Jacob arrived well outside of Earth’s orbit, beyond even the moon. He wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to crash into something accidentally.
He did a quick system check to make sure everything was good.
The trip had been uneventful apart from a few minor stress fractures in some bulkheads, which were repaired by the swarm of maintenance drones he had aboard. He couldn’t help but wonder how much easier repairing Melody would have been if he had a few of the new drones back during his first days aboard the derelict vessel.
His system check was quick. There was no new damage, and the phase coils were still green, proving the towering constructions were more than up to the task of long voyages. He idly wondered why Concord had switched to the smaller replaceable units when integrated phase coils seemed to hold up so much better. It had to be for efficiency reasons. Repairing something took a lot longer than just swapping it out for a new one.
Jacob swiped away that screen and double-checked that all the satellites were prepped and ready for launch. The short trip hadn’t given him much time to produce additional satellites, so he was glad they made more than enough on the station.
The satellites were strapped to their carts in groups of six as they sat in massive cargo hangars on either side of the four-kilometer-long vessel. A few thousand satellites took up a lot of space, but for a ship as large as Melody, it was barely noticeable. Each of the satellites was only about two meters across and a meter long.
The two hangars Jacob picked to store the satellites weren’t even full. Heck, Jacob was pretty sure fifty thousand satellites could have fit in the two cargo spaces with plenty of room to spare.
The satellites were fine, and the drones were already prepping the first series to go the moment they arrived in Earth orbit. Jacob didn’t bother outfitting the satellites with any sort of gravitic propulsion, so he had been forced to calculate every single satellite’s orbit ahead of time.
It was a task he would have immediately turned down had he still been human. As he was now, it hardly took an hour to pull the data from Earth, add it to his own, and calculate every single orbit.
Jacob was ready, had been since the first day of the trip. He knew that; he also knew he was stalling. He had avoided checking in for news back on Earth because he knew it wouldn’t be flattering toward him. He tried avoiding it while searching for the data, but when he dug through NASA and other space agencies’ data to find the existing orbits of all satellites and debris, he inadvertently came across a few headlines about him. It was hard not to when he was a wanted fugitive.
Of course, he had to look into whose bright idea that had been. That’s when he learned President McConnell had passed away from a heart attack shortly after they departed, and that asshat Hopefield was now president.
The timing was far too suspicious. Jacob didn’t want to get bogged down in Earth politics, especially not with the likes of Hopefield, but if it affected him, he needed to know. As it turned out, Hopefield was the one who floated the idea to the UN to issue the global arrest warrant for Jacob. They had reluctantly agreed when Hopefield, backed by Russian leadership, convinced the world leaders that Jacob was a danger to humanity.
“What a little weasel,” Jacob growled.
There hadn’t been any sign of foul play in McConnell’s death. If there had been, his first suspect would have been Hopefield. The former vice president was just using the tragedy to further his own political aspirations.
“Let’s see how your political power measures up to actual power,” Jacob spat.
He wasn’t going to attack the United States or the White House. The population voted for that idiot; they got what they deserved. He also wasn’t going to appear above Earth without warning. It would make him look far too aggressive. He wanted to project power, not scare the crap out of eight billion people.
Jacob sent comm requests to all of the member nations he was working with, along with the scientists involved in the research. He only excluded Hopefield and a few other leaders who had supported Redline’s leadership.
With Melody in the system, blocking those people from finding out was child’s play. He simply tied them up with other emergencies. Jacob hadn’t realized how much bandwidth he was giving up over the long-distance comm connection from the station. It felt like he could breathe after being stuck in a tight tube for ages, and he never really got to flex his full power while aboard the station.
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It would be even better once he was in Earth’s orbit. He was pretty sure Melody possessed enough processing power to take control of the majority of Earth’s connected systems. Maybe even all of them. That was a terrifying thought. It also explained why Concord had given their planetary conditioning vessels such powerful AI. If they wanted to terraform a planet with an entrenched technological population, they could.
Jacob pushed those thoughts aside. He wasn’t about to do something like that, not that he could. He had control of the ship, but he was not an AI. There was no way he could control so many systems at the same time. The thought of being in control of Earth didn’t appeal to him in the slightest anyway. Just imagining trying to bring that many people into some sort of aligned goal made him break out in a headache, let alone dealing with all the other bullshit.
His thoughts turned back to the group meeting as the last person he invited arrived. Of course, it had been Alana Brown.
“Who scheduled this meeting?” she demanded tiredly.
