Chapter 34
While HMS Agamemnon sat, apparently idle, in the water of Brockton Bay, much was happening within.
Hundreds of robots - mostly the repair type - were Replicated and teleported to various places where Lisa wanted them: mostly Chicago.
In the command center, most of the consoles were manned, especially the ones having anything to do with detection. Each had a veteran crew member working at it, plus one or two VFW Old Codgers watching over their shoulders, 'learning the ropes'.
The efforts they'd begun while descending - to 'zarch' bad guys - were continuing.
And a couple dozen VFW Old Codgers wanted to go 'looking for trouble' in town. Boz allowed it, as long as all they sent were Duplicates, not real people.
What they sent was heavily-armed Duplicates, dressed as prosperous but defenseless older folks. They figured that anyone who'd attack people such as they appeared to be, deserved to be 'bleached out of the gene pool', as they put it.
Agamemnon's crew also started a new effort: to find the Slaughterhouse Nine.
And to all that had been added another new effort, to investigate the names and evidence which Lisa was sending over concerning corrupt government officials.
And, of course, they had to rescue Canary from her prison cell. She was due to be sentenced that day, so this morning, while she was alone in her cell, was the best time for her to disappear.
Lisa had offered some advice about that - apparently, there was something called "second trigger", where someone who'd already "triggered" and gotten super-powers, could trigger again, and get more super-powers. It was rare, only happened while the person was in extremely difficult circumstances: basically having the worst day of their life - and it could have widely varying effects.
So, the day of her unjust sentencing, after having been unable to defend herself in any way and otherwise being badly mistreated for an extended period - that day was a possible time for Canary to have "second triggered". And if she had, nobody could be certain what to expect from her.
Which made it easy to disguise the fact that she was gone.
Lisa had bought a small songbird - a canary - from a pet shop, and had bleached a certain few feathers on its head to a different shade of yellow, to match some very unusual markings that the cape known as Canary had.
Agamemnon's crew picked up that songbird via teleportation portal, then opened another such portal right into the prison cell where the cape known as Canary was being held.
A repair robot then used telekinesis to lift the cape - still festooned in chains - from her cell, and bring her through the portal.
A moment with Shape Matter - to first widen certain parts of the chains, like the manacles, to release the cape, then return those chains to their original shape - freed the cape and left the chains piled on the floor.
Then the chains got put back into the cape's former cell, along with one tiny songbird with altered coloration.
Lisa assured them that the default assumption of Canary's PRT jailers would be that she had "second triggered", taken the shape of an actual canary, and flown away. It was likely that the tiny bird they'd left in the cell would find its way out in a short time, and be free, but would be seen as it went.
But however things worked out, Lisa assured them that she could sort it out, even if it meant having Canary go to a foreign country and work the CAPES office there.
Canary got fixed up in the hospital - including Reset - and then sent by teleportation portal to Lisa in Chicago.
It was the start of a busy day for the teleporter.
Some bad guys and corrupt government officials could still get 'zarched' - burned by lasers on orbiting shuttlecraft.
But more than that got banished by teleporter.
Many of the corrupt government officials involved in the Canary case were definitely corrupt - clearly guilty of abuse of power and ruling by their whims with no regard for the law or justice.
There was agreement among Agamemnon's crew that such should no longer be allowed to hold political power of any kind.
But most - Captain Boz among them - thought their crimes fell short of warranting the death penalty.
Boz knew of, and liked, a law used anciently, where a false accuser was punished with the penalty that would have been dealt to his accusee, if the false accusation was successful.
So, for example, if the legal penalty for murder was to be put to death, and you falsely accused someone of murder, and that were proven to be a false accusation, then you would be put to death.
Canary had been up for life in prison, not death.
Nobody on Agamemnon wanted to maintain a prison, whether to hold Canary's false accusers or anyone else.
But they could do the next best thing - banish them to an uninhabited dimension. That was effectively life in a prison with no walls, where they had to support themselves. Who knew, they may even come to enjoy living off the land, supporting themselves - historically, many had.
So Agamemnon got busy banishing corrupt government officials.
They sent them to Dimension 211, where there was no animal life on Earth. They didn't worry about whether the villainous capes on St Helena island in that dimension found these banishees or not - if they did, that would just be part of their punishment.
