Pagan Island, Pacific Ocean

Elizabeth lifted her eyes from her computer screen and stretched her back. She was sitting in her office on the command level of the ship, and for a few hours now, going over reports that were gathered about the new additions to the island’s inhabitants—the ex-slaves. Their age, histories, skill sets, general knowledge, and preferences for future jobs. It was one of the tasks Max gave Alice and her to sort out. As far as she could see, without extensive additional training, the skill sets they possessed were more directed in working with the land and taking care of animals. Which was not so bad for their future plans; even in space, people will still like to have a fresh steak, fruit, and vegetables.

She looked through the holographic window that showed the island outside the ship; her mind knew it was all a mirage, but it was so lifelike… it served its purpose. Since all the fuss in Nigeria and Namibia, things have settled down on an island, which could not be said for the rest of the world. Max’s grand larceny was making waves in the news and over the net. It reminded her of the 1929 Great Depression when bankers and businessmen were throwing themselves off their high-rise windows when they found out that they lost everything. The difference now was that those who committed suicides were deserving of a far greater punishment, they had taken the easy way out when they realized that all the bad things they have done to accumulate such wealth were for nothing. Max did not have any mercy towards the scumbags, he cleaned them out to the last cent. He did it in such a way, nobody knew what was exactly happening.

Michael was doing his hyperactive thing again, trying to accomplish ten tasks at once, and generally accomplishing them all. Only that did not leave enough time for their relationship. Strangely, she was okay with it, for now, knowing what was at stake. A frown formed on her face when she remembered a conversation she had yesterday, with one of the psychologists. The woman approached her and in a concerned manner told her that Michael may be suffering from a serious mental malady. Apparently, from her observation, he was afflicted with a hero complex, and it would be advisable if he got some counseling to resolve that. She even suggested that he be put under a 72-hour holding period for a professional mental evaluation.

Dr. Emma Williams, who overheard the last part of the conversation, jumped in and dragged the concerned women away. It was a good thing since she was getting ready to slug the quack.

As far as Elizabeth was concerned, Michael was a real-life hero. He could have chosen a hundred different and far easier paths, yet he chose the one that will give many people a brighter future, and an opportunity to be more than they ever dreamed.

***

A few hours later, after a surprise picnic that Michael organized, they were walking back towards the biodome when Alice called them for an emergency meeting.

Every single time he entered the ship, Michael felt the rush of pride. The sheer size of it made him pause in amazement, he still could hardly believe that all this was a product of an idea he had. There was nothing small about the ship, purposely made to give a sense of space. The main corridors were bright and wide, painted in soft relaxing tones with high ceilings, mimicking the outside sky. The ground level, where they were right now, was reserved for residential housing with big apartments that usually had one spacious day room and several others connected to it. Everywhere were holographic windows, showing realistic scenes of the occupants choosing. If he did not know it, he would have never guessed that the apartments were on a spaceship.

One of the most amazing parts of the entire structure was at the center of it; a park/botanical garden, with carefully transplanted trees, flowers, and grass lawns. Since even the ceiling above was showing slowly moving clouds, the sensation of outside space was absolute. The residents themselves helped build and maintain it, so it became everyone’s favorite place. He often saw entire families having a picnic on the lawn. Arguably, they were on a tropical island and many preferred to go outside and enjoy the real sun, but this park inside had some big advantages; no mosquitoes and ants, Max was very vigilant about that. Invisible energy screens let people through, but no outside pests were allowed in.

Around the park was a pedestrian walkway, with a few cafés and pubs already established; places where people could sit and talk to their friends. Overall, they were using a fraction of the available real estate, there was still more than enough room for future expansion. Nevertheless, they already had a movie theater, a food court that was open twenty-four seven, and a few clothes shops and fashion boutiques for women and men, where one could try on or order any kind of clothes from any place in the world.

That food court was the place where Michael and Elizabeth often had their meals. It could accommodate two hundred people at the time, or one could order a meal to be delivered to their homes. Moreover, it was mostly organized by people themselves with Max's assistance, of course. From the beginning, one of the most important things was food, so they bought it in bulk. There were several dedicated cargo transporters with only one mission… bring food. They bought it by the tons, and one entire level was essentially a pantry, with gigantic freezers and warehouses full of it. They should be okay for years, even at full capacity. Although, the ultimate goal was to grow their food themselves; that was one of the plans for when they were in space.

