The Revolution- Can Man Beat Machine

by David Nash

  “How much more time will it take to begin rebuilding by using training crews for recovery ops?” My question was directed at no one in particular.

  “That is where we disagree, General, our estimates vary from hours to 4 days. It seems some the fleet has had cross-training initiatives, but operational tempo has contributed to a variance in success.” Contributed my own Admiral Whitemoore from the 1st BSG

  “Thank you Admiral, I imagine I am the blame for the operational Tempo. I admit, I pushed the crew to train to infantry standards but not as hard for infantry to gain crew proficiency, so I will take the blame for that. However, let us all ensure we have a robust training effort. I approve your plan, 4 days extra in the recovery operations will give the techs time to study our guest in the isolation room.” Getting 24 Admirals of various levels to agree on a plan means the plan has to work. None were willing to be the one to mess up the group plan.

  “Alright, one more point of business, we got our asses handed to us this time, it seems our tactics are so good they even work against us. Let’s find a new way to end the Kernel presence on the Sangren planets without putting the fleet in undo danger. That latest trap was something I am not willing to fall for twice.” I say

  Captain Trenton Vaughn, commander of the Cruiser RPS Undefeated, under the 4th BSG raised his hand, I nodded for him to speak. “General, with all respect toward the sacrifices of the Sangren and meaning no offense to Admiral Aegeus, we are not fighting for territory, we are fighting to deny territory to the enemy.” He looks at Aegeus and I before continuing, “Even after this war is won, we have way more planets than we have colonists to fill them. With replicator tech we can almost build planets, and can fully repair any damage we do to a planet during war.”

  “What my colleague is suggesting is we take a play from the Kernel, and replicate the damage they did to Diagoras, but from orbit. We have the capability, and we won’t be killing and Sangren, the planet is lost already.” Offered Captain Levkin Tarasovich RPS Sands of Iwo Jima, the other cruiser from the 4th BSG.

  I begin to speak, when Aegeus places his spindly grey hand on my arm. “General, if I may?” He asked gently.

  “Yes Admiral, by all means”

  “As the leader of the last of the Sangren race, I appreciate your candor. As a species the Sangren have always prided ourselves in our cultural imperative to see things as they are and not how we wish them to be. No doubt the assembled staff all have heard rumors that the Sangren have lost the ability to replicate ourselves. It is true. As a species, we are no longer viable. We discussed the situation, and all surviving Sangren are aboard this battle star fighting for justice to be served to the Kernel. If destroying our worlds will save Legion lives that will be sent against Kernel Prime, then the Sangren people insist that is the tactic you take.” My old friend Aegeus nods at me and takes his seat.

  “What Aegeus did not tell you is that hope for his people is not completely lost. There are ridden on Kernel Prime that contain the necessary genetic information needed to restart the Sangren cloning technology. When we had the upper hand in cloaking tech, plans were in the works on how to get that material back to the Sangren. I have not given up, the Earth owes the Sagren the attempt to save their species.” The thought of invasion of the massively defended Kernel prime gives my officers pause. Looks of concern show on the lesser guarded faces of the officer’s present. My Battle Star Commander’s and some of the more aggressive Cruiser commanders are stone faced at the news.

  “So we want to blast the planets from orbit rather than pacify them, I don’t like the idea, but I do imagine it will save us valuable time and Legion lives. Approved, now before you men get to work training your new crews and building them new ships, I want you all to think of ways we can get down to Kernel Prime and hijack us some DNA to try to pay back the Sangren for what we owe them for their sacrifice. I’ll send what I have to your tablets so you can see what we need to get. If no one has any objections, let us all get to work.”

  48

  Diagoras System

  Over the next three weeks the training crews did a remarkable job in cleaning up the debris of battle. They used tractor beams and gravity plates to move the demolished ships to the hanger bays to be sucked in and broken down to component electrons, proton, and neutrons. The crews of the Legionnaire ships were well aware that the mass they were reconstituting contained their former colleagues. They were reverent and serious during the cleanup mission, and the ships build from the wrecked destroyers were hallowed group dedicated to their very core to the cause of pursuing justice against the enemies of Earth.

  Sergeant Major Provo was also having a great time training his newest dozers, while their skills as crew members were in high demand, Provo did not allow them to skip training duties, he simply had them do both. They spent one shift training Dozers on how to be crew, and another shift learning how to become a dozer. They slept instead of ate and proved how bad they wanted to be a Dozer. In doing so they earned the respect of the veteran Dozers. After all, the core of Davis’s Dozers were all former special operations soldiers from the beginning days of the Legion. They knew you could teach techniques and gain physical fitness, but you can’t teach heart. The young NCO’s that captured the Kernel were showing everybody just how much heart they had. The Sergeant Major did not have to do much but growl a little and point them in the right direction. On the offhanded sounding “suggestion” from General Davis, the Sgt Major made Corporal Donatelly a liaison to Sergeant Chin, thinking the two egg headed infantry men should team up. The little 5 man group began to be called the Spider Smashers, which quickly got shortened to “Smashers”

  Sedna

  “Captain Baumgarter agrees with me why do you have to be so argumentative?” Dr. Holland says to Captain Hickerson and they walk down a corridor leading to the main research section of planetoid Sedna.