They started alphabetically, with Africa, and put down one banishee at a time, with at least 300 miles separating them and the next nearest person.
The worst offenders got banished with just the clothes on their backs.
The offenders who had not been so extreme got things a little easier. When they were banished, they found themselves next to 'survival crates' containing helpful survival gear. Some of the crew had fun setting those up and 'personalizing' them. At minimum, they'd have a US Army field survival manual. Most others had a container of potable water. Some others also had a hatchet, or shovel, or gloves or wide-brimmed hat etc, or a collection of such things. And, for the least offensive offenders, they even had some packets of seeds and some food to sustain them while the seeds got going.
They were still busy with all that when there came an interruption.
"Captain, I think you need to see this," Beth said from where she sat at the Detect Affinity for Hurting Others Console.
Boz got up from the Determine Destiny Console, and while he walked over to her, Beth continued, "On this display, I have merged the outputs of four consoles - Detect Danger, Detect Hostile Intent, Detect Affinity for Hurting Others, and Detect Mind, though that last one was a bit tricky. Three of the four just add colors to the base display. But the result is that I can see on one screen how people in an area rate on all four consoles at once. I've been using it since before we landed, and mostly it showed what we would expect from this place. The local PRT and Protectorate hate us and have hostile intent, but haven't registered as being very dangerous to us. But that has been changing. The danger they represent to us has steadily been rising. Then I did a visual scan on one of the centers of danger and saw this."
She switched the screen to a video from inside a large building. It showed scores of people with jetpacks getting ready for flight. They were wearing tactical webbing festooned with equipment and weapons, and obviously ready for combat.
"That building is a warehouse right down by the waterfront. We're only 2 miles offshore, as you ordered. Many of the people in the room have a very high Affinity for Hurting Others," she finished.
"Thanks, Beth, this kind of information makes all the difference," Boz said. "And this is exactly the kind of thing we were looking for when we decided to leave orbit and be obvious. Bad people are the ones most likely to attack us, and we're here to remove such bad people as that. So being obvious lures them out and makes it easier to remove them. Finding them is half the battle, so to speak."
He turned and looked around the room. Spotting Simon, he called out to him, "Simon, we need ten Duplicates of someone who is very familiar with both the ship's weaponry - with which you're the best shot here - and the detection consoles. We need the perfect synchronization we get from Duplicates. And it looks like we have only a few minutes to set it up before they attack."
"On it, Boz-man!" Simon hurried to go get Duplicated.
"Abe, load the Bofors guns with two types of canister rounds containing Bakuda bombs. Four Bofors bear on the shore from which they will fly out. So load," Boz glanced back at Beth's 4-detector console and made a quick mental estimate, "Two of those Bofors with the bombs that turn living matter to glass, and load the other two with the bombs that turn non-living matter to water. Lets just call those glass bombs and water bombs, respectively, for easier reference."
"Everyone," Boz called out, "it looks like we're about to be attacked by the PRT and the Protectorate. For the new folks, they're technically local government forces like police, but focused on stopping super-powered threats. I say technically because their actions are indistinguishable from those of the other local gangs: 'see, want, take'. They use force to grab control of whatever they want, and what they want now is this battleship. It looks like they'll attack from 3 locations at once along the shore, with each one sending out scores of folks flying in jetpacks, probably planning to land on our deck, break in, and take the ship. They know we're really good at shooting things down, but they also know that, thus far, we've avoided killing any of them - instead we wrecked their helicopters and dumped their troops into the ocean and things like that. So they're probably thinking they will again take no real losses, even if we shoot down a bunch of folks. Anyway, Simon and his Duplicates will take center-stage in our defense. The rest of you still need to be ready for anything though. That is all."
The Old Codgers let out a cheer, followed soon after by some of the veteran crew who'd been to this world before.
"When those water bombs hit jetpack fliers, the sky is going to start raining naked people!" Ron quipped. "That should make an amusing video."
A few chuckled.
Simon's Duplicates were placed at the 4 detection consoles Beth had used, plus the telekinesis console, and 5 gunnery consoles - four Bofors and one laser, to catch anything the Bofors guns missed.
That left the original Simon to interface with the rest of the crew and tell them what the other Simons were doing and where they needed help.
