CHAPTER 52
PETER
NO TURNING BACK
Peter felt the change in his playback speed. His original speed allowed him to experience the travel time between stars as roughly an hour. It was quick, as far as space-travel times go. So he knew something was off.
There were only a limited number of instances that this could happen.
Two of them were bad.
He was currently traveling near the speed of light in a small spacecraft. He was traveling toward the Atua and Penquin home world. At least all their current intel said it was their home world.
Peter used the mental commands to query the spacecraft on what was happening. He ordered it to simulate a virtual world around him. “What are we looking at?”
Both Hens and Moses popped into existence in front of Peter.
Hens Fari was a psychologist who had a deep understanding of human behavior. He was the world’s foremost expert on how humans react to different situations. He’d spent most of his life working in Angelique’s secret military, in charge of building algorithms for identifying when groups of humans were being manipulated. He was instrumental in identifying when there was a hidden puppet master. Peter had convinced Hens to join him on this mission because he’d wanted someone in the negotiation with a deep understanding of human psychology. He was convinced those skills would come in handy since the Atua already had a very deep understanding.
Moses John was an AI behavioral expert. Ever since Icarus had come back, Moses had spent his time analyzing all the information on the Atua. He’d built a very compelling AI algorithm for predicting the behavior of both the Atua and Penquins. Peter was under no illusion that what Moses had built was going to be accurate with what the Atua did or said. But it was a starting point. Peter and Moses had queried the AI on how the Atua would react to this situation. Even if the AI was wrong with what the Atua would do, Peter wanted Moses on hand to improve the AI’s predictions as their negotiations progressed.
After all, they were there to negotiate a peace treaty with the Atua. They were there to make sure humans were never attacked again. And if the negotiations failed, Peter knew he would only have one option. He was going to destroy the Atua.
“The ship’s slowed down our perception of time because it’s detecting a lot of radiation coming from a nearby star,” Moses said, a little confused. “But it’s not the Atua home world.”
Peter pulled up a map of the stars and confirmed it was the star he expected. “It worked!”
“What worked?” Hens asked.
There was only a select number of people who knew what this signal meant. On this spacecraft, only Peter knew. It meant that Atlas had fired the weapon, and it had worked.
“Wow, I’ve never seen readings like this,” Moses said. “If I’m reading these charts correctly, a star in that system just went supernova.”
“Atlas fired the weapon,” Peter said. “We are on a ship capable of that, too.”
“You can’t be telling the truth.” Moses looked a Peter with curiosity. “That’s more energy that we can possibly produce. I don’t understand how that is achievable.”
Only a selection of people knew the weapons existed. They were manufactured using a specialized fabricator that could only build one thing. It was designed to look like any other fabricator. They didn’t want to risk the Atua learning of its existence. So Hens and Moses both knew they were headed to the Atua to negotiate piece. And that was true. But it was only now that they were learning of the stick Peter was going to use to encourage peace talks. “That’s Atlas for you; he found a way.”
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“What does that mean?” Hens asked.
“It means we have proof that the weapon we’re carrying with us can utterly destroy the Atua’s home world,” Peter said. “It means even if they have a planetary-defense system capable of halting rail guns traveling at the speed of light, they won’t have a chance in hell of stopping what we’re bringing with us. It means we have a bite to back up our bark.” Then Peter paused for a moment, thinking over what this meant. “Moses, can you ask the AI that predicts Atua’s behavior how they will respond to the news of this weapon? I know we previously asked it how they would react to the prospect of an all-out war with humans. But can you ask it about the potential threat of all our warships arriving with weapons capable of causing their planet to spontaneously combust?”
Moses nodded and manifested a computer in front of him. He sat down in front of it and began furiously typing away.
“Are we actually going to use it?” Hens asked, then clarified his statement. “Use the weapon on the Atua.”
Peter thought long and hard about this question. It was a question that would define him. If he did use it, then that would be his legacy. It would become the legacy of every human on the journey to the alien star system.
“Actually, don’t answer that,” Hens said, interrupting Peter from thinking and preventing him from voicing something he didn’t want to.
“The truth is humans as a whole wouldn’t terminate an entire species like this,” Hens said. “Humanity wouldn’t conduct murder on this scale.”
Peter’s mind went to multiple instances where humans had caused massive genocide to another race of humans.
“I know you’re thinking that humans have caused destruction before. And it’s true. But it’s always because of one single individual. And that’s why I don’t want you to tell me. The Atua need to understand that it’s your decision whether to attack. They need to believe that only you have the ability to pull the trigger and that there aren’t any other checks and balances. Because democracies don’t wipe out entire species of aliens. But individuals do. In this negotiation, the Atua need to believe that you will fire this weapon at them.” Hens looked at Peter straight in the eyes. “In the same way I believe you’re willing to fire it.”
“Interesting,” Moses said, finally finishing with his testing of his model. “I’m predicting a fifty-fifty chance that the Atua are going to call your bluff. They might not engage with you because they don’t believe you will destroy them.”
Peter had worried this was the case. He needed to make sure they understood the threat was real.
Moses paused. “But let me make a few adjustments to it based on what you said, Hens. Let’s see what happens if they believe the threat. I originally had them believe that it was a group decision whether we fire or not. Now I’m going to reprogram it to say only Peter controls the weapon.”
Moses worked away at the computer for a good while before coming back. “Okay, so I’m reaching the limits of the AI’s knowledge. We just don’t have enough data on how they’ll respond to a threat like that. I know humans would want a peace treaty. But the Atua and the Penquins—we need more data to better predict.”
“Well then, let’s go get some,” Peter said. “Anything else to discuss? Otherwise, let’s change our playback speeds so we can talk to these Atua.”
Both Moses and Hens nodded, and Peter gave the mental command.
Time raced before their eyes.
And before long, Peter was lighting up the Atua’s star space. Him and nineteen other spacecraft.
They were a good two light minutes before the spacecraft forced them back into real time.
They had received a message. The Atua knew they were there.
Peter opened up the video message. It was an Atua Peter hadn’t seen before.
“Don’t come any closer, human,” the Alien spat. “You stupid, stupid bug.” Peter thought the alien was getting angry. “Disengage your engines and prepare to be boarded.”
In that moment Peter realized the negotiation had begun. How Peter and the others responded would dictate the rest of their engagement with the Atua. Peter knew the other nineteen spacecraft had been ordered not to respond and to follow Peter’s lead. “Send this message.”
Peter straightened his back and faced an imaginary camera. “By now you have probably interpreted the signals that a star in the star system nearest to you has just gone supernova. This is a weapon we have created. We have a similar weapon onboard our spacecraft. If you fire at any of us, we will use this weapon on you. Please await our arrival. Once there—” Peter paused for a moment, deciding to attempt his best alien impression. “We will negotiate, or we will use this weapon on you.”
Peter sent the mental command to broadcast that message to the Atua and to every other human spacecraft in the system.