenceslas had given them access to detailed schematics and new components.
Sirix was perplexed at the extent of the man’s trust in him. Was this some inexplicable test of the robots’ reliability? He could find no logical explanation for what they had been instructed to do.
The Hansa Chairman had asked Sirix to put his “most reliable” robots on the assignment; obviously, the man did not understand that all black robots were equally trustworthy, since they shared the same programming, the same goals. They would never betray each other, as humans so often did.
Now, floating in black vacuum with the immense cloud-swathed sphere of Earth beneath them, the five robots extended articulated limbs and attached the requested tools to the large orbiting device. They expanded and tested new circuitry, reconfigured and polished the focusing mirrors, replaced the long-depleted power sources. Out of common caution, they added their now-standard safeguards to disable the equipment if anyone should attempt to turn the weapons satellite against the black robots themselves. But Sirix didn’t think that was what the Chairman had in mind.
With meticulous care, the robot workers removed all traces of corrosion, fixed a circuit board marred by micrometeoroid impacts, then ran all necessary diagnostic routines. The systems were quite primitive, but they would work.
When the control programming was set to active standby, ready to be used