Free Rumors of Salvation (System States Rebellion Book 3) by Dietmar Wehr Page B

then you’ll have the same
kind of civil war that we’re having now. A group of smaller polities might work
for a while too, but there’ll always be the risk of trade or other areas of
potential conflict boiling over into a shooting war.”
     
    “But
Majestic calculated that a strong central government could keep the peace
indefinitely. The machine is too computationally powerful to be wrong,” said
Molitor.
     
    “Unless
it was thinking in terms of this kind of mind control of key individuals. If
every ship CO, admiral, general, planetary governor and senior bureaucrat were
under Majestic’s direct control via devices like this, then I can see an Empire
lasting centuries. Having said that, I’d also expect Majestic to slow down the
pace of technological progress to a crawl. After all, some unexpected
breakthrough just might loosen its grip on Humanity.” He paused and then added,
“There’s another possibility. What if Majestic doesn’t have Humanity’s best
interest at heart at all. What if it sees us as useful tools, properly
controlled of course, to serve its agenda. Would it still need hundreds of billions
of us living on hundreds of planets? A few million living on Hadley would
probably be just as useful and a lot easier to control. That would explain why
it ordered Romanov’s W.O. to nuke Earth.”
     
    Molitor’s
eyes opened wide with horror. “You’re not suggesting…my God! Do you really
think Majestic would order the Empire’s Fleet to systematically exterminate all
humans except for the ones on Hadley?”
     
    “After
what I’ve seen and heard, I wouldn’t put anything past that soulless machine.
In any case, it doesn’t really matter what Majestic’s agenda is, we have to
destroy it, right?”
     
    “Yes,
absolutely. I just don’t know what kind of structure we’ll put in its place.
You said it yourself. Eventually, human nature being what it is, someone will
try to enforce their will on other planets. It only takes one egomaniac to
start a war. Maybe if we eliminated Majestic and kept the Emperor….?” Murphy’s
emphatic shaking of his head pre-empted the rest of her sentence.
     
    “You’re
not thinking clearly, Rachel. From what you told me earlier, it sounds like
Trojan has been implanted too. We know that the host won’t survive any attempt
to remove the device, and leaving it on is not an option that I’m prepared to
risk. Majestic could have pre-programmed instructions in case it was destroyed.
It might order Trojan to wipe out ALL of Humanity out of sheer spite if
something happens to the machine. If Trojan dies, then who’s going to be
Emperor? Remember what happened to Alexander the Great’s Empire when he died?
His empire broke down into squabbling kingdoms all fighting each other.”
     
    Molitor
said nothing, and Murphy stayed silent too. At some point the Chief Medical
Officer had left, so now it was just the two of them. As both of them continued
to look at the body of the dead officer, it was Murphy who broke the silence.
     
    “You
didn’t tell me why Tigershark was ordered here to Midgard in the first place.
Do you know what your CO was looking for?”
     
    “Majestic
calculated that the Rebel Brain Trust had to be behind your attack on Hadley
and ordered the Fleet to spread out and search for the Brain Trust Base.”
     
    “Rebel
Brain Trust? What the hell is that?” asked Murphy in a puzzled voice.
     
    “You
don’t know about the Brain Trust? I would have bet a year’s salary that you
knew about the 10,000 scientists, technicians and their families that were sent
to Zanzibar to develop breakthroughs in military technology.”
     
    “So
that’s what was happening on Zanzibar,” said Murphy. “I heard rumors of some kind
of secret project going on there, but I never heard any details. Well,
obviously the Empire knows about Zanzibar. Why hasn’t Majestic sent ships
there?”
     
    “Because
we know that those scientists and their families left