  “I am not being argumentative, I am stating facts, secondly this is not a democracy so it doesn’t matter how many people agree with you.” Hickerson replies.

  “But what I am suggesting is such a good idea, don’t you see that?” Dr. Holland persisted.

  “Maybe it is, I don’t know, what I do know is that Sedna has a military function, hell doctor, it has several. Right now it is the only protection we have for Earth, and we don’t have but half of our assigned ships built and you want us to build a series of huge hadron colliders that encircle the planetoid. We don’t have the time nor the mass to spare to turn this military base into a research center.”

  “Do you know what a hadron collider makes?”

  “It doesn’t matter. You are not the commander here, and you don’t get to control what we build. General Davis wants us to build Cruiser Forces to back up Sedna as it protects Earth, and that is what Vice Admiral Whales is doing, building ships, finishing construction of Sedna, and protecting Earth, how does a bunch of tubes wrapping around Sedna help do any of that?” Hickerson asked huffily.

  “Because numb nuts a large hadron collider makes anti-matter, but a large hadron collider only makes fractions of a gram. If we build enough of them on this planet we can make pounds of anti-matter.” Captain Baumgarter says as the Capt. Hickerson and Dr. Holland enter the lab. “I don’t know where you got your commission from, but one gram anti-matter reacting with a gram of matter is the releases nearly 43 kilotons of energy.”

  “Shit man, why did you not say that Dr. Holland? Do you have an estimate of what it will take to add anti-matter production to Sedna’s capability?” Captain Hickerson asked.

  “Yes, I sent a formal plan to your tablet this morning, it’s the same email I sent to Admiral Whales. Captain Baumgarter and I have a meeting with him in 10 minutes, you are welcome to come as long as you don’t try to argue science.” Dr. Holland chastised Hickerson with her tone and her words.

  “Doctor, I am no scientist….”

  “Obviously” interrupted Dr. Holland

  “… but I am a military officer, if a poun
d of antimatter is that powerful, and we can produce it in usable quantities then it may provide the solution to the Kernel problem once and for-all. I am in, now as we all head to see the Admiral, can you give me the broad strokes of your plan, make me understand how we can do this and not significantly impact the other missions and I will do everything in my power to support this.” Captain Hickerson said ignoring the comment.

  Admiral Whales had already read the briefing document before the team arrived at his office.

  The two Captains Marched in, saluted, and reported as ordered. The Doctor stood between them in a civilian version of attention. The Admiral pointed to the table at one end of his officer and asked his subordinates to sit. He walked to the chair at the head of the table and awaited their briefing.

  Having some understanding of physics and the difficulty and expense in manufacturing Anti matter on Earth he was skeptical, but knowing that one-billionth of a gram of anti-matter was the equivalent to a hand grenade and such quantities and the required containment device could fit inside a rifle bullet made his open to the ideas presented by Dr. Holland.

  “Sir,” The Doctor began “As you know Earth only has the capabilities to produce minute amounts of antimatter. The Power requirements are astronomical, and the required materials for construction of hadron colliders are inordinately expensive. Sedna could mitigate those issues. We have a fission power plant, and room for a second, the replicator tech reduces the cost of materials to time and the effort to program the machine. We can build thousands of miles of particle accelerators within the crust of this planetoid and feed the resulting antimatter, into containment system to produce both antimatter weapons as well as propulsion.”

  “Propulsion Dr. Holland” The Vice Admiral asked, steering the conversation

  “Yes Sir, as you know, the main weakness of this base is its mass, we can move, but only at a fraction of what our fleet can move. Antimatter catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion could allow us to keep up with the fleet, or it could increase the fleet’s speed.

  Besides, the same technology in a weapon gives a much greater yield while greatly reducing fallout.”

  “Dr. Holland, at this stage in the war, I care nothing about reducing fallout, though I suppose the history books will castigate me for that statement. However, the much greater yield does impress me. Tell me what does this all cost?”

  “Admiral, it is our understanding that you were given considerable leeway in the finishing of this station, and it was only recommended you build two cruiser battle groups before turning toward finishing the station. We have two such groups built. We suggest reducing production by a third, one-third going to ship construction, a third towards finishing the base, and a third to producing the infrastructure to make, store, and weaponize antimatter.” Said Captain Baumgarter crisply.

  “Yes Captain, I read that in the proposal, but I think that is a little short sighted, don’t you?” The Vice admiral replied.

  “Short sighted? Whatever do you mean?” Dr. Holland replied testily.

  “If I may, what I believe the Admiral is saying, is that this could be a game changer, and that with the potential it has to help us win the war, a more aggressive strategy may be in order.” Offered Captain Hickerson.

  “So, what would you suggest?” Asked Captain Baumgarter to Hickerson.

  “I would say half to start, half ships, half antimatter, then once the ships were built, I would go 80/20 antimatter/Sedna refinishing. I mean this beast can already shoot and move, stalls on the bathroom doors can wait until we can build Anti-matter weapons capable of ending the Kernel.” Replied Hickerson looking at Admiral Whales.

