None of the people inside the factory had any idea of what was happening far above the sky, in the cold segment of space stretching between the planet and the moon. A flash illuminated the darkness, announcing the arrival of the predator of the void, its smooth, brutish steel bastions tinted silver by the activated shields and the brilliant light of its photon engines.
A relic of the past, its length easily dwarfed a large island, and the crew toiling at the numerous battle stations, medical bays, research centers, engineering hangars, and navigational rooms numbered over a hundred thousand people. VIs operatives appeared on the outer hull, kept safe from being sucked into the void by the gravity engines. They walked, checking the battleship’s integrity after the sublight jump. Even if the spaceship used one of its many hidden thrusters for a sudden full turn, none of his crew would fall off. Because they belonged to him.
Many of the people who work on the ships think of them as women; their crews adore and learn to fear the temper of their mistress, often developing love-hate relationships that lead to captains going down with the ship as they find themselves unwilling to abandon their ladies in the hour of greatest peril. The crew of the Iternian battleship knew better than to dare to impose a cheerful name painted upon its hull on the ship. He tolerated them.
His name, his true name, was the Wrathful Son, a name used only by the crew and officers on the bridge. Artificer himself had contacted the machine, confirming a rudimentary sentience embedded in the data banks. And that sentience was rage incarnate. Its sensors reached the end of the system, uncovering any potential danger to the planet. His many sisters and brothers once cruised through the eternal night, basking in the corona of the sun, proud to carry the eternal vigil.
And the Wrathful Son should’ve sailed with them, and in anticipation of that moment, he’d fully embraced the serene nature of the given name. Until the day came and humanity almost died, and the machine intelligence was left to rage and question who dared to steal the lives of those under his protection. It welcomed the Iternian crew, overwhelming them with demands to set him loose and lead him to the glorious battle in the service of his new nation. Through great persuasion, the Wrathful Son was mollified and convinced to spare the planet from his wrath.
He allowed Artificer to bind himself with the command codes, promising to never fire on the planet’s surface unless Iterna itself was in danger or unless all three Great Nations would agree to give their permission. Days, months, years, and decades passed as the Wrathful Son orbited the moon, a hungry shark unleashing violent continent-shaking barrages at the satellite, often covering large parts of its fifteen-thousand-kilometer diameter in superheated flames, reducing the fortifications built by the wretched artificial intelligence to nothing and keeping the Iternian city safe.
Until today. Called into orbit, he fired his engines, closed the steel bastions, and approached the wounded sphere of blue, brown, green, and yellow. He hurried to the cradle of his creators, ready to do whatever mission was assigned to him. And the order came directly from the Iternian High Command, signed by the president’s personal seal.
The Wrathful Son was unleashed.
“Ognian Bubnoff…” the words stirred a weapon operator, and the man drew himself high, dusting off the pristine collar of his blue uniform, adorned with several silver comets, one for each year he had served on this ship, side-by-side with their boy.
The crew was wise enough to keep their familiarity hidden, knowing full well the explosive temper of their precious kid. He raged, but not at them, though years of grueling training awaited those who failed to meet his extreme standards. The Wrathful Son, so long deprived of human contact, dismissed none of his metal chambers, not unless they chose to resign of their own accord. But it could take years before he’d trust a ‘flesh bag,’ as he called them, to do their duty after a failure.
Ognian Bubnoff was one of the people he trusted. The Wrathful Son raged at the need to leave command of the weapons in human hands; he raged at being restricted from participating in the ground battles. He raged a lot and was a nasty kid to work with. But a professional to the core.
“Ognian Bubnoff…” The Wrathful Son spoke again, both in male and female voices, and a pulse of energy surged through the spaceship, mimicking a hastened heartbeat.