Everywhere he looked there were green plants, which made the interior smell fresh, with the fragrant scent of flowers. The thing is, this was only one level, the one that was almost finished. The ship was three miles in circumference, and while shaped like a disk, at the highest point it was more than a thousand feet thick. With only the upper half currently being above the surface, the rest was built underneath. That was a lot of headroom, and while the drives, which would enable it to fly, did take a big chunk of that space, there was enough room for a few more levels. For now, they were unfinished and bare, or filled with refined materials that were used in ship construction. Water and miscellaneous supplies equally occupied a lot of space, and that water was taken from the ocean. After going through the process of desalination and sterilization, and then stored in immense reservoirs. There was also an entire layer of it, built into walls.

Space was not a welcoming environment to living things, people included. The absence of air, pressure, the abundance of solar radiation and micrometeorites were not to be taken lightly. Therefore, the walls of the ship were built accordingly to these conditions. Their first line of defense would be an electromagnetic shield, and then layer upon layer of different metals and materials; water and compacted earth being some of them. In the end, the skin of the ship ended being one hundred feet thick; it was way over-engineered by a ridiculous margin, but the safety of the people inside was paramount. Max wanted to make sure they would be protected from some rogue piece of orbital debris that space had plenty of.

Currently, there were four entrances to the spaceship’s interior, purely for convenience. Once the ship was ready to liftoff, they would be closed, never to be opened again. Max would simply fill the space to be identical with the rest of the hull, and access to ship will be possible only through the bay doors on top and bottom. Even now, there were metal panels above the entrances that could make ship airtight in seconds. Michael hoped there would never be a situation where they will need to use them in an emergency.

To get to the conference room they had to use one of the vertical elevators and go up several levels. Most of the elevators in the ship were horizontal, taking people to their desired destination. Max could not stop trying to convince people to call them transportation modules since there was no elevation involved; naturally, everybody ignored him. If a person entered a small room with a closing door that transported him to a different place, it was called an elevator.

When they reached the command level, the door made a pleasant ping sound and opened to a nicely furnished lobby. This level was where the ship’s bridge was meant to be, once it was finished, and it was one level above the one where their apartments’ were. Not that they needed a bridge since Max controlled everything, but he insisted on secondary manual controls and that Michael, and a few others, learn how to use them, as a precaution.

There was a similar setup here to the one they had in the silo; everyone in the core group had their apartments a level below this one, and the one that Max created for Michael and Elizabeth was hard to believe. It reminded him of a high priced penthouse in a five-star hotel, which was the first thing Elizabeth said when she saw it. It came with their own private garden, which was currently bare but was scheduled to be finished soon. Over their objections that it was way to opulent, Max explained that it only reflected his position as the leader of the group.

When they entered the conference room, everybody was there with coffee or drinks before them.

“Now that everyone is here, we have something to discuss,” Alice said and turned to Michael.

“After you saved the President’s life at the lodge, I told Max to send him a message on his private phone. It was only a phone number with the instruction that if he ever needed to contact you, he should send the message to it.”

“You never told me that,” Michael said.

“It was a long shot, but I was betting on his sense of obligation that if ever was something he could do to repay his debt, he would use it,” she explained.

“And I assume he sent a message?”

“Yes, this morning. He wants to meet with you in two days.”

“It could be a trap.” His father cautioned.

“We considered that,” Max said. “But it is highly unlikely; he sent a message for you to meet him on a ranch, which his wife’s parents own in Arizona. He will arrive there tomorrow, so we can arrange the meeting to be after dark. I repositioned a satellite above it, and except few mandatory Secret Service agents, everything looks legit. Not that I would advise you to simply walk inside there in your swimming trunks; battle-suits and the team as a backup—it’s a must. I’ll increase surveillance on the place so if something turns fishy, I will know it.” The AI reported.

“Fine then, we will go to see what he has to say. I hope it’s not another attempt to make us give our technology and declare ourselves to the world, as I don’t see that happening anytime soon.”

“Very well, that’s settled,” Alice continued. “The next thing is quite a bit more serious. It appears that the remaining members of the Boko Haram are not too pleased with the fate of their leader and comrades. There have already been several suicide bombings in that part of the world, and they’ve claimed responsibility, as a way of retaliation. Since they do not know whom to blame, it looks like they are trying to do everything contrary to the message you left, daring you to show yourself so they can kill you.”

Michael face turned into a frozen mask. “Do you know where they are hiding?”

“Even better, we know where they’re going.” Alice gave a small vicious smile. “Max found out exactly what they plan to do next. It seems that several of our new ‘OneWorld’ phones managed to get into the hands of members of the group. Strange as it may seem, the idiots have registered them, and are carrying them around. They are showing either an amazing degree of stupidity or a total lack of how the technology works. Their next plan is the big one, and they want to make sure everyone receives their message that they are not to be messed with. The target is the small town of Obadu, which has around ten thousand people, predominantly of Christian faith. Most importantly, it is the place where most of the humanitarian agencies in the region have set up as a home base; almost five hundred volunteers from all over the world are there. Boko Haram doesn’t intend to let anyone escape alive from Obadu.”