The other world leaders looked away, not wanting to meet the fierce scientist’s gaze.
“Oh, so they are familiar with her,” Jacob snorted.
Jacob was surprised by Alana’s appearance. She looked tired, but her hair was a mess, and her eyes red, like she had been crying.
“We’re not sure, Alana,” Nathaniel replied cautiously. “We were just discussing that before you joined.”
Jacob took that opportunity to pop into the meeting. “I called it.”
A few of the world leaders looked surprised. Some even tried to back out of the meeting, but Jacob froze their inputs.
“Hear me out,” he said, holding up his hands.
“We can’t be speaking with you,” the French representative said. “You are a terrorist and fugitive.”
“Do you lack any sort of common sense?” Alana asked in disgust, her normal vitriol poking through whatever had her in her current state. “You can’t seriously tell me you believe that load of lies.”
The French representative reeled back like he had been slapped. Alana had delivered the rebuke in perfect French. The man quickly recovered. “I will not sit here and be rebuked by the likes of you. Nor will I hear out some criminal malcontent.”
Then the man stood up and walked away, leaving his computer active.
A few more did the same after finding they couldn’t turn off or disconnect their devices.
That was unexpected. Alana was the last person Jacob thought would defend him.
“And don’t think I did this for your benefit,” the woman snapped. “Some of the people here were too stupid to understand what was going on, and their departure just proved that.”
That was more like it.
“So why are you wasting our time?” she demanded. “We’re on a clock in case you’ve forgotten.”
Jacob rolled his eyes, earning a glare from the woman. “I’m well aware of your timeframe. I was one of the people who provided it. As for why I called you all here. It’s because I’ve come to help.”
“Help how?” Nathaniel Stern, the NASA engineer, asked before Alana could cut in once again.
Jacob really did owe the man for running interference so often. He doubted Stern was paid enough to deal with Alana daily.
“We manufactured over five thousand of your FTL blocker satellites. It’s more than enough to provide full coverage for Earth.”
The meeting broke out into relieved thanks and acknowledgements of his contributions. There were a few people, Alana, Nathaniel, and some others Jacob was less familiar with, who didn’t look nearly as joyous.
“What’s the matter?” Jacob asked, muting the celebrations.
“Do you think us stupid—,” Alana began to say, before being cut off by Nathaniel.
“What I think my peer means to say is that we know the satellites are only one side of the equation. They won’t do much more than annoy or delay an actual attack. We need weapons if we wish to defend the planet, and as advanced as your ship was, I don’t think it will be enough.”
There was a round of agreements from the others in the meeting.
Jacob blinked. “Um, did you not hear me. I said I bought more than five thousand satellites.”
Nathaniel nodded. “We heard you, Jacob. I don’t see how that matters.”
Jacob turned to look at Alana. She was definitely doing the math. He waited just a—
“You have another ship!” Alana blurted out.
There it was.
“I do. I’m not going to lie and say it’s enough to defend Earth, but it’s big enough and powerful enough to give any known t’uk vessel pause. It’s also why I called you all up. I need you to reassure the population. My arrival’s going to cause some stir. I’ll give you a few hours to spread the word.”
He kicked all but one person off the call before they could ply him with more questions. That didn’t stop the smarter ones from pinging him via the comm network. He sent them an autoreply, letting them know he was currently occupied. Then he played them some nice elevator music while they waited in line to record a voicemail.
It was rude and would lose him even more supporters, but he didn’t care. He was here for his own reasons, not theirs.
Jacob had no intention of working with their leaders or military to plan a defense. It wasn’t like they had any more experience fighting a space battle than he did, or the capabilities of Melody, and he certainly wasn’t going to hand over that data willingly. Not that he wanted to fight an actual battle. He was hoping Melody would be a large enough deterrent to make the t’uk retreat.
If not…he had a few alternatives—none of those involved him as the lynchpin in Earth’s defense. A monitor popped up showing another hangar. Instead of satellites, it was filled with science drones. The same type of science drones that abducted him and the others.
He looked at the sole individual still waiting quietly in the meeting. “What’s up with Alana?”
Nathaniel sighed. “She’s been quite upset about McConnell’s passing, mostly because he was willing to put up with her eccentricities. Hopefield was not. He hit her with devastating news just a few days ago. She has three months before she’s out of a job.”
Jacob certainly didn’t nibble at the bait that Nathaniel had laid out for him. He didn’t want to deal with her either. Not unless she apologized for all the bullshit she did to him.