On the outer hull, one of the armored sections slid down, but the workers behind it were in no danger. Clad in spacesuits far more advanced than anything Iterna could produce on its own, they moved freely in the artificial gravity, hastening the preparation of batteries capable of penetrating to the planet’s core. Designed to be used to punch through force shields, these centuries-old weapons extended the long barrels, and Ognian summarized the information flowing to his post. No plasma or anti-matter; precision laser fire only to spare a nearby facility and a city of desolation. His kid’s rage passed to him through the implants, making the operator nod in understanding. Who are they taking them for? The advanced targeting matrix could have let them fire a plasma ball to vaporize a rapist’s dick in the middle of a crowd, sparing his victim and everything around.
A holographic image flashed into existence opposite his seat, and the weapon operator saluted along with the crew of fifty brave men and women under his command. The sound of metal claws drumming against a metal throne greeted them. The woman sitting upon it looked hungry, almost vampiric. By the Wrathful Son’s artistic choice, her body was split down the middle, with the left side of her body being a mighty mess of gleaming steel and a long metal arm and leg ending in claws. The right side of her body still had human flesh, going seemingly perfectly into the metal body, and her eyes — both the glittering blue orb and a brown human eye — burrowed into his very soul, judging him and searching for any sign of uncertainty or weakness.
Admiral Kaganka Janeczek first joined with the Wrathful Son decades ago. Her father, the famous Kosma, had brought his daughter up in the void in a desperate search for a cure against a disease deteriorating her organs. Back then, her limbs resembled dried branches, and her bones broke after exertion, and not even an exosuit could help. A rare genetic disease, still incurable today, though alleviated by the efforts of Rho Biomedical. She should have died, and her father despaired when he learned nothing of value from the battleship’s databases.
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As a last resort, he made a leap of faith, ignoring every safety measure, and hooked Kaganka up to the Wrathful Son, drawing a scream of indignation and fury out of every claxon and setting every siren mad on the ship. She isn’t worthy! The ship roared and thundered, unable to stop the synthesis, and half of the girl’s body was transformed into a machine, fusing the two forever. Such was the destructive potency of the spaceships of old that their artificial intelligences had to be ever restricted, ever paired with a human host capable of reigning them in, and this saved humanity from complete devastation as the ships lost control and fell when their biological crews died and the demise of their captains forever scarred the corrupted AIs. The Wrathful Son got lucky; his ship drifted in the moon’s orbit, awaiting his captain.
He dreamed of a steely-eyed man or woman, an officer of unparalleled skill and dedication to take a position at his helm and lead him into a glorious slaughter for the sake of his new homeland. His shock and disgust at being forever merged with an untested, thin, and frightened girl sent tremors across the hull and overloaded workstations. He raged for hours, calmed down, accepted his new assignment, and drilled Kaganka Janeczek mercilessly, turning her into an admiral worthy of wielding him. She earned her rank over decades, failing written tests and trying again, building muscles in her new body, and then being reduced to an obedient tool of the superior officers. And one day, her second half accepted the grown woman as his master, letting her take the throne for the first time.
Kaganka sat at the bridge’s dais, dressed in Iterna’s blue surcoat and strict azure uniform, surrounded by hundreds of working operators and the pleasant beeping sounds of incoming messages. She had never undergone a rejuvenation procedure, yet her rough skin bore not a single wrinkle, and her short, ashen hair was silky. An unopened bottle of moonshine, made by engineers, sat near her human hand. This was a gift she always treated herself to after a successful mission. She breathed easily, a perfect fusion of machine and human, and greeted Ognian with a nod.
“Ognian Bubnoff,” she said in a hardy human voice, “do you confirm my clearance?”
He experienced an intake of information and an electric surge arriving at his implants. General Dominator answered the Iternian’s call, bringing them up to speed about the potential resurrection of the Chosen Prince. The thing had been tolerated before, lurking outside Iterna’s borders. No longer. It has joined forces with Numbers; its minions have assaulted Iternian’s wards. The Wrathful Son’s rage and unadulterated fury whipped across the operator, and he found himself in agreement, earning a look of respect from Kaganka. Many officers fainted at the direct link to machine intelligence. This was Ognian’s first connection; his side of the ship never faced the lunar surface, and he had trained on passing asteroids.
