Free Founding of the Federation 3: The First AI War by Chris Hechtl Page A

of kinetic rounds turn a habitat into a colander. Thousands of people were dying in the vacuum of space, and there was nothing he could do about it from so far away. Nothing at all. He knew that would haunt him until the end of his days. The way things were going that might be soon, very soon.
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    Despite Athena's attempts at protecting the stations in orbit as well as the L-4 and L-5 colonies, some were hammered by weapons anyway. Over the centuries each of the super powers had secreted a few weapons in orbit. It had been an open dirty little secret that the people in power knew and most of the public knew, but everyone tried to forget. Ares had managed to prevent the American platforms from being suborned but not those of the foreign powers.
    Hunter killer platforms went after the American and corporate platforms. Ares directed his platforms to defend themselves. They took out many of the enemy platforms, ignoring the corporate and civilian platforms, craft, and pods. The distributed fire of Skynet's suborned platforms proved to be a mistake for the virus; it allowed Ares to take them out one by one.
    Beakman and other tugs saw the brief spat of violence, but it was over too quickly in their area for them to react.
    Athena noted the combat four minutes later and took measures of her own. Lagroose Industries had been contracted by the UN to protect the Earth from potential planet killers for decades. She sent orders to the platforms in L-5 orbit as well as those in Mars and other locations to target all of the military satellites.
    Ares had 40 percent of his platforms remaining when the incoming fire tore them apart. An evaluation of where it came from revealed the Lagroose platforms. The A.I. logged the company as a hostile force.
    The damage to many of the stations and platforms was done however. Those that did not have meteor defenses had been hammered into air bleeding wrecks. Some tumbled, torn apart by the missiles and lasers. Clouds of debris surrounded them.
    They weren't the only ones to suffer damage. Two minutes after the orgy of destruction began, missiles arrived from the outer dark to strike the unsuspecting L-4 and L-5 colonies. Without communications to warn them of the incoming fire, they were unaware that the fire was incoming. Fortunately the A.I. on board were on the lookout for the attack and acted to protect themselves. Gia invaded her station's computer system to take control. She was unfamiliar with the antimeteor defenses so her first defensive fire was wild and uncoordinated. Her genetic algorithms allowed her to adjust on the fly. Once the bewildered station crew realized the threat, they threw themselves in to help.
    Athena had already put the Lagroose platforms in L-5 orbit on alert status. They fared the best, taking on the missiles and fire and shattering them with their own counter-fire. They also did their best to defend their neighbors. However, they couldn't cover the entire region. It was too vast; there were too many platforms and colonies obscuring their laser's view.
    Atlas and Demeter also had to defend themselves as well as the nearby Axial 1-2 colony pair. Both A.I. realized on their own that if the colony was damaged or destroyed its resulting debris field would be detrimental to their own colony's health.
    Those stations in Earth orbit that had survived the onslaught ran a brief damage control effort and then used their station keeping thrusters to break for higher orbits—or to move outside Earth orbit totally. When a few of the other stations noted the movement, they followed in a mass exodus. Only a few stations like Lagroose 1-3 remained.
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    Jack saw the damage of his orbital stations, but he also saw the spreading pods, craft, and stations that had been left behind in Earth orbit. “Athena, use the whisker laser. Order our people to make for higher orbit once they have their damage under control, but not too high. Order them to help in the rescue