Jacob gave the meeting invitees a few hours to notify their constituents before he fired up Melody’s massive phase coils and transitioned into Earth orbit. The ship reappeared between the most common satellite orbits to avoid having them smash into the ship before he brought it up to orbital velocity.
He hadn’t even gotten the ship oriented correctly before he was inundated with communication requests directly from the surface.
Jacob could have ignored the requests, but he was here to make a statement, and that wouldn’t be very effective if he kept silent. He spun up some avatars to deal with the issue while he focused on deploying the satellites.
***
“What is the meaning of this?” Hopefield blubbered as Jacob commandeered his little security meeting.
The man’s question was probably meant to sound like a demand, but the man was so pathetic that Jacob just yawned, making the new president go even redder in the face. “So much stress isn’t good for you, Mr. President.”
Hopefield quickly collected himself. “Captain Jacob. We didn’t expect you back so soon. I’m sure you noticed there have been some developments while you were away.”
“Yeah, like President McConnell’s untimely death and the fact that you rallied to have me branded a terrorist.”
Hopefield shifted uncomfortably in his seat while the other members of the meeting watched on silently. “I had no hand in that, I can assure you.”
“Which one?” Jacob asked.
“Pardon?” the president asked, starting to sweat.
“Which one did you have no hand in? The untimely death of the former president, or my new status on Earth?”
Jacob knew for a fact that Hopefield pushed the request to the UN, but he enjoyed seeing the man squirm.
“Your actions necessitated ours,” Hopefield replied, sidestepping the question. “You can’t just run around killing important people and expect us to stand by and do nothing.”
“Have you read the technology sharing agreement, Mr. President?” Jacob could tell that emphasizing the man’s title had irked him, so Jacob was going to keep doing it.
The man scoffed. “Of course I’ve read it.”
“I don’t think you have,” Jacob accused. “At least not all of it. If you had, you would have known I added stipulations. One of those was that I was allowed to defend myself, my crew, and my ship against any threats.”
“The former board and executives of Redline had no connection to that attack. What you did was terrorism, plain and simple. For god’s sake, you killed an entire family as they were trying to flee.”
“Are you stupid?” Jacob asked sincerely. “I gave all your little three-letter agencies the evidence of their crimes. Even if they hadn’t been behind the attack on me, there was more than enough there to justify their deaths.”
“That is not for you to decide!” Hopefield spat as he slammed his fist on the table like a kid throwing a temper tantrum. “Our laws would have prosecuted them.”
Jacob rolled his eyes. “Like they did when they were busted for having their mercenaries attack and kill a bunch of Marines to get their hands on alien tech? Spare me your self-righteous bullshit, Hopefield. We both know you’re nothing more than a stooge for the rich and powerful. The only reason you’re still drawing breath is that I couldn’t find any link to you and McConnell’s death. If I had, the White House would be a smoking crater right about now. I’m not beholden to your politics or rules. I’m fully aware of your little contingency plans, which is why I brought one of my own. Fuck with me at your own risk.”
With that, Jacob cut the connection. To be even more of a dick, he ended their entire meeting by burning out all of the connections. It wouldn’t take them long to fix the damage, but it would leave them disorganized and scrambling to fix the problem. Hopefully, that would leave them too busy to plot against him.
The Jacob avatar rejoined his original mind.
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***
Jacob paused as the avatar’s memories flooded him. “Really?” He just shook his head.
He had time to cool off, so he probably wouldn’t have been so confrontational, but apparently, his avatar had still been rather upset during the meeting. Normally, he kept a small part of his mind focused on the avatars, but this time, he had left them to their own devices.
Others trickled back in over the next few minutes, their conversations much the same. It could be summed up as ‘Fuck around and find out.’
It seemed that his mental state at the time of creation had influenced their actions in some fashion. He would have to watch that in the future.
For now, it was probably the best course of action. The angry calls had stopped, but it seemed like one nation couldn’t quite get the hint. Russia had fully supported his terrorist status and had been one of the most vocal opponents in the UN. They had rallied all the nations left out of the technology trade deal, which had been just enough to push the resolution through the UN. Now they were preparing for his ship to fly over their country so they could fire their nuclear arsenal at him.