The Hierarchy had attacked the people of the Three Great Nations, and the Dynast gave permission for the battleship to close in, restricting the superweapons of his own country from firing at the battleship. Three signatures. And an agreement to name the Chosen Prince a hostis humani generis. The ultimate permission to engage in space-to-earth combat has been granted.
“I do, admiral,” Ognian confirmed, taking his seat. His fingers flew, tapping at the keyboard with unnatural speed. Implants and stimulants released into his bloodstream allowed the officer to transcend human limitations, nearing those of a fourth-generation Problemsolver.
“Are you going to deny me my moonshine, Ognian?” Kaganka inquired.
“Never, admiral,” he swore to her, linking himself to the targeting matrix.
The battleship came to life. Force barriers locked themselves around the nurseries and medical bays, keeping their patients safe. Schools were canceled, much to the delight of the space-born youngsters, and VIs officers and teachers led the students to the safety of the bunkers. Observatories, cinemas, and unimportant research facilities were shut down, and the horns of claxons announced the beginning of a combat operation. The Wrathful Son descended, and Ognian saw through his eyes.
Twenty-eight years ago, he had left the planet, a wide-eyed youth, and he didn’t miss it — not even once. The endless black void of space, an ocean of stars, became his home. He was long eligible for a comfortable retirement and a rich pension back at Iterna, yet Ognian could never leave this place. The confines of the almighty battleship, its pleasant artificial gravity, its familiar corridors, its flashing neon lights in the red district, and its sprawling gardens in the recreation district, became his home. The battleship was more than a city; it was a city state, and Ognian hadn’t yet learned all that its places could offer.
A connection to the Wrathful Son was one of those things. His and the admiral’s, or admirals’, thoughts united. They couldn’t stay away from the Moon for long; already the Steel Legions had returned to the surface, building fortifications and mountain-sized warmachines strode across the surface on their arching legs, firing brilliant bursts of energy at the shield surrounding the city, and a horde of smaller machines descended in perfect cohesion, melting in the hellish flames unleashed by the defenders and pushing still, clawing meter by meter. It won’t stand.
Artificer and Lada both offered a union, eager to speak with their distant kin and lead him in the coming combat. The Wrathful Son tossed them aside, severing the connection. Help? He was perfect; his systems were superior to the barbaric mainframes used by these feckless idiots. The mere fact that he had to be distracted from his duties proved their inefficiency. They should stop tarnishing the image of an AI and start pulling their weight.
Ognian saw two trainees rushing toward a sickly beast. He thought of them as idiots, and the Wrathful Son brought information to his retina, pointing out the two captured children, held by an unnatural womb ripped open by a blow. It enraged the officer and filled him with pride. A unit leaves no one behind! The time has come to prove the superiority of technology over the unreliable gift of power.
“Then hunt the prey for me, Ognian,” Kaganka commanded.
“Of course, admiral,” he responded, elated at the union and sharpening of his senses.
Time slowed. For the Wrathful Son, the trainees stopped in place, and his mechanic brain calculated thousands of possibilities in a span of milliseconds, predicting the outcomes of using various weapons and the consequences for the surrounding area. At this proximity to the allies, only one weapon could be used — the one Ognian had suggested from the beginning.
A small laser turret, a weapon designed to intercept space-faring flyers, moved and pointed its sleek barrel at the planet below. Twenty-eight years. Ognian halted his finger over the firing button. Twenty-eight years of never-seeing combat, over two decades of training at predictable targets. His crew worked double time, finalizing the firing solution, calculating the effect of the atmosphere on the laser, and powering up the turret, increasing its potency to deliver the deadly heat to the target.
“Scared, flesh bag?” the Wrathful Son snarled, annoyed at the delay.
“Never,” the officer promised, waiting until the end of the calculation with a deadly calm. “Merely… prudent.” He pressed the button.
The Wrathful Son was unleashed. Woe to Iterna’s enemies!