They were still actively discussing possibilities when the attack started.
Hundreds of rockets simultaneously streamed out from shore towards the battleship, leaving large wide smoke trails.
The purpose of these rockets quickly proved to be for laying a smokescreen. That smokescreen quickly filled the whole bay, and it blocked radar and infrared sensors, as well as visual.
"This makes sense," Boz allowed, "they don't want their guys shot down, even non-lethally. And they've observed us using smoke that blocks radar and infrared, so it's easy to infer we probably use those for our own sensors. Luckily, we're not limited to that." He looked at the Simons manning detection consoles and got a nod from the original Simon confirming that they were still in business.
Immediately after the smoke rockets, came the launch of four stealthy battlesuits, each about 12 feet tall. These flew about chaotically, launching flares and chaff as they went, as well as using technical gizmos similar to flares and chaff but designed to confuse other types of sensors - some gave out random electrical or sonic bursts, and there were probably other varieties.
"Our sensors are still OK," Simon observed.
At the same time, Beth said "here they come!"
From 3 different locations near the shore, massive waves of fliers, totaling over 200, erupted simultaneously, and flew straight towards the battleship.
The Simons got very focused, and their Bofors guns started barking in a very controlled fashion, with one shot here, and one there, as they identified targets.
The goal was for Simon to be very choosy, so the enemy with low Affinity for Hurting Others scores got shot with water bombs, while those with high AHO scores got shot with glass bombs.
The glass bombs would remove the worst people as effectively as killing them would, since nobody knew if it was even possible to turn such a glass statue back into living flesh.
And the water bombs would remove all equipment, including jetpacks, from the least bad PRT troopers and drop them into the ocean, where they could be recovered. As bad as the PRT was, they did still spend some effort on keeping the peace and suppressing crime, so they didn't want to take out all their troopers.
This kind of targeting took a lot of coordination between the detectors and gunners, but Duplicates had perfect coordination.
That was also why they didn't have any problem with two or more guns shooting the same target - each Simon knew what the others knew, and if one target was already covered, the other Simons knew it and went after other targets instead.
Beth spoke. "I get the total starting count as 200 with jetpacks, and 24 in battlesuits. Four more kinds of battlesuits, with 6 examples of each. I'm getting what recordings we can so we can ask Lisa later what they are. These jetpacks are astounding - moving at 110 miles per hour. The battlesuits are keeping up with that."
"That gives us just over a minute flight time before they arrive at the ship." Boz thought aloud. "Each Bofors gun is firing about once a second. They have the Probability Control and Order Consoles assisting, so should be hitting really well. Each shot should take out its target. Four guns, once a second for 60 seconds is 240. Enemies total 228. So it'll be close and depend on hit percentages, whether Simon can keep up the pace, how quickly they can decelerate to try to land, and things like that."
Ron, wearing the helmet for the Illusion Console, in case they needed help from that, passed around popcorn and said, "Lighten up, you know we've got this!"
Abe said "I've stationed robots along the railings on deck, ready to shoot, or use telekinesis as needed."
Then he took a handful of popcorn.
Just then a dozen anti-ship missiles launched from shore - four from the PRT building and 8 from the Protectorate building.
"Old Codgers, you're up. I want lasers and particle beams to take down those missiles and their launchers." Boz announced.
They hopped to it, while Boz murmured "Looks like they repaired, or more likely replaced, the ones they used last time. It's a reasonable move though - while they know we can shoot them down, they also know we're distracted at the moment and the more stuff they can throw at us, the more likely some is to get through."
The missiles were quickly reduced to burning wreckage, and their launchers as well.
Beth murmured, just to Boz, "They're halfway here now and we've only shot down 81."
"Never fear, Beth," Boz replied calmly, "The closer they get, the easier they are to hit. And as we get fewer and fewer remaining, the easier it is to sort out target selection."
Simon - always unflappable under pressure - and his Duplicates continued to bang away at about one carefully-aimed shot per second. The guns could shoot - accurately enough to knock down missiles - many times faster than that. But to shoot specific individuals from a swarm was harder.
Simon took his time and did it right.
Steadily, more and more naked people - PRT troopers whose non-living gear had all turned to water - fell from the sky, as did more and more glass statues wearing completely intact jetpacks or battlesuits.