  “Hickerson, I thought you did were not on board with the particle accelerator plan?” Asked the Admiral to his aide.

  “I wasn’t, but these two convinced me that they were. Both Captain Hickerson and Dr. Holland have made unparalleled contributions to the war effort, if they both believe this strongly that they can make this project work, then I am willing to trust them to do so.”

  With that admission Dr. Holland’s eyes flashed angrily.

  “You mean you were playing at ignorance all along?” She exhaled angrily.

  “The Admiral told me to evaluate your program to see if I thought you could pull it off without negative impact to Sedna’s overall mission. If I told you what I was doing you would have tried to snow me, by forcing you to break it down barney style you had to simply the program into component parts, proving to me you could manage a project of this scope.” Hickerson shrugged as if to say ‘no harm no foul’

  “Hickerson, I proved I can manage a program of this scope with Operation Blue Harvest.” Snapped Baumgarter.

  “Yes, I am aware of your abilities, but if Blue Harvest failed, we still had the Fleet. Sedna is the only mobile defense Earth has. The Kernel has shown an aptitude for bypassing the bases on the Moon and Mars.” Replied Hickerson.

  “So, if everyone is satisfied, the question is, with the resource allocation levels recommended by Captain Hickerson, how long until we can be in the business of producing antimatter weapons?” Asked the Admiral.

  Doctor and Captain Baumgarter confer privately for a few moments then turn back to the Admiral, Dr. Holland speaks, ‘Sir, with boring machines and additional personnel from Earth, we could have full production in as little as 18 months. If we start now, we could have an ounce in 6 months give or take.”

  “Get me detailed schedules and resource requirements by tomorrow morning. Now get to work, I have to call the President.” Finished Admiral Whales.

  49

  Earth Orbit 3 months after the Battle of Diagoras

  A heavily damaged yet successful battle star group sat in high Earth Orbit and used the resources of the Moon base to begin to repair and refit.

  Rear Admiral Wuying was on the planet’s surface to debrief the President of the Republic on what her 6th Battle Star Group saw at the Kernel Home-world.

  The commander of her Battle Star, Rear Admiral Lower Half Lei Yang took over the repairs for her ship and the rest of the ships in the group.

  “President Eastman, thank you for seeing me on short notice.” Said Rear Admiral Upper Half Wuying to her Commander-in-Chief.

  “No, Admiral Wuying, let me thank you for coming back, a lot of us were getting worried about the 6th you were gone longer than planned” President Eastman replied, motioning toward the bar, “Before you tell me what I imagine is going to be a world shaking after action report, would you like a drink?”

  Wuying knew that was a common question from the former military commander, yet she declined. “No sir, but I will agree that what we saw out there is something you need to hear.”

  The President fixed a few fingers of Scotch, then sat in his usual spot on the couch directly across from the Admiral. “Go ahead, I am all ears.”

  “Well sir, we had no contact on the trip to Kernel prime, I am sure they had pickets out, but without current technical issues we could not detect any.

  It was when we transited into the Prime system what we began to have problems.

  When we arrived the scans, both visual and electronic were clear, so we just slowly moved through the system trying to scare up some Kernels so we could carry out our own decoy mission. We were in the system one hour when our scans all registered a huge Kernel presence. No history book has ever recorded as many combatants defending an area as what we saw. They had 3 Guardian ships, and 500 Punishers. We don’t have a firm number of the saucers as they kept jumping in and out of cloak, but a good conservative estimate is twenty thousand fighters.”

  President Eastman’s eyebrows raised at those numbers. “Whew” he whistled, “go on” he said.

  “As you can imagine, we weren’t sent to die, we were only sent to stir up trouble. So, we did not immediately attack, I did have every ship load nuke penetrator rounds into our railguns, but otherwise, we just rode through the middle of the ships like we were on a Sunday stroll.”

  “Damn A
dmiral, that took quite a set, pardon the language I don’t have a gender specific saying concerning the amount of fortitude that took.”

  “Sir, I came up in a military whose Country’s culture saw baby girls as burden to be destroyed. I had to develop a set of big brass ones to survive. I just don’t carry them with me in my pocket.”

  President Eastman barely surpassed a snortle while sipping his Scotch. “I imagine so, please continue Admiral.”

  “While no Punisher came in front of us, Battle Star Boudica and both Cruisers were flanked top, bottom, and sides by four of them. An added Punisher nipped at each of our tails. They mirrored our movements and slowly, yet persistently vectored in a way to force us back toward our transit point. As you know, the we designed the Battle stars to be able to fire in a total sphere, and the spinal rail cannons on the cruisers, destroyers, and motherships all are reversible.

  We weren’t quite sure we could fire the fighter’s rail guns while docked, but we decided to take a chance. We targeted our pursuers with rail guns and prepped every torpedo launcher with a nuclear payload. In short, we targeted everything we could with everything we had. As soon as we got within running distance of the transit point, we fired in mass at one time.”

  “I bet they liked that; I would have paid to see that action.” Said the President most appreciatively.