“I’m monitoring the entire group; they are traveling away from populated areas, trying to avoid attention. Every night they find some protected location for their camp. By my evaluation, there are almost 3500 men in the group,” Max supplied.

Michael got that far away look in his eyes, the one that told the others not to interrupt his thoughts.

“Max, can you show me a map of their movements, specifically where they have set up camps until now,” he said.

“Yes,” Max answered and a holographic map with the marked path appeared above the table surface.

“Can you extrapolate where their next camp will be?”

One place on the map was circled in front of the wavy line. “There is an almost 90 % chance they will stay at that location for the night, calculating their speed of advance and it is the most ideal place.”

“All right, show me now enlarged and detailed topological map of that region.”

The hologram zoomed in until all they could see was a nice little valley.

“Are there people living there? Indigenous population?”

“No, it’s a remote valley surrounded by steep hills, there is nothing valuable in that region.”

“And how long will they need to arrive at that place?”

“In five hours, it will be dark there so they will have to set up a camp before that.”

Michael closed his eyes and nodded, “good, this is what I have in mind.”

***

Nigeria, Boko Haram Camp

Eight Hours Later

The night was quiet and beautiful, as are most of them, in this part of the world. Up above, the stars shined in their eternal glory, without the light pollution from the big cities. It seemed as if the whole sky was sprinkled with tiny twinkling diamonds.

The group of 3500 Boko Haram's strongest fighters was sitting around the campfires, safe from detection by surrounding hills and sure of their power. No one would dare to stop them from finishing their holy mission—a just vengeance. Those leading them commanded that the entire town of Obadu needs to die in a few days, not one of those infidels was to be left alive. And since they were unbelievers and this was a holy mission for avenging their martyrs, not even children were to be spared.

They sat there while telling each other stories of how mighty they were, bragging of how many lives have they taken for a holy cause, and how many women they have raped before silencing them once and forever.

One of the terrorists saw a bright light in the sky, like a meteor from above, a sign from the God of their own righteousness. He pointed upwards and shouted to get everyone’s attention; very soon, every single man in that valley was looking towards the heavens.

***

Pagan Island

It was something Michael read a long time ago, elegant in its simplicity and simultaneously… devastating.

Kinetic weapons were not a new idea, but all the same, they were quite efficient. He explained his intention to Max and it took only a few hours to create what he needed. Take a large lump of iron, or in this case a five-foot-long cylinder; slap a Gravity-drive and a small fusion reactor on the back, for steering and additional acceleration. Then coat the whole thing with a layer of heat-resistant ceramics, to protect it from burning out, due to atmospheric friction.

The drive was already available, except they had one smaller transporter grounded until the replacement Gravity-drive could be made and installed. Everything else was scavenged from recycled materials Max had in abundance. The AI called it the Hammer since that name vividly described its purpose.

That weapon could have gone up by itself, but Michael felt that if he was to give an order for its launch, then he was the one that needed to place it into the position. The Hammer was transferred to Excalibur’s airlock, then Tyron and he took it beyond the atmosphere. Since the combat suits could endure a short exposure to vacuum, he moved it out of the airlock and set it free. Pausing for a moment, holding onto the spaceship’s outer doors, Michael looked down towards the Earth. He was exactly above the African continent, and Nigeria. Shaking his head in the silence of space, he turned around and went back inside the Excalibur.

Everybody was there when he returned, waiting for what was to come.

With a nod from Michael, Max started guiding the Hammer towards the terrorist camp. On the holographic wall, several live images could be seen from different angles; Max had repositioned a few more satellites to turn their optical lenses in that direction. At first, it was barely visible, until the Hammer entered the thicker atmospheric layers. It started to heat up and was soon a burning ball of fire, heading straight to its target below.

In an instant, the entire camp disappeared, and the mushroom cloud (similar to the one an atomic bomb makes), blossomed above the valley. The difference being—there was no radiation, so no nuclear fallout to worry about. For a weapon of mass destruction, it was surprisingly clean.

Maybe their action was not very heroic, a few hours of work to kill so many terrorists. Yet, this was a new age they were making, a space-age, and it will follow a different set of rules.

Pete suggested they make another video and repeat the previous message. But Michael immediately rejected that idea. This was too powerful, too boastful. The world’s power balance was already wobbly, and introducing another player on that stage that could do something similar to a nuclear superpower, was asking for trouble. They would say nothing, keep it to themselves unless the circumstances changed drastically. He knew that as long as they were here on Earth, no matter how big their technological superiority was… they were still very vulnerable.