A couple dozen seconds passed in tense silence, punctuated by the steady barking of the Bofors guns.
Then Abe turned to Ron and said "Pay up."
Ron looked at Simon in disappointment and dutifully handed Abe a dollar, saying, "Simon, you let me down, man. I was sure you could do it."
"Almost," replied Simon, "Only 3 landed on deck - four if you count the crash-landing. That looked like it really hurt, by the way."
Abe said, "Yah, we may have to run him through the hospital. Still, that he landed at all is pretty impressive for a private. You'll note that the 3 that landed well all have sergeant's stripes. I think one of them is even the same guy that made it furthest when they tried coming at us in helicopters. Kudos to all sergeants - they are basically the incarnations of practicality and the can-do attitude!"
"Ooh-Rah!" yelled half a dozen voices - former Marine sergeants among the Old Codgers in the room.
But even sergeants couldn't beat the odds that faced these three - they landed facing 30 combat robots and 30 GP robots.
So the PRT sergeants were quickly subdued, disarmed, and taken prisoner.
Although one, as he was being led away, extended a knife from the toe of his boot, kicked the deck, leaving a scratch, and said ,"at least I left a mark on the target."
And with that, the battle was over.
Soon, almost everybody was back to what they had been doing before the attack.
Almost everybody, because to some fell cleanup duty.
Abe took the PRT private - wearing a hood so he could see nothing - through the hospital, then escorted the 4 PRT prisoners to the Rocket Junks that had been Replicated, and filled with spare life preservers, for them.
They were being released and given the opportunity to go rescue their comrades floating in the bay.
Abe even showed them how to use the regular engines, so they didn't have to control the junks on rocket propulsion alone.
As they were getting ready to go, Abe handed each PRT soldier a business card, saying, "You're a good man, and probably not being paid enough where you are. Here is the card of a good organization that will pay better, and probably not have a fraction of the B.S. unless I miss my guess. If you're interested, tell them I sent you, and Lisa can call Abe if she needs a recommendation."
The trooper nodded noncommittally.
As they were getting into their junks, Abe offered one more thing, "you know, if you keep coming at us and trying new things, you may eventually find something that is a real threat to us. But think - if you do, then we'll have to fire back with real intent ourselves. Folks will die. Think about whether that is worth it."
The junks sped off without another word.
Meanwhile, Boz and several robots were 'collecting trash' as he put it.
Specifically, they were gathering up 'wreckage' from the battle, from the sea bottom mostly, although some repair robots had caught and held bits with their telekinesis.
This 'wreckage' was mostly jetpacks and battlesuits. They got many examples of each type whole, but containing a glass statue each. And they got some fragments, where part of the equipment had been turned into water.
The fragments were useful for study, at least.
And the whole ones quickly got the glass statues removed by robots using Shape Matter. Then they got scanned into the Replicator, and shrunk and stored for further examination later.
The glass statues got shaped into 'mini reefs' - shapes likely to be useful to fish and promote their growth, by giving them hiding places. Then they were dumped overboard.
While thinking about the bottom of the bay, Boz also took time to send repair robots to all the ship wrecks down there. The wrecks were not doing any good down there, and if Lisa couldn't use them, Boz could take them back to Mars as raw materials if nothing else.
When Boz was done, he went back into the command center.
There, Beth greeted him with, "Lisa says those battlesuits are worth quite a lot, if they're intact. She says they are called Dragon Suits after Dragon, the Tinker who makes them. She is unique in that she takes Tinkertech made by other Tinkers, figures it out, standardizes it and effectively turns it into normal tech, meaning it can be repaired or reproduced by anybody, not just the original Tinker. So these Dragon Suits have Tinkertech types of abilities, meaning they're way beyond our normal tech's cutting edge, but they come with manuals and can be maintained and used by anyone. Dragon doesn't sell her stuff to just anybody - mostly just the government, in fact. And that makes them even more valuable."
"Nice," Boz commented. "I assume they have the basic set of things you usually hear about in battlesuits - armor, mobility, firepower - like personal man-shaped tanks?"
"Yes, that's what Lisa said. Plus they have lots of sensors, and the big ones have special guns in addition to the autocannons they all have. The 16 foot tall ones have lasers, and the 20 foot tall ones have both lasers and plasma guns. Apparently they 9 and 12 foot tall suits don't have enough electrical power for those weapons."