Jacob sighed. He was done with their nonsense. He targeted every single nuclear site, even the ones they thought were hidden, their subs, all of their nuclear-capable craft, and last of all any sort of enrichment facilities they had. Then he targeted the Russian president’s location, which was a bunker, far from their capital.
As he neared that side of the planet, he started firing the void cannons. The Russian silos vanished in a single strike of the ship’s powerful weapons. The silos they had hidden in densely populated areas would have been a nightmare to strike for any conventional weapon. The pinpoint precision of the void cannons had no such issue. They easily plucked the warheads away without causing too much collateral damage to the area.
The enrichment facilities were quickly reduced to a pockmarked graveyard. Boring down to the deep underground bunker was a bit more effort, but dirt, reinforced concrete, and steel were no deterrent to the void cannons.
By the time he flew out of sight of Russia, the former nuclear power was reduced to a pre-nuclear state. They had only managed to launch a handful of their ballistic missiles, and Jacob had intercepted all of those before the missiles had even completely left their silos.
Nobody was going to miss that statement of power. He had to thank Russia for volunteering to be the example of what would happen if the nations of Earth pissed him off. If they hadn’t, they might have convinced themselves that his capabilities were a bluff.
His comm system was mostly quiet after that, aside from those thanking him for what he did to Russia.
Jacob was slightly surprised by that, but then again, maybe he shouldn’t have been. Russia had been a poor neighbor to have for a long time.
***
“I still can’t believe a ship that large exists,” Nathaniel Stern said in awe as the enormous vessel slid across the sky.
“It makes you wonder what else he’s keeping from us,” Alana commented as she too stared up at the object as it orbited out of sight.
Nathaniel sighed and turned to his friend. With the way she treated everyone, you wouldn’t be able to tell, but they were. Of a sort, anyway. “Maybe he would tell us if you weren’t so confrontational all the time.”
“I am blunt, I’m not confrontational,” she said in her usual flat voice.
Nathaniel snorted at that, finally getting her to look away from where the ship vanished over the horizon. “That’s not bluntness, Alana, that’s your ego and competitiveness getting in the way. You’re mad because Jacob has access to advanced science.”
“That idiot? Hardly. He wouldn’t be anywhere if he hadn’t lucked into being abducted.”
Nathaniel looked at his friend in surprise. “That’s where all your anger toward him stems from? You think you should have been the one to be abducted?”
“I am not angry at him. That would be like getting angry at an animal for making a mess. I just don’t understand what an AI could have been thinking to pick him,” she said, gesturing at where the ship had vanished. “He’s irresponsible and shortsighted. He doesn’t even try to understand the underlying principles of the technology.”
Nathaniel knew jealousy when he heard it, but he chose not to comment on that. “I’ll agree that he’s young and irresponsible at times, but I don’t think he’s shortsighted or that he’s as uninformed as you seem to think. If he were, he wouldn’t be up there deploying thousands of satellites. That required planning and knowledge of the technologies. Something we barely even understand.”
“And what about Russia?” she asked, not willing to concede the argument. “That action has more nations second-guessing working with him. None of them will say it out loud, but there are those who think his actions have hurt our chances at defending ourselves. Russia may have been a belligerent nation, but we were relying on its nuclear stockpile to help against the aliens.”
Alana wasn’t wrong about that, but he still thought Jacob had done the right thing. Russia would have continued to push until it got its way. That was their standard operating procedure. Unfortunately, Jacob was not willing to play those sorts of games.
“Russia was just as likely to make a deal with the aliens as they were to help Earth,” Nathaniel replied.
He didn’t like to think that one of Earth’s superpowers would turn against them, but he wouldn’t discount it either. China likely would have as well, had they not been included in the technology sharing.
Instead of admitting defeat, Alana turned around and walked back into the building. Nathaniel sighed and shook his head. He was used to that. Alana’s obstinate attitude wasn’t doing her any favors. Nobody wanted to work with her despite her brilliance. He glanced up at the darkening sky once more and headed back in. Jacob might have come to assist, but they couldn’t rely on him to do everything. Hopefully, the new weapons they were building would help against the t’uk. Assuming they could complete them in time. That was something Jacob could help with.