"I remember the lasers and plasma blasts - each about as powerful as a tank's main gun. We took a few hits from those, though our forcefield stopped them. Personal tanks could be useful - we'll keep them around. Though a regular tank is a more efficient shape for getting the most out of any given amount of armor."
"Why is that?" Beth asked.
"The human body has a lot of surface area per volume. Surface area must all be armored or you get weakspots which can be exploited. A tank tries for a useful shape that has minimal surface area. So, however much armor you can afford to carry, it will be thicker and cover better on a tank than on a man's shape. A man shape can be useful as a work suit - it could offer protection while still letting you pick up a wrench or swing a sledgehammer. So there are cases, like where working on the surface of a planet with a hostile environment, where they could be good. But mostly I think people just like them because of the sense of personal power while wearing them - they make you feel a bit like Superman, and folks really like that."
"Yes they do," Beth agreed. "I already have requests from most of the Old Codgers to be allowed to go 'looking for trouble;' in town while wearing them."
Colonel Harry piped up, "Affirmative. We signed up to help clean out bad guys and feel like we are making a difference again. Sitting at a console 'zarching' bad guys from space helps, and is nice. But it lacks the adrenaline rush that combat brings. The guys are loving 'looking for trouble' as it is - acting the part of a prosperous and helpless old guy and wandering around hoping to get mugged is fun on several levels. And we've already had several encounters, surprising the bad guys and giving them what they deserve. But that requires playing helpless and does not feed the urge to feel powerful - to strut along knowing that you're the baddest dude around and can take on anybody. These suits would allow even us 50 and 60 year olds to feel that way again."
Boz didn't hesitate, "Granted. At least at the start, make it Duplicates in Replicated Dragon Suits. And read the manuals first. And come to think of it, we'll probably have to send you to other cities too - not just the local one - or you'll run out of bad guys too stupid to know better than to attack you. The teleporter has the range for any city in the country - heck, any city in the world for that matter."
Colonel Harry started quoting an old joke, and was soon joined by several other Old Codgers. "Join the Navy, travel to distant exotic lands, meet exotic people. And kill them."
Boz was a little defensive, "Well, yes. That is what a battleship is for, after all. It's not like you send a battleship someplace to plant daisies."
"No, Captain, do not misunderstand," Harry explained. "We're not criticizing. I can see that you've heard lots of people saying versions of 'why can't we all just get along' and are a little defensive about it. Don't be. Some people need killing. Choosing to 'just get along' when someone is pointing a gun at you is choosing slavery - submission to whatever they choose to do to you. Just say no to that. 'Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent', as they say. And where you do not enforce the law - whether civil law, or basic moral law - then soon there effectively is no law. Some folks have to stand up and defend the weak, and we're it. Don't be ashamed of that."
A thunderous "Ooh-Rah!" sounded from Old Codgers around the room.
"Thanks, guys. That's a good reminder that not everyone gets their morality from comic books. Those 'morals', such as 'never kill anyone, ever' try to sound noble, but just don't work. I'm glad for the reminder that I'm not the only one who realizes that."
A timer went 'Bing'.
"Well, speaking about removing bad people - there's our reminder that the Canary trial has reached the critical stage."
"Didn't we save her already?" someone asked.
"Yes, but they still have the small bird we left in her place. And they're about to pass sentence on it. Not that we need to save it, but this is an opportunity to publicly punish injustice. Ron, are you ready?" Boz asked.
"Yes, but this will be Iggy's show, Boz-Man," Ron nodded to 3 Duplicated men seated by him.
One copy of Iggy was wearing the headset for the Illusion Console, and one more copy each were at the Teleportation Console and the Telekinesis Console.
Ron continued, "Iggy turns out to have just the right background for this, so I had him try it and it turns out he was pretty good to start with. Since then, we've been practicing and I'm confident he'll do a great job."
Iggy spoke up, "I grew up going to Catholic schools - spent 12 years in them. So I've read about Hell, been told about it, seen paintings and drawings of it, and spent altogether too much time imagining it. I can make for you a very believable illusion of Hell."
"Good man. Let's get to it then." Boz replied.
They had discussed this before, and the judge in the Canary trial was in a great position to be made a public example of. And, what was far more important, he was incredibly evil, having been creating extreme injustice of all sorts for a very long time.
Ron had already had the trial up on screen, via the ships visual scanners. It was also being broadcast live by several news networks.
Ron had been watching for the right cue.
When it came, he signaled Iggy.
At the Canary trial, and shown on Ron's screen, the judge had just finished pronouncing sentence: life imprisonment in the 'Bird Cage' - a maximum security facility from which no one ever returned.
But just as the judge finished his sentence, a fiery portal opened in the air behind him, through which could be seen a classic Hell-scape, with lakes of bubbling red-hot lava. People were in the lakes, being stabbed by the tridents and spear-pointed tails of classic red devils.
One of the classic devils, red from head to toe, emerged from the portal and spoke, saying "I know I'm a few years early in collecting your soul. But you are so deliciously evil I couldn't wait. Welcome to Hell."
Then it grabbed the judge and threw him back through the portal, to land with a splash and a scream in a big pool of lava.
The devil then dove through that portal and into the lava, and was last seen headed for the judge when the portal closed.
Boz spoke, "Great Job Iggy - all parts of that were really convincing. Seamless too - I couldn't tell any difference between the illusionary lava pools and the real one in Iceland where the other end of the teleportation portal went. I wish I hadn't heard the judges scream as he landed in real lava though. That was rough, though necessary."
"That was really horrifying," Beth said, "Are you sure it was necessary?"
Boz sighed, "Yup, it was. I wasn't sure it would be horrifying enough, but that scream made the difference. I don't think that could be faked."
He sighed, "We'll get some Reset for everybody to help. But the point of the whole exercise was not just to remove one really bad judge. The goal was to prevent all sorts of people from doing bad things. If people think there will be eternal rewards for their actions, they will police their own actions far better than anyone else could ever police them."
"A noble goal, but did we have to lie to achieve that?" Beth sounded unconvinced.
"From my perspective, it wasn't a lie, but a lesson taught by visual parable. I believe in eternal rewards or punishments. I don't think there are red devils dishing out those punishments with tridents etc, but I see that as a mere detail - a metaphor to help convey the important points. And the important point we need people to get from this exercise is that, for our actions, there are consequences. It is objectively true, and measurable in our society, that those who believe in that, will moderate their own actions, and those who don't, will only be moderated by the chance of getting caught."
"Well, I don't believe in Heaven," Beth said. "We on this ship have been to the nearest star, and all around this solar system, and we didn't run into Heaven on the way."
Boz laughed, "You've been misinformed, though you are not at all alone in that. Neither the Bible, nor any other religion I'm familiar with, ever says that Heaven is just above the clouds, or any other specific place. The closest it comes is to say it is 'above the Earth', which could even be a reference to higher morals or a value judgment, and even if it is a position reference, it is not specific. The center of the galaxy could be described as 'above the Earth', and so could the next galaxy over, and so on. You get the point."
He paused, then started over,"Look, I can see you're getting defensive. There's no need. My point is not to convert you to my religion. If you'd like to talk about that, it's fine, but I'm not interested in cramming it down anyone's throat. Believe what you will - that's fine with me. My point is that it is very helpful to society at large when its members believe that someone or something they can't fool or hide from is noting their actions and setting up rewards or penalties for those."
Simon spoke up. "Put it this way: Nobody wants to be caught and punished for the bad things they do, so pretty much everybody does risk assessment, and when they feel a particular bad thing they want to do is too risky, they don't do it. For that risk assessment, it matters a great deal who is watching and might notice. If it's just the government in the form of police or equivalents, lots more bad things get done because the police cannot be everywhere watching everything at all times. You don't want them to try either - many bad things come of that. But God can be watching everything at all times. So in societies where belief in God is prevalent, fewer bad things get done. Not none. We are human and sometimes act stupidly, in anger, without thought and so on. But fewer."
Beth and Boz both started to speak, but were interrupted by an alarm bell.
After looking to see what it was, Boz said,"And speaking of people who think anything they can get away with is fair, here are the Slaughterhouse Nine, right on our doorstep. Battle-stations everybody, if you haven't taken them already."
Everybody went head-down over their consoles, seeking information.